Two-Term Presidents and Crises of Confidence

By George Friedman

Stratfor does not normally concern itself
with the domestic politics of countries, except when political shifts might
affect the behavior of nations internationally. We are doubly disinclined to
concern ourselves with domestic politics in the United States: We have to
live here, and whatever we say will be interpreted as partisan.
Nevertheless, this is a moment at which American domestic politics bear
examination. The Bush administration -- whose ratings had been slipping
already due to the situation in Iraq and rising oil prices -- came under
intense attack for its handling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, and
approval ratings a month after the storm are still hovering near a critical
low.

We note this now because the domestic strength of any
administration determines, at least in part, its ability to execute foreign
policy and the shape of that policy. At this moment, there are very real
policy challenges not only in Iraq (where a critical vote approaches on the
constitution) but in the former Soviet Union (where Russia is making moves
to reclaim control of its near-abroad) and China -- to name only a few areas
where the appearance of a weakened presidency could have far-reaching
implications for the United States. Therefore, the political condition of
the Bush administration has a direct impact on geopolitics.

In the
immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the fundamental issue at stake for
George W. Bush was whether the economic fallout from the storm -- and the
political savaging he experienced over response efforts -- would hurt him so
badly that, in due course, his support would erode to the degree that he no
longer would be able to govern effectively. In the context of foreign
policy, this would mean that he no longer would be able to make decisive
moves because of severe preoccupation with domestic problems and lack of
political support. Such things have happened before: For example, Richard
Nixon -- and his successor, Gerald Ford -- lost the ability to respond to
North Vietnam because of Watergate. Lyndon Johnson, his support crumbling,
became paralyzed while waiting for his term to end. If such an extremity
were to become the case for the Bush presidency, it would mean -- as an
example -- that Bush would lose the ability to unilaterally decide strategy
in Iraq. Therefore, understanding the president's political condition is
critical.

After Bush's reelection, we made the observation that
two-term presidents tend to run into political trouble during their second
terms -- frequently over foreign policy, and at times to such a degree that
they cannot continue to govern effectively. In examining the question of
Bush's political fate, that observation bears closer scrutiny
now.

Two-Term Presidents: A Review

During the 20th
century, six presidents were elected to a second term: Woodrow Wilson,
Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill
Clinton.

Wilson's second term ended in congressional reversal of his
policies on the League of Nations, something that changed dramatically
history's perception of his presidency. During Roosevelt's second term, he
was hammered first over his attempt to pack the Supreme Court and then,
toward the end, by isolationists over what they claimed was his pro-British
foreign policy. Had his career ended with his second term, Roosevelt would
have been viewed quite differently by history. Eisenhower encountered a
serious second-term scandal concerning his chief of staff, Sherman Adams.
Later in his term, he was bitterly criticized over the apparent failure to
counter Soviet successes in space and missiles. Nixon, of course, was
drummed out of office by Watergate and never finished his term. Reagan was
hit hard during his second term when the Iran-contra affair, much of which
happened in his first term, broke into public view. And though Clinton did
not have a foreign policy problem, he was impeached in his second term over
Monica Lewinsky and was hammered on Whitewater.

Of these presidents,
Eisenhower fared the best, but all were faced with serious problems that were
not anticipated when they won re-election.

An historical review of
two-term presidents is somewhat muddied by a class of leaders who came into
office after the death of a president and then were elected to a single,
final term. These presidents included Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge,
Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. Roosevelt and Coolidge chose not to run for
a second term of their own, and Truman and Johnson simply could not run. They
would have lost the election and, toward the end of their terms, they had
lost the ability to act decisively.

Looking at the 10 presidents as a
whole, therefore, we can divide them into three classes. First, there were
those who could be said to have successful second terms: Theodore Roosevelt
and Coolidge (who both were elevated vice presidents). Second, there were
those whose second terms were worse than their first, but who ultimately
remained in control until the end: Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan
and Clinton. Third, there were those who experienced catastrophic failure in
their second terms. Four of them -- Wilson (who was also ill), Truman,
Johnson and Nixon -- lost the ability to govern as a result.

Of the
four presidents who faced catastrophic outcomes, all had serious foreign
policy problems. Wilson had the League of Nations, Truman had Korea, Johnson
and Nixon had Vietnam. For one of these presidents, Nixon, Vietnam was not
the primary cause of failure, but it was an element in the problem. Of the
four who weathered a troubling second term, three -- Franklin Roosevelt,
Eisenhower and Reagan -- were plagued by foreign policy problems, but none
lost control of their foreign policy. And Clinton's problems were rooted
more in perceived personal failings than in any clear policy
issues.

Patterns of Failed Presidencies

The question we
are coming to is this: Bush at this point clearly is not going to wind up in
the Theodore Roosevelt-Calvin Coolidge group. The question is whether he
eventually will join the class of failed presidents (Wilson, Truman,
Johnson, Nixon) or whether he will belong to the relatively successful group
who simply had problems along the way (FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton)? We
should point out that the question is not how they look in retrospect. Many
would argue that Truman was a successful president in retrospect. That may
or may not be the case, but he certainly would not have been re-elected
president given the perceptions of his performance at the time. The question
is whether, at the time, these "failed" presidents had lost public confidence
so fully that they no longer could govern.

Turning our attention,
then, to the presidents who by the end had lost control of their situations,
we see that three lost control because of foreign policy issues -- or, to be
more precise, because of wars that had outcomes unsatisfactory to the
public. Only one -- Nixon -- lost control primarily because of personal
scandal, and one could make the case, which we won't, that he also had a
foreign policy/war problem. None of the four presidents who weathered their
second-term storms were dealing with an extended state of active war during
their second terms. FDR, obviously, complicates this profile, since he had a
war in his third and fourth terms, but he did not wage an unsatisfactory war
in the public's view.

At this point, we can see a first pattern:
Presidential failure in the second term consistently has been the result of
unsatisfactory wars or perceptions that the president was a criminal. Wilson
fought the First World War successfully but tried to bring it to an
unacceptable conclusion at Versailles. Truman could not terminate the Korean
War; Johnson could not terminate the Vietnam War. All were perceived, by the
end of their terms, as having entangled themselves in a war with unrealistic
goals. It was not always the war itself that damaged the presidents' service,
but the growing sense that these presidents did not have a strategy in the
war that served the national interest.

The issue, however, is more
complex than this. All four failed presidents were reviled by the end of
their second terms. But so were FDR, Reagan and Clinton. Even Eisenhower,
though it is hard to recall now, was treated with extreme contempt by the
press and others for his perceived personal, intellectual failings --
however, the level of animosity was neither as deep or as broad as with the
others. The intensity of feeling against all eight men during their second
terms was enormous: All faced a substantial group of vitriolic,
irreconcilable opponents. At various points, this group expanded to
constitute a majority. But the core issue -- the key differentiator between
the two groups of "failed' or "troubled" presidents -- was this: Among the
troubled presidents, at no point did their own base of support crack.
Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton were reviled and at times on the
defensive, but at no point did their own core supporters waver
significantly.

The failed presidents, on the other hand, all failed
not because their opponents reviled them or even because those opponents
became a majority, but because their own base of political support lost
basic confidence in them. Wilson had suffered a revolt among the Democrats.
Truman no longer could get the Democratic nomination. It is doubtful that
Johnson could have won his party's nomination had he sought it. Nixon
collapsed when Republican senators turned on him. On the other hand, no
matter what attacks were launched against FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan or
Clinton, their base held like a rock. Even when FDR was outgunned by the
isolationists, he held his base, and he was never broken.

Bush's
problem, therefore, is the war in Iraq. But the issue is not his Democratic
opposition, nor even whether his opponents swell to become a majority. The
threat to Bush's presidency will come if, and only if, his own political
base breaks. By all polls, that base -- which historically has been at about
40-42 percent -- is holding. If that continues to be the case, he will be
able to execute foreign policy effectively. If that base is shattered, he
fails.

Will Bush's Center Hold?

There is no evidence at
this time that the situation in Iraq is cutting into Bush's base of support,
but the controversies he weathered following Hurricane Katrina brought
attention to his ratings -- which remain soft -- at an extraordinarily early
point in his second term.

The charges being leveled by Democrats over
Katrina were the same charges that always have been leveled at Bush. First,
that he isn't smart enough to be president -- and, in the case of Katrina,
that he was too dumb to realize what was happening and too slow to respond.
Second, that he is hostile to the interests of the poor and minorities --
that if the hurricane had struck a predominantly white, well-to-do city, he
would have been more responsive. Both arguments have been tried by the
Democrats on all issues. The visceral impact from Katrina, we would expect,
will energize and expand the Democrats' base, but it will not expand at the
expense of the Republicans' support. In fact, it will secure the support
base for the GOP.

There is one caveat. If Bush's base of support
decides, of its own accord, that the president really did not understand
what was going on in the hurricane zone until late in the week -- days after
Katrina struck -- Bush will reach a crisis point. The storm passed weeks ago,
but the danger from public opinion still lingers: Given the numbers of people
who were displaced by Katrina and the enormous, long-term need for aid, there
is plenty of room for mismanagement and backlash. And if that backlash begins
to come from Bush's core supporters, they inevitably will begin to examine
their own views of the Iraq war, which is built around the assumption that
Bush is effectively executing a difficult and necessary war, in the face of
Democratic slander.

There has been confidence in Bush's character.
But if it is determined that Bush failed in the Katrina crisis because of a
failure of character, then all bets will be off.

In the four failed
presidencies, it was the sudden, wrenching realization among core supporters
that the president they were defending was unworthy of defense that made all
the difference. The fact that Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton
never reached that moment with their own supporters is what made them
successful.

Why does this moment come with wars and in second terms?
There is a simple, obvious reason that is utterly human and understandable:
a combination of exhaustion, self-confidence and boredom. By the second
term, a president is tired: The demands of the White House create a brutal
life. He is also self-confident, often to the point of arrogance: He has,
after all, survived his enemies and clearly has mastered his office. He has
reached the point where he has seen and done everything, and tends to view
all matters through the prism of his experience -- including the things that
he hasn't experienced. He starts making mistakes, takes too long to correct
them, is in denial that he has made a mistake and doesn't want to hear
arguments.

If a president has surrounded himself with an inner
circle that has both enclosed him and been with him from the beginning, they
will be in the same condition. They are all tired. By the middle of the
second term, everyone is punchy. Significantly, there is a tendency --
particularly after a successful re-election bid -- to keep the successful
team. It is interesting to note that Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and
Clinton all moved their teams around in their second term; the "failed"
presidents tended to go with their permanent inner circle.

In Bush's
case, that inner circle made a mistake on Katrina. One can argue the
details, but the fact was that it appeared to the public that Bush didn't
move fast enough. And in a national catastrophe, the president's job is, at
the very least, to appear to be doing something -- to lead.

Bush's
support base is forgiving, until the point that they shred. In looking at
the polls, it does not appear that any shredding is occurring: His support
base appears to be holding, with approval ratings around the low 40s --
removing any immediate fears of danger to his presidency. But the steadiness
of that base now depends on Bush's ability to do what Wilson, Truman, Johnson
and Nixon could not manage to do: give the sense that they were in control of
the situation. Those presidents' inability to adjust rapidly and publicly --
the fact that they froze when they needed to be decisive -- created a crisis
of confidence among their support base that led to irredeemable failure.


It does not appear to us at the moment that Bush has reached this
point. But it is not inconceivable that he will. There's not a great deal of
give in Bush's approval ratings at the moment, and only weeks ago -- between
late August and mid-September -- he was in a definite "red zone", with only
38 to 40 percent of Americans approving of his performance. The public
remains concerned not only with the war in Iraq but with high energy costs
-- which will begin to pinch more in some parts of the country, with the
need for heating fuel coming on -- and emerging fears of a possible
recession. The challenges for Bush, both foreign and domestic, are many, and
another crisis could begin to eat away at his core support.

The next
few weeks, in our view, could be decisive in determining whether the United
States is going to go through one of those crises of confidence it has
experienced in the past. Those spasms have created opportunities for
international opponents of the United States to take advantage of the
paralysis -- and that, when it occurs, is a geopolitical, not just a
political, problem.

Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.

The Value of a Nuclear Program

By George Friedman

This was a week of nuclear weapons. The North Koreans seemed to promise that they would abandon their nuclear weapons program, while the Iranians made it clear that they had no intention of abandoning theirs. The confluence of these events causes us to raise a fundamental question rarely addressed: Why would small nations want to spend their national treasure on developing a handful of nuclear weapons that would be difficult to deliver to a target and that could be destroyed by another country -- like the United States -- almost at will, if the United States chose to use their own enormously more plentiful weapons?


The answer is not as obvious as it might seem. One of the concerns normally expressed about the North Korean nuclear program is that Pyongyang might one day choose to destroy Tokyo. That is not a trivial concern, but it is not clearly a realistic one. Assume that North Korea developed four or five fission bombs. Assume also that they fired some of those weapons at Tokyo. Obviously, Tokyo would be destroyed. But what would North Korea gain? The most likely outcome -- certainly one that the North Koreans would have to assess as the most likely response -- would be a massive counterstrike by the United States. The intent would be not only punitive, but would be to destroy any remaining nuclear weapons and capabilities.


In this scenario, then, Tokyo would be lost, but so would North Korea. Thus, for the original equation to work, it has to be assumed that the North Koreans are crazy or that the Iranians have reached such a level of religious intensity that the destruction of Tel Aviv would be worth the rain of destruction that would be brought against Iran by Israel's much larger nuclear capability. The standard analysis, therefore, begins with the assumption that nuclear weapons in the hands of smaller nations -- particularly North Korea or Iran -- are dangerous because these countries have non-rational calculations of their national interests. They are religious fanatics, ideological fanatics or simply nuts. Therefore, the possession of nuclear weapons in their hands poses a tremendous danger. The mere desire to develop nuclear weapons is a sign of instability (among anyone other than large nations who already have them, of course).


Before buying into the lunatic theory, let's consider what happened this week. North Korea, for example, took part in a six-power conference -- meeting with representatives of South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the United States. Absent nuclear weapons, North Korea has the intrinsic geopolitical weight of Ethiopia. For it to be noticed by any of these nations, except perhaps South Korea, would require a natural disaster. But here the North Koreans were, hanging with the big dogs, all because they might be in the process of developing a few small nuclear devices -- the deliverability and reliability of which were completely unclear.


Iran is a much more substantial country than North Korea in every respect. It is not, however, a great power, let alone a superpower. Nevertheless, the United States is focused obsessively on Iran's capabilities, while Germany, France and Britain stand ready to mediate and deliver stern warnings. Russians send messages to the United States via their relations with Iran, while the Chinese buy oil and happily fish in muddy waters. Iran would always have international attention, but certainly not on the order that it receives every time it rattles its nuclear development program.


The possession of a nuclear weapons development program has one obvious result: international attention is drawn to the country developing the weapon. It really doesn't matter much how well the country is doing in developing the weapon; it is only necessary that the intent be known and their ability to build the weapon uncertain. The question is, therefore, what the value is of being noticed, when one of the consequences of being noticed might be a pre-emptive nuclear strike.


There has been only one pre-emptive strike against a nuclear capability, and that in itself wasn't a nuclear strike -- it was Israel's attack against Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. Other than that, nuclear programs have not been attacked. The reason is simple: Those who might choose to attack are loath to use nuclear weapons. It is not in their interest to break the effective taboo that has been in place since Nagasaki. A conventional strike is uncertain at best. After Iraq, countries have learned to disperse and harden their nuclear programs. Preemptive strikes, barring massive provocation or imminent threat, have simply not been practical or desirable.


The normal response by world leaders has been to find levers that are persuasive to the country developing nuclear weapons. Once you get past the "stiff diplomatic note" stage -- i.e., hot air -- the options are penalties and rewards.


There are usually a range of penalties, economic and political. The problem is that -- as with all international sanctions -- they require unanimity, at least among major powers. Since at least one power invariably finds it in its interest to circumvent the sanctions for political or economic reasons, sanctions usually turn out to be useless. Indeed, sanctions have the mild benefit of making the country involved appear to be the victim of great-power bullying. There is always some value in that.


The real benefit occurs, however, when the carrot is used. Since military action is not desired, since stern warnings embodied by U.N. resolutions don't carry as much weight as they might and since sanctions rarely work, all that is left is the carrot. At a certain point, if the United States or some other country becomes convinced that the North Koreans, for example, are really developing a bomb -- and simultaneously become convinced that they might, for whatever perverse reason, use it -- a game of "Let's Make a Deal" begins. Whether it is money, food, technology, politics or season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys, the discussion usually comes around to a payoff.


North Korea, which pioneered this model, learned that in order to carry this out successfully, three things were needed:

1. It was imperative for the world to know North Korea had a secret program under way. A truly secret program would have no value; therefore, it is important to permit international inspections long enough to confirm that you are building a weapon, and then to expel the inspectors in order to frighten everyone around you.


2. It is vital that you adopt a political culture in which foreigners believe that the total annihilation of your country is a matter of monumental indifference to you, so long as you get to destroy part of some other country. At the very least, you must
appear crazy enough to raise questions in the minds of foreign diplomats as to whether you might do something crazy.

3. You must never actually do anything really crazy, like make it appear that you are about to launch a nuclear attack with your three weapons. Since you're not really good at this yet, it will take time to move the weapon, load it on a missile or plane, and launch. During that time, someone might conclude that you really have weapons and that you really have lost your mind and nuke you. Don't do anything that actually appears to make you an immediate danger -- just create the impression that you are
almost posing an immediate danger. It's probably best to spend ten years almost ready to be a threat.

Now, this entire strategy rests on one key assumption: that your country is situated in a sufficiently strategic locale that great powers should care whether you have nuclear weapons or not. Otherwise, you might find yourself following the Libyan model -- making all the right poker moves and not exciting anyone, because there is nothing really important within reach of your potential weapons. This might also explain why other small countries, such as Argentina and South Africa, simply gave up their pursuit of nuclear programs. In the game of nuclear poker, as in geopolitics, "place" matters.


The geographic location of both North Korea and Iran is, however, important, and for the past decade or so, the North Koreans have been giving a clinic on how to extract maximum value from almost having a nuclear weapon and appearing to be nuts. They have gotten money, food, technology. Most of all, they have been treated as the equal of the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. This has tremendous value domestically, in that it legitimizes the regime. It also creates a bargaining situation that not only allows Pyongyang to extract benefits, but achieves the ultimate political goal.


That goal is regime survival. With the end of the Cold War, North Korea's survival was in serious jeopardy. It had survived by being of some value to the Soviets or to the Chinese. By the early 1990s, however, North Korea no longer was of value to anyone. The probability of the regime in Pyongyang surviving appeared minimal. But developing and publicizing its nuclear program made North Korea a wild card: It was too dangerous to attack or even to undermine. Its nuclear program was in an uncertain state -- and the regime, feeling threatened, might choose to go nuclear. There was, therefore, a consensus that the survival of the North Korean regime was less of a problem than its fall.


Which is just the consensus North Korea was after.

Iran has learned a great deal from the North Koreans. It has learned that it is extremely important for the world to know it has a nuclear program, and Tehran has been quite content to allow inspectors in -- and then jerk them around after they have confirmed everyone's worst fears. The Iranians have learned to display a political culture that forces other nations to believe they are quite capable of using nuclear weapons, even at the price of national catastrophe. They have learned to be extraordinarily cautious in not crossing a line that would bring down a pre-emptive strike. It makes no sense to do what Saddam Hussein did, which was to spend a fortune on a nuclear facility that the Israelis then blew up.


The Iranians have used their nuclear program in a far more sophisticated manner than have the North Koreans. The North Koreans engaged in very skillful quid pro quos, with the only complexity being that they just about never kept their word after they got what they wanted. The Iranians are not nearly as concerned about regime survival as the North Koreans. Their regime is going to survive. Iranian leaders are concerned with a range of regional issues, the most important at this moment being Iraq.


The Iranian interest in Iraq is profound. Tehran wants to see the creation of an Iraq that, at the very least, poses no threat to Iran -- and which would be, at most, an Iranian satellite. The Iranians and Americans are engaged in a dizzyingly complex game in Iraq, and Tehran needs every lever it can find. The nuclear card increases the Iranians' leverage and gives them something with which to bargain. They also managed to skillfully draw in the British, French and Germans as mediators in an effort to drive another wedge between the United States and the Europeans. They have not been fully successful at this, but so long as the ultimate threat is recourse to the
U.N. Security Council -- where any resolution permitting military action will be vetoed -- they have channeled the process in harmless directions.

The value of a nuclear program for a small country is not that it provides a military option. It does not. The value is not even in possessing nuclear weapons, which might actually turn out to be too dangerous. The value of a nuclear program is that it exists and is known to exist. That very fact redefines its possessor's place in the international system and provides it with opportunities to extract concessions. So long as the country does not push its position in such a way that anyone is convinced of an imminent threat -- or, to put it differently, so long as the line between potential threat and "ready to launch" is never crossed -- great powers will sooner make concessions than take risks.


In other words, North Korea and Iran are very rationally engaged in appearing to be irrational risk-takers. It is interesting to note that, aside from its pursuit of nuclear weapons, North Korea has taken few strategic risks since the end of the Korean War, while Iran -- willing to underwrite any number of covert groups -- has been very careful, since the end of the Iran-Iraq war, with its own military adventures. If we forget the rhetoric, these are countries that have prudently managed risks. Possessing a program to develop nuclear weapons is, therefore, part of a prudent portfolio for managing their position in a dangerous world. It only appears to be risky. In practice, it reduces risk by limiting the threats others pose against them and by increasing the willingness of others to make concessions.


When playing poker, the cautious player always hides his caution behind a mask of recklessness. That is the prerequisite for bluffing effectively and getting people to call into full houses. The development of nuclear programs -- not the weapons themselves -- is a useful part of the mask of recklessness. Until, that is, someone calls the bluff -- telling North Korea to go develop all the weapons it wants, save that if it deploys a single one on a launcher, it would be nuked. But the North Koreans are betting that that is too much for the United States to push into the pot, as is Iran.


They are probably right.

Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.

 

Four Years On:
Who is Winning the War, and How Can Anyone Tell?

'By George Friedman

Four years have passed since al Qaeda
attacked the United States. It is difficult to remember a war of which the
status has been more difficult to assess. Indeed, there are reasonable
people who argue that the conflict between the United States and al Qaeda is
not a war at all, and that thinking of it in those terms obscures reality.
Other reasonable people argue that it is only in thinking in terms of war
that the conflict makes sense -- and these people then divide into groups:
those who believe the United States is winning and those who believe it is
losing the war. Into this confusion we must add the question of whether the
Iraq war is part of what U.S. President George W. Bush refers to as the "war
on terrorism" and what others might call the war against al Qaeda. Even the
issues are not clear. It is a war in which no one can agree even on the
criteria for success or failure, or at times, who is on what
side.

Part of this dilemma is simply the result of partisan politics.
It is a myth that Americans unite in times of war: Anyone who believes they
do must read the history of, for example, the Mexican War. Americans are a
fractious people and, while they were united during World War II, the
political recriminations were only delayed -- not suspended. The issue here
is not partisanship, however, but rather that there is no clear framework
against which to judge the current war.

Let us begin with what we all
-- save for those who believe that the Sept. 11 attacks were a plot hatched
by the U.S. government to justify the Patriot Act -- can agree on:

1.
Al Qaeda attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, by hijacking aircraft
and crashing or trying to crash them into well-known buildings.
2. Since
Sept. 11, there have been al Qaeda attacks in Europe and several Muslim
countries, but not in the United States.
3. The United States invaded
Afghanistan a month after the strikes against the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon -- forcing the Taliban government out of the major cities, but not
defeating them. The United States has failed to capture Osama bin Laden,
although it captured other key al Qaeda operatives. The Taliban has
regrouped and is now conducting an insurgency in Afghanistan.
4. The
United States invaded Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration claimed that
this was part of the war against al Qaeda; critics have claimed it had
nothing to do with the war.
5. The United States failed to win the war
rapidly, as it had expected to do. Instead, U.S. forces encountered a
difficult guerrilla war that, while confined generally to the Sunni regions,
nevertheless posed serious military and political challenges.
6. Al Qaeda
has failed to achieve its primary political goal -- that is, to trigger an
uprising in at least one major Muslim country and create a jihadist regime.
There has been no general rising in the Muslim world, and most governments
are now cooperating with the United States.
7. There have been no
follow-on attacks in the United States since Sept. 11. Whether this is
because al Qaeda had no plans for a second attack or because subsequent
attacks were disrupted by U.S. intelligence is not clear.

This is not
intended to be an exhaustive list, but rather to provide what we would regard
as a non-controversial base from which to proceed with an
assessment.

From the beginning, then, it has been unclear whether the
United States saw itself as fighting a war against al Qaeda or as carrying
out a criminal investigation. The two are, of course, enormously different.
This is a critical problem.

The administration's use of the term
"war on terrorism" began the confusion. Terrorism is a mode of warfare. Save
for those instances when lunatics like Timothy McVeigh use it as an end in
itself, terrorism is a method of intimidating the civilian population in
order to drive a wedge between the public and their government. Al Qaeda,
then, had a political purpose in using terrorism, as did the British in
their nighttime bombing of Germany or the Germans in their air raids against
London. The problem in the Bush administration's use of this term is that you
do not wage a war against a method of warfare. A war is waged against an
enemy force.

Now, there are those who argue that war is something
that takes place between nation-states and that al Qaeda, not being a
nation-state, is not waging war. We tend to disagree with this view. Al
Qaeda is not a nation-state, but it is (or has been) a coherent, disciplined
force using violence for political ends. The United States, by focusing on
the "war on terror," confused the issue endlessly. But the critics of the
war, who insisted that wartime measures were unnecessary because this was
not a war, compounded the confusion. By the time we were done, the "war on
terror" had extended itself to include campaigns against animal rights
groups, and attempts to prevent terror attacks were seen as violations of
human rights by the ACLU.

It is odd to raise these points at the
beginning of an analysis of a war, but no war can be fought when there isn't
even clarity about what it is you are doing, let alone who you are fighting.
Yet that is precisely how this war evolved, and then degenerated into
conceptual chaos. The whole issue also got bound up with internal
name-calling, to the point that any assertion that Bush had some idea of
what he was doing was seen as outrageous partisanship, and the assertion
that Bush was failing in what he was doing was viewed the same way. Where
there is no clarity, there can be no criteria for success or failure. That
is the crisis today. No one agrees as to what is happening; therefore, no
one can explain who is winning or losing.

Out of this situation came
the deeper confusion: Iraq. From the beginning, it was not clear why the
United States invaded Iraq. The Bush administration offered three
explanations: First, that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq;
second, that Iraq was complicit with al Qaeda; and finally, that a
democratic Iraq -- and creation of a democratic Muslim world -- would help
to stop terrorism (or more precisely, al Qaeda).

The three
explanations were untenable on their face. Contrary to myth, the Bush
administration did not rush to go to war in Iraq. The administration had
been talking about it for nearly a year before the invasion began. That
would not have been the case if there truly was a fear that the Iraqis might
be capable of building atomic bombs, since they might hurry up and build
them. You don't give a heads-up in that situation. The United States did.
Hence, it wasn't about WMD. Second, it wasn't about Iraq's terrorist ties.
Saddam Hussein had no problem with the concept of terrorism, but he was an
ideological enemy of everything bin Laden stood for. Hussein was a secular
militarist; bin Laden, a religious ideologue. Cooperation between them
wasn't likely, and pointing to obscure meetings that Mohammed Atta may or
may not have had with an Iraqi in Prague didn't make the case. Finally, the
democracy explanation came late in the game. Bush had campaigned against
nation-building in places like Kosovo -- and if he now believed in
nation-building as a justification for war, it meant he stood with Bill
Clinton. He dodged that criticism, though, because the media couldn't
remember Kosovo or spell it any more by the time Iraq rolled
around.

Bush's enemies argued that he invaded Iraq in order to (a)
avenge the fact that Hussein had tried to kill his father; (b) as part of a
long-term strategy planned years before to dominate the Middle East; (c) to
dominate all of the oil in Iraq; (d) because he was a bad man or (e) just
because. The fact was that his critics had no idea why he did it and
generated fantastic theories because they couldn't figure it out any more
than Bush could explain it.

Stratfor readers know our view was that
the invasion of Iraq was intended to serve three purposes:

1. To
bring pressure on the Saudi government, which was allowing Saudis to funnel
money to al Qaeda, to halt this enablement and to cooperate with U.S.
intelligence. The presence of U.S. troops to the north of Saudi Arabia was
intended to drive home the seriousness of the situation.
2. To take
control of the most strategic country in the Middle East -- Iraq borders
seven critical countries -- and to use it as a base of operations against
other countries that were cooperating with al Qaeda.
3. To demonstrate in
the Muslim world that the American reputation for weakness and indecisiveness
-- well-earned in the two decades prior to the Sept. 11 attacks -- was no
longer valid. The United States was aware that the invasion of Iraq would
enrage the Muslim world, but banked on it also frightening
them.

Let's put it this way: The key to understanding the situation
was that Bush wanted to blackmail the Saudis, use Iraq as a military base
and terrify Muslims. He wanted to do this, but he did not want to admit this
was what he was doing. He therefore provided implausible justifications,
operating under the theory that a rapid victory brushes aside troubling
questions. Clinton had gotten out of Kosovo without explaining why signs of
genocide were never found, because the war was over quickly and everyone was
sick of it. Bush figured he would do the same thing in Iraq.

It was
precisely at this point that the situation got out of control. The biggest
intelligence failure of the United States was not 9-11 -- only Monday
morning quarterbacks can claim that they would have spotted al Qaeda's plot
and been able to block it. Nor was the failure to find WMD in Iraq. Not only
was that not the point, but actually, everyone was certain that Hussein at
least had chemical weapons. Even the French believed he did. The biggest
mistake was the intelligence that said that the Iraqis wouldnÕt fight, that
U.S. forces would be welcomed or at least not greeted hostilely by the Iraqi
public, and that the end of the conventional combat would end the
war.

That was the really significant intelligence failure. Hussein,
or at least some of his key commanders, had prepared for a protracted
guerrilla war. They knew perfectly well that the United States would crush
their conventional forces, so they created the material and financial basis
for a protracted guerrilla war. U.S. intelligence did not see this coming,
and thus had not prepared the U.S. force for fighting the guerrilla war.
Indeed, if they had known this was coming, Bush might well have calculated
differently on invading Iraq -- since he wasnÕt going to get the decisive
victory he needed.

The intelligence failure was compounded by a
command failure. By mid-April 2003, it was evident to Stratfor that a
guerrilla
war was starting. Donald Rumsfeld continued vigorously to deny that any such war was
going on. It was not until July, when Gen. Tommy Franks was relieved by John
Abizaid as Central Command chief, that the United States admitted the
obvious. Those were the 45-60 critical days. Intelligence failures worse
than this one happen in every war, but the delay in recognizing what was
happening -- the extended denial in the Pentagon -- eliminated any chance of
nipping it in the bud. By the summer of 2003, the war was raging, and foreign
jihadists had begun joining in. Obviously this increased anti-American
sentiment, but not necessarily effective anti-American sentiment. Hating the
United States is not the same as being able to run secure covert operations
in the United States.

The war did not and does not cover most of
Iraq's territory. Only a relatively small portion is involved -- the Sunni
regions. At this point, the administration has done a fairly good job in
creating a political process and bringing the Sunni elders to the table, if
not to an agreement that will end the insurgency. But the problem is that
American expectations about the war have been so strangely set that whatever
esoteric satisfaction experts might take in the evolution, it is clear that
this war is not what the Bush administration expected, that it is not what
the administration was prepared to fight, and that the administration is now
in a position where it has to make compromises rather than impose its
will.

We believe that a war started on Sept. 11, 2001. We believe
that from a strictly operational point of view, al Qaeda has gotten by far
the worst of it. Having struck the first blow, al Qaeda has been crippled,
with each succeeding attack weaker and weaker. We also think that the U.S.
invasion of Iraq achieved at least one of Washington's goals: Saudi Arabia
has behaved much differently since February 2003. But the ongoing war has
undermined the ability of the United States to use Iraq as a base of
operations in the region, and the psychological outcome Washington was
hoping for obviously didn't materialize.

What progress there has been
is invisible, for two reasons. First, the Bush administration had crafted an
explanation for the entire war that was based on two premises -- first, that
the American public would remain united on all measures necessary after Sept.
11, and second, that the United States would achieve a quick victory in Iraq,
sparing the administration the need to explain itself. As a result, Bush has
never articulated a coherent strategic position. Furthermore, as the second
premise proved untrue, the failure to enunciate a coherent strategic vision
began to undermine the first premise -- national unity. At this point, Bush
is beginning to face criticism in his own party. Sen. Chuck Hagel's
statement, that the promise to stay the course does not constitute a
strategy, is indicative of Bush's major problem.

The president's
dilemma, now, is this. He had a strategy. He failed to explain what it was
because doing so would have carried a cost, and the president assumed it was
unnecessary. It turned out to be necessary, but he still didn't enunciate a
strategy because it would at that point have appeared contrived. Moreover,
as time went on, the strategy had to evolve. It is hard to evolve an
unarticulated strategy. Bush rigidified publicly even as his strategy in
Iraq became more nimble.

Figuring out how the war is going four years
after 9-11, then, is like a nightmare fighting ghosts. The preposterous
defense of U.S. strategy meets the preposterous attack on U.S. strategy:
Claims that the United States invaded Iraq to bring democracy to the people
competes with the idea that it invaded in order to give contracts to
Halliburton. Nothing is too preposterous to claim.

But even as U.S.
politics seize up in one of these periodic spasms, these facts are still
clear:

1. The United States has not been attacked in four
years.
2. No Muslim government has fallen to supporters of al
Qaeda.
3. The United States won in neither Iraq or Afghanistan.
4. Bin
Laden is still free and ready to go extra rounds.

So far, neither side
has won -- but on the whole, weÕd say the United States has the edge. The war
is being fought outside the United States. And that is not a trivial point.
But it is not yet a solution to the president's problems.