Back to Barbary? Muslim Pirates and the West

Muslim pirates seize Western merchant ships and take them to their home ports. There the crews and the ships are only freed on payment of large ransoms to the pirates. This story was of only historical interest until recent years. It was the tale of the Barbary pirates of North Africa who terrorised Christian shipping in the Mediterranean Sea between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. These corsairs combined turning a profit from booty and ransoms with a holy war against the infidel.

Do modern Somali pirates have any resemblance to their Barbary predecessors and do the methods used by Western navies against the Barbary corsairs have any relevance to current anti-piracy efforts?

Originally the Muslim corsairs sailing out of ports such as Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli were genuine holy warriors. However, as the centuries passed, religious commitment became less important than the economic benefits of piracy.

Today's Somali pirates deny any religious motive is behind their actions, while Somali Islamist militants declare they are opposed to piracy. Both groups take these positions to avoid provoking direct American intervention in Somalia. As long as Somali piracy is viewed as a criminal rather than a terrorist activity, the United States seems reluctant to take any major action to suppress it.

Instead we have the bizarre spectacle of the tanker Sirius Star, the largest vessel ever captured by pirates, being taken to a Somali pirate haven while the United States Navy, the most powerful naval force in the world, does nothing except take photographs. If a religious commitment was once a good cover for the piratical activities of the Barbary corsairs, it seems today that being seen as purely secular criminals gives the Somali pirates some sort of immunity.

If modern Somali piracy has important differences from the activities of the Barbary corsairs, do the methods used in the past by Western nations against the forces of Barbary have any modern relevance?

Currently an ever-growing multinational fleet of warships is gathering in the waters off Somalia. Yet hunting small and swift pirate vessels at sea has always been a hit or miss affair, which even modern communications cannot make much more effective. In earlier centuries the fleets of Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, France, and even the infant United States believed that patrolling had to be supplemented by direct attacks on the home ports of the Barbary pirates. Only when the Barbary rulers saw their cities bombarded and their ships sunk could they be forced to at least short-term suspension of their predatory activities.

Recent United Nations resolutions give Western and other countries the right to pursue Somali pirates on both sea and land. However, the chances of Western forces making direct attacks on pirate ports do not seem great. When an Anglo-Dutch fleet bombarded the pirate base of Algiers in 1816, the action was greeted with international approval. If Western forces inflicted similar damage on a Somali pirate port such as Eyl, the modern reaction would be less favourable.

Barbary piracy began to decline during the eighteenth century less because of the actions by Western navies than because the Barbary states increasingly came to see legitimate trade with Christian Europe as more lucrative than pirate attacks. The French might claim their occupation of Algiers in 1830 was the only way to end piracy from that port, but in fact such activities had been in decline for decades.

Naval patrols and even naval or air bombardment of ports can only be short-term ways of dealing with Somali piracy. What is required for a long-term solution to the problem is the restoration of order and effective government within Somalia and the revival of legitimate economic activities which will provide income to match that from pirate ransoms.

Unfortunately such developments are unlikely to take place quickly and Somali piracy will persist in the immediate future. Preventive measures may reduce its impact, but unless the wider problems of the Horn of Africa receive more direct attention from the international community piracy will not be eradicated. It took more than three centuries to suppress the Barbary corsairs. Even the most pessimistic assessment must hope for a more speedy resolution of the problem posed by the Somali pirates.

Somali Piracy: Overlooking Crime to Avoid Militancy?

Traditionally the world's foremost naval power ensures the safety of ships of all nations on the sea lanes circling the globe. This was what Britain's Royal Navy did in the nineteenth century.

Today's United States Navy is more powerful than any previous naval force in the history of the world. One might expect it to take swift and effective action to crush the growing menace of Somali piracy. In fact it has done remarkably little to deal with the modern heirs of the Barbary corsairs.

More than two centuries ago the activities of those Muslim pirates from North Africa led to the establishment of the United States Navy. Today's Muslim corsairs from Somalia can range across the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean seizing ships virtually unopposed. The ships and crews are held for ransom, while American warships can only watch and wait.

The United States Navy does not lack ships, trained personnel, and cutting-edge technology to deal with these maritime gangsters. What is lacking is the political will in Washington to order the navy into action. Why is this?

It seems to be a repeat of the phenomenon which has already manifested itself in the land war in Afghanistan. In a poor country lucrative economic activities are few. If they are illegal, is it wise for an intervening foreign power to suppress them if such suppression merely provides new recruits for the militant forces which the foreign power is trying to destroy?

In Afghanistan the illegal but lucrative activity is the drug trade in heroin, with poppy the most attractive crop for local farmers. The country is now the world's leading producer of the drug. There has long been a reluctance by the United States to suppress this trade because it provides income for both friendly warlords and ordinary Afghan farmers. Other members of NATO have complained that the heroin trade also provides a major source of income for the Taliban.

To suppress the heroin trade might reduce the Taliban's funds, but it would also alienate a large section of the Afghan population. If Afghan farmers are forced to give up poppy cultivation without being offered a financially viable alternative crop, they will become impoverished and desperate, ready-made recruits for the Taliban.

Piracy is now probably the most lucrative economic activity in Somalia, a nation usually regarded as the perfect example of a 'failed state'. As yet there are no known links between the pirates of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland and the Islamist militants battling in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. Indeed the Islamists have on occasion shown marked hostility towards the pirates.

Similarly the Taliban once claimed to be opposed to poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and even suppressed it for a time. However, once they saw its money-making potential, they put aside their scruples and demanded their cut. How long will the Somali Islamists resist the temptation to take a share in the spoils of piracy?

For the moment the Somali pirates are seen as 'ordinary' criminals, with no obvious links to Islamist terrorism that would invite American attacks such as those made in the past on supposed al Qaeda bases in Somalia. Instead American warships escort a few lucky merchant ships, but do not intervene as the pirates take captured vessels back to their home ports. Clearly the rationale is that, as in Afghanistan, it is better to let ordinary crime prosper if suppressing it would provide new recruits for Islamist militants.

Recently NATO, including the United States, has announced its intention to take more forceful action against the heroin trade in Afghanistan. If this action takes place, it may well reduce income going to the Taliban, but it may also alienate large sections of the Afghan rural population, giving the Taliban new supporters. Off the coast of Somalia the pirates continue to ply their trade with minimal interference from the United States Navy. Warships from other NATO nations are soon to join the Americans, but decisive action against the pirates appears unlikely. For the moment it still seems better to overlook crime rather than drive the criminals into the arms of the Islamist militants.

Border Wars, Past and Present

Since the beginning of September American attacks on supposed Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists inside Pakistan have increased. To date there have been nine missile strikes by UAVs and for the first time a cross-border US commando raid has taken place; all violations of Pakistan's national sovereignty.

The United States and its NATO allies claim that the long-running guerrilla struggle against them within Afghanistan can only be defeated if the insurgents' safe bases in neighbouring Pakistan are destroyed. The efforts of Pakistan's army to carry out this task have had little success and the Americans increasingly feel that only they can carry out the operation successfully. However, any escalation of the border war may have serious consequences for all concerned.

Since 1945 there have been a number of conflicts in which cross-border activities by insurgents have played an important part. The forces fighting such insurgents have usually tried one of two main strategies, or a combination of the two, with varying degrees of success.

The first strategy is for the counter-insurgent force to establish a physical barrier along its side of the border, or, in one case, to establish such a barrier along a strip inside the neighbouring country that is playing host, willingly or unwillingly, to the insurgents. If sufficiently extensive, well-constructed, and well-manned, such a barrier can defeat guerrillas trying to rejoin the struggle from their safe havens abroad.

The classic example of a successful border barrier fulfilling this role was the so-called Morice line built by the French army along the Algeria-Tunisia border in 1957-58. Algerian insurgents trying to return to their homeland from their camps in Tunisia found it almost impossible to break through the Morice line. Their casualties were heavy and by the end of 1958 the Algerians in Tunisia were almost completely cut off from their fellow fighters inside Algeria. During 1959 French forces came near to stamping out the insurgency within Algeria, and the success of the Morice line was an important factor in achieving this result.

During the Vietnam war the USA tried to emulate the French by setting up the so-called McNamara line along the demilitarized zone separating North and South Vietnam from 1967 onwards. Unfortunately the principal routes taking supplies and reinforcements to the communist insurgents in South Vietnam passed through the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia. The South Vietnamese border with these states was so long and its terrain so difficult that any attempt to build a continuous barrier was impossible.

In 1978 Israel seized a strip of Lebanese territory bordering its own northern frontier and established a militarized zone which was to act as a barrier preventing guerrilla attacks on its territory. This zone, which was later extended further into Lebanon, had some success in disrupting guerrilla attempts to reach Israeli territory, and Israel did not give up the zone until 2000.

The second strategy to prevent cross-border insurgent operations is to attack their safe havens in neighbouring territory with air strikes or, in the last resort, destroy them by a land invasion. Even counter-insurgent forces creating barrier lines may still feel the need to strike at enemy bases beyond those lines. The temptation to conduct such operations is even stronger for counter-insurgents who cannot create effective barriers, as in Vietnam in the past and in Afghanistan today.

Even as the Morice line took shape, the French military were ready to risk launching an air strike against an Algerian insurgent base at Sakiet in Tunisia in early 1958. The international outcry that resulted discouraged the French from repeating the operation. In contrast, Israeli air attacks on enemy bases deeper in Lebanon became a regular occurrence when guerrillas attempted to break through their security zone in the south of the country. In Vietnam, once it became clear that no border barrier could stop communist inflitration into South Vietnam, the United States began bombing enemy bases and supply routes in Laos and Cambodia. As in Pakistan today, the US government refused to admit that these air attacks were taking place.

The problem with direct attacks on guerrilla safe havens in neighbouring countries is that they become subject to steady escalation. Rather than helping to stop a war in one country, they end up spreading the conflict into the neighbouring state or states. Cambodia in 1970 is perhaps the best example. Dissatisfied with the results of the 'secret' bombing of that country, American and South Vietnamese forces launched a massive invasion of Cambodia. For three months they scoured border areas, destroying communist bases and inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. Nevertheless the Vietnamese communists survived the blow and continued their struggle. The real victims were the Cambodians. Their country was politically destabilized and the newly installed pro-American government found itself under increasing attack from the communists, both Cambodian and Vietnamese.

Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 seemed initially to be a much more successful effort to destroy terrorist bases in a neighbouring state. The Palestine Liberation Organization and its fighters were driven out of the country. Unfortunately, Israel's methods in achieving this success increasingly alienated native Muslim groups in Lebanon. Local guerrillas, above all those of Hezbollah, began a war against the invaders in southern Lebanon. By 2000 the Israelis were ready to leave all Lebanese territory, including their security zone. Israel's new assault on Lebanon in 2006 was an attempt to destroy Hezbollah, but it failed to achieve any decisive success.

Launching direct military attacks on guerrilla bases in neighbouring countries clearly brings the risk of expanding wars rather than bringing them to an early end. A barrier strategy might seem a safer course of action. However, in today's conflict along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border no barrier can be built, largely because of the length of the frontier and the very difficult terrain it crosses. Even if a barrier could be built, America and its allies would never be able to man it. The Morice line required 80,000 troops to hold it, that is, more troops than the US and other foreign nations have deployed in the whole of Afghanistan.

The United States has moved towards a strategy of unacknowledged air attacks on insurgent targets inside Pakistan, operations reminiscent of its actions against Cambodia in the Vietnam war. In Cambodia the 'secret' bombing eventually led to a full-scale invasion of the country, with unfortunate long-term consequences for both Cambodia and its invaders. There can be little doubt that an American attempt to launch a major military incursion into Pakistan aimed at destroying Taliban and Al Qaeda bases would set off a chain of events whose consequences would be equally disastrous.

Like all counter-insurgency wars, the struggle in Afghanistan is basically political rather than military. Whatever strategy the US and its NATO allies pursue in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands, it will not bring decisive victory. Militarily France's Morice line was a great success, but in the wider political context of the Algerian war it was almost irrelevant. By 1960 the war-weary French government was ready to negotiate with its 'terrorist' enemies, ending French rule in Algeria in 1962. Increasingly some sort of political settlement with the Taliban seems to be the only way to end the war in Afghanistan, regardless of whether such a settlement will deliver the leaders of Al Qaeda into American hands or not.

Mr Bush's Unfinished Business

As George W. Bush's second term as president of the United States draws to a close, two of his declared foreign policy aims remain unfulfilled. First, he has not yet captured or killed Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda associates who were behind the 9/11 atrocities. Secondly, he has not carried out his endlessly repeated threat to take military action to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

With only a few months remaining of his presidency, Bush has seemed increasingly unlikely to be able to attend to either piece of unfinished business. Now, with the rapid deterioration in relations between Russia and the West as a consequence of the August war in Georgia, it seems even more unlikely that President Bush will have the chance to act against these two designated targets.

If Bush was to order a successful military strike which killed or captured Osama bin Laden and his principal associates, this would undoubtedly boost his popularity with the American people and he could leave the Oval Office on a positive note. Whether such an action would have any long term beneficial impact on the 'war on terror' is another matter. As Osama bin Laden himself noted shortly after 9/11, his life does not greatly matter as he has achieved his goal: to set off a major confrontation between the West and the Muslim world. If he was killed, bin Laden would be just another Islamist martyr and in time somebody else would come to take his place. Israel has been killing Muslim terrorist leaders regularly for sixty years with little sign that the terrorist threat will ever come to an end.

Since Osama bin Laden is said to be hiding somewhere in the tribal territories on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, any major American military strike against him will involve a serious violation of Pakistan's national sovereignty. Civil unrest is already growing in that country and an American invasion would only further inflame the situation. This consideration has so far limited American actions to air strikes by UAVs which both Washington and Islamabad have sought to play down. NATO's war in Afghanistan is going badly at the moment and to spread the war into an already volatile Pakistan would only make a bad situation worse.

The new hostility between NATO and Russia presents a further obstacle to striking against Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Some 90% of supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan are landed at the port of Karachi and pass through Pakistan to reach the Afghan border. If this route was closed, NATO forces would soon be in a desperate situation, given that Iran is unlikely to let supplies come in through Iranian ports. All that remained would be the northern supply route across Russia and several of the Central Asian republics.

Earlier this year Russia tentatively agreed to the use by NATO of this northern land route if required. The agreement of the Central Asian states was still to be negotiated. However, after recent events in the Caucasus, it now seems unlikely that Russia would be willing to provide this supply route for NATO. Thus America and its allies would be unwise to destabilise Pakistan, their principal supply route to Afghanistan, by carrying out a major military incursion into that country with Osama bin Laden as their target.

With regard to Osama bin Laden the fear that military intervention might make a bad situation worse is a powerful constraint on American action. With regard to Iran, the second piece of unfinished business, the constraint is slightly different. Here the fear is that American military action against Iran might plunge an improving situation in neighbouring Iraq back into chaos.

Whatever the supposed threat posed by nuclear developments in Iran, the fact is that the Iranians have made some contribution to the present comparative peace in Iraq by mediating disputes between Iraqi Shiite factions. They have encouraged those factions to be patient and wait until the United States has withdrawn its military forces from Iraq, as now seems increasingly likely in the next year or two.

If the United States launched military attacks on Iran aimed at destroying its nuclear facilities, such warfare would inevitably spill over into Iraq, where some Shiite groups would undoubtedly launch attacks on American forces. The present comparative peace in Iraq, so dearly bought with American blood and treasure, would be lost in an instant. This consideration does much to prevent President Bush ordering an attack on Iran.

Russia has up to now co-operated with the Americans and the Europeans in imposing sanctions on Iran in order to curb its nuclear developments. Although Russia no more wants to see a nuclear-armed Iran than does America or Israel, its attitude to the Iranians may well change as a result of Western reaction to the Georgian war. Russia could pull out of the sanctions regime and it might increase sales of defensive military systems to Iran as it has already increased such sales to Syria.

Thus the worsening relations with Russia seem likely to create even more obstacles to President Bush carrying out military action against Osama bin Laden and Iran, his two pieces of unfinished business abroad. However, the Bush administration has shown its indifference to rational calculations in the past and its window of opportunity for military action is closing fast. One can only hope that George W. Bush's years in the White House end with a whimper and not a bang.

Back to the Battlefields in the Caucasus

The outbreak of open warfare between Russia and Georgia over the disputed territory of South Ossetia underlines the dangerous volatility of the post-Cold War political situation in the Caucasus. The region's numerous nationalities enjoyed an enforced amity under Soviet rule, but after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 ethnic nationalism reasserted itself and rival groups came into conflict. Bitter and bloody in themselves, these Caucasian clashes have a broader significance because of the part they can play in wider geopolitical struggles.

The first such wider struggle which was reflected in the Caucasus was the emerging clash between a newly resurgent Islam and its infidel enemies. Christian Armenia sought to aid the independence struggles of the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh within the neighbouring Muslim state of Azerbaijan. Between 1992 and 1994 Russia assisted the Armenians in their war, finally forcing Azerbaijan to give up its efforts to subdue Nagorno-Karabakh, which became a quasi-independent state linked to Armenia.

However, if Russia could defeat Islamic aspirations abroad, it had less success at home in certain parts of the Caucasus which remained within the Russian Federation. The Muslims of Chechnya proved the biggest problem. They had a tradition of resistance to Russian hegemony that reached back several centuries and achieved its peak in Shamil's great struggle during the nineteenth century. It was hardly surprising that when the Soviet Union broke up, the Chechens declared their own independent state.

In 1994-96 the Russians carried on a bitter war to end Chechen independence, but in the end they were defeated. In 1999 Russia resumed its onslaught on Chechnya, leading to further heavy fighting. Nevertheless by 2005 the Chechen resistance had been broken and violence sank to manageable levels. In part this had been achieved by Russia offering deals to certain Chechen resisters. They were allowed to run the state so long as they stayed loyal to Moscow.

In the aftermath of 9/11 it might have been expected that the USA and its allies would show more sympathy for Russia's struggles against Islamist insurgents in Chechnya, but this proved not to be the case, Britain, for example, still providing refuge for Chechen militants. This Western coolness towards assisting Russia in the Caucasus was because that area was now becoming a battlefield for another wider geopolitical struggle. This was between an expansionist USA and a Russia which felt itself increasingly threatened by NATO encirclement.

The Americans made determined efforts to befriend those Caucasian states which had political grievances against Russia. These were Georgia, angry at Russian support for the break-away regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia within its territory, and Azerbaijan, which wished to regain its lost region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Another reason for American interest in these countries was oil. The potential of the vast oil and gas reserves around the Caspian Sea became well known during the 1990s. The chief problem in exploiting them was that most of the pipelines from the area to the wider world passed through Russia. The United States wished to find a pipeline route that avoided Russia and seemed to have found it through the Caucasian corridor formed by Azerbaijan and Georgia. There already was an old pipeline following the route from the Caspian to the Black Sea, but the Americans favoured a new pipeline that would go from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, with a terminal at Ceyhan, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean Sea. This pipeline is now operational.

To further secure its new position in the Caucasus, the USA gave military aid to both Georgia and Azerbaijan, and held out the possibility of NATO membership to Georgia. In return President Saakashvili of Georgia was happy to send Georgian troops to America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saakashvili's anti-Russian rhetoric increased markedly during the first half of 2008 and he made clear his intention of repossessing both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, by force if necessary. Apparently both Washington and Moscow did not take his words seriously, given the surprise of both the USA and Russia at Georgia's military move into South Ossetia.

For Russia this is clearly a provocation that cannot be ignored. If pro-Russian South Ossetia falls to Georgia, it can only encourage Azerbaijan to renew its efforts to retake Nagorno-Karabakh. That in turn would probably rekindle the insurgency in Chechnya, seriously undermining Russia's position in the Caucasus. Moscow has chosen to fight. The Georgians are clearly counting on the USA and its NATO allies to come and save them, but are those countries ready to escalate a regional war into a great power confrontation that risks worldwide conflict?

Fifty Years On: A Free Iraq or New Masters?

The American and Iraqi governments are continuing their negotiations to find a legal basis for a continued US presence in Iraq after the end of this year, when the current United Nations mandate expires. An agreement is promised before the end of July.

Coincidentally, this July will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution which brought to an end the last foreign military presence in Iraq. The coup of 14 July 1958 overthrew the pro-Western Iraqi monarchy, set up a republic, and forced the British to give up their last military base in the country.

By the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi treaty, Britain agreed to give Iraq independence (in 1932), but in return the British government retained the right to keep military forces in the country. The two principal bases were the air stations at Habbaniyah, west of Baghdad, and Shaibah, outside Basra.

In 1952 Egyptian army officers deposed King Farouk and set up a republic, which was soon dominated by Gamal Abdel Nasser. His doctrine of secular pan-Arab nationalism won many adherents throughout the Middle East, and these included senior officers in the Iraqi army.

Nasser believed that one great Arab state could be created and as a first step Egypt and Syria announced their union at the United Arab Republic (UAR) in early 1958. In Iraq both the king, Faisal II, and the prime minister, Nuri al-Said, were hostile to this new creation. As a defensive measure, Iraq announced a link with Jordan, which was also pro-Western, anti-Nasser, and ruled by a Hashemite royal family.

In Lebanon many Muslims wanted the country to join the new UAR, but the Christian Maronites were hostile to such action, moving the country towards civil war. King Hussein of Jordan feared that pro-Nasser elements in his country were conspiring against him and appealed for Iraqi support. The Iraqi government promised to send troops to aid him.

These troops were to travel via Baghdad, giving pro-Nasser army officers such as General Qasim and Colonel Arif the perfect opportunity to launch their own coup. On 14 July Arif's men seized control of Baghdad and murdered King Faisal and most of the Iraqi royal family. On the following day Nuri al-Said was hunted down and killed.

In reaction to these events in the Middle East, President Eisenhower authorised the first US military intervention in the region. American marines landed at Beirut and peace was soon restored in Lebanon. British paratroops were flown to Jordan to bolster King Hussein's grip on power. However, there was no repeat of Britain's 1941 intervention in Iraq to overthrow a hostile government.

Instead Britain tamely accepted the new republican government in Baghdad which was soon dominated by General Qasim. The British government had already relinquished the Shaibah air base in 1956. The new ruler of Iraq now demanded a British withdrawal from Habbaniyah. This was completed in May 1959, ending a British military presence in Iraq which had begun more than forty years earlier during the First World War.

Today the old air base at Habbaniyah is Camp Habbaniyah, garrisoned by US forces. Shaibah was incorporated in Basra International Airport in the 1960s. That airport was occupied by the British during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and is now their last major base in the country. The wheel seems to have come full circle. The bases given up fifty years ago are once again in the hands of Western military forces. How long will they stay this time?

Despite the nationalist protestations of some Iraqi politicians and demands from certain quarters in the United States for an early American withdrawal, it seems unlikely that the US military will be pulling out of Iraq in the near future. All that is up for negotiation is the terms on which the Americans remain in that country. Any country that accepts American bases, whether it be Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, South Korea, or Japan, has to grant US forces extraterritorial status. The Iraqi government too will be forced to do this, although whether this status will be extended to civilian security contractors is another matter. Only a repeat of the 1958 revolution might prevent the Americans from staying on, but that seems a very remote possibility.

Proxy Wars: Spreading the Load or Increasing Instability?

Last month the Western-backed government of Lebanon made a bold attempt to reduce the power of Hezbollah, the principal Shia party, backed by Iran. This effort ended in rapid and bloody failure. The Lebanese army stepped in, but not to enforce the government's will. Instead the army brokered a settlement that effectively confirmed Hezbollah's power in Lebanon. The American-backed government had been publicly humiliated by Iran's proxy in Lebanon.

This outcome merely confirmed the situation that has existed since 2006. In that year Israel, America's most powerful proxy, willingly undertook the task of destroying Hezbollah. However, it failed and the bloody stalemate that was the result of the July war could be presented by Hezbollah as a victory for them and, implicitly, for Iran.

Why do the United States and Iran need to fight each other through proxies? Do such proxy wars decrease or increase international instability? And if such conflicts do not yield the desired results, will the principals behind the proxies eventually be drawn into direct military involvement?

Proxy wars are obviously attractive to Iran because it can strike at the interests of the United States yet deny direct involvement. Thus the long-threatened and long-feared American attack on Iran can be avoided. Also, Iran, unlike the United States, can exercise a more direct control of its proxies. Hezbollah, like all Shia militant groups around the world, has only one foreign power it can turn to for support and that is Iran.

If Iran is happy to exploit proxies to avoid direct confrontation with the West, why does the United States, the world's only remaining military superpower, feel the need to do so? The fact is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have tied down most of America's land forces. Any further expansion of their commitments would be difficult to sustain and unpopular with voters.

Thus, to spread the load, the United States is happy to call in proxies to fight its battles. Kurdish support has been invaluable to the Americans in Iraq, while Pakistan has engaged in repeated and often bloody campaigns against Islamist militants in its borderlands with Afghanistan.

However, these proxies are less reliable than those employed by Iran. The current Pakistani government's attempts to achieve a peaceful settlement with its border militants has created considerable alarm in Washington. There have been renewed calls for direct American military intervention in Pakistan, the very action that proxy wars are supposed to avoid.

If 2006 witnessed the failure of Israel, America's proxy, to crush Hezbollah, it did see an apparently more successful use of proxy forces in the Horn of Africa. During the year Islamist forces had taken control of most of central and southern Somalia and the Americans were anxious to remove them. Ethiopia was to act as America's proxy, invading Somalia in December. The invaders quickly drove the Islamists from power and installed a Somali government which enjoyed international support. There were promises that Ethiopian forces would be withdrawn within a few months.

Today, more than eighteen months later, Ethiopian forces are still in Somalia, fighting an apparently endless war against Islamist guerrillas, while the Somali government in Mogadishu is on the verge of collapse. To bolster its proxies, the United States has been ready to carry out a few direct military attacks, mostly airstrikes, in Somalia. Such direct American intervention is still unthinkable in the Lebanese proxy war, but it may become more common in the Horn of Africa.

During 2006 the United States backed military action by its proxies, Israel and Ethiopia, against Islamist parties in Lebanon and Somalia. In both cases the interventions have not had the desired results. The respective Islamist groups continue to exist and fight on. America sent in proxies to avoid having to do the job itself, but if the proxies fail, will the Americans eventually be forced to undertake some form of direct military intervention? At a time when Islamist resistance continues in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be unwise for the United States to be drawn into new theatres of conflict.

America and Muslim Pirates: Then and Now

Among the deluge of books on Christian-Muslim conflict that have appeared since 9/11, one group has dealt with the clashes between the infant navy of the United States and the Barbary corsairs in the early nineteenth century. This struggle has been portrayed, to use the sub-title of a 2003 book, as 'America's First War on Terror'.

The United States Navy was brought into being to chastise Muslim pirates in North Africa who had been seizing American merchant ships and enslaving American sailors. In wars against Tripoli in 1801-1805 and against Algiers in 1815, the United States forced the Barbary corsairs to respect its power and sovereignty.

Both sides made reference to the religious aspects of these conflicts, but by this period political and economic considerations were more important in motivating both Christian captains and Muslim corsairs. Despite their claims to be carrying on a centuries-old jihad or holy war on the high seas, the Barbary pirates were running a protection racket. They demanded tribute from foreign maritime states in return for not attacking their merchant ships. The frigates of the new United States Navy soon convinced the Muslim pirates that the American republic would not submit to such extortion.

Now, two centuries after the wars against the Barbary corsairs, a new breed of Muslim pirate is active along the coast of Somalia, reaching out as far as two hundred miles into the neighbouring seas to capture ships and crews to be held for ransom. Today the United States Navy is the most powerful naval force in the world - indeed the most powerful navy in world history - and it might be expected to snuff out this new pirate menace with ease. However, such is not the case. Despite the ever-growing provocation by the Somali pirates, the United States Navy has taken only the most tentative action against this mosquito force. Why is this?

In part it is because unlike in the early 1800s America today has no large national merchant fleet needing protection. The mercantile marine of the early American republic quickly grew to be one of the largest in the world, its ships American-built, American-owned, and American-manned. Today, although much merchant tonnage is still American-owned, most of these vessels are registered under flags of convenience, chiefly Panama, Liberia, the Bahamas, and the Marshall Islands. These ships have foreign flags and foreign crews. The chances of Somali pirates seizing a US-flag vessel with an American crew are remote.

Traditionally the world's dominant naval power polices the international shipping routes not just to protect its own merchant fleet, but also the ships of all maritime trading nations. Since the United States has comparatively few merchant ships under its own flag, it now seems to prefer to leave any action against pirates to the navies of their victims. For example, the Somali pirates recently seized a French cruise yacht and a Spanish fishing vessel, so it was left to the navies of those countries to take action. Although in both cases the ships and crews were released safely, ransoms were paid and only in the French case were some pirates captured.

Another reason for the apparent American hesitation to act against the Somali pirates would seem to be the perception that US and other international naval forces in the area are there primarily to fight terrorists while the pirates are 'only criminals'. It is certainly true that the motives of the Somali pirates are at the moment principally mercenary, aiming to collect ransoms. However, is it safe to assume that these Muslim pirates will never be infected by Islamist ideology, taking the jihad to sea as the Barbary corsairs did in past centuries?

The United States and its allies would no doubt say they have already taken sufficient action against the pirates by deploying the multinational naval force known as Combined Task Force 150 in the region since 2002. However, the primary duty of this force is to carry out 'the war on terror' and not to act as an anti-piracy force. Indeed during the years of CTF 150's existence, the threat posed by the Somali pirates has increased not decreased.

In any case, CTF 150 has only fourteen or fifteen ships and its area of operations extends from the Gulf of Oman in the north to the Mozambique Channel in the south, including both the entrance to the Red Sea and most of the western Indian Ocean. This is a huge area, and even if the task force's remit kept it only on the coast of Somalia, that coast is the longest in Africa. Could only fifteen ships effectively cover a coastline which is almost 2,000 miles long?

Currently a resolution is being hammered out at the United Nations which would allow foreign warships to enter Somali territorial waters to hunt down pirates. However, even when this resolution is passed, those pirates can only be suppressed if the United States and other naval powers have the will to act and provide the necessary forces to do so.

The Islamists currently battling against Somali government and Ethiopian forces in and around the capital Mogadishu are said by the United States to have links with al-Qaeda. The latter terrorist group has carried out maritime attacks in the past, including hitting a US warship in Aden harbour and a French tanker off the coast of Yemen. As yet the Somali pirates are not known to have links with the Islamists in their country, let alone al-Qaeda. However, there is always the danger that some pirates might link their actions to the Islamist cause, demanding political concessions as well as ransoms in return for releasing captured ships and crews. In the worst scenario, the pirates might be used as cover for al-Qaeda suicide boat attacks on Western shipping in a maritime choke point like the Gulf of Aden.

Before such scenarios can arise, the international community must take powerful and decisive action to crush the Somali pirate menace, with the United States Navy leading the way as it did in the wars against the Barbary pirates two centuries ago.

Waziristan: Avoiding A Step Too Far

During the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s, the Afghan guerrillas had the great advantage of being able to retreat to safe bases in neighbouring Pakistan if Russian military pressure became too great. With the USA supporting Pakistan, there was never any chance the Soviet Union would attack those bases and risk a major crisis between the superpowers.

Today the Taliban militants operating against Western forces in Afghanistan run their operations from bases in the regions of Pakistan along the Afghan border. These safe havens are chiefly in northern Balochistan and the so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas, especially North and South Waziristan. Other than occasional airstrikes, chiefly by Predator UAVs, the Americans have been reluctant to take direct military action against these Taliban and al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan. Instead the USA has encouraged the Pakistani government to suppress them.

So far such Pakistani military efforts have met with only limited success, and there have been increasing calls in some quarters for the USA and its Western allies to undertake direct military action against terrorist bases in the border areas of Pakistan, above all in Waziristan. Such calls must be resisted since for the West to invade a Muslim nation for the third time since 2001 (the other invasions being Afghanistan and Iraq) would only further inflame hatred of the USA and its Western allies in the Islamic world.

The tribesmen of Waziristan have successfully resisted foreign invaders for centuries. Even the British Raj had to recognise their semi-independent status in 1893. However, this did not stop clashes between the two sides. For example, after the short-lived Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, a considerable revolt broke out in Waziristan. British and Indian forces suffered more than two thousand casualties before they forced the tribesmen to make peace in March 1920. Nevertheless further clashes, large and small, continued in Waziristan up until 1947 when Britain could hand the problem area over to newly independent Pakistan.

The Pakistanis avoided serious trouble in Waziristan largely by leaving the local people to run their own affairs. However, after 9/11 and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants, including leaders such as Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, fled across the border into Waziristan and adjacent areas. Under American pressure, the ruler of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, was compelled to send large numbers of troops into North and South Waziristan for the first time in decades. These forces had comparatively little success in rounding up Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, but their presence did anger local tribesmen, leading to increasing clashes between the two sides.

In March 2004 these clashes escalated into an open war between the Pakistani forces on one side and local tribesmen, Taliban guerrillas, and al-Qaeda fighters (mostly foreign) on the other. By the time a peace accord was finally negotiated between the contesting parties in September 2006, an estimated 700 Pakistani troops had been killed, as well as 1,000 militants and 1,000 civilians.

Although fragile, the peace accord did give the Pakistani authorities a chance to exploit divisions among their opponents. Relations between local people and foreign Islamist fighters had not always been good, and in the spring of 2007 violence broke out between local tribesmen and Uzbek fighters linked to al-Qaeda. By mid-April the Uzbeks had been largely driven out of South Waziristan, with Pakistani artillery assisting local tribesmen in some of their attacks.

These favourable developments might have led to further attacks on foreign Islamist fighters in the area, but in July 2007 Musharraf's government enraged radical Islamists all over Pakistan by its clumsy and bloody suppression of militant activity at the Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad. The Waziristan peace accord collapsed and between July and November 2007 there was intense fighting in the region, with suicide bombers taking a new prominence in attacks on Pakistani forces. By early 2008 the estimated casualties after barely six months of fighting exceeded those for the whole 2004-06 war: 850 troops killed, as well as 1,900 militants and 1,800 civilians.

Recently the tempo of the fighting has decreased and the new civilian government of Pakistan is promising to negotiate a peaceful settlement in Waziristan and adjacent areas rather than using further military force. The US government has expressed concern about this approach and some commentators have now suggested the Americans and their allies may have to intervene directly in Waziristan to destroy terrorist bases, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government in Islamabad. Such Western intervention, even if only in the form of increased airstrikes and raids by special forces, can only further inflame the situation in the region.

The only way to root out the Taliban and al-Qaeda from Waziristan and adjacent areas is for the Pakistani government to take action. As shown by the successful efforts against Uzbek fighters in South Waziristan in 2007, the Pakistanis can get local tribesmen to drive out foreign Islamist militants. This is the only way to go. It may not be swift, but it is likely to be effective in the long run. If impatience leads to clumsy Western military intervention in Waziristan, such action is more likely to spread war across Pakistan than to end it in Afghanistan.

Kosovars and Kurds: Same Game, Different Rules

There was once a land-locked province in a distant country. One ethnic group formed the majority population in the province, but it was oppressed by the ethnic group which formed a majority in the whole country.



The oppressed provincials finally rose in revolt. After some hesitation, Western nations eventually came to their assistance and by military means, including bombing of the national capital, forced the oppressive national government to withdraw its forces from the province.



The local ethnic majority then set up its own government in the liberated territory. Only one more political step remained to be undertaken. The government would wish to declare national independence and create a new state in the world.



This story outlines the course of events in not one but two oppressed provinces in recent history. One is Albanian-dominated Kosovo, part of Serbia (former Yugoslavia), and the other is Iraqi Kurdistan, the most northerly section of the republic of Iraq.



Recently the Kosovar government in Pristina has been allowed by its Western sponsors to take the final step. National independence has been declared, a unilateral declaration, without even the fig leaf of a favourable popular vote on the subject. Although nobody can doubt the majority of Kosovars support the declaration, the lack of a referendum sets a dangerous precedent.

The situation has been very different in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. Despite the declared wishes of both politicians and people, the Iraqi Kurds will not be allowed to declare national independence. While the United States denies the Serbian government in Belgrade has any right to prevent the secession of Kosovo, it is determined to keep Iraqi Kurdistan at least nominally linked to the national government in Baghdad

Why is national self determination permitted to the Kosovars but denied to the Iraqi Kurds? David Miliband, the British foreign minister, declared when he announced UK recognition of the independence of Kosovo that this was 'a unique case' which would not serve as a precedent for dissident regions in other countries. But how can that be? The principle of national self determination must be generally applicable around the world or it is no principle at all.

Mr. Miliband is no doubt keen to stress Kosovo's supposed 'uniqueness' because if a regional government can be allowed to declare its independence from the wider nation without even a referendum on the subject then the United Kingdom will soon be on the road to dissolution. A Scottish nationalist government is already in power in Edinburgh and if it took Kosovo as a precedent, it could declare the independence of Scotland at any time.

The crucial difference in the treatment given by the United States and its allies to Kosovo and Iraqi Kurdistan derives from their different geo-strategic positions and how neighbouring countries will react to such provinces claiming national independence.

With regard to Kosovo, the United States will suffer little damage to its interests from backing independence. Indeed there is already a major US military base in Kosovo and the country is slated to be on the route of an American-backed energy pipeline. Serbian and Russian threats are no more than hot air, with the attack on the US embassy in Belgrade signifying the impotence of Serbian nationalists rather than their strength. With Kosovo independent, the Albanian-majority areas of north-west Macedonia will no doubt demand autonomy at the very least, but whatever the reaction of the Macedonian government, the United States will have the final word.

How different the situation would be if the Iraqi Kurds were allowed to declare national independence. The Baghdad government and neighbouring countries with Kurdish populations would be outraged. The biggest outcry would come from Turkey, where Kurds make up at least twenty per cent of the national population and form a clear majority in the south-eastern provinces of the country. Even more than Israel, Turkey is the most important strategic ally the United States has in the Middle East. Its wishes cannot be ignored.

The Americans who in 1999 rained bombs on Yugoslavia in support of Kosovar guerrillas now try to look the other way while Turkish forces invade Iraqi Kurdistan to hunt down Kurdish guerrillas. The great Irish patriot Charles Stewart Parnell said that no man can set a limit to the march of a nation. Having encouraged the national independence of Kosovo, it will be interesting to see how long the United States can continue to hold back the national aspirations of the Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world still without a state of their own.

To the Shores of Tripoli: Wars Without End - And How They End

We are told that the present 'war on terror' is a potentially endless conflict. Critics have ridiculed the idea of making war on an abstract noun. Yet this is not a novelty. The present struggle against 'terror' is comparable to the worldwide fight against 'slavery' in the nineteenth century or the centuries-old effort to suppress 'piracy'.

Indeed the latter conflict may offer some parallels to the current 'war on terror'. Today the principal terrorists Western nations have in mind are Islamist ones. The most powerful and dangerous pirates in the past were those associated with the Muslim political entities known as the Barbary states. From the start of the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century, the Barbary pirates terrorised the Christian nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea and even operated on the Atlantic coasts of northwestern Europe.

The Barbary pirates were based principally at Tripoli (Libya), Tunis (Tunisia), Algiers (Algeria), and Rabat/Sale (Morocco). The long-running Christian-Muslim conflict had been carried on at sea in the Mediterranean before, but generally the Christians had managed to retain the upper hand for most of the time. This situation changed during the sixteenth century and Muslim power at sea increased dramatically. In part this was due to the growing strength of the navy of the Ottoman Empire, but even that force was very dependent on naval assistance from the Barbary states.

The stimulus that converted North Africa into perhaps the most important base for pirates in the world was provided by the final defeat of Islam in Spain and Portugal at the end of the fifteenth century. Thousands of Muslim refugees fled to North Africa, thirsting for revenge against the Iberian Christians. Piracy seemed to offer the easiest and most effective way of achieving this.

Of course these Muslim corsairs did not see themselves as pirates. Instead they saw themselves as warriors for the faith, carrying on a maritime jihad against their Christian enemies. If such activities also brought economic benefits in terms of plunder and ransoms, then so much the better.

During the sixteenth century Spain was the principal enemy of the Barbary states and Spanish naval and military forces sought to curb the activities of the Muslim corsairs. The Spanish failed in several attempts to capture Algiers, and although they took control of Tunis several times, they could not keep control of it for more than a few years.

In the first half of the seventeenth century the Barbary pirates enjoyed their heyday. Spanish power was declining, while the growing maritime powers of France, England and the Netherlands did not yet have navies strong enough to inflict serious damage on the Barbary states. This was the period when theBarbary pirates broke out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, raiding as far away as southern England and Ireland, Iceland, and the Newfoundland fisheries.

Only after 1660 did the French, English and Dutch navies begin to make serious efforts to suppress the Barbary pirates. However, they soon came to realise the limits of their coercive powers. A port like Algiers could be bombarded from the sea, forcing the release of Christian captives and obtaining promises of good behaviour from its rulers, but such attacks had little long-term impact on the problem of piracy. Once the Christian warships disappeared over the horizon, the Barbary pirates could return to their depredations. Also, the European naval powers spent more time fighting each other than chasing pirates. When they were at war, the Barbary pirates could be active without fear of retribution.

Even in the eighteenth century the Barbary states still posed a considerable maritime threat. Rather than waste money on ineffective punitive naval expeditions against their pirate strongholds, even major European naval powers were prepared to make deals. In return for immunity from pirate attack for their merchant ships, these maritime powers gave 'gifts' to the rulers of Barbary, though still threatening naval bombardments if the pirates went back on their word. The lesser maritime states had unashamedly to pay 'tribute' to the Barbary pirates to buy a measure of immunity. To keep the pirate business going, the rulers of the Barbary states were careful never to be at peace with all the European maritime states at any one time.

Even as he prepared for the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Admiral Horatio Nelson still sought to appease the Barbary states, less to curb their pirate attacks than to get supplies for his fleet from their ports. The infant United States had initially been forced to pay tribute to the Barbary states, but their continued threat to American merchant shipping eventually led to the creation of the United States Navy. Soon US sailors and marines were sailing 'to the shores of Tripoli' to wage war against the pirates from that port. Somewhat later America had another short war with Algiers. The Barbary rulers were forced to make concessions to the Americans, but as in the past there was no assurance these would continue after American warships withdrew.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic wars, the European powers agreed that they would concert their efforts so as to achieve a final solution to the problem of Barbary piracy. The following years saw more French, British and Dutch bombardments of Barbary ports, but whatever the impact of external force, the decline of Barbary piracy after 1815 was also due to internal changes within the Barbary states themselves.

In the mid-eighteenth century the ruler of Morocco had decided that corsair attacks on Christian shipping were no longer worth the effort. Normal trade with European powers brought greater benefits. Morocco steadily withdrew from the corsair business, and even in ports such as Algiers and Tripoli the number of pirate vessels had considerably declined by 1800 and their activities had been brought under more direct government control.

Although the French claimed that one of the motives for their 1830 invasion of Algeria was to suppress piracy, corsair activity from Algiers had dropped to a very low level by that date. Nevertheless the fear of providing an excuse for invasion by the ever more powerful European powers led the remaining Barbary states to end their last links to piracy. By 1840 Tunisia and Libya were out of the business. The end of piracy may have bought the remaining free Barbary states a reprieve from European conquest for a time, but they fell eventually: Tunisia to the French in 1881; Libya to the Italians in 1911; and Morocco to the French and Spanish in 1912.

To most Europeans living on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and even eighteenth centuries a decisive victory in the war with the Barbary pirates must have seemed an impossible dream. Yet in the first half of the nineteenth century this 'endless' war was terminated, with the Muslim states ending their predatory activities. There were two main reasons for this outcome. First, an external factor, the ever-growing military and naval power of the European states, who would eventually come to rule all the Barbary states for a time. Secondly, internal changes within the Barbary states made piracy seem no longer an attractive activity in political or economic terms. Even in ideological terms, the intensity of Christian-Muslim conflict had diminished and trade with the infidels seemed more attractive than maritime holy war.

Does this 350 year struggle against the Barbary pirates have any lessons for the current war against terror? Perhaps. The United States and its Western allies can clearly deploy massive military forces as an external hammer to strike any Muslim state that seems to be supporting terrorism. However, given the bitter past history of relations between the Christian West and the Islamic world, to rely solely on the application of external force is likely to be counter-productive, breeding more terrorists rather than stamping them out. Internal changes within Muslim countries will be more important in draining away popular support for Islamist terrorism.

One view has it that Barbary piracy only came to an end when the Barbary states were occupied by the European powers. However, as we have already noted, pirate activities were largely suppressed before the Europeans invaded. It was Muslim governments that ended the threat. As it is clearly impossible in this day and age for Western countries to occupy Muslim states on the excuse of suppressing terrorism, it is even more true today that the suppression of illegal activity must be carried out by the internal policies of Muslim governments.

One significant difference between the present war on terror and the earlier war against Barbary piracy is the perception of the time the struggle will take. War against the Barbary pirates was just part of a Christian-Muslim conflict that had been going on for centuries, an existential struggle which might continue for further centuries into the future. Europeans were not expecting any quick victory over the Muslim corsairs. They fought to destroy them, but for much of the time they were forced reluctantly to put up with their activities as one of the costs of maritime trade.

Today, Western perceptions are different. Despite the rantings of Osama bin Laden, few Westerners see the war against terror as a war with Islam. Indeed while Western troops fight in the heart of the Islamic world, their home governments allow a steady stream of Muslim immigrants into Europe and North America. Yet it is this reluctance to see the present conflict as just another round in the ancient Christian-Muslim conflict that makes Westerners impatient and unwilling to see the war on terror as a long-lasting struggle.

The war on terror has lasted barely seven years and already the long-term commitment of many Western nations to the struggle is being questioned. If this 'endless' war is ever to be brought to a successful conclusion, the first thing that Westerners must accept is that it may well be a conflict that will last for several generations at least. If such a long-term commitment can be sustained, 'terror' may one day be as much a part of the unhappy past as 'piracy' and 'slavery'.

Another Shift in the Iraqi Kaleidoscope

Given Sunni Arab support for the insurgency, the 2005 Iraqi constitution could only be achieved by a political compromise between the Shia Arab majority and the Kurdish minority in the north of the country. This arrangement begn to collapse in the second half of 2007 as the United States weaned the Sunni Arab minority away from the insurgency and began to move away from its previous support of the Shia Arabs and the Kurds.

By the end of 2007 the United States had armed a 70,000 strong Sunni Arab militia in formerly rebellious parts of Iraq, much to the concern of the Shia Arab government in Baghdad and the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan. This American swing towards the Sunni Arabs was in part just the internal Iraqi aspect of a wider American rapprochement with Sunni Arab states in the region. In return for them joining an American-backed coalition to oppose the growing power of the Shia state of Iran, those states, including Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Co-operation Council, were promised both a settlement of the Israel-Palestine question (still to be delivered) and a definite change in the US attitude to the Sunni Arab minority within Iraq.

This shift in the US position has understandably alarmed Iraq's Shia Arab majority, as it was probably intended to do. When it seemed likely that the USA would launch a military attack on Iran (an attack now at least postponed), the Americans were ready to neutralise possible Iraqi Shia military support for the Iranians by creating a Sunni Arab military counterweight within the country.

In many ways this American shift towards the Sunni Arab minority has been a reversion to the traditional power arrangement in Iraq. After the Ottoman Turkish sultans took the country away from the Iranians during the sixteenth century, they ensured Sunni rule over the majority Shia for the next four centuries. After the British took control of Iraq in 1917-18, they continued this political hegemony, installing a Sunni Arab monarch to rule the country. Even after the fall of the monarchy in 1958, the Sunni Arab minority - including Saddam Hussein and his Tikriti gang - continued to run Iraq. Only since 2003 has the Shia Arab majority achieved political dominance after centuries of oppression. Now those Shia fear that the United States may be going back on its commitment to democracy so as to further the interests of its allies in neighbouring Sunni Arab countries.

The Iraqi Kurds have traditionally been hostile to all Arabs, whether Sunni or Shia, but since 2003 it has been in their interest to ally with the Shia Arab majority, in part because this was what their American friends wanted. Now the amity between Iraqi Kurdistan and the United States is becoming increasingly strained. Despite US denials, American assistance to Turkish air attacks on PKK guerrillas in Iraqi Kurdistan during December 2007 has been patently obvious. For the moment Iraqi Kurds are prepared to overlook this rather than alienate the USA, their principal ally. However, if Turkish attacks continue, extreme Kurdish nationalists may well start hitting back at the Americans was well as the Turks. The continued postponement of the Kirkuk referendum is also increasing Kurdish hostility.

The Americans claim that the success of their 'surge' strategy in reducing the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq has produced an ideal opportunity for a general political settlement in that country. However, neither the Shia Arabs nor the Kurds seem in any mood to do favours for the USA and its new Sunni Arab friends in Iraq at the moment. One sign of this is the continued delay in passing a new Iraqi oil law which would benefit US energy companies. The Americans have certainly shifted the political kaleidoscope in Iraq, but the consequence seems unlikely to be the settlement they desire. Pursuing the Sunni Arab agenda in Iraq seems more likely to alienate old allies from the USA rather than win them to its cause.