Battlegrounds

by H. R. McMaster

  38The White House, “Remarks by the President on the Way Forward in Afghanistan,” Office of the Press Secretary, June 22, 2011, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/22/remarks-president-way-forward-afghanistan.

  39The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December 2017, 46, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.

  40U.S. Senate: Committee on Foreign Relations, “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Other Extremists [sic] Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-112shrg67892/html/CHRG-112shrg67892.htm.

  41Clinton Thomas, “Afghanistan: Background and U.S. Policy Brief,” Congressional Research Service, January 31, 2020, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R45122.pdf.

  42Thomas Joscelyn, “Disconnecting the Dots,” Washington Examiner, July 13, 2010, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/disconnecting-the-dots; Thomas Joscelyn, “Al Qaeda Is Very Much Alive,” Washington Examiner, September 11, 2018, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/sept-11-anniversary-17-years-later-al-qaeda-is-alive.

  43Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Why Pakistan Supports Terrorist Groups, and Why the US Finds It So Hard to Induce Change,” Brookings Institution, January 5, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/01/05/why-pakistan-supports-terrorist-groups-and-why-the-us-finds-it-so-hard-to-induce-change/.

  44Amy Held, “Death Toll in Kabul Blast Surpasses 150, Afghan President Says,” NPR, June 6, 2017, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/06/531729176/death-toll-in-kabul-blast-surpasses-150-afghan-president-says; Laura Smith-Spark and Faith Karimi. “Afghanistan Explosion: Blast Kills 90 near Diplomatic Area,” CNN, June 1, 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/asia/kabul-explosion-hits-diplomatic-area/.

  45Quotes from the White House, “Remarks by President Trump on the Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia,” August 21, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-strategy-afghanistan-south-asia/.

  46Michael D. Shear and Salman Masood, “Trump Tries Cooling Tensions with Pakistan to Speed Afghan Peace Talks,” New York Times, July 22, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/world/asia/trump-pakistan-afghanistan.html.

  47This number includes total deaths in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel as of February 2020. U.S. Department of Defense, “Casualty Status,” Department of Defense, February 3, 2020, https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf.

  48On the intelligence community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment, see Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Worldwide Threat Assessment, Statement for the Record (Daniel R. Coates, Director of National Intelligence), January 29, 2019, 12, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR---SSCI.pdf. For analysis of the UN policy, see Thomas Joscelyn, “The Trump Administration’s Afghanistan Policy,” Congressional Testimony, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, September 19, 2019, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/09/19/the-trump-administrations-afghanistan-policy/.

  49On the attack in Ghazni city, see Mujib Mashal, “Afghan Talks with Taliban Reflect a Changed Nation,” New York Times, July 7, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/07/world/asia/afghanistan-peace-talks-taliban.html. Michael Crowley, Lara Jakes, and Mujib Mashal, “Trump Says He’s Called Off Negotiations with Taliban After Afghanistan Bombing,” New York Times, September 10, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/us/politics/trump-taliban-afghanistan.html. On President Trump’s quotes, see “Remarks by President Trump Before Marine One Departure,” The White House, September 9, 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-63/.

  50Bill Roggio, “U.S. Military Buries Press Release that Would Announce Killing of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent’s Emir,” FDD’s Long War Journal, January 15, 2020, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2020/01/u-s-military-buries-press-release-that-would-announce-killing-of-al-qaeda-in-the-indian-subcontinents-emir.php.

  51Statista Research Department, “Soldiers Killed in Action in Afghanistan 2001–2019,” Statista, August 22, 2019, https://www.statista.com/statistics/262894/western-coalition-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan/; Matthew Pennington, “Pentagon: Afghan War Costing U.S. $45 Billion per Year,” Military Times, February 6, 2018, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/02/07/pentagon-afghan-war-costing-us-45-billion-per-year/.

  52Neta C. Crawford, “United States Budgetary Costs of Post-9/11 Wars Through FY 2018,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, November 2017, 9, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/economic.

  53On the September 2019 presidential election, Pamela Constable, “Afghanistan’s Ghani Wins Slim Majority in Presidential Vote, Preliminary Results Show,” Washington Post, December 22, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/afghanistans-ghani-wins-slim-majority-in-presidential-vote/2019/12/22/73355178-2441-11ea-b034-de7dc2b5199b_story.html. On Afghan national mood toward the Taliban, see Nhung, “Afghanistan in 2018: A Survey of the Afghan People,” 43.

  Chapter 7: Who Thought It Would Be Easy? From Optimism to Resignation in the Middle East

  1U.S. Department of State, “Casualty Status as of 10 a.m. EST Jan. 20, 2020,” https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf; Leith Aboufadel, “Over 26,000 Iraqi Soldiers Killed in 4 Year War with ISIS,” AMNNews, December 13, 2017, https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/26000-iraqi-soldiers-killed-4-year-war-isis/.

  2Garrett Nada and Mattisan Rowan, “Pro-Iran Militias in Iraq,” Wilson Center, April 27, 2018, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/part-2-pro-iran-militias-iraq.

  3George Packer, “The Lesson of Tal Afar,” The New Yorker, July 10, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/10/the-lesson-of-tal-afar. Confession of Abdul Ghafur Abdul Rahman Mustafa from August 28, 2008, in possession of author; Joseph L. Galloway, McClatchy Newspapers, “Regiment’s Rotation out of Tal Afar Raises Questions about U.S. Strategy,” McClatchy Washington Bureau, January 18, 2006, https://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article24452989.html.

  4Joel Rayburn, Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2014), 74–75.

  5On how Jaafari changed the Ministry of Interior, see John F. Burns, “Torture Alleged at Ministry Site Outside Baghdad,” New York Times, November 16, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/world/middleeast/torture-alleged-at-ministry-site-outside-baghdad.html; see also Joel Rayburn, Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2014), 79.

  6For a report on the abuse of Sunni prisoners, see Ned Parker, “Torture by Iraqi Militias: The Report Washington Did Not Want You to See,” Reu–ters, December 14, 2015, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-iraq-militias/.

  7On Iranian influence in Iraqi government, see International Institute for Strategic Studies, “Iranian Influence in Iraq: Assessing Tehran’s Strategy,” Strategic Comments 13, no. 10 (December 2007):1–2, https://doi.org/10.1080/13567880701870027. See also Rayburn, Iraq After America, 80–81.

  8Rayburn, Iraq After America, 80.

  9Richard Spencer, “Isil Carried Out Massacres and Mass Sexual Enslavement of Yazidis, UN Confirms,” Telegraph, October 14, 2014, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11160906/Isil-carried-out-massacres-and-mass-sexual-enslavement-of-Yazidis-UN-confirms.html.

  10Department of Defense, “Department of Defense Press Briefing by Secretary Mattis, General Dunford and Special Envoy McGurk on the Campaign to Defeat ISIS in the Pentagon Press Briefing Room,” U.S. Department of Defense Archives, May 19, 2017, https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/1188225/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-secretary-mattis-general-dunford-and-sp/.

  11Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 397–98.

  12Reuters, “Syria’s Alawites, a Secretive and Persecuted Sect,” Reuters, February 2, 2012, htt
ps://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-alawites-sect-idUSTRE8110Q720120202.

  13Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods, The Iran-Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 242, doi:10.1017/CBO9781107449794.

  14Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq (New York: Scribner, 2008), 28.

  15Khomeini’s efforts were not unprecedented. The Safavid dynasty in the seventh century used Shia Islam to unify Persian society against the Sunni Ottoman Empire.

  16Central Intelligence Agency, “The Demographic Consequences of the Iran-Iraq War,” May 22, 1984, released April 4, 2011, CIA-RDP85T00 287R001301610001, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00287R001301610001-1.pdf.

  17Luke Harding, “Haider al-Abadi: From Exile in Britain to Iraq’s Next Prime Minister,” Guardian, August 11, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/haider-al-abadi-profile-iraqs-next-prime-minister.

  18Sam Dagher, Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family’s Lust for Power Destroyed Syria (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), 55–56.

  19Michael Knights, “Helping Iraq Take Charge of Its Command-and-Control Structure,” The Washington Institute, September 30, 2019, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/helping-iraq-take-charge-of-its-command-and-control-structure.

  20The Al-Qaeda documents captured in the northern Iraqi border district of Sinjar in September 2007 (the infamous “Sinjar documents”) showed that the vast majority of the mujahideen who entered Iraq—more than one hundred a month at that time—did so by way of the Damascus airport and a well-established network of safe houses and friendly Syrian officials who led them across the Iraqi frontier into Anbar or Ninewa Provinces. In a police state like Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, the activity recorded in the Sinjar documents could never have taken place without the full knowledge and approval of the regime. See Brian Fishman and Joseph Felter, “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records,” Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point, January 2, 2007, https://ctc.usma.edu/al-qaidas-foreign-fighters-in-iraq-a-first-look-at-the-sinjar-records/.

  21Fouad Ajami, “America and the Solitude of the Syrians,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2012, https://www.hoover.org/research/america-and-solitude-syrians; David Remnick, “Going the Distance: On and Off the Road with Barack Obama,” The New Yorker, January 20, 2014, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/going-the-distance-david-remnick.

  22On the Homs riots, see Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2016), 132; Warrick, Black Flags, 228. For examples of this repression, see Warrick, Black Flags, 266; Weiss and Hassan, ISIS, 132.

  23Murray and Woods, The Iran-Iraq War, 242.

  24H. R. McMaster, “Why the U.S. Was Right in Not Trying to Take Over All of Iraq,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 23, 1991.

  25Conrad C. Crane and W. Andrew Terrill, “Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario,” Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, February 1, 2003, 17, https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=182.

  26Stephen D. Biddle and Peter Feaver, “Assessing Strategic Choices in the War on Terror,” in Beth Bailey and Richard Immerman, eds., Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (New York: NYU Press, 2015).

  27Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (London: Atlantic Books, 2013).

  28Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” FBIS translation of the newspaper Asharq-Al-awsat, 2001.

  29Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 302.

  30Kimberly Kagan, Surge: A Military History (New York: Encounter Books, 2009).

  31For more metrics on violence in Iraq, see Anthony H. Cordesman, “Iraq: Patterns of Violence, Casualty Trends, and Emerging Threats,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 9, 2011, https://csisprod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/110209_Iraq-PattofViolence.pdf.

  32Peter Baker, “Relief over U.S. Exit from Iraq Fades as Reality Overtakes Hope,” New York Times, June 22, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/world/middleeast/relief-over-us-exit-from-iraq-fades-as-reality-overtakes-hope.html.

  33Baker, “Relief over U.S. Exit from Iraq Fades as Reality Overtakes Hope.”

  34On Hashemi’s death, see Jack Healy, “Arrest Order for Sunni Leader in Iraq Opens New Rift,” New York Times, December 19, 2011. On the alienation of Iraq’s Sunni populations, see Rayburn, Iraq After America; Emma Sky, The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq (New York: PublicAffairs, 2015), xii.

  35Beatrice Dupuy, “President Obama Did Not Free Islamic State Leader Al-Baghdadi from Prison,” Associated Press, October 30, 2019, https://apnews.com/afs:Content:8037620747.

  36Martin Chulov, “Gaddafi’s Last Moments: ‘I Saw the Hand Holding the Gun and I Saw It Fire,’” The Guardian, October 20, 2012.

  37Barrack Obama, “Remarks by the President on Ending the War in Iraq,” The White House, October 21, 2011, transcript, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/21/remarks-president-ending-war-iraq.

  Chapter 8: Breaking the Cycle

  1Kenneth Michael Pollack, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (New York: Random House, 2008), xxxix.

  2On the Kenneth Pollack quote, see Kenneth M. Pollack, “Drowning in Riches,” New York Times, July 13, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13pollack.html.

  3The population of Syria pre–civil war (2011) was 21 million. As of 2018, it was 16 million. The World Bank, “Syrian Arab Republic,” https://data.worldbank.org/country/syrian-arab-republic.

  4The Syrian Network for Human Rights, “Statistics of 2019,” SNHR, http://sn4hr.org/.

  5United Nations, “Libya Country Profile,” UN, http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx/_Images/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=Libya.

  6The success of Operation Provide Comfort could help stabilize Syria. Thomas E. Ricks, “Operation Provide Comfort: A Forgotten Mission with Possible Lessons for Syria,” Foreign Policy, February 6, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/06/operation-provide-comfort-a-forgotten-mission-with-possible-lessons-for-syria/.

  7Efraim Benmelech and Esteban F. Klor, “What Explains the Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS?” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 22190, April 2016, 16, http://www.nber.org/papers/w22190.

  8Statistics on displacement based on Eurostat findings, Phillip Connor, “Most Displaced Syrians Are in the Middle East, and About a Million Are in Europe,” FactTank, Pew Research Center, January 29, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/29/where-displaced-syrians-have-resettled/. The UNHCR count as of October 31, 2019, was 3,680,603, UNHCR, “Syria Regional Refugee Response,” UNHCR, October 31, 2019, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria/location/113.

  9For more of the story of Omran Daqneesh, see Anne Bernard, “How Omran Daqneesh, 5, Became a Symbol of Aleppo’s Suffering,” New York Times, August 18, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/world/middleeast/omran-daqneesh-syria-aleppo.html. Tragically, 30,000 deaths in Syria were estimated between 2012 and 2016. Russian bombing in Syria began in late 2015; within that time frame, there were 7,800 deaths in Aleppo. Violations Documentation Center in Syria, “Aleppo Death Statistics: 2015/09/01–2016/12/30,” VDC, http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/martyrs/1/c29ydGJ5PWEua2lsbGVkX2RhdGV8c29ydGRpcj1ERVNDfGFwcHJvdmVkPXZpc2libGV8ZXh0cmFkaXNwbGF5PTB8cHJvdmluY2U9NnxzdGFydERhdGU9MjAxNS0wOS0wMXxlbmREYXRlPTIwMTYtMTItMzB8.

  10Steve Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, “Don’t Intervene in Syria,” New York Times, October 6, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/opinion/dont-intervene-in-syria.html. But there were concerns that the threat to U.S. interests would not stay contained to Syria. In January 2014, months before President Obama intervened against ISIS, former DNI James
Clapper said that Syria was becoming “in some respects, a new FATA,” referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, a long-known Al-Qaeda base, saying that the country was attracting thousands of jihadist fighters who could one day create a potential base for terrorist attacks emanating from Syria to the West.

  11@realDonaldTrump: “. . . almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home. WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN. Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to . . .” Twitter, October 7, 2019, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1181172465772482563. For the president’s remarks on Syria, see President Trump, “Remarks by President Trump in Cabinet Meeting,” The White House, January 3, 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-cabinet-meeting-12/.

  12For a perspective supporting disengagement, see Steve Simon, “After the Surge: The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq,” Council Special Report No. 23, Council on Foreign Relations Press, February 2007, https://www.cfr.org/report/after-surge.

  13Candace Dunn and Tim Hess, “The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer,” U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Independent Statistics and Analysis, EIA, September 12, 2018, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37053.

  14Michael Schwirtz, “U.N. Links North Korea to Syria’s Chemical Weapons Program,” New York Times, February 27, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/world/asia/north-korea-syria-chemical-weapons-sanctions.html. On IDF attribution, see IDF, “The Secret Operation Revealed a Decade Later,” IDF Press Center, March 21, 2018, https://www.idf.il/en/articles/operations/the-secret-operation-revealed-a-decade-later/.

  15On jihadist strategies and mission, see Brian Fishman, The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 36; Jonathan Randal, Osama: The Making of a Terrorist (New York: Vintage Books, 2005), 86–87, 95. On world economic growth, see Office of the Historian, “Oil Embargo, 1973–1974,” U.S. Department of State, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo.