Alexis wrote:

Before the war, I quietly recommended liberating the Saudi Kingdom as a prelude to liberating Iraq, but my ideas were apparently not taken seriously in Washington. And yet, in retrospect, I am honestly unsure whether liberating the Saudi Kingdom first would have been the better course of action. I am quite sure I would have done a better job of running Iraq than Ambassador Bremer, and I knew that at the time. The Bush administration wasn’t too keen on hiring anybody from the opposition, though.

While I am totally ignorant of the internal strategic calculations which underpinned OIF, the following arguments can be made from common sense in the KSA vs Iraq debate.

1. KSA, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, (pre-Saddam) Iraq and Iran were the major centers of gravity of Islamic terrorism.
2. The cores of the Shi’a and Sunni jihads were KSA and Iran respectively. Why not invade them first after 9/11? Lack of forces and fear of an energy disruption.
3. Of the countries listed in (1) Iraq was vulnerable because of a) its international isolation; b) ethnic division between Sunni, Shia and Kurd. The British knew this. When invading a country choose the one with large minorities so you can play everyone against everyone else; c) its capture would allow the oil embargos to be lifted, weakening the power of KSA and increasing the oil supply to the world market, thereby easing prices; d) it was geographically positioned between KSA, Iran and Syria thereby allowing force projection in all directions; e) US bases in Iraq would create a long-term fallback to KSA if and when the US decided to take them on; f) Saddam’s WMD program would be destroyed.

Now I am completely unaware that anyone actually thought this way. Maybe a Wolfowtiz, Feith and GWB made a very simplistic decision like “Saddam sponsored 9/11 and he is building nuclear weapons. So let’s bring freedom to the Middle East and let our friends get a lot of contracts in the bargain.” But maybe not. I suspect that when posterity weighs in the US decision in 2003 will be a mixture of rational and irrational, high minded and venal, good and bad. Most historical decisions are.

The plan miscarried. But not in its essentials. Many things went wrong. Oil, rather than loosening, tightened. The US, rather than Saddam, became the whipping boy of the international media. Saddam himself underwent a rehabilitation in the press. The ethnic groups in Iraq, instead of being compliantly played off against each other, nearly went into civil war. Iran and Syria, rather than trembling in fearful anticipation invaded Iraq through proxies. But the basics were right. Once things started to stabilize Iraqi oil did come online. However world demand rose much faster, and the conflict inhibited the development of Iranian gas, because now it was Iran that had to be isolated. Paradoxically, the KSA was scared out of its sandals by the fear that the Iranians would take over Iraq. This, plus the annihilation of the Jihad in Iraq put the damper on Wahabi militancy. They began to issue fatwas against bin Laden’s group. The ideology of the Jihad itself began to tarnish because of Iraq.

As of this writing, Petraeus has very nearly achieved in 5 years what perhaps some feckless planners believed would be achieved in one. Iraq is now potentially an American ally located between KSA and Iran. A Shi’ite democratic tradition, albeit a flawed one, now competes with Teheran for legitimacy. The KSA still holds cards, but basing is not one of them. Oil remains its primary trump. All in all, we are now ready to consider Alexis’ next step: how to “take down” KSA — and I would add, Iran.

Here is where we enter terra incognita. But I think the following will play out. The way forward will be Iran, KSA, Syria and Egypt in that order. Most of what will follow will be nonkinetic, more akin to the twilight struggle against the USSR than the fight against Nazi Germany. The US will have to achieve two generational projects: 1) wean itself and the world off oil and 2) create the equivalent of a West Germany or South Korea in the Middle East to contrast with the Muslim, Arab “Warsaw” pact. Lastly, it will have to create a bipartisan domestic consensus to pursue this policy for the next 30 years. Then one day, just as the USSR did, the toxic regimes of the Middle East will fall. And once the core Islamic states democratize, all the rest will more or less follow, like the tide of democratization that swept through the world after the Soviets collapsed. US conventional forces will provide distant cover; they will protect the information warfare campaign against the heartland of the Jihad; they will stand ready to repel boarders but unless something very wrong happens, they won’t engage in open warfare.

That’s why I think Iraq will prove in retrospect, the right move, according to my own private little strategic calculus. I am well aware than I may be full of s**t and totally wrong. But I think it’s a reasonable scenario, one unlikely to play out as I have described it. Yet I’ll saw I would be truly surprised, if in my old age (if I reach it) something like what I’ve sketched out doesn’t happen.