IRAQ BEYOND SADDAM: The search for regional security

www.atimes.com By James A Russell

With the Bush administration intent on regime change in Baghdad, much attention in the press and in the policy community is understandably focused on the rights and wrongs of tactics of removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But while the circumstances of Saddam's removal are being crafted and debated, the broader issue facing strategic planners is the task of reconstructing a regional security architecture that may be more relevant to the region's emerging requirements in a post-Saddam era. Just as the attacks of September 11, 2001, forced a break from the past and enabled new ways of thinking about how the United States should interact with the international community, the debate over the removal of Saddam provides the US with an opportunity to reexamine a host of assumptions that have driven US security strategy and policy in the region over the past decade. When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989 and the inauguration of the "post-Cold War" world was proclaimed, the forces of change that swept through various other parts of the globe did not materially affect the Persian Gulf. The presence of a defiant Saddam and the so-called "box" of containment constructed largely with American military power were major reasons why forces unleashed by the absence of the US-Soviet rivalry did not manifest themselves in the Gulf. But the prospect of a Gulf without Saddam could represent a "crumbling" of a Berlin Wall of sorts in the region and unleash a variety of pent-up forces for change that could profoundly affect regional security and stability. The dictates of prudent planning suggest that the US, the region and the international community start thinking about these issues now if we hope to see how a war with Iraq could be made into a positive force for long-term security. If the Gulf has been slow to see the forces of change flowing in the post-Cold War era, it is also true that US strategy in the Gulf has changed little during the past 20-odd years. American interests, strategy and policy have remained remarkably constant over the decades. Starting with formulations by senior policymakers dating to the 1940s, the US has always regarded unimpeded access to the oil of the region as a "vital" interest. While using force to protect this interest was by extension always an implicit assumption, it wasn't until president Jimmy Carter's January 1980 statements in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that the commitment finally became public. Flowing from this commitment, the US subsequently deployed forces to the Gulf in the 1980s to protect oil tanker traffic and then fought the Gulf War after Saddam threatened to overrun the Arabian Peninsula in 1991. US strategy and policy in the region since then have operated on three assumptions:

1. The need for access to reasonably priced oil.
2. The need to ensure that no hostile force control the region and its oil supplies or so intimidate other states so as to coerce supplier states into taking actions inimical to consuming nations.
3. A commitment to use force if necessary to protect and further these interests. The US security architecture in the region is largely based on these key premises. The idea of a "security architecture" suggests a complex interrelationship between a host of political and military variables and a decision-making process that can coherently and systematically integrate them into a whole. In terms of defining the critical elements of the architecture, the US has over the decades:
4. Defined the US vital interests in the Gulf.
5. Developed a strategy to protect and further those interests.
6. Formulated policy to implement that strategy.
7. Committed the political and financial resources to operationalize this policy in the region. During the 1990s, the US did reasonably well following this logical process in establishing a security architecture that served its interests. In strictly military terms, that architecture had a number of main elements: forward deployed US forces engaged in ongoing operations, access to host nation facilities, prepositioned equipment, sales of defense equipment to promote the self-defense capabilities of American allies, and regional military engagement through exercises and training. (1) The issue facing the policy community today is whether this existing security structure will be relevant to the post-Saddam period and whether it will continue to protect and promote US interests and those of its allies. More...