IISS.org
UK think tank: Barack Obama may have to say ‘no we can’t’ as American power fades
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER Associated Press Writer
LONDON September 15, 2009 (AP)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/WireStory?id=8577176&page=1
A weakened United States could start retreating from the world stage without help from its allies abroad, an international strategic affairs think tank said Tuesday.
The respected London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said President Barack Obama will increasingly have to turn to others for help dealing with the world’s problems — in part because he has no alternative.
“Domestically Obama may have campaigned on the theme ‘yes we can’; internationally he may increasingly have to argue ‘no we can’t',” the institute said in its annual review of world affairs.
The report said the U.S. struggles against insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan had exposed the limits of the country’s military muscle, while the near-collapse of the world financial markets sapped the economic base on which that muscle relied.
The report also claimed that the U.S. had lost traction in its efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program and bring peace to the Middle East.
“Clearly the U.S. share of ‘global power,’ however measured, is in decline,” the report said.
The head of another respected London think tank, Robin Niblett of Chatham House, said the rise in the relative power of China, India, Russia and the European Union has made it harder for the U.S. to exercise its influence.
“America should apply changes in leadership style, but I wouldn’t overplay the decline because decline is relative,” said Niblett — who was not involved in drawing up Tuesday’s report. “One should not doubt that the U.S. remains the most powerful nation in the world, but it’s difficult to use the power and to use it to influence others.”
In addition to a rise in regional powers, Niblett said the U.S. has long been viewed as being part of the problem rather than the solution on many issues — including climate change, the financial crisis, and the failure of the Middle East peace process.
It’s also carrying the baggage of failed policies and of a failed financial approach,” Niblett said, referring to the Bush administration. “There’s a lot of catching up to be done.”
The IISS report praised Obama, saying that he recognized there was only so much America could do “to impose its views on others.”
After years of often thorny relationships between the U.S. and its allies during Bush’s administration, Obama has talked of the need to work with other nations on such issues as the financial meltdown, climate change and nuclear proliferation.
“These are challenges that no single nation, no matter how powerful, can confront alone,” Obama said in April after attending the G-20 summit in London.
“The United States must lead the way,” he said. “But our best chance to solve these unprecedented problems comes from acting in concert with other nations.”
The think tank’s report said Obama could help restore the United States’ standing by working with other nations to contain emerging threats to its position as the world’s pre-eminent power. Controlling the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea would require help from regional allies, the report said. The same was true of Afghanistan, where the U.S. has had difficulty persuading its NATO partners to follow its lead in boosting the number of troops sent to fight a resurgent Taliban.
“In the next year or two, the greatest demand on U.S. talents and power will be to persuade more to become like minded and adopt greater burdens,” the report said.
Niblett said Obama was moving in the right direction.
“This administration is far more frank about the U.S. interdependence with rest of the world, and that’s a good thing,” Niblett said.
From The Times
February 11, 2008
Martin Fletcher in Baghdad
times.com
Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year’s mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group’s security structure suffered “total collapse”.
These are the words not of al-Qaeda’s enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group’s stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.
The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.
That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. “I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,” the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.
“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers,” he says. “Those people were nothing but hypocrites, liars and traitors and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them most.”
Assuming the two documents are authentic — and the US military insists that they are — they provide a rare insight into an organisation thrown into turmoil by the rise of the Awakening movement. More than 80,000 Sunnis have joined the tribal groups of “concerned local citizens” [CLCs] that have helped to eject al-Qaeda from swaths of western and northern Iraq, including much of Baghdad.
US intelligence officials cautioned, however, that the documents were snapshots of two small areas and that al-Qaeda was far from a spent force.
They said that while the number of car bombs had fallen over the past year, the organisation had doubled its attacks on CLC members since October. More than 20 people were killed last night when a suicide car bomber attacked a checkpoint near Balad.
Al-Qaeda gunmen stormed a compound of an “Awakening” group in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province yesterday, the US military said. Among those killed in the fighting were 10 suspected Al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters.
The Anbar letter conceded that the “crusaders” — Americans — had gained the upper hand by persuading ordinary Sunnis that al-Qaeda was responsible for their suffering and by exploiting their poverty to entice them into the security forces. Al-Qaeda’s “Islamic State of Iraq is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar”, the unnamed emir admitted.
In an apparent reference to al-Qaeda’s brutal tactics, he said of the Americans and their Sunni allies: “We helped them to unite against us . . . The Americans and the apostates launched their campaigns against us and we found ourselves in a circle not being able to move, organise or conduct our operations.”
He said of the loss of Anbar province: “This created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight. The morale of the fighters went down . . . There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.” The emir complained that the supply of foreign fighters had dwindled and that they found it increasingly hard to operate inside Iraq because they could not blend in. Foreign suicide bombers determined to kill “not less than 20 or 30 infidels” grew disillusioned because they were kept hanging about and only given small operations. Some gave up and went home.
Finally the emir recommended rewards for killing apostates, using doctors to kill infidels and offering gifts to tribal leaders. He said al-Qaeda’s fighters should be sent to more promising areas such as Diyala province or Baghdad — which is exactly what happened.
Rear-Admiral Gregory Smith, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, called Abu-Tariq’s testament a “woe-is-me kind of document”. It calls the Sunnis who switched sides a “cancer in the body of al-Jihad movement”, and declares: “We should have no mercy on them.”
The author lists those who have made off with al-Qaeda weapons or money, describes the group’s arsenal, including C5 rockets, which are used against helicopters, and records the fate of the battalions under his command.
Most of the first battalion’s fighters “betrayed us and joined al-Sahwah [the Awakening]”, he says. The leader of the second ran away and all but two of its 300 fighters joined the Awakening. The activities of the third were “frozen due to their present conditions”. Of the fourth he writes: “Most of its members are scoundrels, sectarians, non-believers”.
He lists 38 people still working for him but beside five names he has written comments like “We have not seen him for twenty days” or “left us a week ago”. He concludes, wistfully: “And that is the number of fighters left in my sector.”
‘WE WERE MISTREATED AND CHEATED’
Extracts from letters
Abu-Tariq, al-Qaeda leader
“There were almost 600 fighters in our sector before the tribes changed course 360 degrees . . . Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters . . . As a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less.”
“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers who used to be part of the Jihadi movement, therefore we must not have mercy on those traitors until they come back to the right side or get eliminated completely.”
Unnamed emir, Anbar province
“The Islamic State of Iraq [al-Qaeda] is faced with an extraordinary crisis, especially in al-Anbar province. Al-Qaeda’s expulsion from Anbar created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight.
“The morale of the fighters went down and they wanted to be transferred to administrative positions rather than be fighters. There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.”