Soldier, soldier: has the new world of war passed you by?

The following was first published in The National on 26 June 2009.

To meet required budget cuts, the British ministry of defence is considering slashing the size of its standing army to its lowest level since the Crimean war in the 1850s. The ministry argues that this is the only way that it can preserve funding to maintain the country’s presence in Afghanistan. While the cuts are more a reflection of the global economic crisis than any nod to history, they are significant in a historical context.

The Crimean war is considered the first modern war. It marked the beginning of a new era in combat, drastically changing the way wars were fought. Major conflicts have a way of doing that: at some point technology surpasses the prevailing body of military scholarship and generals are often forced to learn and adapt to these changes on the battlefield, with bloody consequences.

The famous Charge of the Light Brigade demonstrated just how far strategic thinking lagged behind the realities of combat at the time. The British commander Lord Cardigan’s ill-advised charge on Russian gun emplacements at the Battle of Balaclava heralded the end of the horse cavalry. As the French Marshal Pierre Bosquet observed: “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. C’est de la folie.” The humiliating aftermath of Balaclava led the British to outlaw the sale of military commissions to salvage the nation’s military reputation. Likewise, the incoming army chief, General Sir David Richards, is determined to apply a “ruthless focus” on Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan, at the expense of its military capacity, to recover the nation’s tarnished military reputation.

But as with the so-called “riddle of the trenches” in the First World War, a stalemate where neither force can overcome the defences of the other, armies must constantly examine their tools and strategies or risk facing a situation for which they have no answer.

Ever since George Bush’s ill-fated declaration of an end to major combat operations in Iraq and the poorly conceived drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, the US and its allies have struggled to unravel their own riddle of the trenches: a Gordian knot of sectarian tensions and historic rivalries exacerbated by the presence of foreign troops and non-state actors such as al Qa’eda. To attempt to quell the violence, troops trained to kill more efficiently than their enemies were suddenly asked to perform duties more akin to police work and public diplomacy.

The lack of preparedness for the insurgencies in both countries, and the touting of such strategies as “shock and awe”, showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the threat environment. In a way, it is shock and awe itself that was the cause of the oversight. Military technology in the West has developed to a point at which waging conventional war on the West is suicide. The overwhelming military might of the US armed forces alone could wipe out nearly every combination of the world’s armies. But, in essence, trillions of US dollars and American ingenuity have resulted in solving the riddles of the last war, not the current one.

Nothing demonstrates this more than the US Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS). Launched in 2003, the programme aimed to create a hi-tech army in which a sophisticated digital communications network tied individual soldiers to a battery of sensors, unmanned aerial and ground vehicles and mobile artillery pieces, with the effect of greatly increasing that soldier’s lethal capacity. But the system was designed with large land battles in mind, which is not a threat the US currently faces. Both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have awoken the US in particular to the inadequacies of its tools. The foremost military power suddenly found itself on horseback facing an enemy it was not meant to fight.

Since 2006, the budget for FCS has been slashed and its goals scaled back; most importantly, funding for new self-propelled artillery has been ended altogether. Artillery is a tool used to wage war against other armies and ill-suited to fight insurgents who blend in with civilians. The US secretary of defence, Robert Gates, is also planning drastic cuts in the US Marine Corps’ troubled Osprey programme, the US Air Force’s next-generation fighter jet, the F-22, and portions of the US Navy’s fleet modernisation plan. Instead the focus has turned to low-cost, low-tech improvements to the ability of US forces.

The most famous example has been the current popularity of counterinsurgency. Insurgencies are nothing new, nor is the notion of counterinsurgency; or as it has come to be referred to in modern military parlance, Coin. But the application of its principles has done more to stabilise Iraq in the past two years than any previous effort by the US to kill or capture its way to victory. So, has the US discovered its blitzkrieg to the Taliban’s trenches? It is too early to tell.

It took four years in Iraq to discover a means to end a deadly cycle of sectarian violence. While in Afghanistan, the coalition has yet to discover a successful strategy after almost eight years. The US hopes that applying Coin principles that focus, among other things, on minimising civilian casualties and maximising population security will in time win the war against the Taliban. And since protecting the population means vast amounts of “boots on the ground” the US is signficantly increasing the size of its military forces. While it is demonstrably true that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have highlighted how poorly prepared the US and its allies were to fight what are sometimes termed small wars, the jury is still out on whether we have truly reached another Battle of Balaclava. What is clear is that US and western military might has changed the face of the battlefield and forced its foes to adapt to exploit weaknesses.

Yet, in the current environment, it seems unwise for the UK to reduce its forces. If it truly wishes to regain its damaged military prestige, and certainly the British have a long estabilished history of quelling insurgencies, then slashing the size of its army is the least best way of accomplishing this. Britain will find that its new wars look rather like its old wars.

The Taliban: if you’re not beating them, you’re losing

In late March, Barack Obama made his long-awaited speech on Afghanistan in which he framed what could be termed as the point of the war: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qa’eda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future.

He announced an increase of 17,000 combat troops to reinforce the roughly 60,000 Nato soldiers in Afghanistan, and an additional 4,000 to train the Afghan security forces. He called for a greater commitment from donor nations and Nato member states, for Pakistan to eliminate safe havens for Taliban militants along the country’s porous border with Afghanistan, and for an end to corruption in the Afghan government and greater oversight on reconstruction projects. In doing so, he hit all the right notes, but failed to address fully how the United States planned to accomplish this monumental task. One of the possible answers has just been provided by the Center for New American Security (CNAS), a new Washington-based think tank staffed by some of the foremost authorities on counterinsurgency.

That the Obama administration will pay close attention to the recommendations of CNAS is without doubt. Two of the report’s authors, David Kilcullen and Nathaniel Fick, helped General David Petraeus to write the US army’s new counterinsurgency field manual, as did the group’s president, John Nagl.

The report, entitled Triage: The next twelve months in Afghanistan and Pakistan, paints a dire picture of the state of the war. Civilian casualties are rising (up 41 per cent from 2007), as are the number of attacks (550 a day in 2007 compared with 50 per day in 2002). The Taliban now operate in three quarters of Afghanistan’s 400 districts, up from half last year. Meanwhile approval ratings for the Afghan government have plummeted from 80 per cent in 2005, after the last elections, to 49 per cent (little wonder when the country is 176th on Transparency International’s list of the world’s 180 most corrupt countries). The report’s authors observe: “In counterinsurgency campaigns, if you are not winning, then you are losing.” By all possible measures, the US and its allies are most certainly not winning.

The purported intent of the report is not to reverse these trends but to stabilise the losses. As the title suggests, the authors advise that the US prioritise its goals over the next year to avoid losing any more ground to the Taliban and provide a stable platform for the upcoming Afghan elections. In Afghanistan this means focusing on securing as much of the population as possible, with the implication that there will be portions of the country conceded to the Taliban: the report goes so far as to suggest one particular area, the Korengal valley, dubbed the Valley of Death by American troops, sparsely populated but the site of near constant fighting.

The report argues that the potential Taliban propaganda victory of a troop withdrawal is outweighed by the disproportionate cost of securing the area. This recommendation is undeniably harsh, since it means abandoning Afghans, even temporarily, to the Taliban. But, ultimately, an end to the fighting will probably result in an immediate improved quality of life for those people, albeit under the eyes of an oppressive Taliban leadership.

The second recommendation is to take advantage of the so-called civilian surge announced by Mr Obama to impose greater transparency on the Afghan government by embedding experts within the various ministries. With the majority of Afghans feeling little confidence in the central government, efforts must be made to improve its image – not through propaganda but with demonstrable improvements in governance.

As the report argues, the US should not tie these efforts to any particular Afghan administration and should carry on the efforts until and after the presidential elections in August. Accomplishing this will require co-ordination with the US’s often unwilling allies. In particular, talking the Europeans into signing up to this plan will require much persuasion from the Obama administration. Past efforts by European partners, namely the police training programme, have either been sidelined or duplicated by the Americans out of an insufficient commitment from Europe or disagreements over the manner in which the programme is conducted. Nevertheless, the US would be hard pressed to carry out both the military and political aspects of the war on its own, so its allies must step up.

The options for the deteriorating situation in Pakistan are much less clear. The military cannot simply cross the Durand line into the territory of a US ally to eliminate Taliban safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas. But there are things the US can stop doing to make the situation “less worse”. For instance, the US air campaign by unmanned drones kills more civilians than militants, even if, as the US contends, the Taliban inflates the number of innocent deaths. Additionally, these strikes are deeply unpopular in Pakistan and decrease popular support for the nation’s involvement in the US’s campaign against the Taliban.

That may be changing. The spread of the Taliban into the Northwest Frontier Province alarmed many Pakistanis, and the nation’s campaign against the militants enjoys widespread support. If for no other reason, the US should halt its air strikes to capitalise on the current anti-Taliban sentiment.

The report’s authors differ slightly on this issue. They see the Pakistani military’s tactics as counterproductive. While they would undoubtedly agree that the Taliban must be ousted from Pakistan, they do not think that the country’s military is up to the task – so much so that they call for an end to US military support for Pakistan, arguing: “Regardless of whether Pakistan’s military is incompetent or in collusion with the Taliban, it makes little sense to continue to devote such a high percentage of US aid to an ineffective force when other options exist.” The other option is the police, and the report argues for greater funding for them.

None of these recommendations is a recipe for defeating the Taliban. Instead they are the first steps on the road to not losing. But the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan has deteriorated to the point where that is the best the US can hope for in the immediate future.

Beware the troop surge … Afghanistan is not Iraq

The following was first published by The National on January 6, 2009

The number of US troops in Afghanistan will almost double in the coming months as part of a new military strategy to win the war. US military commanders hope to apply the “surge” strategy that proved so effective in turning the tide of the war in Iraq.

A massive increase in the number of soldiers there allowed the coalition forces not only to attack the insurgents, but also to prevent them from returning once they were driven out. Since the US faces the same issues in Afghanistan as in Iraq because of insufficient troop numbers, the reasoning is that a similar surge will have the same effect. Additionally, the US hopes to replicate the highly successful tribal militia system that was the key to driving al Qa’eda out of Iraq. But it will face its stiffest opposition to this new strategy from the Afghan government itself.
In a recent interview President Hamid Karzai spoke out strongly against both a surge and the creation of tribal militias. He has been voicing his disapproval for the past few years at the increasing civilian casualties caused by coalition airstrikes, and has condemned any potential intensification in the fighting inside Afghanistan itself. With more than 6,000 Afghan civilians killed since the beginning of the war, most of them by coalition forces, Mr Karzai’s reluctance to see a resurgence in violence is understandable.
But few people are listening to him any more, least of all the Americans. He has been derisively referred to as “the mayor of Kabul” since he assumed the presidency in 2002. The central government has never been able to extend its influence far beyond the capital and in the past two years it has lost what little authority and credibility it had in the face of continued civilian deaths, ineffective civil institutions and a resurrected Taliban. In his defence, Mr Karzai warned the US for years that the Taliban was not defeated, that stagnant reconstruction efforts risked alienating the Afghan people against their government, and that warlords hired by the US to help to fight the Taliban used brutal tactics that only increased support for the insurgency. He has instead called for reconciliation talks with the Taliban and for any new fighting to be directed at militant safe havens in the southern Helmand province and in Pakistan.

The US will probably pay no more heed to the concerns of Mr Karzai than it did in the first seven years of the occupation. However, that does not mean that his warnings should be ignored. Such a drastic increase in foreign troops will spell a new period of heightened violence, and civilian casualties would spike as a result. It should be remembered that it was the desire for peace that first led the Afghan people to embrace the Taliban during the civil war that erupted in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. With the Taliban in effective control of much of Afghanistan’s south, some semblance of normal life has begun to emerge for those people — albeit under the watchful eyes of an intolerant regime. A resumption of hostilities may merely push Afghans further into the arms of the insurgency.
On the other hand, the Taliban are not a homogenous force of religious fundamentalist fighters. Rather, they are a loosely affiliated conglomerate of religious ideologues, tribal fighters, criminal gangs and nationalists. In its harshest form the Taliban cannot be allowed to control any segment of Afghanistan: nor should the horrors that the previous Taliban government inflicted on its people be forgotten, despite the current anarchy in the country. More moderate elements, however, can and should be approached by the US.
Reconciliation with more moderate segments of the Taliban should be the goal of US commanders rather than attempting to arm the tribes. Unlike in Iraq, the tribes of Afghanistan are fractured by decades of internecine fighting and power struggles. The Taliban exploit these tribal divisions and use them to recruit the disenfranchised. In other words, there is no internal coherence to the tribes that make their organisation into a militia significantly easier than grabbing a group of civilians off the streets of Kabul. And the end result would be to pit pro- and anti-Taliban elements of a tribe against one another rather than to co-opt former insurgents. This defeats the entire purpose of the tribal militia.
However, those elements of the Taliban that prove resistant to attempts to co-option and incorporation into the political structure will have to be fought and defeated. And this will undoubtedly require more troops. The Afghan national army would be the preferred tool, but it is currently too ill-equipped and poorly trained for the task. But any new offensive by foreign forces must be extremely mindful of civilian casualties, as every dead Afghan further alienates the population against the occupation.
In the end, the US and its allies must become better than the Taliban at providing what Afghans want: security. The coalition has thus far concentrated too much on the assassination of Taliban leadership and other military means of winning the war. But in doing so it is making the same mistakes made by countless occupiers of Afghanistan before it. The country has been under the dominion of nearly every great power in history. As a gateway between the East and West it has been a battlefield on which civilisations have fought for global and regional influence from far into antiquity.
No wonder, then, that Afghanistan is one of the most under-developed countries in the world, its potentially lucrative natural resources remain untapped, and so much of its population remains mired in poverty. George Bush probably knew little if anything of Afghanistan’s history when he overthrew the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and its Taliban rulers in 2001. Nor has the neglect of reconstruction efforts in the seven years since the occupation began shown that members of his administration are any better students of history. All the Afghans want is peace and a chance for a better life. The US has yet to give that to them, and until it does, America will be on the losing side of this war.

From Jimmy Choos to boys’ toys, men just make stuff better

The following was first published in The National on May 4, 2009

Like many men, I have often been bewildered by womankind’s love affair with the shoe. I have watched with fascination and frustration as otherwise perfectly sane human beings coo over footwear. While I am not immune to the allure of a pair of five-inch skyscraper heels, I am baffled by how they can dominate a woman’s attention and draw her unwavering affection in a way to which men can only aspire. They seem to enjoy the search as much as the acquisition. My father chalked this up to mankind’s cave-dwelling days, when the men would hunt woolly mammoth and the women would scour grocery stores looking for the best deals on roots and berries.

Women take particular pride in shopping for the best deal. It is an accepted axiom that for every man there is a woman telling him how much money she saved today. But in all fairness, men too have a love affair with “things”. We appreciate craftsmanship and have an eye for beauty. It’s no accident that so many men design the clothes that women covet.

I used this argument to explain to my girlfriend why I would be spending a day at the Big Boys Toys Super Show in Abu Dhabi last week, but she just rolled her eyes. No wonder it’s Christian and not Christine Louboutin, Jimmy and not Jemima Choo, Yves and not Eve Saint Laurent, I said: women just don’t get workmanship. Ask any man why a Ferrari is so appealing and he’ll talk about engines and suspension. Ask a woman and she’ll tell you it’s pretty and red.

For those who don’t know or are chromosomally challenged, the Big Boys Toys Super Show is a celebration of the best in four- and two-wheeled transportation, sound systems that need municipality approval to install and watercraft straight out of Q’s laboratory in a Bond movie. In short, stuff I can’t afford. But that’s not the point. Big Boys Toys is the Guggenheim for the gearhead.

Thousands of men shelled out up to Dh250 to pay homage to other men’s ingenuity. There were novelty acts, such as the Segway. No sane man would spend thousands of dollars for the privilege of looking ridiculous, but we sure want to ride on one.

Some exhibits defied rational explanation, such as the Swarovski crystal-encrusted, 18-carat gold-plated table football set. Or 18-carat gold laminated playing cards with poker chips bedazzled with crystals. These are items of conspicuous consumption that only a rap star could love. I fail to see how making something sparkle adds to its appeal, but then I don’t get Mark Rothko either. Yet enough people pay barrowloads of cash for both to make me think I’m missing out.

Less ambiguous were the motoring exhibits, from your run of the mill supercar to the elite of the elite: the one-of-a-kind Maxximus G-Force, the world’s fastest street legal car. Of course, when the car in question can carry only nine minutes’ worth of fuel, fastest and street legal become meaningless terms. But that does not detract from its appeal.

The brainchild of a chauffeur and a slightly mad philanthropist who bankrolled the project, the G-Force does 0-60 mph in 2.1 seconds (or, in Dubai, zero to wrapped round a lamppost in just under 5). Combine that speed with its retro appeal, and the G-Force made the assorted Ferraris, Porsches and even a Ford GT on display look like Volvos.

For those who find the four-wheeled demode, there was the T-Rex, a reverse trike driven by a 1,400cc motorcycle engine. It has the horsepower of a Lotus Elise but only half the weight. Driving one is supposed to be as thrilling as riding a superbike, but less likely to land you in traction.

For adrenalin junkies who relish the thought of reconstructive surgery, and brandish scars and hospital bills as receipts for a life well spent, the vehicles in the off-road section were a ticket to hair-raising, white-knuckled thrill rides. Custom-made desert buggies with 600hp engines promised to propel you over (and possibly through) sand dunes. Snowmobiles converted for use in the desert that accelerated from 0 to 100kph in 2.7 seconds offered tantalising brushes with death, if only you could hang on long enough. Since someone apparently bought nine, my investment tip of the week is to buy hospitals.

As great as Big Boys Toys was as a spectacle, it was more than that. It was a celebration of men’s technical skills and imagination, as well as their ability to make really poor financial decisions. However, in retrospect, drooling over the carbon-fibre bonnets of sports cars is no less mad than fondling a pair of satin pumps — although buying the latter is less likely to land you in the poorhouse. Maybe its real purpose was to make those half-priced stilettos appear reasonable by comparison. I bet the show’s organiser was a woman.

What Iraq needs now is a diplomatic surge

The following was first published in The National on April 22, 2009

The apparent success of the US troop “surge” in stabilising Iraq and the recent success in conducting provincial elections have been heralded as a turning point in the nation’s fortunes. Despite occasional outbreaks of violence, the activity of insurgents is greatly reduced in scope and ferocity. A sense of normal life is returning to many parts of the country. The temptation is to believe that Iraq has indeed turned a corner; that the population, tired of six years of war, is rejecting violence and choosing to settle its differences in the political arena. But appearances, as they so often tend to be, are deceptive.

Firstly, violence and the organised groups who perpetrate it have not disappeared. A bomb blast targets Shiites in Baghdad; a truck bomb targets US forces and Iraqi police in Mosul, where the remnants of al Qa’eda in Iraq operate; yet another in the troubled Diyala province, where Sunnis face off against Kurds in the ethnically mixed town of Baquba. All these attacks happened in the past month, showing that sectarian tensions still exist and manifest themselves violently.

Despite this, there appears to be truth to the claim that Iraq is rejecting violence as a means to control the destiny of the nation. The most powerful evidence for this belief, beyond the simple reduction in violence, is the enthusiasm with which the Iraqis have embraced the political process. Even in 2005, when security was far from guaranteed, Iraqis turned out in droves for the legislative elections. And the most recent provincial elections were an even greater success, with the Iraqi security forces, not the Americans, overseeing the security of millions of Iraqis queuing up to cast their votes.

Even the results tend to show that a sectarian Iraq made up of ethnically cleansed regions divided between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds is not what most people want. The prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, and his Dawa party made huge gains in the polls on a platform advocating an Iraq unified under a strong central government. The biggest losers were the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and the Kurds, both of whom have pushed for a loose federal structure.

The long-term implications for their defeat are not clear yet. One argument is that the victory of the Dawa party and its like-minded compatriots will allow for greater progress on vital parliamentary issues, such as a unified hydrocarbons law. Thus far, debate on these issues has been poisoned by the Kurds seeking to control the vast oil resources of the north and Shiites in Basra trying to reap the benefit of those in the South. This is entirely plausible.

The declining political power of the Kurds and secessionist-minded Shiites means that the current composition of the government could be upset and made to include Mr Maliki’s allies, rather than his rivals. But the true litmus test for the proponents of this belief will come in the national elections at the end of this year. If the trend towards greater centralisation continues, a likely scenario, then the blocks on productive parliamentary debate could indeed be removed.

This would not necessarily be a positive thing for Iraq. Already there are troubling signs that Mr Maliki is abusing his popular mandate to exploit his rivals’ weaknesses to the detriment of Iraq’s long-term security.

The greatest concern is the final status of Kirkuk in the north of Iraq. Claimed by the Kurds and sitting on 12 per cent of the country’s known oil reserves, the city and the province from which it takes its name have been embroiled in a bitter tug-of-war between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, Kurds and other non-Arab minorities were expelled from the city and the provincial lines were redrawn to create a de facto Arab majority in what was once a mainly Kurdish area. Thus the city of Kirkuk has taken on a Jerusalem-like status for the Kurds, symbolising the repression they suffered under the previous regime. So they are not likely to surrender their claims on the city, regardless of what the rest of the country may say in the polls.

Yesterday, the United Nations delivered a report on Kirkuk to Baghdad, which according to western government sources advocates a set of power-sharing options for the province and the city. This is unlikely to please either the Kurds or Baghdad.

The Kurds already feel betrayed that both Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution and its predecessor, Article 58 of the Transitional Administration Law that called for a reversal of the ethnic cleansing of Kirkuk and a referendum on the final status of the city and province, were never implemented. The UN report will only cement in the minds of the Kurdish leadership that their dreams of a Kirkuk incorporated into an autonomous Kurdish region are becoming increasingly distant.

Yet a compromise must be struck. The Kurds must understand that their vision of a Kurdish nation are not realistic and their continued intransigence only weakens their position in the long term. Iraqis are tired of the fruitless debate and the citizens of Kirkuk, which has not received the reconstruction funds it desperately needs because of the uncertainty about its future, want progress and care less about the ideological considerations.

For his part, Mr Maliki must not be too emboldened by his recent successes, Iraq is increasingly secure and his ability to boost the authority of the central government is indeed impressive; but Iraqis do not want another strong man, they want a unifier. And unity between the various sects, ethnicities and interests means compromise.

Finally, the United States must do more to shepherd the parties through this debate. Until now, it has preferred to leave it in the hands of the United Nations to foster agreement, but the UN lacks the clout to do so. It was a brave decision to provide the additional troops needed to quell the growing violence in Iraq in 2007. Perhaps it is time for an equally brave move to commit diplomatic resources to the debate over Kirkuk — a diplomatic surge, if you will.

'You have to solve Kirkuk'

The following was first published as part of a series on foreign policy challenges facing Barack Obama for The National on February 7, 2009

The provincial elections held a week ago in Iraq were hailed by both Iraqis and the international community as a success and a sign of the country’s growing stability. Despite rising levels of violence leading up to election day, the day itself was largely quiet. An estimated 60 per cent of the country’s voting population came out to participate in the democratic process, despite fears that violence would keep most people at home.

The elections were also a litmus test for Barack Obama’s withdrawal plan for the US military. With the elections successfully held under the eyes of Iraqi, not US, security forces, and the defeated parties largely accepting their losses in the polls, there are increasing signs that security is improving.

The elation in Washington was evident in the congratulations issued by senior military and diplomatic personnel. Gen David Petraeus, who had long warned that security gains in Iraq were “fragile and reversible”, lauded “the millions of Iraqi citizens who exercised their fundamental right to self-determination”. Gen Raymond Odierno, the commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the most recent US ambassador to Iraq, issued a joint statement saying: “Iraqi security forces successfully protected millions of Iraqis and enabled them to express their opinions freely in 14 of Iraq’s governates.”

Yet, despite the flurry of well-wishes and sighs of relief from the US leadership, Gen Odierno and Mr Crocker’s statements are telling: Iraq has 18 provinces. The remaining four were not included in this round of elections, nor is there any prospects for their inclusion in the near future.

This is because they are embroiled in controversy between an increasingly assertive central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which wants to enfold these provinces into an autonomous Kurdish region. At the centre of the debate is Kirkuk province, which sits on about 13 per cent of Iraq’s oil reserves.

But for the Kurds, the fight over Kirkuk is about much more than oil. “Kirkuk has become an emotional issue for the Kurds,” said Dr Henri Barkey, the chairman of the International Relations department at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania.

Under the previous Baathist regime, Kurds were ethnically cleansed from the province under a policy of Arabisation.

In the 1970s, more than 100,00 non-Arab minorities, including the Kurds, were expelled from their homes in the capital city Kirkuk, after which the province is named, to make room for Arab oilfield workers, mostly Shia Iraqis.

“Districts in the province with predominantly Kurdish and Turkomen populations were folded into neighbouring provinces, and Arab districts in other provinces were joined up with Kirkuk province,” said Dr Barkey. The new cleansed area was renamed At-Ta’mim, from the Arabic word for nationalisation.

Therefore, Kirkuk is seen as symbolic of the oppression they suffered under the previous regime. And to redress their grievances, they seek a “normalisation of the demographic balance”, according to Dr Michael Knights, the head of the Iraq programme at the Washington Institute for Near East studies. “Kirkuk [the city] has a Jerusalem-like status to the Kurds. It is a symbol of their national ambitions.”

For its part, the central government has resisted efforts by the Kurds to incorporate Kirkuk into an autonomous Kurdish region. The dispute in government over who will control this province has poisoned the debate on other essential political agreements such as a unified hydrocarbons law and a constitutional revision. In the current make-up of the central government, Kurds control the presidency and thus have veto power over all legislation. They have used this as a weapon to force concessions. As Mohammed Ihsan, the KRG minister for the extra-regional affairs, said in an interview with the International Crisis Group last year: “If I can’t have it my way, I’m going to block your way.”

When an initial provincial election law in Iraq was passed in 2008, which included a provision for power-sharing in Kirkuk, the Kurdish MPs walked out of the vote in protest. The measure was then vetoed by the president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. A subsequent attempt at passing the provincial law only succeeded when it was agreed that Kirkuk, and three other disputed territories, would be excluded.

The US largely has remained quiet in the debate, leaving the mediation to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), the body empowered by the UN Security Council to broker political reconciliation. According to Joost Hiltermann, the International Crisis Group’s deputy programme director for the region, the US merely wants a “peaceful settlement to the disputes”.

Most watching this appear to agree there is the potential for an outburst of hostility between the sides should the dispute go unresolved. No one feels the argument will explode imminently into armed conflict. As Dr Knights puts it: “This is not a fight between enemies.”

Yet he believes there is still the possibility of “scuffles that turn into gunfights or assassinations”.

Any breakdown in the security situation in Kirkuk would require the US or its allies in Iraq to step in, as the federal government is prevented from sending troops into the city under a long-standing memorandum of understanding.

Should Baghdad violate this agreement, the potential for open hostilities would become that much greater, and, according to Dr Knights, would risk a serious backlash from the US.

Despite the fact that Kirkuk was not included in the latest round of provincial elections, the results could have an impact on the debate. Dr Barkey believes that an “electoral victory for the nationalists would be a blow to Kurdish desires for greater autonomy”.

Initial results show gains for nationalist movements in Iraq, particularly for the candidates supported by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Dawa party.

Such success would mean a reconstitution of the balance of power in Baghdad. Mr Maliki’s current coalition includes the Kurds and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), a Shiite party with a federalist agenda for southern Iraq.

If there are significant nationalist gains in the provincial polls, then “Maliki may not need the Kurds and the ISCI”.

Yet, such a victory will not lead to a resolution on Kirkuk. It may, however, push the Kurds to the bargaining table.

The International Crisis Group has pushed for a grand bargain on the disputed territories, in which autonomy for the Kurds, particularly in the development of its oil reserves, would be exchanged for a delay on the status of Kirkuk.

However, both Drs Barkey and Knights believe this is a mistake.

Dr Barkey said: “Kurds immediately rejected the ICG report, because they don’t want to trade oil for soil. The territories are more important to them.”

Dr Knights sees the Kurdish intransigence as a political manoeuvre. “There will be no grand bargain, because the Kurds cannot afford to back down. The government holds all the cards.”

With the region reliant on money from Baghdad to fund administrative services and pay security forces, “the only card the Kurds hold in the debate is physical control of the territories”. Both men still believe that the Kurds are open for negotiations on the status of the disputed territories, but “Kirkuk is where they will dig in”, said Dr Knights.

Dr Barkey believes a dual bargain must be struck. In the city itself, there will probably be “a Brussels-like solution” where the city is given a separate standing. “But in the end, if you want the Kurds to remain in Iraq, you have to give them territory.”

Dr Knights is more circumspect about a debate that “has been going on for decades”. He sees the core of the issue being in the powers allocated to provinces such as Kirkuk. While stronger provincial powers would allow Kirkuk to function as a special region outside the KRG and the federal area, “the indications are pointing to rapid re-centralisation, whereas the provincial councils are increasingly dependent on the federal government.

In the end, Dr Knights feels the parliamentary elections later this year will be more telling. “They will be more democratic and harder to control.”

Yet, the debate will rage on, because, according to Dr Barkey, the Kurds will not relinquish their claims. “One way or another, you have to solve Kirkuk.”

Security at the mercy of greed

The following was first published as part of a series on foreign policy challenges facing Barack Obama for The National on January 31, 2009

Barack Obama has made securing Afghanistan the central pillar of his administration’s foreign policy platform. His decision to appoint Richard Holbrooke, a widely respected US diplomat, as his special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan emphasises the administration’s concern for the deteriorating security situation in the region.

Yet, according to many experts, US efforts in Afghanistan have focused too much on fighting the Taliban to the detriment of other more urgent needs, such as establishing security. They have urged Mr Obama to refocus US efforts or risk losing the war.

For many Afghans their greatest concern is not the Taliban, but the rising crime rate. Murder, kidnapping and sexual assault are on the rise and without a competent police force the central government cannot adequately protect its citizens.

The efforts to field a modern, professional force is plagued by numerous issues, but insufficient training, poor morale and lack of pay are some of the key problems.

Although statistics are hard to come by, Joanna Nathan, the senior analyst at the Kabul office of the International Crisis Group (ICG), said that even “the perceptions of a crime wave in Kabul, Kandahar and Herat” are enough to alienate the Afghan population from their government.

“These are major population centres filled with people who have no love of the Taliban, but they are growing increasingly disillusioned when they perceive that the government is not able to protect them from criminals.”

According to Ms Nathan, without the ability to provide security, “the central authorities cannot perform the basic function upon which government legitimacy rests”.

Part of the problem arises from the lack of co-ordination between the countries involved in Afghanistan. The majority of police training efforts are led by the United States; however, the European Union and other coalition partners have parallel programmes of their own. According to the ICG’s analysis of the training programmes, this multiplicity of efforts is expanding, compounding the problem.

Risto Lammi, the head of the International Policing Co-ordination Board secretariat, the organisation attempting to co-ordinate the divergent programmes, said in an interview in October that the training efforts had “no definite, single umbrella or point with overall authority on police programmes and a chain of command with clear division of work [between the players].”

This has begun to change. The United States has funnelled US$3.8 billion (Dh14bn) into training efforts over the past two years, and there has been a greater push for co-ordination of programmes. In 2007, the International Policing Co-ordination Board was established to oversee all training efforts.

While such co-operative councils are vital, they do little to directly impact the concerns of ordinary Afghans. Instead, it has been the Focused District Development, a US programme to train, mentor and develop local police on a district by district basis that has been welcomed by most citizens.

The process involves taking the local police force out of the district for eight weeks of training. They return as an elite-style force named the Afghan Civil Order Police.

The programme has worked so well that locals often beg to keep the retrained force in their district, according to Sloan Mann, the managing director of Development Transformations, a company that specialises in civilian-military integration.

However, according to the ICG’s Ms Nathan, district-by-district training is “the start – not the end – of a process”. Unless accompanied by the “political will from the top to change things and really tackle corrupt systems and abusive leaders”, this mentoring programme will fall short of what is needed to protect the civilian population, she said.

Dr Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institute, agrees that the challenge for the new US administration and the Afghan government will be tackling “corruption, low salaries, poor equipment and poor leadership” in the police.

Police chiefs are often political appointees who exploit their position and their subordinates for personal gain, said Mr Mann, who, prior to establishing Development Transformations, was a development adviser with the United States Agency for International Development attached to the US Special Forces command.

Mr Mann said he had heard of several police chiefs in Farah, Oruzgan, Kandahar and Helmand provinces who were purportedly in command of up to 15 officers, but employed less than half that number, keeping the salaries of the rest.

Those police officers genuinely employed often have trouble receiving their pay on time, or at all.

For some officers, their only means of pay are ad hoc roadblocks where they demand tolls from lorry drivers.

Many are also reduced to making mafia-like demands of protection money from shopkeepers, which undermines their credibility with the local populace. “If the police are forced to steal from the people and not able to do their jobs, then we have a problem,” said Mr Mann.

With the odds stacked so high against the police, an entire culture must be adjusted before programmes such as the FDD can have their full intended effect. “It is no use simply training someone and sending them out into the same conditions,” said Ms Nathan.

The effects of corrupt bosses and insufficient support from the government have had a noticeable impact on morale. Attrition rates among the police force are around 21 per cent annually. Without pay, many are unable to afford to remain in the force or resort to bribe taking. Others become heroin addicts.

These all contribute to the poor reputation of the police and hamper recruiting efforts. And while there are some good and professional police in Afghanistan, they feel that “the system is stacked against them”, said Ms Nathan. “If corruption at the centre means that appointments are made for large bribes rather than merit, then they are undermined.”

The Taliban has used the perceived corruption in the police force to score propaganda victories. A proclamation from the spiritual head of the organisation, Mullah Omar, said: “If the police of a state consists of people who are immoral and irreligious, who are drug addicts and whom their families turn away, how can they protect the property, dignity and honour of the people?”

The insurgency makes a point to target the police during its raids, both because they view them as the more lightly armed and poorly trained element of the Afghan Security Forces, and because they are so widely reviled by Afghans. As a result, deaths among police from insurgent attacks are three times higher than in the army. According to the Commanding General of CSTC-A, Major Gen Robert Cone, 17 per cent of the police force is thought to be dead or wounded.

Violence is growing: 2008 was the deadliest year for US troops. A leaked draft of the latest US National Intelligence Estimate described the country as being in a “downwards spiral”.

The lack of effective policing means that many villagers are now looking to the Taliban to protect them and Mr Obama must make tackling security a top goal of any new strategy, Ms Nathan said.

What the Afghans want is protection from criminals, including those in their own government, she said.

Thus far, they still believe that the occupation forces are best equipped to accomplish this task. However, this goodwill is not infinite.

“The majority of people are still far more scared what would happen if the foreign forces left than if they stay,” said Ms Nathan.

“Harnessing this popular goodwill and making sure it is not lost any further is crucial.”