Month: December 2003

David Fromkin, who wrote a terrific book on Middle Eastern history over the past century titled “A Peace to End All Peace” (on my book list on the left, and you should buy it), wrote an article for today’s Los Angeles Times which intends to warn the US about repeating Britain’s mistakes in Iraq:

When the war ended, in 1918, the victorious British found themselves in possession, among other things, of the three Ottoman provinces that were later merged to form a single unitary state that was to be called Iraq.
In 1918 and 1919, its hour of triumph, the British Empire garrisoned the Middle East with an army of a million men. No other significant military force in the region could dispute Britain’s mastery. Iraq’s future seemingly was for Britain to determine. It is from Britain’s experience in that respect that Americans entering the year 2004 have so much to learn.

Fromkin’s piece reviews the early history of Iraq and Britain’s failure to finish the job in Iraq. In a way, this article has something to offer both proponents and opponents of the war, at least on practical grounds. Opponents can argue the futility of building a Western-style nation from fragmented Middle Eastern provinces and a certain inevitability of putative allies in the region to rebel against their sponsors. Proponents can argue for an extended military mission to ensure and protect the development of a friendly government.
However, 2003 is not 1918, and we are not the colonial British of yesteryear — in fact, the British today aren’t the colonial British of yesteryear, either. In reading Fromkin’s book and comparing it to his necessarily truncated history today (after all, the Times can’t reprint the entire last third of his book in its op-ed section), two major differences between yesterday and today are clear. In 1918, the British attempted to install a monarchy, choosing a military ally with little real attachment to the people of Mesopotamia, for their wider ambitions in Asia Minor. Prince Faisal had little support amongst the strangers in his new land for his rule, and the only way he could establish his authority was to unite the three provinces and the tribes on the one issue that they all supported: the end of British colonial rule. The people in the new nation of Iraq saw that Britain historically had conquered and stayed on to rule, either directly or through a protectorate, and did not want to experience that first-hand.
The second major difference, related to the first, was that Faisal was forced upon Iraq without much input from the Iraqis themselves. This may be somewhat parallel to the Iraqi Governing Council today, but the difference is that the IGC is a temporary executive, and it also reflects a variety of Iraqi voices and viewpoints. The IGC’s function is to establish the democratic institutions that will ensure that Iraqis are able to govern themselves, not be straitjacketed by a monarchy. While democracies often will produce leaders who we find less friendly to our interests than we would like — France being the prime example these days — the point in 2003 is not to install a puppet government that we can exploit, as it was in 1918. Democracy is an end in itself, in order to eliminate the oppression that breeds extremism and terrorism.
Fromkin raises several good points in this article, especially questioning our commitment to sticking around until the mission is really accomplished. Certainly, we also need to be careful to choose our friends wisely, and studying the history of this region and taking the proper lessons from it. It seems to me that in both Afghanistan and in Iraq, the US and UK have already demonstrated a basic grasp of history by refusing to take the easy route of reinstalling monarchies and attempting the more difficult task of building democracies in areas where none existed before. Will we make mistakes? Certainly, but we are fortunate to have David Fromkin with us to point out the land mines ahead of time, and hopefully we will avoid the most costly of them.

In France, there are travelers who are likely highly annoyed to be kept from being home at Christmas — but may be lucky to be alive:

The French government has canceled three Air France flights to Los Angeles, California, because of fears of a possible terrorist attack, the French Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
Air France flights 68 and 70 from Paris to Los Angeles and Flight 382 to Los Angeles via Cincinnati, Ohio, were listed as canceled Wednesday afternoon. The decision came after consultation between U.S. and French authorities, a senior U.S. official said.
News of the cancellations came as U.S. officials said a high volume of good-quality intelligence indicated that the al Qaeda terrorist network wants to attack the United States during the Christmas holiday.

No one will know for sure if these flights had been compromised by terrorists unless authorities were lucky or well-informed enough to capture specific suspects from the airports. It points out that jets are still high-value targets for terror groups, being guided missiles, and that we must remain vigilant about air transportation security.
UPDATE: Now there are six flights that have been cancelled, and frustration may be erupting because of this:

One U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. government had been trying to keep the negotiations with France confidential, “hoping that we would be able to lure some of these people in.”
The official said there was some frustration within the Department of Homeland Security that the flights were canceled, thus allowing the word to get out about the security concerns.

Bear in mind that preliminary reports of this nature are often inaccurate, but if the French pulled the trigger too quickly and let the suspects get away, you can bet there will be some heads rolling on Christmas morning. And there should be.
UPDATE 2: Keep checking The Command Post for updates on this story. Daniel Drezner has some analysis as well.
UPDATE 3: More from MS-NBC:

U.S. officials said the information indicated that al-Qaida planned to use foreign airliners as missiles. They said it appeared that Osama bin Laden personally approved the plan at a recent meeting. The officials said U.S. intelligence agencies had learned that al-Qaida operatives would try to fly hijacked foreign airliners into targets in the United States. In some instances, the intelligence is so detailed as to include specific flight numbers, they said.
The information was given more credence by U.S. officials because it came from two separate intelligence sources, the officials said. … Quoting unidentified Bush administration sources, the newspaper said that a small number of crew members had been questioned in recent weeks after their names appeared to be similar to those on the FBI’s “watch lists” of suspected terrorists.
The Associated Press reported, however, that the Air France flights were canceled Wednesday because of specific fears that al-Qaida operatives would board the planes as passengers, not as crew members.

UPDATE 4, 8:42 PM CST: Welcome to all Instapundit and Hugh Hewitt readers; wish it were under happier circumstances. CNN has updated its story on the cancellations with more details than before. It looks like at least some of the data came from an informant within al-Qaeda, which is interesting news. As can be expected, the data is chaotic, but better to be safe, as one reader has already commented.
The AP continues to report that several suspicious Tunisian men amongst the passengers prompted the warnings. Lisa Myers at MS-NBC reports that passengers from one of the flights were taken into custody and questioned.
UPDATE 5, 12/25: The Los Angeles Times has more details in today’s story:

Details remained cloudy, but U.S. counterterrorism officials said their investigation was focusing on the “informed belief” that about six men on Air France Flight 68, from Paris to Los Angeles, may have been planning to hijack the plane and crash it near Los Angeles, or along the way.
That belief, according to several senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, was based on reliable and corroborated information from several sources. Some of the men had the same names as suspected members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the officials said.
One of the men is believed to be a trained pilot with a commercial license, a senior U.S. security official said.

There are unconfirmed reports that one or more may have been arrested and being held in France. It also appears that an attack was definitely in the works and that American intelligence was able to stop it from happening, along with French cooperation. Let’s hope that they caught all of those who intended to hijack the planes.
UPDATE 6: Reuters is reporting today that no terrorist links were found to any of the passengers detained in France.