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TDR Exclusive Interview: Former CENTCOM Comm. Gen. Abizaid

By Tyler R. Brace | Friday, October 31, 2008

Editor’s Note: On Tuesday October 14, former Commander of the Central Command, General John Abizaid, lectured at the College on “The United States and the Middle East: Strategic Choices for the Way Ahead.” As CENTCOM Commander, General Abizaid oversaw an area ranging geographically from the Horn of Africa, to the Arabian Peninsula, to South and Central Asia—most of the Middle East, essentially. After 34 years of military service, the General retired in 2007, and became a resident scholar at Stanford’s Hoover Institute.

Two weeks ago, General John Abizaid joined the Dartmouth community for several days as a Montgomery Fellow. The Montgomery Fellowship is designed to bring prominent scholars and public figures to campus to enrich and educate the undergraduate student body. This fall’s Fellowship theme was “American in 2008: Perspectives and Reflections.”

Offering his perspective and reflections on America’s military reality, General Abizaid lectured about the complex situation in the Middle East. To the General, the situation in the Middle East is not controllable, but it is certainly shapeable. Having just returned from a trip to Iraq, the General was hesitantly optimistic about conditions there, and acknowledged that the surge had stabilized the security in the region and bought the military some time to deal with larger strategic problems.

The main problems in Iraq, General Abizaid said, are no longer the precarious security conditions, but governance conditions. Shifting power, both political and military, from the Americans to the Iraqi locals has proven to be more difficult than expected. Stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan must be the priority of the incoming presidential administration, Abizaid said. “We need to control the fight against al-Qaeda. We have no choice. We may walk away from them, but they won’t walk away from us,” the General said. Campaign-trail rhetoric aside, the reality on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan will leave very little room for the incoming Commander-in-Chief to move.

General Abizaid identified four key issues that American foreign policy makers will be grappling with in the coming years. The first issue is the rise of Islamic extremism. This can obviously be seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, where America is fighting two wars against Islamic ideology and its devolution into terrorism. Pakistan has proven to be a hotbed for Islamic extremism as well, the General noted, with al-Qaeda leadership hiding out there. The second key issue is Iran, its Mullah government, and its desire to expand its hegemony in the Middle East. Iran is a weak, deterrable power, according to the General, and American policy toward Iran should be shaped accordingly. The ever-present Arab-Israeli conflict is the third issue General Abizaid cited. Striking a balance between respecting the Israeli state and ensuring that Palestinians do not descend into hopelessness and gravitate toward extremism and terrorism is critical. Finally, the fourth pressing issue General Abizaid cited was U.S. dependency on foreign oil.

Ultimately, the General thinks that solving these issues cannot be left to the military alone. The “military tool is a blunt instrument,” he said, and it must be coupled with, diplomatic measures. A day after his public lecture, General Abizaid sat down with The Dartmouth Review to delve further into some of these issues.

The Dartmouth Review: You were the longest serving CENTCOM Commander. What was the most interesting aspect of your job?

General John Abizaid: [Laughs] There was not a day that went by that wasn’t interesting. There was always a tremendous amount going on, but for those of us that are soldiers, we are used to conflict. We don’t seek it, but when we’re in the middle of it, it creates an incredible challenge for us to give the troops below us the tools necessary to do what has to be done. So I found every day challenging. It was challenging not only from a military point of view; it was also challenging in that we had to end up doing work diplomatically, we had to talk to the leaders of the region, we had to convince people not to move in directions that were contrary to the interests of the United States. It was very challenging, but it was also very rewarding. The most rewarding thing about it was seeing young people out there in the middle of it dealing with adversity in such an admirable way.

TDR: The conflicts in the Middle East today are far different from anything we fought in our history. Do you think the United States is equipped to fight this different kind of fight?

Abizaid: We’re getting better and better at it. Experience is a teacher, and we’ve been there a long time. If you consider we’ve been at war since 2001—at least recognized war since 2001—I think we have been pretty flexible in the way that we’ve approached the issues out there. We have changed tactics, techniques, procedures. We’ve done things differently from time to time. I think the officer corps and the non-commissioned officers have become much more experienced and comfortable with dealing with these very uncertain problems. So, I believe that we have gotten better; but on the other hand, we can’t abandon our conventional war-fighting skills under the notion that somehow or another all wars are going be like Iraq. No war is ever like the one you just fought.

TDR: Are there any particular areas where you think we still have a way to go with improving our capabilities?

Abizaid: Yes. I remain concerned, and I’ve said it—I said it last night for example, and I said it when I was on active duty, and I’ve brought it to the attention of senior leadership numerous times—I believe that we have not figured out very well how to get all the rest of the elements of our great national power into the problem-solving mode for what’s going on in the Middle East. I mean, we have to have diplomatic activity going on. This is not to say that anybody is doing anything wrong, it’s to say that maybe our institutions aren’t as agile as they need to be for the twenty-first century. So I would hope that we could be a little bit better about using less military force and more agile about using diplomacy, economic, educational, informational, and political.

TDR: You had a very interesting comment last night that I was hoping you could elaborate on. You said that the Middle East could be shaped but not controlled. What exactly did you mean?

Abizaid: Well, this is, of course, my historical bias. I enjoy understanding, or taking time to read and try to understand, military activity in the Middle East—history of the Middle East—and it’s just a period of five thousand years filled with conflict. Empires that have come in and tried to control things directly have almost always been defeated. Countries that come in and worked cooperatively or at least provided the people with an opportunity to live within what I would call autonomous bounds are much more successful. So. I think, rather than going in there saying, “We want this country to become a democracy in the next two years,” we need to say, “Look, we’re going to give you an opportunity to build a government for yourselves that’s more accountable.”

And so, we should beware of quick solutions when all of the historical facts would lead us to the conclusion that there are no quick solutions. It doesn’t mean that we can’t shape the outcome. I mean, look, we can’t convince Muslims not to turn to extremism if they make that choice, but we can help them have the tools necessary to resist extremism, and I think that’s shaping as opposed to controlling.

TDR: With this in mind, what do you think needs to be done in Afghanistan? There’s been a lot of talk lately about how that is the new front in the War on Terror. What do you think needs to be done there?

Abizaid: Well, of course we’ve been fighting in Afghanistan longer than we’ve been fighting in Iraq. In the military we try to designate the main effort. And the reason you designate a main effort is that you can’t do all things well everywhere, because you have a limited amount of resources. So, certainly, Afghanistan was the main effort, and we shifted to Iraq, and now it’s clear, because of a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and an improving situation in Iraq, that we have to shift again. We may have been slow in shifting, but I think that’s understandable, given the strain on the forces worldwide.

So we have to address the problems in Afghanistan, but again I want to emphasize, just like General McKiernan, the commander there, emphasized: it’s just not military power that he needs there, it’s to get not only American diplomatic, economic, informational and political power brought to bear, but also to get the help of our NATO allies. He needs a tremendous amount of diplomatic leverage to help the Pakistanis recognize that they’ve got a huge problem on their side of the border that must be addressed.

TDR: Another interesting comment you made yesterday was that Sunni Islamic extremism is at the beginning of its ideological cycle, whereas Iranian Shia ideology is at the end of its cycle.

Abizaid: I probably ought to clarify that. I think, if there is a cycle to these sorts of things, Bin Laden and his movement are moving upward, and the Mullahs in Iran are having a tough time maintaining the support of their people. So I’m not sure it’s near the end, but it’s closer to the end than to the beginning.

TDR: So do you think that the problem of Sunni Islamic extremism will get worse before it gets better?

Abizaid: That’s a great question. It’s very interesting when you look at the battlefield, if you look at the global battlefield. We have protected ourselves since 9/11. We haven’t been attacked; I think one of the reasons that hasn’t happened is that we have been willing to be abroad in an offensive orientation. We’ve walked Sunni extremists back on their heels. I think we should be realistic and understand that they’re undoubtedly working on a way to attack us again in some form, and that, sooner or later, they’ll figure out how to do it. We have had success on some battlefields—a lot of success in Iraq. Over the years that we’ve been fighting there we’ve really made it difficult for al-Qaeda to be successful. And by the way, al-Qaeda has made it difficult for themselves to be successful, because of the way they operate. So that’s certainly positive.

Look at Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government has gone after al-Qaeda very hard; that’s been positive. You see it in other Arab countries in particular, but then you go to the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, and you look on the Pakistani side of the border, and al-Qaeda’s influence and capabilities have increased in a way that’s very worrisome. So, like in any war, there are pluses and minuses. I think there are slightly more pluses than minuses, and the good thing is Islam is very resistant to extremism, and what Bin Laden wants to do is provoke the average Muslim to join his team in order to defend their religion and their beliefs. The locals haven’t moved in that direction in any great mass yet, and I don’t think they will.

But again, we have to beware of doing the wrong thing in the region, and we have to beware of the idea that actions that we take could push more people into his arms. Look, it’s a tough fight, and it’s a long fight; I wish it were otherwise, but ultimately it won’t be American military power that wins against Islamic extremism. It will be the good views of the average people on the streets in the Muslim world that say, “Look, I’m not going to accept this form of extremism.”

TDR: What are the costs of failure? If we withdraw, what do you think the consequences will be?

Abizaid: Whenever a great power leaves a vacuum in the world, it creates tremendous uncertainty and instability, and in a period of instability, extremism feeds. Absent American power, extremism could take root in the region in a way that would be dangerous for the people in the region and for us.

TDR: Shifting to the home front, do you think there’s a disconnect between those involved in the operations in the Middle East—those in the military, those in the CIA, the State Department, and so on—and the average American? And if so, what do you think needs to be done to rectify that?

Abizaid: Well, there’s certainly an informational gap. I’m not blaming it on those of you that are in our media, but I am saying that it always struck me—to use my own personal example—that, being involved in the Middle East, I was always very confident about what we were doing when we were in the Middle East, and then when I would come back here I was always shocked to see the level of discomfort and consternation at home.

Somehow or another, I think we need to figure out how to communicate better within our own society between the media and those of us that have been or are involved in the Middle East, in a way to make people understand what’s going on there. By the way, I don’t think it’s because Americans don’t want to know. I believe Americans are hungry to know, but we haven’t come up with the mechanisms that allow them to fully appreciate what’s going on over there, and many media organizations will either leave after they’ve been there for a certain amount of time—and so they don’t cover events the same way—or they’ll adopt a certain editorial point of view that might not necessarily convey things the way they actually are.

This battle of perceptions is a very, very hard thing to maneuver, and one of the things we soldiers fight for is the right to have a free press. I’m not blaming the problem on the press, but I am saying there is a problem. But your question to me was, “What do we do about it?” I think the most important thing to do is just keep talking about it. I mean, you’re interested, and you have great questions; you’re certainly a concerned citizen, trying to figure out what in the world. I thought the people that attended the lecture yesterday were interested. I don’t notice any less interest in my little hometown in the middle of Nevada, where people come to rotary club meetings, and they ask me good questions, and they’re interested in knowing. I think we citizens—all of us—have an obligation, when our sons and daughters are called to battle, that we know why they’re out there fighting.

TDR: What can students at Dartmouth and other schools around the country do to help?

Abizaid: Well, first and foremost, educate yourselves about what in the world is going on out there. Try to do it in an impassioned way. Find out what is going on and be clear in the way that you logically try to understand the issues that are out there. Talk to other people, exchange views, read, study, and then think about how it might be that in the twenty-first century, you can help advance the values of our country and advance a planet that needs to globalize in a positive way. There are all sorts of things that you can do—internationally, nationally, locally—that add to society. My impression of your generation is that you guys want to do that, and I would encourage you to do that. I think the worst thing that can happen to us is that we all become a nation of spectators and critics. So, figure out how to get involved, get involved, make a difference, and it will change your life.

TDR: Speaking of critics, there are those in this country, particularly in academia, who argue that Islamic terrorism is a result of U.S. actions, that our presence in the region is a catalyst for them. Would you agree with that or disagree with that?

Abizaid: I don’t agree with that at all. The United States hasn’t caused this form of Sunni Islamic extremism, as exemplified by al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. We shouldn’t succumb to the notion that we caused it and that we’re making it worse. Sunni Islamic extremism is a faction within Islam that has decided that one of the characteristics of this fight will be for them to confront American power directly. They came and attacked us. We didn’t attack them, and it’s important for us to be clear about what we’re trying to achieve here. And to my mind, at least at this point in the campaign, we’re trying to help the people in the region help themselves. There’s more common interest against this enemy than we’ve really been able to organize efficiently to deal with this problem. And over time it needs to be less American-led and more locally-led, and I see that happening all over the region. We shouldn’t underestimate the pull of this ideology, though. To me the worst outcome is if this ideology becomes mainstream. I don’t think it will. But I don’t buy the argument that it’s all our fault. It’s not.

TDR: So how has the transition been from commanding over 250,000 American servicemen over an entire region to living in Nevada?

Abizaid: It’s good. Look, you never forget where you come from. I came from a small town in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It’s where I graduated from high school, and it’s where my wife graduated from high school. I came from a rather modest family in terms of what we had financially, but my belief is that, at the end of whatever you’re doing with your life, when you retire from what you’re doing, you go back to where you came from and try to contribute in the way that you can. So, I’m perfectly happy being a civilian again. I was one before, for a short period of time; I’m one again, and I want to contribute in a positive way to helping people understand some of the problems that I’ve had to deal with. I certainly did not do everything right in my life, and I hope people learn from my mistakes, and I hope they learn from my experiences.

TDR: What’s next?

Abizaid: More of this.

TDR: More of this?

Abizaid: Yes. Why? Do you think I’m going to go into politics? No, I’m not. [Laughs].

TDR: So just a happy retirement? A happy, semi-quiet retirement?

Abizaid: Yes. It is happy, but it’s not semi-quiet. It involves a lot of traveling. I don’t suppose it’ll be semi-quiet for a couple of years, when I figure out what’s the one thing I’m going to do. Right now I’m doing about five or six different things. It includes traveling around and lecturing at universities or to civic groups or to various other organizations. It includes sitting on a board of directors or two of major companies. I do mentoring for senior officers in the military. I perform important functions in the realm of helping veterans in particular. I do a lot of work in Nevada trying to help our veterans find jobs and reintegrate into society. I think no nation remains great if it doesn’t support its great veterans.

TDR: Thank you for your time, General Abizaid.

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