To Omar al-Bashir: Go Away Or We'll Take Away Your Oil

Nicholas Kristof's excellent eight point plan for throttling Omar al-Bashir's criminally inhumane regime in Khartoum should include two further points. The tenth point has been articulated by Mark Helprin, who argues that that it would be relatively easy for American and allied air power to crush al-Bashir’s army, and starve the militias he has enlisted to do his work in Darfur, Abyei and the south. Helprin says, “Violating sovereignty is a matter of immense consequence and gravity. Then again, so is genocide.”

However, there is a ninth point that should be tried before Helprin's tenth: an international coalition should take control of Sudan's oil industry. Keeping Sudan's oil off the market will cripple the al-Bashir regime's ability to terrorize its people, and deprive it of the oxygen it needs to stay in power. When al-Bashir is gone, control of Sudan's oil industry will give the international community tools to oversee Sudanese national reconciliation that are lacking if the policy is simply to rain destruction on al-Bashir's military infrastructure from the air. As we learned in Iraq, after shock and awe, then what? 

Oil and Money in Sudan

Control of Sudan's oil wealth is of course an end in itself for al-Bashir’s regime. But second, the oil industry provides the regime with the means to fund the payroll for the military and para-military forces (Janjaweed, etc.) who carry out operations against its citizens, and to purchase the sophisticated military hardware (from China) to support these operations. Third, because the Khartoum government and the international oil companies who produce Sudan's oil have no intention of sharing the wealth with the indigenous population where it is produced, security of production can only be assured by deporting the indigenous population, a policy which al-Bashir has forcibly implemented on a large scale.  And fourth, although oil has not yet been discovered in Darfur, exploration licenses have been awarded in Janub Darfur, and the industry is optimistic about Darfur's potential. Khartoum and Janjaweed are not slaughtering people in Darfur for  reasons of ideology. 

Sudan's oil industry is truly the root of all of the nation's evils. 

Between 1999 and today, Sudan’s oil production has risen from zero to over 600 thousand barrels per day.  The market value of this at current prices is around $20 billion annually, of which $11-12 billion pours into the coffers of the state under production-sharing agreements with China's CNPC, India's ONGC and Malaysia's Petronas. Over 90% of these revenues derive from oil exports, which account for over 95% of the country's export revenue. The remaining $8-9 billion of market value annually, net of costs (operating, transportation, and recovery of acquisition costs and capital expenditure), is profit whch the four owners of the producing fields divide up according to their ownership shares: CNPC (46%), Petronas (32%), ONGC (25%), and the Sudanese state oil company Sudapet (6%).  

Under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the 21-year civil war between the Khartoum government and Sudan's southern provinces, now represented by the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) based in Juba, a revenue-sharing agreement was reached whereby the Khartoum government would receive 50% of revenues from production in the southern states, and retain 100% of revenues from production in the northern states.  Between 60 and 80% of Sudan's oil production is in areas under the jurisdiction of GoSS (depending on whether the disputed region of Abyei is counted as falling under the jurisdiction of GoSS or Khartoum), which would entitle GoSS to 30-40% of the state's oil revenue.

Taking Control of Sudan's Oil Industry

The terminal at Port Sudan on the Red Sea is the only means by which Sudanese oil can be exported. A naval blockade of the port would therefore be a fairly easy way for the international community to shut down Sudanese exports. The hard problems for implementing a strategy of taking control of Sudan's oil are diplomatic, economic, commercial and humanitarian. Fortunately there are reasonably good (but not perfect) solutions for all of these problems. And before we balk at the imperfections, we should bear in mind that a regime that slaughters its own people is a perfect problem.

The diplomatic and commercial problems are closely linked, since the state-owned oil companies of China, India and Malaysia own 94% of Sudan's oil industry. To achieve a diplomatic consensus behind the takeover strategy, it will be necessary to protect the commercial interests of CNPC, ONGC and Petronas. The economic problem is that  removing 500,000 barrels per day of Sudanese exports from the world market overnight could have seriously negative price consequences in the chronically tight world oil market. 

There is a way to address these problems:

1. A coalition of willing and able governments (for obvious reasons, the UN Security Council is probably not the most appropriate forum in which to try to organize this) would issue a formal request to CNPC, ONGC, Petronas and all other oil off-takers at Port Sudan to suspend exports until the government in Khartoum accepts terms laid down by the coalition (see below) or is replaced by one that will.

2. At the same time, OECD member governments would offer a time swap (oil today for oil tomorrow) to the Sudanese exporters, who would agree not to lift oil at Port Sudan, but instead to take delivery of equivalent amounts from OECD member countries' government-owned stockpiles.  Strategic stocks controlled by the governments of OECD member countries currently hold a little over 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil and products, enough to replace Sudan oil produciton for over eight years. The exporters would have the obligation to re-supply this oil to the OECD strategic stockpiles once Sudanese production is resumed, on terms that would include compensation for the exporters' lost time-value-of money.

3. Coalition governments would provide enforceable guarantees to CNPC, ONGC and Petronas that once Sudanese production is resumed, the companies' current license and commercial positions in Sudan would be preserved or, if not, the companies would be fully indemnified for losses by the coalition governments.

4. If less than 100% of Sudanese oil exporters accept these terms, coalition governments will impose a naval blockade on Port Sudan to ensure complete cessation of oil exports from the country.

The Bad Reason Why This is a Not a Good Idea

Critics of this proposal will argue that government-owned strategic stocks should only be used for the purpose for which they were acquired: to mitigate the consequences of a major world oil supply disruption. In the most likely (but highly unlikely) disruption event -- the shut-down of the Strait of Hormuz -- these 1.5 billion barrels would replace the lost production for around 90 days.  

Some would say that , as protection against the economic consequences of a shut-down of the Strait of Hormuz, a 90-day strategic stock would be about as effective as a sand castle against a tsunami. But whatever protection the strategic stocks offer against the consequences of such a highly unlikely event, why not give up some of this protection temporarily in order to degrade the al-Bashir regime's ability to terrorize its people? If governments were to use strategic stocks to replace Sudan's 500,000/day of exports for two years, and the Strait of Hormuz were then shut down, the remaining strategic stocks would last for 60 days rather than 90. The sand castle would only be two-thirds as tall.

Terms for the Post-Bashir Government

During the period of export suspension, coalition governments should compensate the GoSS for the lost revenue-sharing receipts under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  Once al-Bashir or a successor Khartoum government has agreed to the terms specified below, alliance governments would lift the blockade and allow exports to resume. These terms would include the following:

• Alliance governments would establish an interim Oil, Boundary and Budgetary Commission ("OBBC") whose members would be appointed by the alliance governments.

• The Khartoum government would accept the North/South demarcation line specified by the OBBC.

• The GoSS 50% share of revenue from oil production in the South would accrue directly to the GoSS. The Khartoum government's share of revenues from production in both North and South  be paid into a fund controlled and managed by the OBBC.  

• The Khartoum government budget would have to be approved by the OBBC before any funds are released. The OBBC would have sweeping powers to audit all expenditures, and to suspend funding to any ministry found to be using funds other than in accordance with the approved budget. Funding suspended for this reason could be spent by the OBBC as it saw fit.

• The Khartoum government would not alter any of the oil production licensing or other commercial arrangements in place prior to the suspension of production, except with the consent of the OBBC. 

• The terms and conditions of all new licenses for oil exploration or production would have to be approved by the OBBC except in the provinces governed by GoSS.

These terms would give the OBBC powers both to protect the interests of foreign investors in the Sudanese oil industry, and to force the Khartoum government to spend its share of the pie for the benefit of the Sudanese people.

And if it doesn't work? Then by all means, let's proceed to point ten.

Dan Badger

London

April 28, 2008

Candidate Obama to the American People: Commander in Chief

I am pleased to appear before you tonight to explain why I would make a better Commander-in-Chief than than John McCain. To make my case, I will focus on the Middle East, the region that poses the most serious challenges for American and global security.

No Escaping the Past

When asked recently about his support for the Bush administration’s 2002 decision to invade Iraq, Senator McCain said dismissively, "That is in the past." The Senator's implication was that his past judgment on Iraq decisions is irrelevant to this campaign. I disagree. It is not only appropriate to question the Senator's judgment in supporting the fateful 2002 decision, it is essential to do so. Only by comparing the Senator's past judgment on national security issues against mine can the voters decide which of us would exercise better judgment on the challenges the next President will face.

Here is what Senator McCain said on the Senate floor on October 2, 2002:

"Mr. President, I rise today to join Sens. Joseph Lieberman, John Warner, and Evan Bayh in introducing a resolution authorizing our Commander in Chief to do what is necessary to defend the national security of the United States of America from the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.”

"America is at war with terrorists who murdered our people one year ago. We now contemplate carrying the battle to a new front – Iraq – where a tyrant who has the capabilities and the intentions to do us harm is plotting, biding his time until his capabilities give him the means to carry out his ambitions, perhaps through cooperation with terrorists – when confronting him will be much harder and impose a terrible cost.

"We cannot foresee the course or end of this conflict, even though to most of us the threat is abundantly clear, and the course of action we must pursue is apparent."

"As our President has said, Saddam Hussein's Iraq is a grave and gathering danger, a clear threat to American security and the security of our friends in the region."

Here is what I said on the same day:

"But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

My challenge to Senator McCain’s judgment in the fall of 2002 is not the challenge of a Monday morning quarterback. I do not question the Senator's judgment on the basis of what we know now. I question his judgment on the basis of what we knew then and, more importantly, what we knew we did not know.

What We Knew We Did Not Know

Two things should have been clear to anyone with access to US government intelligence on Iraq in the fall of 2002. First, it was clear that there was no credible evidence of any connection between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack on America. Yet Senator McCain told the Senate on October 2, 2002 that war in Iraq would be a new battle front in the war on those who perpetrated 9/11.

We now know that the Senator had no evidence to support this statement. In asking the American people to accept his hunch about a connection Saddam Hussein and 9/11, Senator McCain was making the first of two great errors in judgment for which history will hold the Bush Administration and its supporters liable: the conflation of one problem -- al Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- with a different problem -- Saddam Hussein in Iraq. By leading Americans to believe that these were actually two aspects of the same problem, Senator McCain enabled a war that should not have been fought. And in doing so, he disabled the war that should have been fought, the war in Afghanistan.

The other thing that should have been clear to all in the fall of 2002 was that the American and other intelligence agencies had no reliable information on what was happening inside Saddam Hussein’s regime, especially with respect to weapons of mass destruction. Following Saddam’s ejection of the UN inspections teams at the end of 1998, the world lost its eyes and ears on the ground on Iraq, which had been the only reliable way to gather accurate information about the regime and its weapons programs. From then on, Western intelligence communities were reduced to speculation based on uncorroborated statements and allegations by paid informants.

Here are some questions Senator McCain should answer now, because of their crucial bearing on whether Americans could trust his judgment as Commander in Chief in the future. Given the complete absence intelligence about Saddam's regime and programs, how could Senator McCain possibly have known that Saddam Hussein was a threat of any kind to our national security, let alone a threat of sufficient magnitude to go to war? Was the Senator relying on the misinformed judgments of others, or was he simply playing a hunch?

False Choice

In a speech to the Senate on October 12, 2002, Senator McCain said this: "'The question facing all of us in this body is whether Saddam Hussein's aggressive weapons development, in defiance of the Gulf War cease-fire and a decade of U.N. Security Council resolutions, can stand, when the cost of inaction against this gathering threat could be intolerably high." In so saying, Senator McCain was posing the same false choice as Vice President Cheney when he argued for war saying, "The dangers of inaction exceed the dangers of action."

This false choice between inaction or war was a central rhetorical plank in the administration's case for war in the fall of 2002, and Senator McCain's voice could be heard loud and clear among the members of the chorus. It goes without saying, however, that no thoughtful citizen, public or private, was calling for inaction on Saddam Hussein's regime in October 2002. What thoughtful citizens were calling for, as I did in my own statement on October 2, was a third alternative: containment in concert with the international community.

Here is what Senator McCain said about this option on October 11, 2002:

"The withering under U.N. Security Council auspices of the international inspections regime over the course of a decade, and Iraq's decision to even consider renewed inspections only under threat of force today, make clear that unvarnished faith in the ability of the U.N. Security Council or a new corps of inspectors to disarm Saddam's regime is misplaced."

And in a February 13, 2003 speech, just over a month before the invasion, the Senator reiterated his rejection of containment as a viable alternative to war:

“The threat posed by Saddam Hussein will not diminish until he is removed from power. Disarmament by regime change must be our goal. After one war, twelve years, seventeen Security Council resolutions, various bombing campaigns, the threat of a new war, and the continuing expansion of Saddam’s stockpile of devastating weaponry, placing hope in containment as a means to diminish Iraq’s threat to its neighbors and the world flies in the face of history and ignores the obvious consequences of abdicating to his allies now. Rather than keeping Saddam in a box, an anachronistic attachment to a once effective doctrine actually constrains the United States.

Do Inspections Work?

Let's look at the historical context in which these statements were made.

It is true, as Senator McCain said, that the inspections regime imposed on Saddam Hussein by the Security Council following his 1991 defeat in the Gulf War withered during the course of the decade. As Saddam engaged in an increasingly defiant cat-and-mouse game with the inspectors, the political will of the Council weakened. Other agendas prevailed, perhaps because member states no longer took Saddam Hussein seriously as a threat to regional security.

The crucial fact, however, is that during the period from 1991-1998, when UN inspectors were active on the ground in Iraq, and notwithstanding Saddam's cat-and-mouse game, the inspectors successfully tracked down and destroyed every vestige of the WMD program that Saddam had been pursuing prior to his invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Then came 9/11. One of the things that day changed most dramatically was the political will of the Security Council, first in its immediate and unanimous support for the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, and a year later in its unanimous support for Resolution 1441. This resolution demanded that Saddam Hussein comply fully with all previous Security Council resolutions, and grant unrestricted access to all suspected WMD sites to a UN inspections team headed by Hans Blix, or face "serious consequences."

Blix's team returned to Iraq on November 27, 2002, and on February 14, February 24 and March 7, 2003, Blix reported that he had found no evidence of any active WMD program in Iraq.

At this moment, Senator McCain and the administration committed the second major error of judgment for which history will hold them accountable. Having rejected "unvarnished faith" in UN inspections as misplaced, Senator McCain sided with the administration in opposing the international community's consensus that Blix's conclusions should be endorsed, that his work should continue, and that "serious consequences" should not be imposed unless and until Blix found evidence that Saddam Hussein's WMD program was indeed alive and threatening.

I ask the voters to ask themselves and Senator McCain these questions: given the demonstrated success of UN inspections in detecting and eliminating Saddam's WMD program in 1991-98, even in the face of systematic efforts by Saddam to hobble the inspectors, why would we not have confidence in Hans Blix in 2003 when Saddam was being far more cooperative? What are we to make of Senator McCain's evocation on February 13, 2003 of "the continuing expansion of Saddam’s stockpile of devastating weaponry"? What are we to make of his contention that "placing hope in containment as a means to diminish Iraq’s threat to its neighbors and the world flies in the face of history"?

Here is what I make of these statements. Senator McCain has been proven wrong not only in hindsight. He was also wrong in February 2003 without the benefit of hindsight. At that time the efficacy of UN inspections in Iraq had been proven. By 1998, UNSCOM inspections had been so successful in identifying and eliminating Saddam's WMD programs that he decided to push UNSCOM out. Containment had worked well so long as the Security Council showed resolve, and had failed only when resolve had withered. In February 2003, Security Council resolve was stronger than ever, and there was every reason to believe that containment would succeed.

Tragically, at this moment Senator McCain and the Bush administration chose to turn their backs on the policy of containment based on inspections, rejected the resolve of the international community to support this policy, gave Hans Blix 48 hours to leave Iraq, gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to resign, and then invaded the country. Senator McCain's final pre-invasion statement, on March 19, 2003, included these words:

"I believe the President of the United States has done everything necessary and has exercised every option short of war, which has led us to the point we are today. I believe that, obviously, we will remove a threat to America's national security because we will find there are still massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

My final question to Senator McCain on this issue is this: do you still maintain that on March 19, 2003, the President of the United States had exercised every option short of war?

How Many Troops Does it Take to Win?

Senator McCain's judgment in the past on the question of troop levels must also be challenged. Senator McCain credits himself with being an early critic of the administration for failing to put enough troops on the ground in Iraq. The record shows, however, that Senator's criticism did not come early enough. For example, he said not a word when General Eric Shinseki testified before him on February 25, 2003 that the Pentagon's plan to invade Iraq with only 100,000 troops was short by a factor of three or four. Not until eight months later, as the insurgency was gathering strength, did Senator McCain begin to call for higher troop levels.

On October 2, 2002 I said, "the invasion of Iraq would be a war of undetermined length, undetermined cost, and undetermined consequences." These uncertainties didn't bother Senator McCain very much as he urged the nation to go to war, just as they didn't bother President Bush, Vice President Cheney, or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. But if General Shinseki had been testifying before me, I would have asked this: "How confident are you that, if we invade with 400,000 rather 100,000 troops, we will succeed in stabilizing Iraq within the 3-6 months time the administration expects?" And if General Shinseki had answered this question with the candor and intelligence he is credited with, he would have replied, "I really have no idea. As a student of military history, I only know that the phrase 'military planning' is an oxymoron after the first 90 minutes of any armed conflict."

The Mind of the Hob-Goblin

I would now like to say something about my own past positions on Iraq.

Writing in the April 2008 issue of Commentary, a former Bush White House aide argues that my position on the Iraq war has been inconsistent. The writer points out correctly that, although I had opposed the war in the fall of 2002, by July 2004 I was saying that I was aligned with the President in opposing calls to bring the troops home.

When I read the Commentary article, I understood for the first time the true meaning of the phrase "consistency is the hob-goblin of small minds." The author of the article apparently believes that if you were opposed to the invasion in 2002 because you foresaw really bad consequences, then you are inconsistent if you do not continue to demand immediate withdrawal every day after the invasion, even if you realize the consequences of this could be disastrous. If, having opposed the invasion in the first place, it was inconsistent for me to oppose precipitous withdrawal 16 months later, then fine, call me inconsistent. But I call it common sense. The consistency that the Commentary writer seems to see as a virtue -- come what may, never change your thinking, and never change course -- is in reality merely the stupidity of the small mind.

By October 2006, after 43 months of war, there was no sign that the Iraqi political class were going to take responsibility for saving their country from failure. There was no sign that the billions of dollars Americans were borrowing and spending was having any positive impact on Iraq's shattered social and political infrastructure, and no sign that sectarian bloodletting would end until the sects had finished the job of separation and cleansing. As a result, I had decided by October 2006 that the Administration's vision of a stable, democratic, inclusive Iraq would remain a fantasy for the foreseeable future. And so my position changed again. I decided it was time to leave.

According to the Commentary writer, this was another flip-flop, further evidence that I really don't know what I think about Iraq and never have, that I decide my positions only by reading the polls. There is of course a better explanation for why I decided in October 2006 that it was no longer wise to stay the course in Iraq. Unlike Senator McCain and the Bush White House, frozen in their "stay the course" mentality, I saw proof in the prolonged failure of the Iraqi politicians that, whether or not additional troops might improve the security situation somewhat, a surge would do nothing to remedy Iraq's political failure or the social and economic failure it has produced.

And there was the question of cost. I do not accept Senator McCain's "whatever the cost" view of America's military engagement in Iraq. Responsible public policy-makers do not ignore costs. Since we surged in March 2007, 763 Americans have died, 5000 American troops have had their lives shattered by crippling injuries, the US Treasury has borrowed $150 billion more to fund the effort. And no serious economist thinks these accounts reckon with half or even a quarter of the true future cost to the American taxpayer of what has been done during the last 12 months.

I therefore decided that the cost to America -- 3 dead soldiers and $400 million every day -- was no longer worth paying. Commentary may call this inconsistent, but I call it smart. Commentary may call it consistent to stay the course, regardless of costs, regardless of facts, but I call it stupid.

Has the Surge Worked?

In April of 2008, Senator McCain and other administration supporters claim that the surge has succeeded, and that this proves that the Senator was right and I was wrong when he supported and I opposed the surge when it was debated in Congress in January 2007.

In that debate, Senator McCain and other supporters made the case that more troops would reduce the level of violence, and that reduced violence would lead to political and social reconciliation, economic rejuvenation, and save Iraq from failure.

What has been the result? In the post-surge stalemate, violent attacks by militias and insurgents have dropped by about two-thirds, and now remained at the level that prevailed in 2004-5. Of course, the drop must also be attributed to the US military having put 80,000 Sunni insurgents on the payroll, Moqtada al-Sadr's cease-fire, and the fact that after four and half years of ethnic cleansing, very few mixed neighborhoods are left in Iraq.

In any event, in post-surge Iraq an average of one American solider is dying every day, while around eight soldiers are suffering life-shattering disabilities. Politically, socially and economically, Iraq remains a failed state, with no meaningful difference between pre-and post-surge Iraq in any domain of the lives of the Iraqi people. The benefits from improved security which Senator McCain and the other surge supporters told us to expect have simply not materialized.

These facts leave me wondering why the administration and Senator McCain maintain that the surge has worked. If the surge was merely meant to reduce the level of sectarian and insurgent attacks and American casualties to the 2005 level, well OK, I guess you could say it has worked. But this is not the definition of success that Senator McCain asserted in pushing for the surge. That definition included the broader goal of rehabilitating Iraq so that it could no longer be described as a failed state. And by every measure I can think of, over a year after the surge began, Iraq remains a failed state. In January 2007 I argued that the surge would bring the Iraqis no closer to the political and social reconciliation without which Iraq will remain a failed state, and that Americans should not be asked to die and borrow more billions of dollars while waiting for the Iraqi political class to overcome its failure. The record shows that I was right, and Senator McCain was wrong.

What Now?

The picture of consistently flawed judgment and blinkered mind-set that emerges from this review of Senator McCain's record on Iraq is not irrelevant to this campaign. The voters should bear this record in mind in deciding whether to accept Senator McCain's claim that, because he has more years of experience than me in foreign and national security policy-making, as commander in chief he would be more likely to make the right choices on what to do now in Iraq.

Today Senator McCain says that it would be a betrayal of the Iraqi people for America to withdraw before defeating the insurgents. I strongly disagree.

The Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power was a colossal error of mis-judgment on the part of those responsible for protecting the best interests of the American people. However, this decision was potentially a gift of enormous magnitude for the Iraqi people. In an effort to make good on this potential, over five years America has suffered 4000 dead soldiers, tens of thousands soldiers disabled in combat, and has taken out a $1 trillion mortgage which its children will have to pay off. All of this has been in a principled effort to make Iraq something other than the failed state presided over by Saddam Hussein.

Tragically, America's gift of removing Saddam Hussein, and our aspirations and those of the Iraqi people for a new Iraq based on tolerance, democracy, the rule of law and human rights have been betrayed by Iraq's political class. Responsibility for the failure of Iraq and betrayal of its people has passed from Saddam Hussein to the al-Sistanis, the al-Malikis, the al-Hakims, the al-Sadrs, the al-Hashimis, the Barzanis, the Chalabis, and the other Iraqi politicians who are incapable of putting country before tribe, clan or sect.

So this is why I disagree with Senator McCain. America can and should leave Iraq now with its head held high. Despite enormous American sacrifices, Iraq is a failed state that has been betrayed by its political classes. But to call American withdrawal a betrayal by America is completely misplaced, and just plain wrong.

al Qaida in Iraq: What is Wrong With This Picture?

Senator McCain characterizes my proposal to withdraw American troops from Iraq by the end of 2009 as a proposal for "surrender" in the war on terror. He believes that Iraq is the front line in this war, and that American withdrawal would be a victory for al-Qaida and other extremists. In Senator McCain's vision, an emboldened al Qaida would use training camps in Iraq to launch terrorist attacks against America and Europe. In the picture he sees, there would be a surge in sectarian violence following the withdrawal of American troops, prompting Iraq's neighbours to intervene, and igniting war throughout the region.

What is wrong with this picture? Just as Senator McCain's past vision in Iraq was blinkered and flawed, so is his vision for the future. To understand what is wrong with the picture as seen by Senator McCain, let's begin with his analysis of al Qaida.

Early in this campaign I said that if Al Qaida were to use Iraq as a base for training terrorists to attack the USA or other countries, as president I would take military action to eliminate the threat. In response, Senator McCain made a frivolous remark, suggesting that I may not be aware that Al Qaida is already in Iraq. The subject of Al Qaida deserves a more serious and reasoned debate in this campaign. I will open that here, and I challenge Senator McCain to respond to what I have to say on this subject.

As Senator McCain is aware, the organization that calls itself Al Qaida in Iraq, or Al Qaida in Mesopotamia, consists of Iraqi insurgents led by non-Iraqi Islamic extremists. Its objectives are to kill American soldiers in Iraq and drive American forces from the country, to foment sectarian violence so as to prevent the emergence of a stable democracy, and to establish instead a theocracy based on the most extreme version of Islamic law . The organization pays homage to Osama bin Laden, but it takes orders from no-one other than its own leadership in Iraq. It did not exist before the USA invaded, but arose in reaction to the invasion.

Senator McCain is not aware, apparently, that al Qaida's adherents are Sunni, making this organization a natural enemy of Iran. The Senator has repeatedly stated that Iran is training al-Qaida in Iraq, without offering a shred of supporting evidence, and in defiance of the unanimous opinion of every serious student of the contemporary Middle East, all of whom understand that Shiite Iran is not training and would not train al Sunni al Qaida in Iraq.

Why would the Senator persist in asserting what everyone else knows to be false? The answer is that when the possible threats to our national security are being debated, Senator McCain is not all that interested in facts or analysis. He would prefer to make policy based on his hunches, because he believes he knows evil when he sees it. This was Senator McCain's mind-set in the Iraq debate in the fall of 2002, and it remains his mind-set today.

So what would the withdrawal of American troops mean for al Qaida in Iraq? The same thing that turning off the oxygen means for fire. The only thing that al Qaida in Iraq offers the Sunni insurgency is support in their fight to eject American troops from the country. Once the Americans are gone, the Sunni insurgency would no longer have any use for al Qaida, especially its non-Iraqi leadership. Sickened by al Qaida's methods, the Sunni insurgents began to become disaffected with al Qaida in the summer of 2007. Following an American withdrawal, this disaffection will quickly turn to total rejection. The Iraqis who joined al Qaida in order to drive Americans out of Iraq will not move to training camps in Anbar province to plot terrorist attacks against London and New York. They will turn their attention to what is and always has been their more fundamental struggle since the day Saddam Hussein was overthrown -- the civil war against the Shiites.

Senator McCain cannot understand this. He thinks that if we withdraw our troops before having destroyed al Qaida in Iraq -- what he calls "surrender" -- this will be a victory for al Qaida in Iraq, and victory will make al Qaida stronger. The Senator does not understand that such a "victory," if that is what you want to call it, will make al Qaida weaker.

Another False Choice

Unfortunately, it is likely that the Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq will continue after our troops are withdrawn, as will the equally brutal wars between the different Shiite factions. For how long and at what level of intensity these wars will continue is and will always be the responsibility of the Iraqi politicians who, up to now, have shown no will to resolve their conflicts. Unlike Senator McCain, I do not think it is any longer the responsibility of American soldiers and taxpayers to pay the price for this failure.

Another thing that is wrong with Senator McCain's picture of what will happen if American troops are withdrawn before defeating the insurgency is this. The Senator believes that without American troops to keep the peace, Turkey will invade Kurdish Iraq, Saudi Arabia will invade Shiite Iraq, and Iran will invade Sunni Iraq. The region will be engulfed in war, oil supplies will be massively disrupted, wrecking the world economy.

So, to avoid this doomsday scenario, Senator McCain thinks it wiser, every day for the indefinite future and for the years to come if need be, to spend one American soldier's life, to shatter 10 other soldiers' lives with debilitating physical injures and 175 with enduring mental illness, and to borrow $400 million that future generations of Americans will have to repay. Every day.

The Senator's doomsday scenario is another example of his bad habit of thinking about international security issues in terms of false choices.

Let's start with Turkey and Saudia Arabia -- two close allies to whom America supplies massive amounts of weapons. I would suggest to Senator McCain that that there is another and better way to dissuade these two allies from invading Iraq than to pay the price of maintaining 140,000 American troops in Iraq. It is to tell these allies to keep their armies out of Iraq, or else live to regret the consequences for their relationship with America.

If Senator McCain doesn't believe Turkey's political and military leaders will take guidance from America on this, he wasn't watching what happened at the Turkish border with Kurdish Iraq over the winter of 2007-8. As for Saudi Arabia, the Senator ought to realize that the Saudi's simply don't have armed forces capable of offensive action in Iraq, even if the Kingdom were foolish enough to want to invade.

The Great Satan

That leaves Iran. I have already pointed out Senator McCain's inability to think clearly about Iran as shown by his contention that Shiite Iran is training Sunni al-Qaida in Iraq. And the Senator also believes that the early withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will allow Iran to broaden and deepen its influence in the region, an eventuality so threatening to America that the Senator believes it is worth paying the cost of maintaining 140,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely to prevent it.

Well, I have news for Senator McCain: Iran's influence in Iraq is already about as broad and deep as could be. As a result of America's invasion, Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime was replaced by a regime made up of three or four Iraqi Shiite factions, each of which has closer ties to Shiite Iran than to Sunni Iraq. The idea that Iran would have anything further to gain by sending its army into Iraq is simply nonsense.

But Senator McCain cannot shake the idea of Iran as an invader nation from his mind any more than he can shake from his mind the idea that Iran is training al Qaida. Why not? The answer is that Senator McCain is possessed with the idea that Iran is the Great Satan. In the picture he sees, America needs to maintain a military presence in Iraq to dissuade Iran from adventuring forth in the region to threaten Israel and/or the oil-rich Arab states of the region.

To see what is wrong with this picture, ask yourself this question: which of the following states has sent its troops across a neighbor's border without provocation within the last 50 years: Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, or Egypt. The answer is all except Iran, who has not sent troops across a neighbour's border for hundreds of years, except when attacked first by Saddam Hussein.

Now ask Senator McCain this question: why are we so afraid of unprovoked Iranian aggression that we believe it is necessary for Americans to die and borrow billions to maintain troops in Iraq? Is this not an another example of the fear-mongering with which this Administration stampeded America to war against Iraq?

Senator McCain's answer is that we must fear Iran and presume its intentions to be aggressive because its leaders have vowed to wipe Israel off the map, and are pursuing nuclear weapons. To which I say that without a single American soldier in Iraq, America and Israel have about ten times as much military muscle as is required to dissuade Iran from any attempt to wipe Israel off the map militarily. If the Senator believes Americans should pay the cost of indefinite occupation of Iraq to achieve further deterrence of an Iranian invasion of Israel, then his ability to weigh costs and benefits in the realm of national security is seriously impaired

False Choices All Over Again

As for Iran's alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, once again Senator McCain indulges his bad habit of posing false choices on national security questions. The picture as seen by Senator McCain is this: "The only thing worse than military action against Iran is a nuclear-armed Iran." What is wrong with this picture? Does it remind you of "The dangers of inaction exceed the dangers of action"? In case you have forgotten, this was Dick Cheney in the fall of 2002. What is wrong with both pictures is that they pose a false choice between two really bad options, as if no better option existed.

The better option in 2002 that Cheney hoped you would not notice was to continue the information-gathering activities of Hans Blix's inspections team in Iraq. If Senator McCain had advocated this policy in preference to a policy of war in 2002, we would know today that Saddam Hussein was not a threat, 4000 brave Americans would not have been lost, 12,000 brave Americans would not have had their lives shattered by crippling injuries, $1 trillion would have been available for other priorities, including the fight against al Qaida in Afghanistan, and American moral leadership would still be recognized around the world.

And there is a better option today than war or a nuclear-armed Iran. It is to accept Iran's proposal for an international consortium to enrich uranium for nuclear reactor fuel at a facility to be built in Iran. Let me explain why.

Before 2003, IAEA inspectors were allowed only limited access to Iran's facilities. Iran was carrying out many parts of its nuclear program in secret, including uranium enrichment and there appears to be evidence of work on warhead design as well. In 2003, Iran confessed that it been carrying out nuclear research & development in secret, agreed to stop, and agreed to give the IAEA unlimited inspection rights to verify this. Between 2003 and 2006, the IAEA was able to verify that no non-peaceful activities were in progress.

At this point the Bush administration stubbornly refused to believe that the IAEA knew what it was talking about, and adopted instead a policy of confrontation and demonization, which was and still is firmly supported by Senator McCain. In what the administration referred to as "diplomacy," they told Iran that America would agree to talk with Iran about its uranium enrichment program if Iran would first and unconditionally concede all American demands to shut it down. At the same time, the administration pulled out all the stops in pressing the Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran.

As of result of this misguided policy, Iran withdrew permission for the IAEA to conduct unrestricted inspections at the end of 2006. The latest National Intelligence Estimate confirms that administration was wrong and the IAEA was right about the accuracy of IAEA findings during the 2003-6 period of unrestricted inspection. But as a consequence of the administration policy, we have blinded ourselves, and can now only speculate on what is going on with Iran's nuclear program. We no longer know with any certainty whether we can trust Iran's assertions that it seeks only peaceful uses of nuclear technology.

What strikes me here is the similarity between the blinkered strategic thinking that led America to invade Iraq in March 2003 and the blinkered strategic thinking that leads Senator McCain to say, "The only thing worse than military action against Iran is a nuclear-armed Iran." Is there not a better option? Of course there is.

Having blinded ourselves in this way, clearly the right policy now is one that will restore our vision. And the policy that will accomplish this is to accept Iran's proposal for uranium enrichment by an international consortium in Iran.

If Senator McCain joins the critics of this proposal, as I expect he will, he will say that this is a bad idea because it would give Iran know-how that can be used for a weapons program. He will say that as soon as Iran's technicians have mastered this know-how the regime will repudiate the deal and throw the consortium out. But he would be wrong, and here's why.

The IAEA and all independent experts in this field will tell Senator McCain that Iran has already mastered the know-how to make weapons-grade uranium if they decide to do so. The problems Iranian technicians are now working to solve are simply those that will allow Iran to enrich faster, whether for civilian use, or for weapons. The proposed consortium would therefore offer Iran no "break-through" or "break-out" nuclear know-how that it does not already possess.

To be clear, implementation of the enrichment consortium proposal will have to be carefully conditioned to assure that we know for certain if and when Iran decides to cross the line between reactor fuel production to weapons fuel production. This is a clear and bright line that the IAEA will have absolutely no difficulty in policing so long as Iran respects the rules which must be laid down. And the minute the IAEA has reason to believe the clear, bright line has been crossed, it will blow the whistle.

Until this whistle blows, the international community can be certain that Iran is not making nuclear weapons. If and when this whistle does blow, the international community will have uncontestable proof that Iran is making nuclear weapons, and can act accordingly. If weapons are what Iran wants, this policy will force Iran to abandon the deniability in which the misguided policy of the Bush administration, fully supported by Senator McCain, allows it to hide.

In closing, I would like to say this to the American people: in deciding whether to vote for me or Senator McCain to be the next President of the United States, one of the most important questions you must ask yourselves is which of us is better suited to be Commander in Chief, which of us will be better able to evaluate real or potential threats to our national security, and which of us will make better choices to manage those threats. I leave you with this question: given Senator McCain's record of misunderstanding the threat to America, choosing to make policy based on hunch rather than information, framing the issues in terms of false choices, and showing total disregard for cost and downside risk in weighing alternatives, do you really believe Senator McCain is the better man for the job of Commander in Chief?

I hope not.

Dan Badger

London

April 2, 2008