Inside the Revolution

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Upon taking office as president of the United States in January 2009, Barack Obama and his incoming national security team conducted a lengthy review of U.S. goals, objectives, and strategies in Afghanistan. By November of that year, Obama concluded that the Bush administration had been correct in putting more troops into the theater, but that it was still not enough. He ordered an additional thirty thousand American troops into Afghanistan to finish the job of stabilizing the country, bringing the total number of U.S. forces in the country to about one hundred thousand. This was wise.

  The mistake President Obama and his team made, however, was saying publicly and repeatedly that they planned to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in 2011 and that they planned to have all or most U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by 2013. This artificial deadline for U.S. withdrawal sent precisely the wrong message to the Radicals, who concluded that the White House had no long-term stomach for the fight and that if the Taliban and al Qaeda could kill more civilians and more Americans in 2010 and beyond, they could eventually drive the U.S. and NATO out of Afghanistan and retake the country for themselves. I believe this artificial deadline also played a part in Karzai’s stumbles.

  Stumbling

  In the first edition of this book, I noted, “Karzai is not a perfect leader. He should not be viewed as some kind of savior of, or panacea for, the Afghan nation. Honestly, only God knows whether he will survive in office, much less be reelected. But given the cards he has had to play with, there is no question in my mind that his first seven years running Afghanistan were remarkable. He has been a true Reformer swimming in a pool of Radical sharks and barracudas. For that, he deserves credit, and the American people have deserved the opportunity to get to know his views and accomplishments and just how dramatic his story has been.”

  I added, “Ultimately, the real test of his success will be whether Karzai can both create a stable, clean, accountable, and truly democratic national government and recruit, train, and inspire a new generation of democratic and corruption-free successors. If he allows himself to be seen as a one-man show—trying to solve Afghanistan’s immense challenges essentially by himself—then a historic opportunity will be lost. But if he is able to recruit more tough, smart, ethical men and women to help him run the country, and if he can raise up more true Reformers who can establish and maintain security while simultaneously expanding freedom and democracy at home and abroad long after Karzai has retired or passed away from this earth, then he will earn his place as one of the truly remarkable game-changers of the twenty-first century. He started well. The question is, will he finish well?”

  Unfortunately, Karzai made a series of unwise choices in recent years and has not lived up to his initial promise. For example, stories are rampant of his ignoring corruption throughout his government and not cracking down on it decisively. Among the most glaring examples: Karzai’s half brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, who is a wealthy businessman and the head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, is believed by some to be one of the country’s biggest drug traffickers, allegedly overseeing huge heroin and opium distribution networks. It is a charge Ahmed has long denied, but the fact that President Karzai has done precious little to investigate his half brother—much less have him arrested or expelled from the country—has become symbolic in some Western capitals of the depth of the corruption problems plaguing the country and Karzai’s inability or unwillingness to confront and change it.

  The appearance of impropriety became so bad that upon President Obama’s first official visit to Afghanistan as commander in chief in late-March 2010, he confronted Karzai directly and insisted that he tackle corruption as a top priority. The following day, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, met with Karzai to reinforce the message that rooting out corruption was critical not only to the overall health of the country but to the effectiveness of the military campaign against the Radicals. Obama and Mullen were only the latest in a long line of U.S. officials to say the same thing, unfortunately to the same result. Nothing substantial changed in Karzai’s behavior or that of his administration.

  Also troubling was that as Obama’s deadline for a full U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan drew closer, Karzai began playing footsie with the leaders of Iran. In March 2010, not long before President Obama visited Kabul, Karzai invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Kabul for two days of talks and rolled out the red carpet for this high-profile and historic visit. At a press conference, Karzai heaped praise on Ahmadinejad, thanking Iran for investing in Afghan reconstruction projects and helping provide electricity. At the same press conference, Ahmadinejad gave a stridently anti-American speech while the Afghan president just stood there and smiled. Soon thereafter, Karzai traveled to Tehran to meet with Ahmadinejad again, as well as to celebrate the Afghan and Iranian New Year together.

  Karzai first traveled to Tehran in 2005 to meet with the country’s top leaders. At the time, it was perceived as a courtesy call from a new regional leader to another. By 2010, however, it was clear that Karzai was systematically strengthening ties with the anti-American regime, making numerous public statements calling Iran a “friend” as well as calling for closer ties between the two countries. Were Karzai and his government simply hedging their bets that when the U.S. is gone they might have to be nice to a very powerful (and possibly soon nuclear-armed) neighbor? Or were they using the U.S. and NATO to destroy their internal enemies while intentionally planning to join forces with Iran once the Western powers departed?

  If all this were not disappointing enough, many U.N. and other Western observers accused Karzai of election fraud during his reelection campaign that culminated in the nationwide ballot on August 20, 2009. At first, Karzai claimed to have won 54 percent of the vote. Yet his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, claimed Karzai’s people were buying votes. Foreign election observers, reporters, and analysts corroborated Abdullah’s claim, alleging as many as one million fraudulent votes. Some publicly accusing the Afghan president of trying to steal the election. Karzai himself eventually conceded there were irregularities but still claimed victory and took office for another five years. He did initially allow an independent panel to be created to investigate the serious and substantial charges of election fraud. But in February 2010, he effectively took over the panel and stripped it of its authority.

  “Afghanistan’s president has taken control of a formerly independent body that monitors election fraud, raising concern Tuesday that he’s reneging on promises to clean up corruption and cronyism—a pillar of the Obama administration’s plan to erode support for the Taliban,” reported the Washington Times. “President Hamid Karzai signed a decree last week giving him the power to appoint all members of the Electoral Complaints Commission, a group previously dominated by U.N. appointees that uncovered massive fraud on behalf of Mr. Karzai in last year’s presidential election. ‘This is bad news for democracy,’ said Gerard Russell, a former U.N. political adviser who resigned over disputes surrounding the August presidential election. ‘Basically, if President Karzai wishes it, this could prevent free elections ever being held in Afghanistan.’”475

  The Obama administration did little to protest Karzai’s seizure of the election or the election fraud panel, effectively allowing Karzai to stay in power without serious opposition. This disappointed many who were hoping and praying for much better in Afghanistan, myself included.

  “Karzai brazenly stole last year’s presidential election,” charged New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman. “But the Obama foreign policy team turned a blind eye, basically saying, he’s the best we could get, so just let it go.”476

  Sadly, Friedman was right.

  The question is: Why did Karzai make such choices? Did U.S. and Western leaders misread him from the beginning? Was he always an opportunist, not a true Reformer? Or did he begin to cut corners and cut deals with internal Afghan players and with Tehran as he anticipated the U.S. and NATO pulling out too fast?

  Many more chapters ar
e yet to be written in the Afghan saga, and my prayers are with the people of this blood-soaked, war-torn, poverty-stricken land. Suffice it to say at this point, Karzai began his presidency with real promise as a Reformer but became a disappointment. Maybe he can turn it around. Maybe his successors can. But one thing we must all keep in mind: being a Reformer isn’t easy, especially in such rough neighborhoods as the Middle East and central Asia.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “We Are Fighting Islamic Fascists”

  Nouri Al-Maliki and the battle for Iraq

  My phone rang late on a Tuesday.

  “Hey, Joel, what are you doing tomorrow?”

  I recognized the voice immediately as a senior aide to U.S. House Speaker Denny Hastert.

  “Not much. Why?” I asked.

  “Want to come over and hear Maliki’s speech?”

  I certainly did. Three years after liberation, Nouri al-Maliki, the first democratically and constitutionally elected prime minister in the five-thousand-year history of Iraq, was coming to Washington to address a joint meeting of Congress the following day, July 26, 2006. Everyone in town wanted to hear this speech.

  Maliki was a controversial figure, and a lot was riding on him. A Shia Muslim born in 1950, he had fled into exile in Iran and later Syria after Saddam Hussein ordered his execution in 1980, returning to Iraq only after liberation in 2003. This was causing not a few in Washington and European capitals to openly express suspicions about his core beliefs and independence. Was the somewhat shy, bespectacled one-time dissident a true democratic Reformer? Or was he an ideological ally—if not an actual agent—of Tehran and Damascus? With no track record of ever governing, could he become a serious game-changer, capable of both confronting and crushing the Radicals, such as Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Iranian-funded, -supplied, and -encouraged Mahdi Army, the worst of the Shia militias? Or was he merely some sort of Bush-administration puppet, a figurehead whose mission was to appease Iraqi Shias while allowing the Pentagon and State Department to actually run the show?

  Maliki had been elected by the parliament just three months before and had seemed to struggle to form a cabinet, not succeeding until late May. But to his credit, since then he and his team had seized the initiative. On June 7, U.S. and Iraqi intelligence forces tracked down and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of “Al Qaeda in Iraq” (AQI), and several of Zarqawi’s top advisors, in a dramatically successful evening air strike that instantly electrified Reformers and the Rank-and-File alike as news spread throughout the country.

  The Jordanian-born Zarqawi was, after all, the most feared man in Iraq at the time. A fully devoted follower of jihad, he had direct and personal ties to Osama bin Laden, and he had been in regular communication with the al Qaeda mastermind and his top deputies. He seemed to have plenty of funding and arms. He controlled thousands of indigenous and foreign-born fighters whose mission was to maim, kill, and destroy scores of Iraqi civilians in the hopes of turning them against Maliki’s fledgling government and the very notion of democracy. And up until 6:11 p.m. that night, he had seemed invincible.

  “We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology,” Zarqawi had said just before the first round of Iraqi elections in January 2005. “Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it.” He called Iraqi parliamentary candidates “demi-idols” and denounced Iraqi voters as “infidels,” pledging to kill as many of them as he possibly could.477

  After the successful operation to take out Zarqawi, Maliki immediately held a press conference that was seen in homes throughout Iraq. “Today Zarqawi was defeated,” Maliki had said, the relief palpable in his eyes and voice. “This is a message to all those who use violence, killing, and devastation to disrupt life in Iraq, to rethink within themselves before it is too late.”478 What is more, he added that those Iraqi citizens who had provided tips that led to the successful strike would, in fact, be eligible to receive the $25 million bounty that Coalition forces had put on Zarqawi’s head, clearly trying to encourage more tips to the secure and anonymous telephone hotline that the U.S. and Iraqi authorities had established.

  “The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi marks a great success for Iraq and the Global War on Terror. . . . I congratulate the Prime Minister,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq at the time, standing at Maliki’s side at the press conference. “Zarqawi was ‘the Godfather’ of sectarian killing and terror in Iraq. He declared a civil war within Islam and a global war of civilizations. His organization has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in Iraq and abroad.” He added that while the terrorist leader’s death would not “by itself end the violence,” it was still “an important step in the right direction” and “a good omen for Iraq [and] for Prime Minister Maliki’s new government.”479

  Moments later, President Bush stepped into the White House Rose Garden to praise the Maliki government, saying, “The ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders.”480

  The Zarqawi hit, however, was just the beginning. In the week that followed, Iraqi and U.S. forces conducted 452 raids (including 143 raids by Iraqi forces alone), captured 759 suspects, and killed 104 terrorists, based in part on intelligence gathered from the house the al Qaeda leader had been in when he was killed and in part on tips that began flowing in after Maliki’s press conference.481

  The prime minister’s national security advisor noted that Coalition forces had uncovered a “huge treasure . . . a huge amount of information” from Zarqawi’s computer, flash drive, and cell phone. “Now we have the upper hand,” he said after the raids were complete. “We know their locations, the names of their leaders, their whereabouts, their movements, through the documents we have found in the last few days.”482

  Maliki then called on Radicals to give up violence and enter the political system. “There is,” he said, “space for dialogue with insurgents who opposed the political process and now want to join the political process after offering guarantees” that they would fully renounce all use of violence. But he added that “we are not going to negotiate with the criminals who have killed the innocent.”483

  Though he was facing enormous challenges and worldwide questions about whether he was up to the task of governing Iraq, Maliki was at least able to come to Washington with a major success under his belt.

  “We Are Building the New Iraq”

  A hush settled over the great assembly.

  The members of the House of Representatives and the Senate were now seated, as were members of the administration, the diplomatic community, and a full press contingent. Prime Minister Maliki cleared his throat and prepared to speak.

  As he did, I said a silent prayer of thanksgiving that the Lord had given me the opportunity to be in the room for this historic moment. Thousands of Americans and allied forces had died to set Iraqis free and make this moment possible. Thousands more Americans and Coalition members had been wounded both in the 2003 war and in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when we had helped liberate Kuwait from Iraqi tyranny.

  I remembered a bitterly cold Saturday morning fifteen years earlier—January 12, 1991, to be exact—when I had had the privilege of sitting in this same chamber, in this same visitors’ section. At the time, I was watching members of Congress debate whether or not to give President George H. W. Bush (“Bush 41”) the authority to go to war against Iraq. It was a bitter and often brutal argument. The country and its democratically elected leaders were sharply divided as to whether to say yes to a war that would involve nearly a half million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines in a battle against the forces of Saddam Hussein, who controlled the fourth-largest army in the world.

  But shouldn’t it be so? I thought. Going to war is a horrible act, even if sometimes it is necessary. It deserves a vigorous, full-throated, and very public debate, even if that debate is messy.

  Messy it was. Passions ran as high as I had eve
r seen in this town. And then sometime late in the afternoon, I watched as the members of the House cast their ballots. By a margin of 250 to 183, President Bush got the authorization he requested, along with an even closer 52–47 Senate vote in favor of going to war.

  Now, fifteen and a half years later, something I never imagined possible was unfolding before my very eyes. An Iraqi citizen who had been chosen by the democratically elected representatives of a free Iraq to be their prime minister was actually standing at the podium where great presidents and prime ministers throughout the last two centuries had stood before. I could barely believe it.

  Nouri al-Maliki was a virtually unknown figure to most Americans, as he was to most people around the world. Yet now not only my eyes but the eyes of many nations were upon him. He represented our hopes and dreams for liberty and a more peaceful and secure relationship with the people of the epicenter. How would he fare? Was he up to the challenge? Only time would tell. But Maliki could not have arrived at a better moment. He and his team were on offense. They were making real and tangible progress. Tough times lay ahead, but the prime minister was on a victory lap, and he had earned it.

  “In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful, Your Excellency, the Speaker of the House, Mr. Vice President, honorable ladies and gentlemen, members of Congress, it is with great pleasure that I am able to take this opportunity to be the first democratically and constitutionally elected prime minister of Iraq to address you, the elected representatives of the American people. And I thank you for affording me this unique chance to speak at this respected assembly. Let me begin by thanking the American people through you, on behalf of the Iraqi people, for supporting our people and ousting [Saddam Hussein’s] dictatorship. Iraq will not forget those who stood with her and who continue to stand with her in times of need.”