<
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/the_obama_doctrine> The
Obama Doctrine
How the president's drone war is backfiring.
BY DAVID ROHDE | <
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issues/192/contents/>
MARCH/APRIL 2012
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/images/rohde_lead_76025450.jpg
When Barack Obama took the oath of office three years ago, no one associated
the phrase "targeted killing" with his optimistic young presidency. In his
<
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address> inaugural address, the
47-year-old former constitutional law professor uttered the word "terror"
only once. Instead, he promised to use technology to "harness the sun and
the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories."
Oddly, technology has enabled Obama to become something few expected: a
president who has dramatically expanded the executive branch's ability to
wage high-tech clandestine war. With a determination that has surprised
many, Obama has embraced the CIA, expanded its powers, and approved more
targeted killings than any modern president. Over the last three years, the
Obama administration has carried out at least 239 covert drone strikes, more
than five times the 44 approved under George W. Bush. And after promising to
make counterterrorism operations more transparent and rein in executive
power, Obama has arguably done the opposite, maintaining secrecy and
expanding presidential authority.
Just as importantly, the administration's excessive use of drone attacks
undercuts one of its most laudable policies: a promising new post-9/11
approach to the use of lethal American force, one of multilateralism,
transparency, and narrow focus.
Obama's willingness to deploy lethal force should have come as no surprise.
In a <
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469> 2002
speech, Illinois state senator Obama opposed Bush's impending invasion of
Iraq, but not all conflicts. "I don't oppose all wars," he said. "What I am
opposed to is a dumb war." And as president, in his December 2009 Nobel
Peace Prize
<
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/obama-lecture_e
n.html> acceptance speech, Obama warned, "There will be times when nations
-- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only
necessary but morally justified." Since then, he has not only sent U.S.
forces into Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, but also repeatedly approved
commando raids in Pakistan and Somalia and on the high seas, while presiding
over a system that unleashed hundreds of drone strikes.
In a series of recent interviews, current and former administration
officials outlined what could be called an "Obama doctrine" on the use of
force. Obama's embrace of multilateralism, drone strikes, and a light U.S.
military presence in Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen, they contend, has proved
more effective than Bush's go-heavy approach in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We
will use force unilaterally if necessary against direct threats to the
United States," Ben Rhodes, the administration's deputy national security
advisor for strategic communications, told me. "And we'll use force in a
very precise way."
Crises the administration deems indirect threats to the United States --
such as the uprisings in Libya and Syria -- are "threats to global
security," Rhodes argued, and will be responded to multilaterally and not
necessarily by force. The drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,
as well as the creation of a smaller, more agile U.S. military spread across
Asia, the Pacific, and the Middle East, are also part of the doctrine. So is
the discreet backing of protesters in Egypt, Iran, and Syria.
The emerging strategy -- which Rhodes touted as "a far more focused approach
to our adversaries" -- is a welcome shift from the martial policies and
bellicose rhetoric of both the Bush administration and today's Republican
presidential candidates. But Obama has granted the CIA far too much leeway
in carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. In both countries, the
strikes often appear to be backfiring.
Obama and other administration officials insist the drones are used rarely
and kill few civilians. In a
<
http://www.rferl.org/content/obama_to_give_first_fully_virtual_interview_aw
ire/24468101.html> rare public comment on the program, the president
defended the strikes in late January. "I want to make sure the people
understand, actually, drones have not caused a huge number of civilian
casualties," Obama <
http://youtu.be/eeTj5qMGTAI> said. "For the most part,
they have been very precise precision strikes against al Qaeda and their
affiliates. And we are very careful in terms of how it's been applied."
But from Pakistan to Yemen to post-American Iraq, drones often spark deep
resentment where they operate. When they do attack, they kill as brutally as
any weapon of war. The administration's practice of classifying the strikes
as secret only exacerbates local anger and suspicion. Under Obama, drone
strikes have become too frequent, too unilateral, and too much associated
with the heavy-handed use of American power.
In 2008, I saw this firsthand. Two Afghan colleagues and I were kidnapped by
the Taliban and held captive in the tribal areas of Pakistan for seven
months. From the ground, drones are terrifying weapons that can be heard
circling overhead for hours at a time. They are a potent, unnerving symbol
of unchecked American power. At the same time, they were clearly effective,
killing foreign bomb-makers and preventing Taliban fighters from gathering
in large groups. The experience left me convinced that drone strikes should
be carried out -- but very selectively.
In the January interview, Obama insisted drone strikes were used only
surgically. "It is important for everybody to understand," he said, "that
this thing is kept on a very tight leash."
Drones, though, are in no way surgical.
IN INTERVIEWS, CURRENT AND FORMER Obama administration officials told me the
president and his senior aides had been eager from the outset to
differentiate their approach in Pakistan and Afghanistan from Bush's. Unlike
in Iraq, where Democrats thought the Bush administration had been too
aggressive, they thought the Bush White House had not been assertive enough
with Afghan and Pakistani leaders. So the new administration adopted a
unilateral, get-tough approach in South Asia that would eventually spread
elsewhere. As candidate Obama vowed in a
<
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/01/us-usa-politics-obama-idUSN013220
6420070801> 2007 speech, referring to Pakistan's president at the time, "If
we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and
President Musharraf won't act, we will."
In his first year in office, Obama approved two large troop surges in
Afghanistan and a vast expansion of the number of CIA operatives in
Pakistan. The CIA was also given more leeway in carrying out drone strikes
in the country's ungoverned tribal areas, where foreign and local militants
plot attacks for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and beyond.
The decision reflected both Obama's belief in the need to move aggressively
in Pakistan and the influence of the CIA in the new administration. To a far
greater extent than the Bush White House, Obama and his top aides relied on
the CIA for its analysis of Pakistan, according to current and former senior
administration officials. As a result, preserving the agency's ability to
carry out counterterrorism, or "CT," operations in Pakistan became of
paramount importance.
"The most important thing when it came to Pakistan was to be able to carry
out drone strikes and nothing else," said a former official who spoke on
condition of anonymity. "The so-called strategic focus of the bilateral
relationship was there solely to serve the CT approach."
Initially, the CIA was right. Increased drone strikes in the tribal areas
eliminated senior al Qaeda operatives in 2009. Then, in July 2010,
Pakistanis working for the CIA pulled up behind a white Suzuki navigating
the bustling streets of Peshawar. The car's driver was later tracked to a
large compound in the city of Abbottabad. On May 2, 2011, U.S. commandos
killed Osama bin Laden there.
The U.S. intelligence presence, though, extended far beyond the hunt for bin
Laden, according to former administration officials. At one point, the CIA
tried to deploy hundreds of operatives across Pakistan but backed off after
suspicious Pakistani officials declined to issue them visas. At the same
time, the agency aggressively used the freer hand Obama had given it to
launch more drone strikes than ever before.
Established by the Bush administration and Musharraf in 2004, the covert CIA
drone program initially carried out only "personality" strikes against a
preapproved list of senior al Qaeda members. Pakistani officials were
notified before many, but not all, attacks. Between 2004 and 2007, nine such
attacks were carried out in Pakistan, according to the
<
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones> New America Foundation.
In 2008, the Bush administration authorized less-restrictive "signature"
strikes in the tribal areas. Instead of basing attacks on intelligence
regarding a specific person, CIA drone operators could carry out strikes
based on the behavior of people on the ground. Operators could launch a
drone strike if they saw a group, for example, crossing back and forth over
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. In 2008, the Bush administration carried
out <
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones/2008> 33 strikes.
Under Obama, the drone campaign has escalated rapidly. The number of strikes
nearly doubled to <
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones/2009> 53
in 2009 and then doubled again to
<
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones/2010> 118 in 2010. Former
administration officials said the looser rules resulted in the killing of
more civilians. Current administration officials insisted that Obama, in
fact, tightened the rules on the use of drone strikes after taking office.
They said strikes rose under Obama because improved technology and
intelligence gathering created more opportunities for attacks than existed
under Bush.
But as Pakistani public anger over the spiraling strikes grew, other
diplomats expressed concern as well. The U.S. ambassador in Pakistan at the
time, Anne Patterson, opposed several attacks, but the CIA ignored her
objections. When Cameron Munter replaced Patterson in October 2010, he
objected even more vigorously. On at least two occasions, CIA Director Leon
Panetta dismissed Munter's protests and launched strikes, the
<
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204621904577013982672973836.h
tml> Wall Street Journal later reported. One strike occurred only hours
after Sen. John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had
completed a visit to Islamabad.
A March 2011 strike brought the debate to the White House. A day after
Pakistani officials agreed to release CIA contractor Raymond Davis, the
agency -- again over Munter's objections -- carried out a signature drone
strike that the Pakistanis say killed four Taliban fighters and 38
civilians. Already angry about the Davis case, Pakistan's Army chief, Gen.
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, issued an
<
http://www.dawn.com/2011/03/18/rare-condemnation-by-pm-army-chief-40-killed
-in-drone-attack.html> unusual public statement, saying a group of tribal
elders had been "carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard
to human life." U.S. intelligence officials dismissed the Pakistani
complaints and insisted 20 militants had perished. "There's every indication
that this was a group of terrorists, not a charity car wash in the Pakistani
hinterlands," one official told the
<
http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014522314_apaspakistan
.html> Associated Press.
Surprised by the vehemence of the official Pakistani reaction, national
security advisor Tom Donilon questioned whether signature strikes were
worthwhile. Critics inside and outside the U.S. government contended that a
program that began as a carefully focused effort to kill senior al Qaeda
leaders had morphed into a bombing campaign against low-level Taliban
fighters. Some outside analysts even argued that the administration had
adopted a de facto "kill not capture" policy, given its inability to close
Bush's Guantánamo Bay prison and create a new detention system.
In April 2011, the director of Pakistan's intelligence service, Lt. Gen.
Ahmed Shuja Pasha, visited Washington in an effort to repair the
relationship, according to news accounts and former administration
officials. Just after his visit, two more drone strikes occurred in the
tribal areas, which Pasha took as a personal affront. In a rare concession,
Panetta agreed to notify Pakistan's intelligence service before the United
States carried out any strike that could kill more than 20 people.
In May, after the bin Laden raid sparked further anger among Pakistani
officials, Donilon launched an internal review of how drone strikes were
approved, according to a former administration official. But the strikes
continued. At the end of May, State Department officials were angered when
three missile strikes followed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to
Pakistan.
As Donilon's review progressed, an intense debate erupted inside the
administration over the signature strikes, according to the Journal. Adm.
Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the strikes
should be more selective. Robert Gates, then the defense secretary, warned
that angry Pakistani officials could cut off supplies to U.S. troops in
Afghanistan. Clinton warned that too many civilian casualties could
strengthen opposition to Pakistan's weak, pro-American president, Asif Ali
Zardari.
The CIA countered that Taliban fighters were legitimate targets because they
carried out cross-border attacks on U.S. forces, according to the former
official. In June, Obama sided with the CIA. Panetta conceded that no drone
strike would be carried out when Pakistani officials visited Washington and
that Clinton and Munter could object to proposed strikes. But Obama allowed
the CIA director to retain final say.
Last November, the worst-case scenario that Mullen, Gates, and Clinton had
warned of came to pass. After NATO airstrikes mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani
soldiers on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Kayani demanded an end to all
U.S. drone strikes and blocked supplies to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. At
the same time, popular opposition to Zardari soared. After a nearly
two-month lull that allowed militants to regroup, drone strikes resumed in
the tribal areas this past January. But signature strikes are no longer
allowed -- for the time being, according to the former senior official.
Among average Pakistanis, the strikes played out disastrously. In a 2011
<
http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/06/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Pakistan-Report
-FINAL-June-21-2011.pdf> Pew Research Center poll,
<
http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/06/21/chapter-3-death-of-bin-laden-and-the-ba
ttle-against-extremists/> 97 percent of Pakistani respondents who knew about
the attacks said American drone strikes were a "bad thing."
<
http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/06/21/u-s-image-in-pakistan-falls-no-further-
following-bin-laden-killing/> Seventy-three percent of Pakistanis had an
unfavorable view of the United States, a 10 percentage point rise from 2008.
Administration officials say the strikes are popular with Pakistanis who
live in the tribal areas and have tired of brutal jihadi rule. And they
contend that Pakistani government officials -- while publicly criticizing
the attacks -- agree in private that they help combat militancy. Making the
strikes more transparent could reduce public anger in other parts of
Pakistan, U.S. officials concede. But they say some elements of the
Pakistani government continue to request that the strikes remain covert.
For me, the bottom line is that both governments' approaches are failing.
Pakistan's economy is dismal. Its military continues to shelter Taliban
fighters it sees as proxies to thwart Indian encroachment in Afghanistan.
And the percentage of Pakistanis supporting the use of the Pakistani Army to
fight extremists in the tribal areas -- the key to eradicating militancy --
dropped from a 53 percent majority in 2009 to 37 percent last year. Pakistan
is more unstable today than it was when Obama took office.
A similar dynamic is creating even worse results on the southern tip of the
Arabian Peninsula. Long ignored by the United States, Yemen drew sudden
attention after a suicide attack on the USS Cole killed 17 American sailors
in the port of Aden in 2000. In 2002, the Bush administration carried out a
single drone strike in Yemen that killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, an al Qaeda
operative who was a key figure in orchestrating the Cole attack. In the
years that followed, the administration shifted its attentions to Iraq, and
militants began to regroup.
A failed December 2009 attempt by a militant trained in Yemen to detonate a
bomb on a Detroit-bound airliner focused Obama's attention on the country.
Over the next two years, the United States carried out an estimated 20
airstrikes in Yemen, most in 2011. In addition to killing al Qaeda-linked
militants, the strikes killed dozens of civilians, according to Yemenis.
Instead of decimating the organization, the Obama strikes have increased the
ranks of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula from 300 fighters in 2009 to more
than 1,000 today, according to Gregory Johnsen, a leading Yemen expert at
Princeton University. In January, the group briefly seized control of Radda,
a town only 100 miles from the capital, Sanaa. "I don't believe that the
U.S. has a Yemen policy," Johnsen told me. "What the U.S. has is a
counterterrorism strategy that it applies to Yemen."
The deaths of bin Laden and many of his lieutenants are a step forward, but
Pakistan and Yemen are increasingly unstable. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed
country of 180 million with resilient militant networks; Yemen, an
impoverished, failing state that is fast becoming a new al Qaeda stronghold.
"They think they've won because of this approach," the former administration
official said, referring to the administration's drone-heavy strategy. "A
lot of us think there is going to be a lot bigger problems in the future."
THE BACKLASH FROM drone strikes in the countries where they are happening is
not the only worry. In the United States, civil liberties and human rights
groups are increasingly concerned with the breadth of powers Obama has
claimed for the executive branch as he wages a new kind of war.
In the Libya conflict, the administration invoked the drones to create a new
legal precedent. Under the War Powers Resolution, the president must receive
congressional authorization for military operations within 60 days. When the
deadline approached in May, the administration announced that because NATO
strikes and drones were carrying out the bulk of the missions, no serious
threat of U.S. casualties existed and no congressional authorization was
needed. "It's changed the way politicians talk about what should be the most
important thing that a nation engages in," said Peter W. Singer, a Brookings
Institution researcher. "It's changed the way we in the public deliberate
war."
Last fall, a series of drone strikes in Yemen set another dangerous
precedent, according to civil liberties and human rights groups. Without any
public legal proceeding, the U.S. government executed three of its own
citizens. On Sept. 30, a drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a charismatic
American-born cleric of Yemeni descent credited with inspiring terrorist
attacks around the world. Samir Khan, a Pakistani-American jihadist
traveling with him, was killed as well. Several weeks later, another strike
killed Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, also a U.S. citizen.
Administration officials insisted a Justice Department review had authorized
the killings but declined to release the full document.
"The administration has claimed the power to carry out extrajudicial
executions of Americans on the basis of evidence that is secret and is never
seen by anyone," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American
Civil Liberties Union. "It's hard to understand how that is consistent with
the Constitution."
After criticizing the Bush administration for keeping the details of its
surveillance, interrogation, and detention practices secret, Obama is doing
the same thing. His administration has declined to reveal the details of how
it places people on kill lists, carries out eavesdropping in the United
States, or decides whom to detain overseas. The administration is also
prosecuting six former government officials on charges of leaking classified
information to the media -- more cases than all other administrations
combined.
Administration officials deny being secretive and insist they have disclosed
more information about their counterterrorism practices than the Bush
administration, which fiercely resisted releasing details of its "war on
terror" and established the covert drone program in Pakistan. Obama
administration officials say they have established a more transparent and
flexible approach outside Pakistan that involves military raids, drone
strikes, and other efforts. They told me that every attack in Yemen was
approved by Yemeni officials. Eventually, they hope to make drone strikes
joint efforts carried out openly with local governments.
For now, keeping them covert prevents American courts from reviewing their
constitutionality, according to Jaffer. He pointed out that if a Republican
president followed such policies, the outcry on the left would be deafening.
"You have to remember that this authority is going to be used by the next
administration and the next administration after that," Jaffer said. "You
need to make sure there are clear limits on what is really unparalleled
power."
TO THEIR CREDIT, Obama and his senior officials have successfully reframed
Bush's global battle as a more narrowly focused struggle against al Qaeda.
They stopped using the term "war on terror" and instead described a campaign
against a single, clearly identifiable group.
Senior administration officials cite the toppling of Muammar al-Qaddafi as
the prime example of the success of their more focused, multilateral
approach to the use of force. At a cost of zero American lives and $1
billion in U.S. funding, the Libya intervention removed an autocrat from
power in five months. The occupation of Iraq claimed 4,484 American lives,
cost at least $700 billion, and lasted nearly nine years.
"The light U.S. footprint had benefits beyond less U.S. lives and
resources," Rhodes told me. "We believe the Libyan revolution is viewed as
more legitimate. The U.S. is more welcome. And there is less potential for
an insurgency because there aren't foreign forces present."
In its most ambitious proposal, the administration is also trying to
restructure the U.S. military, implement steep spending cuts, and
"right-size" U.S. forces around the world. Under Obama's plan, the Army
would be trimmed by 80,000 soldiers, some U.S. units would be shifted from
the Middle East to the Pacific, and more small, covert bases would be
opened. Special Forces units that have been vastly expanded in Iraq and
Afghanistan would train indigenous forces and carry out counterterrorism
raids. Declaring al Qaeda nearly defeated, administration officials say it
is time for a new focus.
"Where does the U.S. have a greater interest in 2020?" Rhodes asked. "Is it
Asia-Pacific or Yemen? Obviously, the Asia-Pacific region is clearly going
to be more important."
Rhodes has a point, but Pakistan and its nuclear weapons -- as well as Yemen
and its proximity to vital oil reserves and sea lanes -- are likely to haunt
the United States for years.
Retired military officials warn that drones and commando raids are no
substitute for the difficult process of helping local leaders marginalize
militants. Missile strikes that kill members of al Qaeda and its affiliates
in Pakistan and Yemen do not strengthen economies, curb corruption, or
improve government services. David Barno, a retired lieutenant general who
commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, believes hunting
down senior terrorists over and over again is not a long-term solution.
"How do you get beyond this attrition warfare?" he asked me. "I don't think
we've answered that question yet."
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Received on Tue Feb 28 2012 - 17:24:34 EST
