INSS Strategic Monograph

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

July 2014

The Nightmare Years to Come?

Regis W. Matlak
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied 

within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent 

the views of the Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal 

Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of 

the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the Central 

Intelligence Agency (CIA) or any other U.S. Government agency. Nothing in 

the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government 

authentication of information or CIA endorsement of the author’s views. 

This material has been reviewed by the CIA to prevent the disclosure of 

classified information

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, 

provided that a standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would 

appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints or reviews.

First printing, July 2014
Contents

Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Part I: The Near East. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Syria: Far More than a Civil War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The Return of Sectarian Violence in Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Iran’s Strategic Fears. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Jordanian Vulnerabilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Whither Egypt?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Elsewhere in North Africa, Violence May Become a New Normal. . . . . . . . 16

Palestinian Leadership and Unity Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Israeli Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Apprehensive Monarchies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Multiple Challenges in Yemen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Part II: South Asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Gathering Dangers in Afghanistan, Potential Consequences for Pakistan. . . 21

Continuing Indo-Pak Tensions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

South Asian Storm Clouds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Part III: Mitigating the Nightmare Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Beware of Fiction Masquerading as Wisdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Historic Interplay of the Policy Wish and Intelligence Failure: Distortion, 

Distraction, and Disregard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
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Inattention to Unintended Consequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Beyond Cautionary Tales: Prescriptions for the Policy High Table and 

Bureaucratic Trench. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Part IV: In the Trenches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Part V: A Final Comment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
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Executive Summary

We have entered a particularly dangerous era in the Near East and South Asia—

that is, the Greater Middle East. The context of today’s situation is more alarming 

than respective current crises—as bad as they may be. Rather, there is an increasingly radicalized and violent sectarian environment made up of crosscutting crises 

occurring in the midst of proliferation; precision weapons; cyber war; increased 

ungoverned territory vulnerable to global, regional, and local jihadist exploitation; 

majoritarian authoritarianism; uncompromising sectarianism; ethnic, tribal, and sectarian-driven civil wars; massive popular anger and frustration over the lack of essential services and a diminishing quality of life, particularly in areas such as water, 

electricity, health, education, employment, and economic collapse; water wars and 

environmental endangerment; and the vulnerability of sensitive infrastructure targeted by state and nonstate actors, or an empowered lone wolf in the service of a 

state or nonstate actors.

For U.S. policymakers, strategists, and military and intelligence officials, there are 

cautionary tales from past crises and prescriptions that may prove useful as future 

crises unfold. Decisions made or not made matter, with regional and global consequences of both. Whatever decisions are made or not made, the greatest danger may 

be looming, though presently unknown, consequences for a region in tumult.
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Introduction

For 3 years, the Greater Middle East has experienced numerous political, ethnic, 

social, and religious convulsions. While several regional states, such as Egypt, Syria, 

Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Tunisia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, along with al Qaeda and its 

affiliates, continue to capture international headlines, the Greater Middle East continues its drift toward violent, hardline sectarianism fueled by immense frustration 

and growing intolerance. This deadly drift, an enveloping malignance, is rooted in 

decades-long failed authoritarian leadership, hardened feelings of sustained injustice, 

minimal essential services, ecological endangerment and diminished natural resources (especially water), poor and undeveloped economies, crumbling infrastructures, 

systemic corruption, and youth bulge unemployment among other shortcomings 

and challenges. With God on their side, jihadist combatants have minimal room for 

compromise, short of tactical accommodation.

Today’s convulsions pose great peril for regional and global security. But, the 

present danger may be a forewarning of a more harrowing future—The Nightmare 

Years to Come. This characterization is not simply an off-hand, provocative formulation. Rather, it is informed by William Shirer’s memoir, Twentieth Century Journey, The 

Nightmare Years: 1930–1940. Shirer, a CBS correspondent in Berlin during the decade 

prior to World War II, witnessed the crumbling of the old order: “revolutions, uprisings and a spreading intolerance, violence, repression, aggression and barbarism 

in supposed civilized countries . . . massive unemployment, failing banks and businesses, falling currencies and spreading hunger.”1

 Despite these warning signs, state 

governments and their leadership were unprepared, unwilling, and/or unable to preempt another devastating war. Some nations were war weary and still recovering 

from the scars of a previous generation’s battle, others simply too tired to believe 

otherwise. British Foreign Minister Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 diplomatic victory 

declaration, “Peace in our time,” captured the unreality most tragically.

Certainly, some world leaders, notably an out-of-power Winston Churchill, saw 

the coming storm. But it is fair to judge that no one imagined in the mid-1930s that 

the next decade would bring Germany’s renunciation of the Versailles Treaty; rearmament and reoccupation of the demilitarized Rhineland; integration of the rump 

of Austria and German-speaking Czechoslovakia as part of a Greater Germany; the 
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occupation of Czechoslovakia; Blitzkrieg in Poland, and the later tragic 1943 Warsaw 

Ghetto Uprising and 1944 Warsaw Uprising; the German occupation of the Low 

Countries and France; the British army’s evacuation from Dunkirk; the Battle for 

Britain and the V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks that resulted in the loss of thousands of 

lives and destruction in the streets of London and other British manufacturing centers; the Holocaust’s Final Solution; the devastation of the Battle of Stalingrad; DDay’s immense complexity and Hitler’s counter-offensive at the Battle of the Bulge; 

the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; the Battle for Midway, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, 

the Bataan Death March, and other battles in the Pacific theater; and atomic bombs 

dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Benefiting from perspective provided by Shirer’s memoir recounting the people 

and events in Europe, decisions made and not made, and the consequences of which 

led to World War II, the present situation in the Greater Middle East should serve as 

a warning. Certainly, analogies can be dangerous. Experience suggests they be used 

with great caution, if at all. But, at the very least, we can be informed by history: “a 

lantern on the stern”2

 to borrow historian Barbara Tuchman’s apt phrase that illuminates the causes of history’s major foreign policy disasters. Then, now, and in the 

future, consequences—including those unintended though not necessarily unforeseen—take control. A 21st-century version of Churchill’s World War I “The Terrible 

Ifs Accumulate”3 is gathering and “all these nasty things can bounce badly.”

Throughout the Greater Middle East, it is difficult to underestimate the potential role of a state, nonstate, or individual evil genius employing cyber war/terrorism, 

weapons of mass destruction, and/or precision weapons targeting sensitive infrastructure. Drone warfare will become more sophisticated, deadly, and available. Information on developing weapons of mass destruction will be increasingly accessible. In 

the coming decade or two, it is prudent to judge that at least four Greater Middle East 

states—Pakistan, India, Israel, and Iran—are likely to have nuclear weapon capability 

and/or other weapons of mass destruction, precision weapons, drones, and cyber war 

know-how, including the possibility of threatening the U.S. power grid.4

In this context, it may be important to take notice of incremental overt and/

or possible covert technological advances. Incremental concerns may include such 

military-related advances as Iran’s November 2013 unveiling of its surveillance and 
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combat drone, Fotros, with a range that covers much of the Middle East, including 

Israel.5 More ominously, the same technological advancement that will permit Amazon’s drone delivery of online purchases could also turn a weaponized, miniature 

drone into a weapon of choice for a 21st-century jackal. Finally, the concerns of the 

Defense Science Board, a U.S. Department of Defense advisory panel, include the 

need to track small inventories of nuclear material, covert facilities, the use of nontraditional technologies and new nuclear players, according to the Wall Street Journal.

6

In the Journal article, the Defense Science Board is reported as judging that “For the 

first time since the early decades of the nuclear era” the United States needs to be 

just as concerned about new nuclear nations and transnational groups as it is about 

existing nuclear weapon countries. To this end, the Defense Science Board advocates “analyzing vast amounts of data to unearth anomalous events that could signal 

threats such as a covert nuclear operation.”

Present—and likely future—crises are occurring amidst a changed Greater 

Middle East strategic environment. Since the official demise of an already weak Ottoman Empire and the rise of Western influence almost 100 years ago, there is today minimal major power influence—no Egyptian asked U.S. permission to remove 

Hosni Mubarak from power. Nor, in July 2013, did the Tamarrod (Rebellion) protesters that sought Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s removal seek external permission. Modern day Turkey’s moderate Islamist government has made an attempt to 

reassert Turkish regional influence, but many others suggest Turkey’s efforts have 

fallen far short, and such a goal should be viewed as aspirational at best. Turkey’s 

“no problems with neighbors” foreign policy has become “problems everywhere.” 

Concurrently, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is confronting serious charges of corruption and Turkey’s internal political and economic challenges, 

including its secular-sectarian balance and the nature of Turkey’s democracy.7

Some Middle East observers highlight that we are fast approaching an era in 

which the Greater Middle East’s political map may once again be in play.8 Whatever 

may have been the initial merits of local initiatives during the uprisings of the past 

few years, a vacuum of global leadership may be the most dangerous of the challenges ahead. Whether intended or unintended, expected or unexpected, many of 

the crises to come are building on or feeding off one another. Already, globalization 
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and the speed and availability of information empower, enable, and magnify the 

challenges. There is little likelihood that local combatants, driven by the absolute correctness of their views or perceived survival instinct, will know or care about larger 

regional or global consequences.

Part I: The Near East

The challenges in the Near East are numerous, severe, often overlapping, and 

mutually reinforced. Many of these crises may worsen, some may recede, or others 

arise. There is no crystal ball for respective outcomes. Rather, it is the worrisome 

trajectory of aggregate dangers that serve as a forewarning.

Syria: Far More than a Civil War

Understandably, the Syrian Civil War—and its bleeding into Jordan, Lebanon, 

Iraq, Turkey, and Israel—is a major focus of international concern. In Syria, approximately 140,000 Syrians have been killed, 9.5 million internally displaced, and 2.5 

million seeking haven outside Syria while the Damascus regime has adopted starvation as a weapon of war.9

 But, the greatest fear is that we are witnessing in Syria the 

probable consequences of a drought stricken, poorly administered, repressive, failed 

state: a rump Alawite-controlled region; chaotic, fragmented extremist takeovers in 

Sunni-populated areas; and a tipping point for a region-wide, sectarian conflagration. 

According to David Shedd, deputy director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, 

in comments to the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on July 20, 2013, “Left unchecked I’m very concerned that the most radical elements will take over larger segments of the opposition groups.”10

Thomas Hegghammer, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research 

Establishment in Oslo, writes, “Sometime in the spring or summer of 2013, history 

was made in Syria. That was when the number of foreign fighters (5,000) exceeded 

that of any previous conflict in the modern history of the Muslim world,” to include during the 1980s jihad in Afghanistan.11 In Afghanistan, there were never more 

than 3,000–4,000 at any one time. Of possible greater alarm, the Syrian war has attracted over 7,000 foreign fighters from over 50 nations, according to Director of 

National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper’s Annual Worldwide Threat Assessment 
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to Congress on January 29, 2014.12 DNI Clapper also stated that Syria “is becoming 

a center of radical extremism and a potential threat to the homeland.”13 Also, the 

International Center for the Study of Radicalization has estimated “that nearly 2,000 

Western Europeans had traveled to Syria to fight and that the number was growing 

fast.”14 According to various media accounts, the December 2013 suspension of U.S. 

and British nonlethal aid to Syrian rebels reflected concerns about increasing Islamist 

influence or control among various opposition organizations, including those supported by the West.15 This reporting indicates the United States is wrestling with the 

prospect of supporting “non–al Qaeda” Islamists, such as the Islamist Front in Syria, 

as long as the Front would support the Western-aligned, Syrian Opposition Coalition’s leadership.16

The fear of Islamist extremists is so great that the Syrian moderate, secular opposition and the Damascus government ultimately may find common cause for a 

negotiated settlement that then would unite them in a fight against radical jihadists, 

such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).17 Additionally, 

Syria’s strife has morphed from a sectarian-driven civil war to a regional Sunni-Shi’a 

proxy war led by Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively,18 and renewed U.S.-Russia competition throughout the region.19 The Crimean crisis could diminish prospects for 

U.S.-Russia cooperation concerning Syria, and key players throughout the region, 

particularly Syria President Bashar al-Asad’s regime, hardliners in Iran, Saudi Arabia’s 

leadership, and Israeli decisionmakers will be watching its outcome closely.20

In a detailed account of “Iranian Strategy in Syria,” authors Will Fulton, Joseph 

Holliday, and Sam Wyer make it abundantly clear that “Syria is vital to Iran’s strategic 

interests in the Middle East and has long been Iran’s closest state ally.”21 The toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad’s regime would alone be a strategic defeat 

for Iran, but it also would jeopardize Iran’s ability to maintain support for its close 

Shi’a ally, Lebanese Hizballah.22 Iran’s support for Hizballah includes Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) advisors; drones reportedly supplied by Iran23 but 

assembled by a specialized Hizballah team;24 and an Iranian-supplied, Chinese-built 

C-802 guided missile that hit an Israeli warship (Hanit, Sa’ar 5-class missile ship) on 

July 14, 2006, killing four sailors.25 Moreover, Israel’s reported attack on a Russiansupplied SA-17 weapons convoy and Iranian-supplied Fateh-110 surface-to-surface 
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missiles reflects Israel’s concerns about Hizballah gaining access to other advanced 

weaponry.26

For its part, Hizballah has committed thousands of fighters and arms in support 

of the Alawite regime and to protect its own long-term interests. According to an 

American Enterprise Institute and Institute for the Study of War Joint Study (AEI/

ISW), “Lebanese Hizballah militants participate in a number of direct support activities, including sniper and counter-sniper operations, facility and route protection, 

joint clearing operations and direct engagement with opposition forces.”27

At the same time, the Sunni “Tehreek-e-Taliban” is sending hundreds of fighters from Pakistan to Syria, and the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (formerly al Qaeda in Iraq) increased presence in Syria reflects one of many Greater Middle East’s 

crosscutting challenges.28 Press reports highlight that U.S. officials acknowledge, 

“thousands of fighters have entered Syria to join an insurgency that is increasingly 

dominated by groups with militant Islamist agendas.”29 The media account indicates 

one of the largest of the new groups, Jaysh al-Muhajireen Wal Ansar, is made up of 

fighters from Central Asia and Europe. According to the Wall Street Journal, thinktank, and media outlets, ISIS has become the main umbrella group for Sunni foreign 

fighters in Syria, and includes Saudis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians, Chinese (Muslims),30 and 

Sunni Muslims from Lebanon’s Abdullah Azzam Brigades.31 The Abdullah Azzam 

Brigades—named after the Palestinian mentor to Osama bin Ladin—has claimed 

responsibility for the November 2013 bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut and 

was headed by a Saudi, Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, who was arrested in Lebanon and later died of kidney failure in jail.32 An increasingly powerful ISIS leader in 

northern Syria, Tarkhan Batirashvili (Arab nom de guerre Emir Umar al-Shishani), 

is an ethnic Chechen who served previously in the Republic of Georgia’s military. 

There also is a growing concern that an outflow of European “Syrian jihadists” 

could result in combatants returning home to “commit acts of terror on European 

soil or serve as inspirations to others.”33

There is an unnerving risk in a de facto alliance among Bashar al-Asad’s Syria, 

Hizballah, Iran, and Russia. It establishes the potential for a confrontation between a 

violent sectarian coalition alongside a major power and a loose alliance of the United 

States, major European states, North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally Turkey, and 
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Gulf Cooperation Council states, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Given such a 

constellation of players, the Syrian war can morph from a regional conflagration into 

something much more uncontrollable.

To a large extent, there is great concern that the dominant jihadist groups’ 

shared vision extends beyond Asad’s ouster. According to former and current U.S. 

and Middle East officials, jihadist groups “are transforming the conflict into a symbolic struggle against the West and Israel, using words and images that resonate with 

like-minded Muslims from the Arab Peninsula to Western Europe.”34 Present day 

boundaries and governments would be replaced by a single Islamic state. According 

to Bruce Reidel, a former CIA officer and adviser to four U.S. administrations, “Syria 

has become the most important destination for aspiring jihadists ever. . . . For jihadis, 

it is the road to Jerusalem at last.”35

Lastly, Syria’s minority Christian community believes radical Islamist groups, 

such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, are determined to drive them from their 

homes. Syrian bishops have been kidnapped and priests have been killed; ISIS has 

desecrated Greek Catholic and Armenian Catholic churches.36 Reflecting the crosscutting nature of the conflict, “Coptic churches in Egypt have been attacked, and 

Pakistan last week (late September 2013) experienced the deadliest church bombing 

in the country’s history.”37

The Return of Sectarian Violence in Iraq

It is increasingly evident that a sustained cycle of violence in Iraq has returned. 

According to a wide variety of media reports, over 8,000 Iraqis were killed from 

April to December 2013.38 Of particular concern is that there has been a “sharp rise 

in the number of bullet-riddled bodies found on the streets,” characteristic of the 

worst days of sectarian violence in Iraq during 2006–2007.39 A key player in this resurgent violence is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS is now active in Syria and 

Iraq, and in Iraq its objective is to establish control of several Iraqi provinces (ISIS 

“emirates”), including Salahuddin and Diyala (Daash Emirate) and Anbar (Jazeera 

Emirate). In this effort, ISIS has exhibited “extensive training, ruthless motivation 

and tactical sophistication,” according to open source reporting.40 Sabah Karhout, 

chairman of the Anbar Provincial Council, stated in December 2013 that al Qaeda 
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(ISIS) controls 40 percent of the desert area of Anbar Province, an echo of al Qaeda in Iraq activity in 2004. The January 2014 ISIS takeover of Fallujah and parts of 

Ramadi in Anbar Province reflects a combination of increased ISIS influence and a 

failure of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government to further Sunni reconciliation 

and reintegration.41

Overall ISIS strategy has included establishing elements of governance such as 

courts, schools, and civil bureaucracies; sustained gun battles against Iraq security 

forces; assassinations of political figures; and intimidation of local populations. At 

the same time, according to press reporting, Iraqi security forces lack the signals 

intelligence and analytic capacity that assisted greatly when working with U.S. forces. 

Rather, Iraqi forces rely on less successful heavy-handed tactics that alienate the 

civilian population.42 According to a spate of press reporting in late 2013 and early 

2014, Iraqi security forces were not up to the task of retaking Fallujah and Ramadi 

from ISIS militants. Rather, Prime Minister Maliki appealed to “the tribes and people 

of Fallujah to expel terrorists from the city in order to spare themselves the risk 

of armed clashes.”43 Moreover, press reporting and Iraq observers indicate that the 

fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi was due to Maliki’s neglect “to sustain the relationships forged by American troops and instead embarked on a campaign of arrests, 

harassment, and persecution of his Sunni opponents,” including policies that victimized prominent Sunnis.44

Longtime scholar and author on Iraq issues Toby Dodge has assessed in great 

detail how Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’a-led sectarian government has 

pursued political, military, security, and intelligence policies that have polarized 

the Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurdish population and, as a result, squandered a historic 

opportunity to rise above sectarian governance.45 Dodge and other Iraq analysts 

judge that U.S. decisionmaking in the aftermath of Saddam’s overthrow contributed greatly to exacerbating Iraq’s sectarian divide.46 But Iraq’s current polarization 

and renewed violence are driven by internal squabbles never fully resolved since 

Saddam Hussein’s overthrow. 

Some may argue that the Sunni extremist threat to Iraq is exaggerated; after 

all, even as the insurgency in Iraq raged after 2006, the country realized its highest oil production in over 24 years with increases in oil exports from its southern 
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ports—about 3 million barrels per day—making Iraq the second highest OPEC 

producer after Saudi Arabia. Still, the threat of disruption to the national energy 

program posed by Sunni extremist groups will likely undermine Iraq’s full energy 

potential and economic development.47

Iraq’s Sunni coreligionists in Syria appear to have emboldened Iraq’s Sunni Arabs to challenge Baghdad’s sectarian regime. Iraqi tribal shaykhs from Sunni-populated Anbar Province are increasingly supporting Sunni rebels in Syria, and Iraqi 

National Police Intelligence has reported other Sunni provinces in Iraq are stockpiling weapons.48

At the same time, U.S. officials have been long concerned that the Baghdad 

government is facilitating Iran’s support for Damascus.49 Moreover, there is a drumbeat of media reports indicating that Shi’a militias, such as Iraq’s Asaib Ahl al-Haq 

and Lebanese Hizballah, are playing an increasingly crucial role in support of the 

Asad government, motivated largely by ties to Iran and worries over a larger regional 

struggle against al Qaeda, other extremist jihadists, and the region’s Sunni Arab governments.50

Finally, Iraq’s Kurds, motivated at least in part by longstanding differences with 

the Maliki government, seem to be positioning themselves for greater autonomy if 

not ultimate independence from Baghdad. According to a Woodrow Wilson Center 

assessment, “The Kurds of northern Iraq are about to take a giant step toward making possible an independent homeland by becoming an exporter of Iraqi oil and gas 

on their own in defiance of the central government in Baghdad.”51 A separate assessment indicates Kurdish energy sector successes “have encouraged a more nationalist 

and less compromising KRG [Kurdish Regional Government] position.”52

 Iran’s Strategic Fears

Of possible greater importance to Iran than Syria, Iran would suffer significant 

political and security defeats should Iraq’s Sunni Arab population return to power or 

significant portions of Iraqi territory become a safe haven for Sunni jihadists. The 

AEI/ISW Joint Report indicates that Iran is going to great lengths, including the use 

of significant financial, military, and intelligence assets, to maintain a Shi’a-led government in Baghdad.53 Public statements by senior Iranian advisors explicitly indicate 
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Iran’s political leaders dread the possible consequences of the Syrian war that could 

threaten Iran’s strategic national security interests.54

Iran’s current leadership was in power during the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq war and 

witnessed its death and destruction, including each country’s use of ballistic missiles 

and chemical weapons. Deeply concerned that an Israeli and/or U.S. attack on its 

nuclear-related facilities may be an opening salvo intended to topple the Islamic Republic’s regime, it is prudent to believe that Iran, in the long term, will maneuver to 

maintain a skill set that permits the option to pursue a nuclear weapon “break out” 

capability—at least to the level of formulating a credible public policy of nuclear 

ambiguity.

In post-election interviews, many Iranians suggested that Iran’s new president 

and former nuclear issue negotiator, Hasan Rouhani, will bring a change to President Ahmadinejad’s combative style and work to end Iran’s international isolation 

while not compromising Iran’s “mastering of the nuclear process,” as articulated in 

a 2004 Rouhani speech.55 The November 23, 2013 Iran-P5+1 interim nuclear agreement potentially provides the first step toward ending such international isolation 

and “modestly eases existing sanctions.”56 But there exist differing interpretations 

on what was agreed to during these negotiations.57 Thus Rouhani may have a narrow 

window in time and space—hardline opponents such as IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari are publicly sniping at Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad 

Zarif, advising the foreign minister to “stick to diplomacy and stay out of military 

business.”58

Though sanctions will continue to hurt Iran’s economy, the regime is unlikely 

to be challenged successfully by any political opposition or popular dissent. Iran’s 

pervasive and brutal internal security apparatus is alert to any organized opposition, 

according to media reports, United Nations (UN) documents, and a U.S. Department of State report.59 These sources specifically indicate the Iranian regime will put 

down internal rebellion even at the risk of inflicting massive casualties. Since coming 

to power in 1979, the Iranian leadership has conducted assassination operations at 

home and abroad; imprisoned, tortured, and/or executed oppositionists; rounded up 

tens of thousands of dissidents; beat back a brief civil war during the early 1980s; 

and survived the loss of several layers of its most senior leadership in bombings 
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of the Iranian parliament, the Islamic Republic Party headquarters, and the Iranian 

cabinet. Iran’s power elite are well experienced in being the hunter and the hunted. 

Survival instincts will take hold.

Indeed, Iran is not sitting idly by, merely reacting to events intended to weaken 

the regime’s hold on power or lessen its pretension as a regional hegemon. It may 

be instructive to recognize that Iran, according to reputable media accounts, has a 

successful track record for conducting successful covert action operations, including 

one that resulted in Iraq’s present leadership being virtual clients of Tehran.60 According to various media accounts, the Iranian covert campaign in Iraq was directed 

by Qassem Suleimani, head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and Iran continues to have 

a range of Iraqi militias to call upon, including Kataib Hizballah and Asaib al-Haq, 

and the Promised Day Brigades; Kataib Hizballah is led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandas, 

who allegedly helped plan the 1983 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, and Asaib 

al-Haq is headed by Qais al-Khazali, whom the U.S. believes was involved in the kidnapping and execution-style murder of U.S. Marines in Karbala in 2007. 

According to the AEI/ISW Joint Report and Middle East media sources, there 

are persuasive indicators suggesting Iran is conducting operations intended to telegraph that Iran is a strong player capable of inflicting pain on the West and its proWest allies including Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other Arab Gulf states.60

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Iran is widely 

believed to have sponsored the 2012 “Shamoon virus” cyber attacks on 30,000 Saudi 

Aramco computers; the same virus damaged computer systems at Qatar’s energy 

company Ras Gas.62 In addition, Iranian military officials were implicated in the attempt to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. In an intense crisis 

atmosphere, it is unlikely Saudi sensitive infrastructure would escape Iranian attention. It would not be overly alarmist to be concerned that an Iranian-sponsored cyber attack against sensitive U.S. infrastructure could take place if the Islamic regime 

believed its survival was at risk. Moreover, Iran’s 2013 infiltration and remote surveillance of the unclassified U.S. Navy Marine Corps Internet surprised U.S. military and 

intelligence officials, according to the Wall Street Journal.

63 Current and former U.S. 

officials and think-tank cyber-security specialists described the costly Iranian cyber-
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offensive attack as “worrisome” and a possible “significant risk” for future military 

operations. 

At a minimum, it is unwise to believe Iran is not planning aggressively for a 

future confrontation with Israel, the United States, and the West. Such a potential 

confrontation would be of increased concern in the event the follow-on nuclear talks 

are derailed. Recent press reporting on an upsurge in regional sectarian violence since 

the deal was reached points toward a forewarning for what is at stake: “the promise 

and the peril of what could be the start of a more peaceful era in the Middle East—

or the beginning of a new round of bloodletting.”64

Jordanian Vulnerabilities

Jordan, already dealing with an Iraqi refugee population, is being confronted 

with a Syrian refugee crisis exacerbating its existing internal political, sectarian, and 

economic plight. Ten percent (and counting) of Jordan’s population is made up of 

refugees. In addition, according to media accounts, a domestic opposition statement 

was signed by a thousand opposition signatories who included “nationalists, tribal 

leaders, and retired officers, but also including many leftists, trade unionists, and 

representatives of Hirak popular movements.”65 The signed manifesto also included 

a rejection of Jordan “becoming an alternative homeland for the Palestinian people.” 

This latter issue has been a major concern of many East Jordanian nationalists for 

years—some so conservative that they have been referred to as a Jordanian Likud or 

a Jordanian Tea Party movement.” This cross section of Jordanian society is strongly 

opposed to Jordan being the alternative state for the 2 to 3 million Palestinians in 

Jordan, and is “warning the king and his government to refuse any peace plan” that 

does not satisfy Jordan’s “highest interests.”66

At the same time, there is increasing concern that religious extremists in Syria 

are likely to turn their sights on Jordan at some point. Jihadists from Baqaa, the largest Palestinian refugee camp (80,000 people) in Jordan, are traveling to Syria to fight 

the Asad regime. According to a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/Sada 

analysis, “the Jordanian Salafi-jihadi community is among the biggest contributors 

of fighters—between 700 and 1000—to Syria.”67 Ibrahim Arabaty, a Baqaa community leader and teacher, reflects great concern among Palestinians regarding their 
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INSS Strategic Monograph

future status as a consequence of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, stating that the 

mood in the Baqaa camp is “explosive, unfortunately.”68 Abu Muhammad al-Tahawi, 

a prominent Jordanian jihadist ideologue, stated, “Jihad in Syria is obligatory for 

any Muslim.”69 The Jordanian city of Irbid appears to be a key location for Salafijihadists, and several other Jordanian cities have experienced jihadist protests. The 

reported Arab Gulf states’ arming of Salafis in Syria may bounce badly for Jordan in 

the not-too-distant future. 

It is highly unlikely the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty could survive the Hashemite 

monarchy’s demise. A treaty abrogation would bring Israel perilously close to a new 

era of being surrounded by radical and hostile “Confrontation States,” including an 

increasingly frustrated and angry Palestinian population on the West Bank and in 

Gaza. In the event of an Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty abrogation, it would be problematic for Egypt’s leadership to maintain the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

Whither Egypt?

The revolutionary spirit in Tahrir Circle that toppled Egyptian President Hosni 

Mubarak in 2011 experienced a second round in July 2013 that was largely responsible 

for President Morsi and his pro–Muslim Brotherhood government being removed 

from office by the Egyptian military. Prior to Morsi’s removal, Egypt continued to 

experience a collapsing economy, political uncertainty, and increasing extremist violence in the Sinai. As early as January 2013, Egypt’s political problems prompted 

Minister of Defense General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi to express publicly his concern that 

disagreements between Islamists and their opponents could lead to “collapse of the 

state” and “threaten the future of coming generations.”70 Samer S. Shehata, a specialist on Egyptian politics, assessed that “the authority of the state is in question,” and 

that government legitimacy is no longer accepted.71 Thomas Carothers and Nathan 

J. Brown, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in May 2013, 

“Egypt is wracked by harsh street protests, an angry impasse and utter distrust between the government and the main opposition parties, massive public disaffection, 

growing sectarian tension and increasing murmurings of a possible military coup.”72

A cautionary note for a post-Morsi government may be in order. It would be 

wise to recall the unintended consequences of the Mubarak regime’s early 1990s 
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The Nightmare Years to Come?

“successful” fight against the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Gamaat Islamiyya: radical Egyptian jihadists—most notably Ayman Zawahiri and Muhammad Atta—departed Egypt and made their way to join with Osama bin Ladin and form al Qaeda. 

Several Egyptian jihadists would later assume operational command positions in 

al Qaeda. Some Egyptian analysts caution that today’s “successful” fight against 

the Muslim Brotherhood “has driven people to join extremist groups—which 

now have between 500 and 2,000 fighters.”73 Kamal Habib, a former Islamic Jihad 

member and veteran of the 1990s fight, suggests the current situation is a greater 

challenge to the state’s authority. 

Pro-Morsi supporters, Islamist students, along with secular protesters, continue to demonstrate at Cairo University and Ain Shams and Al-Azhar, despite harsh 

crackdowns.74 According to media reporting, Tunisian Islamist political leader Rached 

Ghannouchi believes it is imperative that reconciliation among former President 

Morsi’s supporters, the Egyptian military, and the interim government succeed; he 

stated, “confrontation on Egypt’s streets now endangers the whole region”75 Numerous Middle East observers voiced concerns about the mid-August 2013 crackdown in 

Cairo, highlighting the prospect for a sustained escalation of violence, severe negative 

implications for Egypt’s already worsening economy, and consequences that will play 

out for months, if not years.76 In the immediate aftermath of finding out his daughter 

was killed when Egyptian police stormed Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya, Islamist political 

leader Mohamed el-Beltagi “warned that ongoing violence would turn Egypt into a 

new Syria.”77

Since mid-2013, Egypt has experienced increased sectarian violence, particularly in the Sinai Peninsula and other areas in Egypt, including Cairo. Ansar Bayt alMaqdis appears to be the main organized jihadist group.78 Though the organization 

is made up of primarily nomadic tribesmen from Sinai, it also has members from 

the Nile Delta region and some foreign fighters. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis continues to 

claim responsibility for numerous terrorist operations, including late-January 2014 

operations that targeted Cairo’s police headquarters and the surface-to-air downing 

of a military helicopter in the Sinai Peninsula.79 These January 2014 events have led 

some Egypt observers, such as Shadi Hamid, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s 

Saban Center, to suggest “this low-level insurgency against the Egyptian regime 
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INSS Strategic Monograph

is likely to intensify, and it is increasingly expanding into major urban centers.”80

Similarly, Michele Dunne and Thomas Carothers suggest U.S. national security interests (and those of the Egyptian people) “might well be threatened by reinvigorated Islamic extremism” due to the political path being followed by the Egyptian 

military.”81

Whatever the results of the Egyptian military’s efforts to stabilize Egypt, the 

country’s economic and political challenges remain. Gulf Arab financial support to 

the interim government will likely be helpful in the short term.82 But, a post-Morsi government may have great difficulty accepting International Monetary Fund 

(IMF) constraints required to address fundamental long-term economic problems. 

There also is lingering concern that Egypt and Ethiopia may not be able to negotiate water-related issues associated with Ethiopia’s Nile River Renaissance Dam, 

which may endanger Egypt’s water security, specifically a drinking water shortage 

and the destruction of a significant amount of Egypt’s agricultural land.83 Media 

accounts highlight Egyptian politicians’ threats that should Ethiopia go forward 

without a negotiated agreement, Egypt could be threatened with increased political instability, “threatening a crisis that Egyptian experts said could, at its most 

extreme, lead to war.”84

Elsewhere in North Africa, Violence May Become a New Normal

The Libyan government is increasingly losing ground to lawlessness and extremist militias, according to press reports during 2013.85 Responsible international 

observers believe Libya is at a crucial moment, with a battle between proponents 

of a coherent government desiring a transition to democracy and anti-democracy 

forces, such as jihadists, militias, and tribal networks. Libyan stability is at risk if 

Western nations are disengaged.86 The spring 2013 attack on the French embassy 

“may prove to be the start of a trend, in which case Libyan—and by extension 

North African—instability would become a permanent status quo,” and a breeding 

ground or safe haven for extremist organizations. In June 2013, Libya’s army chief 

of staff resigned after deadly clashes between protesters and a military-aligned militia, Libya Shield, in Benghazi. Confronted with numerous political assassinations, 

kidnappings of senior officials such as the prime minister and deputy chief of 
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The Nightmare Years to Come?

intelligence, and out-of-control militia violence, the Libyan government’s actions 

to rein in rival militias and hardline Islamists “risks a backlash leading to outright 

battles between pro- and anti-government militias.”87 The September 2012 killing 

of the U.S. Ambassador and three other U.S. officials in Benghazi underscored the 

chaos and confusion surrounding the increasing violence.

Palestinian Leadership and Unity Challenges

Political disagreements between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas continue 

to hinder Palestinian unity. Press accounts underscore that the “78-year-old [Palestinian Authority leader] Mr. Abbas presides over a fiercely divided people, with 

the militant Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip and his more moderate Fatah 

faction dominating the West Bank. His political weakness was apparent this week at 

stormy leadership meetings.”88 In mid-April 2013, the Palestinian Authority’s then 

prime minister, Salam Fayyad, resigned out of utter frustration. He told New York 

Times journalist Roger Cohen that he had hit a wall—Palestinian division and Israeli 

intransigence. Fayyad was highly critical of Palestinian leadership: “Our story is a 

story of failed leadership from way early on. . . . It is incredible that the fate of the 

Palestinian people has been in the hands of leaders so entirely casual, so guided by 

spur of the moment decisions, without seriousness. We don’t strategize, we cut deals 

in a tactical way and we hold ourselves hostage to our own rhetoric.” The Palestinian 

Authority’s Fatah old guard wanted him out and Hamas hates him.89

In such a hopeless local environment and raging regional strife, it should come 

as no surprise if a Palestinian third intifada occurs. There was media speculation on 

the risks associated with Secretary of State John Kerry’s renewed peace initiative—

“Palestinian expectations rise and then are dashed, leading to violence.”90 A former 

member of the U.S. Middle East negotiating team during the Clinton administration, Aaron Miller, who supports the renewed effort, cautioned, “Let’s hope there is 

something new here, if this is old wine in a new bottle, there’s going to be trouble.”91

Essentially, Aaron Miller raises the prospects of the unintended consequences of 

failure. Relatedly, media reporting warns of a looming escalation of violence as a 

result of “Jewish activists demanding the right to pray at the site of their destroyed 

temple,” Jerusalem’s Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif.92
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Israeli Challenges

Israel has its own challenges, particularly significant security concerns arguably of increasing complexity and danger. But, just as important, Israel has had 

its own drumbeat of strategic difficulties. In a recent Middle East Journal article, 

former Israeli Deputy National Security Advisor Charles D. Freilich writes, “Many 

of the diplomatic and military initiatives Israel has undertaken have gone awry, 

and the number of policy failures has become untenable.”93 Also, official Israeli 

government investigations—the Agranat Commission on the October 1973 war, 

the Kahan Commission on Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the Winograd 

Commission on the 2006 Lebanon/Hizballah war—explicitly reflect these national 

security shortcomings. In the 2013 documentary film The Gatekeepers, five former 

heads of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, are highly critical of Israeli 

political decisionmaking, particularly that Israel’s responses to security threats are 

tactical, with little or no strategic thinking. 

Perhaps understandably, Israel lacks a strategic response to the violent convulsions in today’s Greater Middle East. Some Israeli officials describe Israel’s current tactical response as a “castle mentality,” creating a security moat composed 

of “high-tech border fences, intensified military deployments and sophisticated 

intelligence” in the hope of buying time.94 Israel’s airstrikes targeting Hizballah 

missile-related sites—“game changing weapons” according to Israeli retired Major 

General Eyal Ben-Reuven—underscore increasing fears of the Syrian Civil War 

expanding into a more regional struggle.95 Israeli Major General Yoav Har-Even, 

director of the Israeli military planning branch, is quoted as saying, “I don’t have, 

today, a contingency plan to destroy global jihad.” Israeli officials assess the worsening convulsions in the Greater Middle East as possibly resulting in the redrawing 

of the region’s geopolitical map. These Israeli officials believe this will result in 

Israel’s encirclement by an area that will be a no-man’s-land—an “axis of resistance”—and an updated and more dangerous version of the confrontation and rejectionist reality of decades past. At the same time, Israel is being confronted with 

a newer phenomenon—an orchestrated effort to isolate and delegitimize Israel via 

boycott, divestment, and sanctions—“that is potentially more dangerous for Israel 

than the Iranian nuclear program,” according to a longtime, well-regarded Israeli 
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journalist and author.96 As the region’s violent strife worsens, it may be reasonable 

to believe Israel will need a bigger moat. 

Apprehensive Monarchies

To date, the Arab uprisings have not resulted in any monarchy’s demise. But Gulf 

monarchies have experienced internal tensions. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has 

clamped down on internal dissent, particularly targeting Muslim Brotherhood members plotting to overthrow the UAE and other Gulf monarchies, according to various 

press reports.97 While the UAE clamps down on Muslim Brotherhood activity, UAE/

Dubai has embraced a significant reform effort intended to improve governance in 

each of its 46 ministries and regulatory agencies—3,600 “Key Performance Indicators” are monitored regularly by Dubai’s ruler, Muhammad bin Rashid.98

For the past year Bahrain, led by a Sunni minority and home base of the U.S. 

Fifth Fleet, has teetered on increased violence reaching a sustained level. In June 

2013, Al Jazeera reported that Bahrain authorities arrested a number of “Iran-linked’ 

individuals for conducting anti-regime activity.99 In April 2013, various Middle East 

media reported that Bahrain’s Council of Ministers placed Lebanese Hizballah on 

its terrorist list,100 charging it with providing material and logistic support to local 

Shia militants for the purpose of conducting sabotage as part of an Iranian plot to 

undermine Bahrain’s government.

As a result of Arab Spring violence throughout the region, Saudi Arabia has 

initiated a number of domestic measures to maintain stability, including a priority 

to create more jobs. The sustained regional violence may have led Saudi Arabia to 

conduct a November 2013 clampdown on illegal foreign laborers that resulted in 

the arrest of thousands of undocumented workers.101 Also, in early February 2014, a 

Royal decree issued by the Saudi Royal Court stating that Saudi citizens who join or 

aid terrorist groups would be imprisoned is intended to preempt the possible return 

of radicalized fighters from abroad.102

At the same time, Saudi Arabia also is concerned about threats from across 

its borders. Keenly alert to dissent in its Shia populated Eastern Province,103 Saudi 

Arabia sent military assistance to Bahrain to support the Bahrain royal family’s combating internal dissent. Saudi Arabia also has provided political and financial support 
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to Yemen to establish a stable government and diminish threats across the SaudiYemen border.104 Also in Yemen, the Shia Houthi insurgency’s proximity to Saudi 

Arabia could provide a channel for Iranian-inspired covert operations there. In late 

2012, in response to an ambush that occurred near the Yemen-Saudi border, Yemeni 

Major-General Ali al-Ahmadi, president of Yemen’s National Security Board, told 

Iran to stop training and funding the Shia insurgency.105 Shortly afterward, the Yemen security chief was quoted in a Yemen Saba state news agency report that Yemen 

arrested members of an IRGC-led spy ring, and that Yemeni Houthis had traveled 

to Qom in Iran for indoctrination.106 In March 2013, Al Jazaeera reported that Saudi 

Arabia “arrested 18 suspects, including 16 Saudis, an Iranian and a Lebanese on suspicion of spying” who had “direct links to the intelligence services of Iran.”107 Lastly, 

“an airstrike, believed to be a U.S. drone attack, killed six suspected al Qaeda militants 

in [Yemen’s] eastern province of Jawf, bordering Saudi Arabia.”108

Multiple Challenges in Yemen

Various Yemeni factions are making a courageous attempt to resolve their differences via a National Dialogue Conference. The Yemeni government’s efforts to 

resolve internal differences resulted in an agreement with southern separatists to 

a form of federalism, according to press reports in late December 2013.109 In the 

north, violence increased during late 2013 as Houthi rebels fighting ultraconservative 

Salafis had become fiercer and spread from Saada, one of the governorates of Yemen, to Hajjah Province.110 Again, reflecting the Yemeni government’s efforts, there 

was a truce signed between the warring factions in mid-January 2014.111

But Yemen is a hydra-headed battleground and violent protests and serious terrorist plots continue in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital.112 In early December 2013, jihadists 

conducted a multistage attack on Yemen’s ministry of defense that resulted in 52 

dead and more than 160 injured, according to Yemen’s Supreme Security Committee. The December attack occurred amid a stalled National Dialogue Conference 

and heightened political tensions and a deteriorating security situation in Yemen, 

according to press reporting.113 During late 2013, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) attacked Yemeni army outposts in Shabwa and Hadramout provinces 

in a similar manner to the December defense ministry attack. Yemen’s ungoverned 
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territory remains an area from which terrorist organizations, such as AQAP, have 

launched terrorist attacks targeting the United States. 

According to think-tank assessments and media reporting, in addition to Yemen’s unstable political situation, a resource-poor economy, and severe water shortage, the country is embattled by jihadists, a southern separatist movement, and a Shia 

Houthi insurgency in the north that is generally believed to be backed by Iran.114

Part II: South Asia

South Asia has its own current challenges and crises in waiting, including historic enmities, religious and ethnic tensions, failed economies, poor governance, corruption, insurgencies, ungoverned territories, and local and global jihadists.

Gathering Dangers in Afghanistan, Potential Consequences for Pakistan

The Afghan Taliban’s return to power and/or Afghanistan’s fragmentation are 

looming dangers. According to a late December press article, a new U.S. intelligence 

community National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan “predicts that the 

Taliban and other power brokers will become increasingly influential as the United 

States winds down its longest war in [its] history, according to officials who have read 

the classified report or received briefings on its conclusions.”115 These concerns were 

underscored by the Taliban attack on La Taverna du Liban restaurant in Kabul in 

mid-January 2014, which killed 21 people including Afghan civilians and foreigners 

from several countries, among them senior UN and IMF officials.116 La Taverna was 

considered a “secure oasis in a harsh and unpredictable country . . . jokingly referred 

to as “Rick’s Café of Kabul.” The fear is that this attack may not be a horrible, isolated terrorist event, but rather one with greater long-term consequences.117

According to Afghanistan specialists and academics, think tanks, and media sources, Afghanistan has a long list of significant challenges—poor governance; an illiterate 

population; lack of institutions and essential services; systemic corruption; narcotics/

drug production; ethnic tensions; and abject poverty.118 John Sopko, Special Inspector 

General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, notes that the “narcotics trade is poisoning 

the Afghan financial sector and fueling a growing illicit economy. . . . This in turn is 

undermining the Afghan state’s legitimacy by stoking corruption, nourishing criminal 
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networks and providing significant financial support to the Taliban and other insurgent 

groups.”119 At the same time, the Afghan Taliban could remain a major challenge with 

its safe haven and support structure in Pakistan.120

These challenges are likely to be complicated further by the scheduled 2014 U.S./

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) departure and the likely warfighting, 

logistic, and infrastructure consequences for Afghan National Security Forces, the 

Taliban, and regional players alike.121 A prime example of this coming concern is the 

U.S./ISAF training of Afghan police strike forces—Provincial Response Companies—and select army battalions, including special forces for counterinsurgent operations. While U.S. military sources judge that the Afghans have functioned effectively 

in this capacity, there is worry among the commanders of these elite units regarding what will happen when U.S. close air support, medical services, and intelligence 

capability is reduced as U.S./ISAF forces depart Afghanistan during 2014.122 Think 

tanks, diplomats, and media sources have telegraphed that these challenges will occur 

as the scheduled Afghan national election takes place next year and may result in an 

untested leadership taking over at a time of increased threat.123 These kinds of “postU.S.” concerns may also be behind U.S.-Afghan tensions associated with several key 

unfinished infrastructure projects, including the building of an Afghan “Pentagon” 

and Afghan political and military leaders’ suspicions in blaming the United States 

for its being on hold.124 Also, Western officials are increasingly concerned that the 

Afghan government will be unable to maintain the roads and highways constructed 

since 2001, and have little faith the government will be able to perform simple tasks, 

such as filling potholes and repaving roads.125

President Hamid Karzai’s increasingly acrimonious relationship with the United States, including his unwillingness to sign the U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Security 

Agreement (BSA), is complicating all of Afghanistan’s already profound challenges, 

according to press reporting.126 The Karzai government’s handling of the Afghan 

commission investigation into airstrikes on a remote village on January 15, 2014, 

may have been used as a way of justifying Karzai’s stalling on signing the BSA.127

Specifically, according to the New York Times, the commission, appointed by Karzai 

and led by Abdul Satar Khawasi, an Afghan with well-known anti-U.S. sentiments, 

accused the United States of engaging in a cover-up and “demonized” the United 
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The Nightmare Years to Come?

States by falsely representing at least some of the evidence of shattered houses and 

bloodied bodies and “distributed other material whose provenance, at best, could not 

be determined.” A New York Times investigation determined that “much of the same 

material was posted on a Taliban Web site.” 

The BSA impasse “has not only raised concerns about the future of the Afghan 

security forces, but put an instant and alarming drag on the Afghan business climate, 

already suffering as Western forces have pulled out.”128 More specifically, this lack of 

Karzai’s signature is directly responsible for rising food and fuel prices, a slowdown 

in bank lending, no further private investment, and severely diminished domestic 

travel. This situation is particularly acute due to Afghanistan’s almost total reliance on 

foreign aid that accounts for about 97 percent of its gross domestic product. Serving 

to underscore this concern, according to the media account on the NIE, the NIE 

predicts, “Afghanistan would likely descend into chaos quickly if Washington and 

Kabul don’t sign a security pact that would keep an international military contingent 

there beyond 2014.” 

This overall troubling environment may have been partly behind U.S. Embassy 

Kabul denial of U.S. visas for Afghan interpreters.129 According to U.S. media reporting, there is some concern among U.S. officials that these Afghan men and women 

are essential to any long-term U.S. presence. This press reporting indicates that in 

a similar situation in 2010, U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry warned in a cable to 

then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the visa program could “have a 

significant deleterious impact on the staffing and morale, as well as undermining our 

overall mission in Afghanistan. Local staffs are not easily replenished in a society at 

28 percent literacy.”130 In the run-up to the departure of U.S. combat forces in 2014, 

such an exodus of capable Afghans could be perceived as a vote of no confidence 

in a future Afghanistan.

Pakistan has its own significant challenges. In addition to the country’s longstanding political, economic, demographic, and environmental problems, there has 

been a sharp increase in sectarian killings that have increasingly targeted Pakistan’s 

Shia professional class.131 Events of increased concern to Pakistani leaders and observers include Sunni-Shia clashes in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and Pakistan 

“now seeing sectarian tensions triggered not only by terrorism incidents, but average 
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clashes within the sectarian communities.” According to Knox Thames, director of 

policy and research at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, 

“There is growing concern that the Shiite minority is also starting to organize militant groups.” According to the same media account, Pakistani analysts and some 

Pakistani political leaders “are increasingly questioning whether Prime Minister 

Nawaz Sharif can keep order in the nuclear-armed country of 180 million people.” 

In Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, bloodshed is worsening and there was a huge spike 

in terrorist attacks during 2013, leading the deputy director of the Muttahida Qaumi 

Movement to say, “Something must be done soon, if Pakistan is to be saved,” according to media reports.132 Moreover, numerous Pakistani political observers and 

businessmen judge that the Taliban is increasing its control of Karachi neighborhoods, “making the city more ungovernable.” Reflecting overall increased Pakistan 

government security concerns, in late February 2013 the Pakistani army was planning 

for a major military operation in North Waziristan.133

But Afghanistan’s fragmentation or instability may exacerbate Pakistan’s own 

internal challenges. According to various Pakistan observers, Pakistan Taliban–

inspired instability, along with Afghanistan serving as a Pakistan Taliban “mirror” 

safe-haven, may further test Pakistan’s ability to maintain stability.134 In November 

2013, Pakistani Shias and Sunnis fought in Rawalpindi during a demonstration marking the Shia holy month of Muharram—numerous people were killed or wounded, a 

Sunni mosque was torched, and the Pakistan army had to impose a 2-day curfew and 

cut off cell phone service in dozens of cities.135 In Pakistan, A Hard Country, Anatol 

Lieven writes, “If the Army splintered in the midst of a radicalized, Islamic upheaval, 

the collapse of Pakistan would be likely,” but “would result in civil war, not a national 

revolution.”136

Continuing Indo-Pak Tensions

While the DNI National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) Global Trends 2030 assessment that “low growth, rising food prices, and energy shortages will pose stiff challenges to governance in Pakistan (and Afghanistan),”137 the decades-long Indo-Pak 

feuding also shows little sign of abating. To be fair, moments of diplomacy invite 

fragile optimism and the Islamabad government understands its internal Pakistan 
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The Nightmare Years to Come?

Taliban challenge. But it continues to assess India as its primary strategic threat. 

Fundamental India-Pakistan disagreements, particularly concerning Kashmir, remain 

unresolved. 

Pakistan President Nawaz Sharif may be predisposed to establishing better relations with India. But, another Mumbai-like terrorist attack would complicate matters. 

As stated in the NIC’s Global Trends 2030, “India worries about a second Mumbaistyle terrorist attack from militants backed by Pakistan. A major incident with many 

casualties and Pakistan fingerprints would put a weakened Indian government under tremendous pressure to respond with force, with the attendant risk of nuclear 

confrontation.”138 The risk of nuclear confrontation is heightened due to Pakistan’s 

“development of tactical nuclear weapons, which have become increasingly central 

to Pakistani nuclear thinking in the past three years . . . that raises the risk of nuclear 

war fighting and accidents in periods of crisis, without producing the military benefits that have been claimed,” according to Shashank Joshi, a research fellow of the 

Royal United Services Institute in London.139 It is important to recall that Chaudry 

Zulfikar, Pakistan’s chief prosecutor of the seven Pakistan militants accused in the 

Mumbai siege, was assassinated in early May 2013. Indian and U.S. government authorities blamed the Mumbai attack on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani group headed 

by Lahore religious scholar and cleric Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. Western media has 

reported that Saeed continues to preach and has the backing of the Pakistani government. To date, Pakistani courts have refused to accept Mumbai-related evidence 

from Indian authorities. In the event of another escalating crisis, it is useful to recall 

that an engaged America twice in the past two decades, 1990 and 1999, played a 

decisive role in lowering Indo-Pak tensions that could have led to nuclear escalation.

India

Reflecting India’s rise as an economic power, its situation is more complicated. 

According to the NIC’s Global Trends 2030, “India faces many challenges: large inequities between rural and urban sectors and within society, increasing constraints on 

resources such as food and water, and a need for greater investment in science and 

technology in order to move its economy up a notch.”140 At the same time, according 

to Global Trends 2030, “Intensifying competition between India and China could lead 
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to great-power conflict that would not be limited to the South Asian theatre, drawing 

in the U.S. and others.141

According to a recent press account, India’s 2014 national elections bear watching due to recent years of low economic growth, rising prices, weak political leadership, and corruption allegations.142 India’s Hindu nationalist opposition party, 

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), named Narendra Modi to head its campaign; the BJP 

made political gains in late 2013 state elections.143 The United States refused to grant 

Modi a visa in 2005 due to his alleged complicity in reprisal religious riots in 2002. 

More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the violence. Even some of Modi’s 

BJP allies criticized him “for his refusal to apologize for the riots. He has denied any 

wrongdoing.”144 Whatever the case, it is another example of sectarian politics inserting itself among Greater Middle East tensions. 

South Asian Storm Clouds

In Lieven’s Pakistan: A Hard Country, he writes that environmental endangerment in Pakistan due to climate change, rapid population growth, population displacement, and urbanization places great pressure on water availability.145 The 2010 

floods inundated one-fifth of the country, affected 20 million people, and resulted 

in tens of billions of dollars in economic losses. Lieven believes, “The likelihood 

is that the country will hold together, and that if it eventually collapses, it will be 

not Islamist extremism but climate change—an especially grim threat in the whole 

of South Asia—that finishes it off.”146 According to a 2012 CSIS report, per capita 

water availability in South Asia has decreased by 70 percent since 1950, and that 

“Changing rainfall patterns and retreating glaciers are expected to exacerbate the 

situation in the years ahead”147 Unfortunately, discussion of South Asia water issues 

is highly political, “driven more by national and local interests than shared regional 

concerns,” according to the CSIS study. The merging of water scarcity, nationalism, 

and regional conflicts would fuel greater antagonism.

Part III: Mitigating the Nightmare Years

The 20th-century concept of a Superpower is no longer viable. Others have put 

forward an indispensable United States, which must remain engaged and achieve 
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the stature of a “Great Nation” built on domestic political, military, and economic 

strength in parallel with value-driven concepts of fairness, dignity, and justice. The 

danger of a distracted, weakened “American empire” disengaging from world affairs 

is explained with great clarity by Robert Kaplan, who warns, “Lessening our engagement with the world would have devastating consequences for humanity.”148 Notwithstanding current U.S. domestic political dysfunction, war weariness, and deep 

financial debt, the United States has a running start if it mends its domestic problems. Often, even those who hate the United States do so only until a crisis occurs 

and they need American help. 

In the 21st century, hard power and soft power are likely to carry similar weight. 

Just as important, assessing U.S. national security demands great rigor. In such an 

environment, a dysfunctional government will be more vulnerable to being manipulated by others—friends and foes, states and nonstates—having a more focused 

understanding of their objectives. A devastating future crisis may unite us at some 

point, but by then it may be too late.

For policymakers, strategists, and intelligence officials, there is no magic formula 

for better anticipating crises prompted by the Nightmare Years to Come. But a place 

to start may be to shine “a lantern on the stern.” 

Beware of Fiction Masquerading as Wisdom

Decisionmakers, strategists, and intelligence officers are swayed by often biased, 

former officials’ memoirs that could be used as a credible basis for dangerous analogies. Some publications do offer keen insights and perspectives, and are tremendous 

sources for constructive uses of history. But memoirs can be self-serving “war stories” employed to advance parochial agendas and protect reputations—foundations 

for a preferred legacy. Too often, memories are selective. In his well-researched A 

Peace to End All Peace, historian David Fromkin writes, “Russian and French official 

accounts of what they were doing in the Middle East at the time were, not unnaturally, works of propaganda; British officials accounts—and even the later memoirs 

of the officials concerned—were untruthful too. British officials who played a major 

role in the making of these decisions provided a version of events that was, at best, 

edited and, at worst, fictitious.”149 A century later, official accounts remain vulnerable 
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to such shortcomings. Former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates 

writes in his own 1996 memoir, From the Shadows, that the memoirs of key players 

“usually are written by people with records to defend, axes to grind, or, too often, 

scores to settle.”150

Even in the midst of a crisis, it may be productive to pause a moment and drill 

down on analogies that seem to frame discussion and drive decisions. In Thinking in 

Time, the late presidential advisor/scholar Richard Neustadt and Pentagon historian 

Ernest May suggest simple questions: what’s Known, Unclear and Presumed; what 

are the Likenesses and Differences?151 Some decisionmakers and senior advisors may 

have little patience for such discussion in the midst of crisis, but they should be given 

the opportunity to reject taking a deep breath before acting (or not). 

Historic Interplay of the Policy Wish and Intelligence Failures: Distortion, 

Distraction, and Disregard

There seems to be a cause and effect between intelligence failures and the policy 

community’s distortion, distraction, or disregard for intelligence. This situation arises 

due to a combination of policy preferences—the “policy wish,” and a loss of confidence in the Intelligence Community’s (IC) competence and the IC’s bureaucratic 

weakness in the wake of previous failure. This interplay has recurred on notable 

occasions during the past 50 years. Though this dynamic is understandable, it is also 

dangerous.

A notable Distortion episode occurred in 1963 in the aftermath of two significant intelligence failures: the Bay of Pigs and Soviet missiles in Cuba. Specifically, 

as presented in the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA and the Vietnam 

Policymakers, the February 1963 draft of the IC’s National Intelligence Estimate, 

“Prospects for South Vietnam” (NIE 53-63) was disseminated to the United States 

Intelligence Board. The Intelligence Board, along with Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) John McCone, sharply criticized the pessimism of the Estimate draft, 

a pessimism that already had been diluted. As a result, DCI McCone remanded the 

draft and directed the authors to “seek out the views of senior policymakers.”152

This resulted in an April 1963 revised draft that was a “markedly more optimistic 

forecast of the effectiveness of U.S. and Vietnamese efforts.” McCone later told 
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President Kennedy that the revised NIE “indicated we could win.” Harold Ford 

writes, “The reworking of intelligence exacted a steep price. By so altering the tone 

of the NIE’s judgments and producing an authoritative but misleading Estimate, 

McCone’s Office of Estimates, supposedly above the fray of policy dispute, confirmed the expectations of progress that senior policymakers had long entertained 

but would soon have to abandon.”153

The following excerpts from the draft and final versions of NIE 53-16 illustrate 

this Distortion. First, here is the February 1963 draft:

The struggle for South Vietnam at best will be protracted and costly [because] very great weaknesses remain and will be difficult to surmount. 

Among those are lack [sic] of aggressive and firm leadership at all levels 

of command, poor morale among the troops, lack of trust between the 

peasant and soldier, poor tactical use of available forces, a very inadequate 

intelligence system, and obvious Communist penetration of the South Vietnamese military organization.

Compare this with the excerpt from the April 1963 final version:

We believe that Communist progress has been blunted and that the situation is improving. . . . Improvements which have occurred during the past 

year now indicate that the Viet Cong can be contained militarily and that 

further progress can be made in expanding the area of government control 

and in creating greater security in the countryside.

Harold Ford ends this episode by writing, as the authors of The Pentagon Papers later 

concluded, “The intelligence and reporting problems during this period cannot be 

explained away. . . . In retrospect, [the Estimators] were not only wrong, but more 

importantly, they were influential.”154

A Distraction illustration underscores that Policy and Intelligence successes and 

failures generally are not one or the other. Rather, there usually are policy and intelligence contributions to success and failure. Distraction in 1978 concerning events in 
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Iran is one of those joint efforts that resulted in a national security failure—the role 

of U.S. policy and intelligence in an escalating crisis that resulted in the toppling of 

the Shah of Iran. 

In 1978, the Carter administration was deeply involved in other major foreign 

policy issues, such as final negotiations on Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with 

Moscow and complex negotiations on normalizing relations with the People’s Republic of China. Of perhaps greatest relevance to the escalating Iran crisis was that 

in the fall of 1978 all senior administration officials, including the President, were 

immersed in detailed discussions at Camp David with Egyptian President Anwar 

Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Then-National Security Advisor 

Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in his memoir, Power and Principle, “But it must be noted 

here that until the crisis became very grave, the attention of top decision makers, 

myself included, was riveted on other issues, all extraordinarily time-consuming, personally absorbing, and physically demanding.”155 Brzezinski also adds that the crisis 

in Nicaragua was “beginning to preoccupy and absorb us.” Day-to-day monitoring 

on the worsening situation in Iran was left to an extremely capable, though mid-level, 

National Security Council staff officer: Gary Sick. 

At the same time, CIA was seriously weakened as a result of congressional 

investigations during the mid-1970s on CIA excesses. Politically and bureaucratically reeling, CIA cut a significant number of Clandestine Service officers. CIA was 

further constrained on Iran. In Gary Sick’s All Fall Down, he writes, “To operate effectively it needed the cooperation of the shah and his government. Moreover, it had 

been many years since the CIA had had the kind of contacts within the opposition 

that would have permitted it to influence the course of events.”156 These restraints 

also applied to the Department of State. Moreover, Kissinger let it be known he had 

great respect for the Shah and his understanding of political realities.157 The Shah, in 

effect, would be Kissinger’s senior analyst on Iran.

This deference to the Shah’s political acumen was part of a much larger U.S. 

reliance arranged by President Nixon and National Security Advisor Kissinger during May 1972 meetings with the Shah in Tehran. This reliance included a U.S. 

guarantee that the Shah could access some of the most sophisticated nonnuclear 

technology in the U.S. military arsenal. Gary Sick writes, “With the U.S. bogged 
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down in Vietnam, with U.S. domestic opinion firmly opposed to any new military 

ventures abroad, with the withdrawal of the British from their strategic role east 

of Suez, and with the oil of the Persian Gulf beginning to be recognized as a key 

factor in Western security, there was an inescapable logic in asking a strong regional 

power to accept a security role that the U.S. was simply incapable of undertaking 

at the time.”158 President Nixon looked across the table to the Shah and said simply 

“Protect me,” according to Sick’s account sourced to a senior Nixon administration official familiar with the Tehran visit.

Nonetheless, there was an intelligence failure and, according to Sick, this was 

most notably captured in “a 23-page study entitled ‘Iran after the Shah,’ published 

in August 1978.” Sick further writes, “The study was prefaced with the judgment, 

just one month before the Jaleh square incident, that Iran is not in a revolutionary 

or even a ‘pre-revolutionary’ situation.” Also, President Carter, in his memoir Keeping Faith writes, “According to a CIA assessment, issued in August, ‘Iran is not in a 

revolutionary or even a prerevolutionary situation.’”159 Carter writes that the report 

went on to say that the military was loyal to the monarchy and that those who were 

in opposition, both the violent and nonviolent, did not have the capacity to be 

more than troublesome in any transition to a new regime.160 As the crisis became 

more severe, President Carter and Brzezinski believed there was significant weakness in political intelligence, and the President advised CIA Director Stansfield 

Turner of his concerns in writing, according to Brzezinski. Brzezinski writes that 

in September 1978, “I should add that, at this stage, neither I nor anyone else in 

Washington, to my knowledge (emphasis mine), was aware of the Shah’s illness. . . . It 

would have made some difference in the kinds of assessments and policy options 

we formulated.”161 Concurrent with the Camp David discussions and thereafter, it 

was increasingly evident that the Shah’s ability to remain in power was significantly 

diminished: anti-Shah demonstrations occurred throughout the country; general 

strikes, including in the oil industry, took place; and significant elements of the 

Iranian military, particularly the Shah’s personal security force, “The Immortals,” 

withdrew their support for the Shah. Clandestine sources were not needed to observe the Shah’s desperate position. More generally, the Shah’s megalomania was 

observable and became greatly exaggerated during the 1970s and included the 
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over-the-top celebration of the Pahlavi dynasty at Persepolis that served to ignite 

anti-Shah sentiments. 

The policy distractions and intelligence failings contributed to disagreements 

and confusion among senior administration officials, as articulated in General Robert 

E. Huyser’s Mission to Tehran. As President Carter’s personal emissary to Tehran in 

November 1978, Huyser had to contend with senior administration policy disagreements and differing interpretations of his mission—for example, did the President’s 

“draft” mission statement for Huyser communicate the need for the Iranian military 

to support a civilian government, that no Iranian military leaders should depart Iran, 

and/or was it a statement that endorsed U.S. support for a military coup? According 

to Huyser, Brzezinski believed the message gave the Iranian military a green light to 

stage a military coup, but that President Carter intended it to convey such a meaning 

only as a last resort.162 But the Department of State, Brzezinski, and the President 

seem to have had different understandings of when the “last resort” was present. 

According to President Carter’s Keeping Faith, the President lost faith in U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan, was irritated with bureaucratic battles via media leaks, and 

believed Brzezinski’s and Secretary of State Vance’s opposing views were undermining implementation of his directives.163

A third episode of the interplay of policy preferences and intelligence failures, 

Disregard, occurred in the aftermath of the 9/11 intelligence failure and the judgment of key Bush administration policymakers that CIA failed to piece together 

Iraq’s links with al Qaeda. According to Michael Gordon and General (Ret.) Bernard 

Trainor in Cobra II, Appendix, “Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq,”164 the 

Director of National Intelligence’s NIC made the following judgments in January 

2003 prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom:

◆ “Iraq would be unlikely to split apart, but a post-Saddam authority would face 

a deeply divided society with a significant chance that domestic groups would engage 

in violent conflict with each other unless an occupying force prevented them from 

doing so.”

◆ “Score settling would occur throughout Iraq between those associated with 

Saddam’s regime and those who had suffered under it.”
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◆ “If Baghdad were unable to exert control over the Iraqi countryside Al Qa’ida 

or other extremist terrorist groups could operate from remote areas.”

◆ “Attitudes toward a foreign force would depend largely on the progress made 

in transferring power as well as on the degree to which that force were perceived as 

providing necessary security and fostering reconstruction and a return to prosperity.”

U.S. war strategy, force structure, and lack of post-Saddam governance planning 

showed a high disregard for these intelligence judgments. This Disregard turned on 

its head The Pentagon Papers conclusion mentioned above: the 2003 Estimators were 

right, but not influential, an apparent victim of a loss of policymaker confidence and 

weakened bureaucratic position.

Inattention to Unintended Consequences

Negative consequences to U.S. national security may have been an unintended 

byproduct of U.S. decisionmaking in the Middle East for decades. There is little a 

policymaker can do if consequences are unforeseeable. But often that is not the 

case. Unintended is not necessarily unexpected, nor a total surprise. To be sure, usually during a period of severe crisis, policymakers are confronted with options that 

are either bad or worse—no matter the decision, the option chosen will be a bad 

one and will have unwelcome consequences. Welcome to Washington. The best a 

policymaker can do is to make the least bad choice and mitigate the impact of likely 

negative consequences.

Israel’s June 1982 invasion of Lebanon is one of the landmark events of the 

past 30 years. Then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig writes in his memoir, “Despite 

the strongest possible warnings by the United States, Israel launched her offensive at 

last.”165 Haig states that the United States was very much aware of Israel’s intention 

to invade Lebanon, though the United States did not know the exact timing or the 

nature of the precipitating event that would cause Israel to invade.166 Notwithstanding Israel’s decision to invade, Haig judged that “dangerous and tragic though this 

turn of events was, it provided a historic opportunity to deal with the problems of 

Lebanon” by removing the causes of Lebanon’s national crisis—that is, the presence 

of two foreign armies—the Syrian “peacekeeping” force and the military arm of the 
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Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).167 At the same time, Haig also understood 

that Israel’s “de facto occupation” stripped Lebanon’s government of its authority 

and exacerbated the “conditions for strife among the religious and ethnic communities in Lebanon.”168

In the year prior to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, the United States supported 

Israel’s policy objective of ridding Lebanon of its Palestinian guerrilla presence, 

though senior U.S. administration officials, particularly Secretary Haig, strongly and 

repeatedly cautioned Israeli leaders, mostly Prime Minister Begin and Minister of 

Defense Ariel Sharon, against Israeli overreaction to events. Extremely harsh language between U.S. and Israeli officials occurred prior to and during Israel’s invasion. 

Senior administration officials were frustrated by “the worst case of bad faith on 

the part of Israel that the U.S. administration had ever experienced,” according to 

Deputy National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane in his personal memoir Special 

Trust, and “the Israeli government repeatedly lied to Washington about its intentions,” including Sharon’s disregard for U.S. negotiated cease-fires.169 (In the midst of 

the Lebanon crisis, Secretary Haig was forced to resign because of his disagreements 

with President Reagan and related bickering among senior administration officials.)

Though 15,000 Palestinian fighters and its PLO leadership were evacuated to 

Tunisia on U.S. warships, there soon occurred unintended consequences, including massacres of over 850 Palestinian women and children at the Sabra and Shatila 

refugee camps by a pro-Israel Lebanese militia; the assassination of the pro-U.S./

Israel Lebanese president-elect, Bashir Jumayyil; the suicide truck bomb attack that 

targeted the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983 that killed 63, including 17 U.S. diplomats, CIA staff, and military personnel; the October 1983 truck bomb explosions 

at the U.S. Marine Barracks and French military headquarters with the loss of 241 

U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers, respectively; the taking of Western hostages; and of possibly the greatest long-term impact, an increased Iranian presence 

in Lebanon that led to the establishment of Lebanese Hizballah. The latter occurred 

due to the arrival of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its ability to exploit 

an exacerbated political-security vacuum resulting from the Israeli invasion during 

Lebanon’s civil war. The early godfather of Hizballah was Iran’s ambassador to Syria, 

Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur.
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As Haig’s memoir indicates, the United States ultimately acquiesced to Israeli 

decisionmaking.170 But the extent of the invasion was motivated largely by Israeli 

personal and political ambitions.171 According to Amos Perlmutter, author and editor of numerous Middle East publications, the Lebanon war was intended to douse 

any vestiges of Palestinian nationalism and was “the logical outcome of his [Begin’s] 

dream of Eretz Yisrael [Complete Israel].”172 While Begin viewed Defense Minister 

Sharon as his “sword and man of action,” Sharon took “Begin’s rhetoric, his aspirations and his dreams for his own. . . . Sharon managed to hold Begin captive to his 

own showy rhetoric, and in that sense, has managed to manipulate Begin.”173

As it turned out, the 1982 Kahan Commission of Inquiry determined Israel’s 

leadership had acted in a manner that undermined Israel’s strategic interests and that 

the country bore indirect responsibility because the areas where the Palestinian civilian massacres occurred were controlled by Israeli forces. The commission’s findings 

resulted in Sharon’s firing. As for Begin, his premiership ended with his “well-known 

psychological tailspin of depression and withdrawal” because of his genuine distress 

in reaction to mounting Israeli casualties; his wife’s death and death of longtime 

colleague Simcha Erhlich; diminished Israeli domestic and international prestige;174

and the establishment of a stronger, Iranian-supported, radical Islamist presence in 

Lebanon—a presence that has left Hizballah with a significant political and military 

force in Lebanon today.175 There was no Israeli victory and certainly no benefit to 

U.S. national security.

For the United States, in addition to the destruction and loss of U.S. lives at the 

U.S. Embassy and Marine Barracks and the U.S./Western hostage crisis in Iran, there 

were Hizballah-sponsored airline hijackings and the discouraging criminal behavior 

associated with the Iran-Contra affair that came perilously close to ending the Reagan Presidency. The larger national security failure, however, was expanded Iranian 

influence, an unintended consequence that Israel, the United States, and its Middle 

East allies continue to deal with to this day.

Finally, unwanted and unintended consequences do not arise only from failure, 

but also from success. U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen was decisive in forcing 

the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, further weakening an already teetering Soviet Union. But there was minimal focus on the unintended consequences of 
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U.S. lack of interest for the post–Soviet Afghan period, the ultimate collapse of the remaining pro-Soviet government, civil war among the various mujahideen militias, and 

the Taliban takeover. Just as important, the unintended consequence of the Afghan 

mujahideen victory was the export of fellow mujahideen—“Arab Afghans”—returning to their home countries.

Such an unintended consequence was the increased extremist threat to Egypt, 

specifically the Islamic Grouping (Gamaat Islamiyya) and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. 

Egypt, with U.S. support, succeeded in defeating this internal Islamist threat during 

the early 1990s, but it also resulted in senior Egyptian radicals—for example, future 

Osama bin Laden deputy Ayman Zawahiri, Abu Hafs al-Masri, and Abu Ubaydah 

al-Banshiri—ultimately joining al Qaeda. The aggregate of Taliban Afghanistan, 

Osama bin Laden/Ayman Zawahiri-led al Qaeda, and Egyptian operational command—including lead hijacker Muhammad Atta—set the stage for the attacks on 

September 11, 2001.

Beyond Cautionary Tales: Prescriptions for the Policy High Table and 

Bureaucratic Trench

Nightmares call for preemption or mitigation. A few modest remedies are proposed below, though other more important remedies are likely out there. But here is 

a place to start.

Answer the Right Questions. What’s the policy? Although a straightforward 

question, it is not easily answered or communicated; for example, concerning Syria’s 

war, is the policy about Syria or is it more about Iran? Or Israel? Or Russia? Or regional sectarian war? Is there a U.S. policy for the Greater Middle East or are there 

policy stovepipes for Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, among others, 

for proliferation, terrorism, cyber war, and ecological endangerment? Whatever the 

case, a political strategy needs to define a sustainable political outcome.

What is the nature of the situation? Define and assess the problem. Getting 

it right is fundamental. Spend a lot of time answering this question. Get it wrong 

and most everything goes south. Be sensitive to pressures associated with a “policy wish.” And watch out for those dangerous analogues. Often, uninformed 

and/or ideologically motivated officials misuse analogies as a convenient and 
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self-serving way of turning the conversation to what they think they know—and 

their desired outcome. 

What is the mission? Are the mission’s objectives “aspirational” or receptive to 

strategy formulation and operational execution? Is the mission statement coherent 

with the policy and the nature of the situation? If not, is there an effort to mitigate 

the differences? The policymakers, strategists, and intelligence officers need to work 

seamlessly on this issue.

Implementation. In the policy, military, and intelligence world, the seeds of 

a strategy’s greatest weakness exist—though often hidden—at the very beginning. 

Policy decisions and operations invested in that strategy are increasingly difficult to 

question or reset as time passes—change is too hard. Key players need to be empowered to ask the question: What would change your mind about the viability of 

a particular policy, strategy, and/or operation? In answering the question, do not be 

afraid to zero-base your thinking.

Everyone needs to know the probable consequences of going forward with or 

without change. A highly respected, empowered “red team” needs to be established 

early on and be a coequal member of any decisionmaking circle—the red team needs 

a senior-conferred “hunting license” to ask all the hard, uncomfortable questions. 

Also, the red team may be responsible for raising the second- and third-order effects 

of decisionmaking. 

Who is in charge? Is there a “go to” person? Is that person approachable? 

Would someone else be in charge if they were not otherwise distracted? What happens when that person is no longer distracted? Mixed messaging will compromise 

operations and diminish international support. It is essential to deal directly with or 

mitigate U.S. Government conflicting internal rivalries, petty personal ambitions, and 

bureaucratic priorities. We know all too well that U.S. Government officials have a 

long history of doing battle via media leaks. 

For the policymaker, strategist, and intelligence official, understanding coalition 

politics is essential. States, nonstates, and individuals have conflicting overt and covert agendas that, when present, will undermine presumed agreements. More often than we like to admit, working with friends can be more difficult than working 

against enemies.
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Part IV: In the Trenches

Competence matters. Acquiring subject matter expertise and having the capacity 

for cognitive agility have to exist prior to the crisis. At crucial moments, competence 

may be the ability to ask the right question(s). For participants in the decisionmaking process, the regrettable “holding back” when you have a useful contribution is a 

common experience. But “holding back” is different from “holding steady”—that is, 

timing your contribution to its greatest effect. Personal and institutional gravitas are 

imperative to enable appropriate “push back” in the event of pressures associated 

with a “policy wish.” 

Once a crisis starts, an information explosion, much of which is “noise” or disinformation, overwhelms everyone. A surge of personnel may provide some valueadded, but may dilute existing competence. The crisis manager needs to know the 

difference and balance the tradeoffs. 

The crisis manager needs to be alert to change in the “strategic and operational 

environment.” How will such change impact policy, diplomacy, military, and intelligence decisions and operations? In the intelligence world, strategic or operational 

change may impact intelligence assets’ continued access, motivation, security posture, 

and/or reliability. There may be a tendency to default to the comfort zone of the 

status quo. Failure to address change would be, at best, lazy and, at worst, dangerous.

For a long-term crisis, great importance needs to be attached to being physically 

and emotionally fit. Sustained stress will denigrate performance. Some denigration 

will almost always be impossible to eliminate, but the crisis manager needs to strategize against significant degradation.

Crisis management is a team sport—it is not all about you. As the crisis unfolds 

and/or continues, tasking, coordination, cooperation, and follow-up will be a great 

challenge. A genuine crisis creates a new world. Not everyone is comfortable with 

that reality. 

When mistakes are made—and they will happen—take a deep breath and move 

on. A senior manager would do well to temper any anger and avoid extremely hard 

elbows when mistakes occur. It is unlikely that major success can occur without risktaking. Effective crisis management is damaged when personnel are inhibited and 

doing nothing becomes the default safe strategy. 
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The Nightmare Years to Come?

When briefing or being briefed, be aware of “Activity” versus “Accomplishment”—for example, training may occur, but does training translate into operational 

utilization? Police training in the use of a Glock or long gun is merely “Activity” if 

the trainee has no weapon or ammunition after being trained.

When dealing with the interagency or coalition challenges, be prescriptive as 

appropriate. Being the bad news messenger goes only so far. Senior policy and intelligence officials need to place a “Thou shalt not whine” sign at their office entrance.

Part V: A Final Comment

Finally, in anticipation of this increasingly dangerous world, there is an urgent 

need for a rigorous and informed public discussion on the current and future role of 

intelligence, including the recent surveillance-related disclosures; increasingly sophisticated drone technology; and cyber war tools. These new technologies currently exist 

without a public discussion that could lead to a recognized framework for legitimate 

use. Interestingly, opponents and supporters of U.S. drone policy agree on the need 

for clearer rules and a publicly explained legal and moral framework. For now, it is a 

free-for-all limited only by capability and imagination. These discussions need to occur 

now—not in the aftermath of the next 9/11-type attack. To wait for the aftermath of 

a coming nightmare would almost certainly create an atmosphere for granting license 

for severe draconian measures and greater loss of privacy and personal liberties. The 

discussion should take place in a more dispassionate moment. The foundation of the 

national security system is built on a trust that everyone is focused on furthering U.S. 

national security interests—not for any particular ideology, partisan, or personal gain. 

In a democratic society, this trust must extend to the general public.
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Notes

1 William Shirer, Twentieth Century Journey, The Nightmare Years: 1930–1940 (New York: 

Little, Brown and Company, 1984), xiii. 

2 Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (New York: Ballantine 

Books, 1985), epilogue, 379.

3 Winston S. Churchill, World Crisis, Volume I: 1911–1914 (London: Thornton, Butterworth, Limited, 1923), chapter 11. 

4 Robert A. Miller, Daniel T. Kuehl, and Irving Lachow, “Cyber War, Issues in Attack 

and Defense,” Joint Force Quarterly 61 (2nd Quarter 2011), 18; Paulo Shakarian, Hansheng Lei, 

and Roy Lindelauf, “Power Grid Defense Against Malicious Cascading Failure,” arXiv.org, 

January 6, 2014, available at <http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.1086.pdf>; Director of National 

Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper’s Statement for the Record, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” Washington, DC, February 4, 2014, 2.

5 “Iran Announces New Drone,” The Washington Post, November 19, 2013.

6 Siobhan Gorman, “Panel Calls for More Spy Capability,” Wall Street Journal, January 22, 

2014.

7 Orhan Coskun and Ece Toksabay, “Ruling Is Setback for Turkey’s Erdogan,” The 

Washington Post, December 28, 2013; Holly Yeager and Lyndsey Layton, “Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip: Erdogan’s Turmoil May Stem from a Former Ally,” The Washington Post, 

December 28, 2013; and Brian Blackstone and Joe Parkinson, “Turkey Struggles to Bolster 

Lira, Economy,” Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2014.

8 Bulent Kenes, “The New Middle East,” Today’s Zaman, March 26, 2013, available at 

<todayszaman.com/columnist-310819-the-new-middle-east.html>; Patrick Seale, “New 

geopolitical map of the Middle East is being drawn,” Gulfnews.com, September 23, 2011; and 

Jodi Rudoren, “Region Boiling, Israel Takes Up Castle Strategy,” The New York Times, January 

19, 2014.

9 Michael Gerson, PBS News Hour, February 27, 2014; Mona Yacoubian, “A Strategy to 

Rescue Diplomacy on Syria,” Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, February 2014.

10 Phil Stewart, “Islamist rebels would gain sway in long Syrian war—US official,” 

Reuters, July 21, 2013.

11 Thomas Hegghammer, “Syria’s Foreign Fighters,” ForeignPolicy.com, December 9, 

2013, available at <http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/09/syrias_foreign_fighters>.

12 Griff Witte, “European Combatants in Syria War Alarm West,” The Washington Post, 

January 30, 2014. 

13 Fred Hiatt, “A Syrian Reset” and “At Last, a Syrian Strategy,” as quoted in The Washington Post, February 4, 2014.

14 Griff Witte, “European Combatants.”
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15 Michael R. Gordon, Mark Landler, and Anne Barnard, “U.S. Suspends Nonlethal Aid 

to Syrian Rebels,” The New York Times, December 11, 2013; Dasha Afanasieva and Humeyra 

Pamuk, “U.S., Britain suspend aid to north Syria after Islamists seize weapons store,” Reuters, December 11, 2013; and Liz Sly, “U.S. Aid to Syrian Rebels Is Halted,” The Washington 

Post, December 12, 2013.

16 Karen DeYoung, “U.S. May Be Open to Islamists Joining Syrian Rebel Coalition,” The 

Washington Post, December 13, 2013.

17 David Ignatius, “The Second Syrian War,” The Washington Post, December 3, 2013; 

Albert Aji and Diaa Hadid, “Syrian Rebel Advances Trap Nuns in Early Christian Town,” 

The Washington Post, December 3, 2013.

18 Loveday Morris and Ahmed Ramadan, “Bombings in Beirut linked to Syrian 

conflict,” The Washington Post, November 20, 2013. The Lebanese Sunni Abdullah Azzam 

Brigades, an al Qaeda–linked jihadist group, claimed responsibility for the bombing outside 

the Iranian embassy in Beirut, killing the Iranian cultural attaché and at least 22 others, and 

injuring 147. The brigade’s leader, Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, this past summer called 

for all Sunnis to unite in a fight against Hizballah, which he described as the “Party of Iran.”

19 Erin Cunningham, “Egypt holds talks with top Russian officials,” The Washington Post, 

November 15, 2013. In addition to its continuing close ties with the Bashar al-Asad government of Syria, Russia has made an attempt to advance its political and military relationships 

with other key Arab Middle East states, including Egypt and Iraq.

20 Aaron David Miller, “Putin’s move could be costly to U.S., Middle East,” CNN.com, 

March 2, 2014.

21 “Iranian Strategy in Syria,” a Joint Report by the American Enterprise Institute’s 

(AEI) Critical Threats Project and the Institute for the Study of War (hereafter AEI/ISW 

Joint Report), May 2013, see Executive Summary, Introduction, and 19–23.

22 Dexter Filkins, “The Shadow Commander—Qassem Suleimani is the Iranian operative who has been reshaping the Middle East. Now he’s directing Assad’s war in Syria,” The 

New Yorker, September 30, 2013.

23 Anthony H. Cordesman, with Bryan Gold and Garrett Berntsen, The Gulf Military 

Balance, Volume I: The Conventional and Asymmetric Dimensions (Washington, DC: Center for 

Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], January 28, 2014), (hereafter CSIS Gulf Military 

Balance), 168. For a more complete discussion of the Iran drone issue, see 168–171.

24 Ashley Fantz, “Hizballah claims it sent drone over Israel, but expert calls it ‘rinkydink’,” CNN.com, October 12, 2012.

25 “Israel Probes Naval Missile Defense Failure,” UPI, October 17, 2006.

26 Michael R. Gordon, “Israel Airstrike Targeted Advanced Missiles that Russia Sold to 

Syria, U.S. Says,” The New York Times, July 15, 2013.

27 AEI/ISW Joint Report, 22.
42 

INSS Strategic Monograph

28 “Pakistan Taliban Set Up Camps in Syria, Join Anti-Assad War,” Reuters, July 14, 

2013; Liz Sly, “Al-Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate expands presence in Syria,” The Washington Post, August 13, 2013.

29 Greg Miller, “U.S. Officials Warn of Fighters Entering Syria,” The Washington Post, 

November 21, 2013.

30 Alan Cullison, “Chechen Blowback—Meet the Rebel Commander Assad, Russia and 

the U.S. All Fear,” The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2013.

31 Nour Malas and Rima Abushakra, “Bombings at Iran’s Beirut Embassy Kill 23,” The 

Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2013.

32 Ben Hubbard and Hwaida Saad, “Militant Tied To Bombings in Lebanon Dies in 

Jail,” The New York Times, January 5, 2014.

33 Michael Birnbaum, “Flow of Europeans into Syria a Concern,” The Washington Post, 

December 6, 2013.

34 Loveday Morris, Joby Warrick, and Souad Mekhennet, “Jihadist Gains Hurt West’s 

Syria Plans,” The Washington Post, October 14, 2013. 

35 Ibid.

36 Loveday Morris, “Christians in Syria face growing hostility,” The Washington Post, 

October 5, 2013.

37 Ibid.

38 Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Sends Arms to Aid Iraq Fight With Extremists,” The New York Times, December 25, 2013; Liz Sly, “Iraq turmoil stirs fears of civil 

war (United Nations chart), The Washington Post, January 7, 2013.

39 “Iraq—Attacks Raise fears of Sunni-Shiite violence,” The Washington Post, December 

3, 2013.

40 Ben Van Heuvelen, “Al Qaeda–linked Group Gaining Ground in Iraq,” The Washington Post, December 8, 2013; Loveday Morris, “In Iraq, Key City Still Out of Reach,” The 

Washington Post, January 20, 2014.

41 Ernesto Londono, “Iraqi Official’s Plea to U.S.: Weapons Alone Will Not Do the 

Job,” The Washington Post, January 15, 2014.

42 Ben Van Heuvelen, “Al Qaeda–linked Group.”

43 Liz Sly, “Iraq Turmoil Stirs Fears of Civil War.”

44 Ibid.; Max Boot, “How Al Qaeda Terrorized Its Way Back in Iraq,” The Wall Street 

Journal, January 6, 2014.

45 Toby Dodge, “Iraq’s Road Back to Dictatorship,” Survival 54, no. 3 (June–July 2012), 

147–168. Toby Dodge served on the U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker/General David Petraeus Joint Strategic Assessment Team in Iraq during 2007.

46 According to Dr. Denise Natali, Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University, 

since this paper was written, ongoing attacks on the Iraq-Turkey pipeline have shut down 
43

The Nightmare Years to Come?

official exports from the northern corridor since March 2014 and have cost the Iraqi government about $3 billion monthly in lost revenues. Data accurate as of July 18, 2014.

47 Iver Gabrielson, “Why Did Violence Decline During the U.S. ‘Surge’ in Iraq,” Small 

Wars Journal, February 4, 2013; Toby Dodge, “How Iraq Was Lost,” Survival 48, no. 4 (2006), 

157–171.

48 Suadad al-Salhy and Patrick Markey, “Syria Turmoil Stirs Iraqi Tribal Sympathies, 

Hopes,” Reuters, October 31, 2012.

49 Josh Rogin, “Kerry Threatens to Restrict U.S. Aid to Iraq Over Syria,” Foreign Policy 

Journal/The Cable, September 19, 2012. Then–Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry stated that Congress may start restricting U.S. aid to Iraq due to the Iraqi 

government continuing to allow Iran to use its airspace to supply the Syrian regime; U.S. 

Ambassador-designate to Iraq also “acknowledged during his confirmation hearing that 

Prime Minister Maliki was still allowing Iran to use Iraqi airspace to send supplies to Syria.” 

50 Suadad al-Salhy, “Iraqi Shi’a Militants fight for Syria’s Assad,” Reuters, October 16, 

2012; Michael R. Gordon and Steven Lee Myers, “Iran and Hizballah Support for Syria 

Complicates Peace Talk Strategy,” The New York Times, May 21, 2013; and Sam Wyer, Resurgence of Asa’ib al-Haq (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of War, 2012).

51 David Ottoway, “Iraq’s Kurdistan Takes A Giant Step Toward Independence,” Viewpoints, no. 46 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2013).

52 Denise Natali, “Iraq’s Oil Brinkmanship,” Al-Monitor, January 23, 2014. 

53 AEI/ISW Joint Report, 9–10.

54 From the AEI/ISW Report: Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme 

Leader, stated in a March 27 press conference, “Iran is not prepared to lose this golden 

counterweight” [Syria]; Hojjat al-Eslam Mehdi Taeb, another close advisor to the Supreme 

Leader, stated publicly that “Syria is the 35th province [of Iran] and a strategic province for 

us. . . . If we lose Syria, we won’t be able to hold Tehran,” 26.

55 Thomas Erdbrink, “Iranian Moderate Wins Presidency By a Large Margin,” The New 

York Times, June 15, 2013.

56 Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick, “Obama Twisting Arms Over Iran Bill,” The 

Washington Post, December 2, 2013.

57 Fareed Zakaria, “A perilous pathway to an Iran deal,” The Washington Post, January 31, 

2014. Specifically, there is disagreement over Iran’s dismantling its existing centrifuges and 

shutting down its heavy-water reactor at Arak.

58 Thomas Erdbrink, “Military Chief in Iran Scolds a Top Official,” The New York Times, 

December 11, 2013.

59 Mark D. Wallace, “Iran’s Execution Binge,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2011; Adrian 

Blomfield, “Iran Sanctions Having Devastating Effect,” The Telegraph, September 27, 2012; 

March 2013 Report of the UN Special Rapporteur; and U.S. Department of State, “Country 

Report on Human Rights Practices for 2012.”
44 

INSS Strategic Monograph

60 Dexter Filkins, “The Shadow Commander”; David Ignatius, “How Iran Bested the 

U.S. in Iraq,” The Washington Post, January 9, 2014.

61 AEI/ISW Joint Report, 27; Angus McDowall, “Yemen Security Chief Tells Iran to 

Stop Backing Rebels,” Reuters, December 9, 2012; “Saudi Says Detained ‘Spy Ring’ Linked 

to Iran,” Al Jazeera, March 26, 2013; “Bahrain Arrests Bombing Suspects and Blames Hezballah,” Reuters, November 6, 2012; Ben Farmer, “World’s Biggest Anti-Mine Naval Exercise 

After Iranian Threats to Close Gulf,” The Telegraph, May 13, 2013; Elise Labott, “Bahraini 

Government Accuses Hezbollah of Aiding Opposition Groups,” CNN.com, April 25, 2011. 

62 CSIS Gulf Military Balance, 161–162; for a more complete discussion on the Iran cyber issue, see 161–168; and Peter Apps, “From Sudan to Cyber, Secret War With Iran Heats 

Up,” Reuters, November 6, 2012.

63 Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes, “Iranian Hacking to Test NSA Pick,” The Wall 

Street Journal, Feburary 18, 2014.

64 Liz Sly, “After Iran Deal, Uptick in Diplomacy, Violence,” The Washington Post, December 4, 2013.

65 Curtis R. Ryan, “Jordan’s security dilemmas,” ForeignPolicy.com, May 1, 2013.

66 William Booth, “Jordan Keeping a Wary Eye on Israeli-Palestinian Talks,” The Washington Post, February 14, 2014.

67 Mona Alami, “The New Generation of Jordanian Jihadi Fighters,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/Sada Analysis on Arab Reform, February 18, 2014.

68 William Booth, “Jordan Keeping a Wary Eye.”

69 Murad Batal al-Shishani, “Jordan’s Jihadists Drawn to Syrian Conflict,” BBC Arabic 

Service, October 29, 2012.

70 David D. Kirkpatrick, “Egyptian Army Chief Warns of Collapse Amidst Chaos,” The 

New York Times, January 29, 2013.

71 “Egypt Rivals Hold Rare Meeting and Call for Dialogue,” The New York Times, January 

31, 2013.

72 “A Tougher U.S. Line on Egypt,” The Washington Post, May 3, 2013.

73 Erin Cunningham, “Tourists Killed by Blast in Egypt,” The Washington Post, February 

17, 2014.

74 Ayah Aman, “Egypt takes hard line against student protests,” Al-Monitor, December 

11, 2013; Kareem Fahim, “Muslim Brotherhood Supporters Defy Egyptian Crackdown,” The 

New York Times, December 27, 2013.

75 Carlotta Gal, “Tunisian Islamist Finds Hope in Challenging Time,” The New York 

Times, August 4, 2013.

76 Ben Hubbard and Rick Gladstone, “Arab Spring Countries Find Peace Is Harder 

Than Revolution,” The New York Times, August 14, 2013; David D. Kirkpatrick and Alan 

Cowell, “Death Toll in Egypt Climbs to 525,” The New York Times, August 15, 2013; MSNBC 

Daily Rundown, August 14, 2013. In addition to concerns over the violence associated with 
45

The Nightmare Years to Come?

the August crackdown, in a televised interview Time magazine International Editor Bobby 

Ghosh stated that the economic consequences were “beyond a basket case—basket case no 

longer satisfies,” describing Egypt’s economic prospects. 

77 Abigail Hauslohner and Sharaf al-Hourani, “Egyptian Security Forces Storm Protesters’ Camp,” The Washington Post, August 14, 2013; report on Beltagi’s statement, quoted 

in Al Jazeera. 

78 Erin Cunningham, “Two bomb attacks target Egyptian soldiers, police,” The Washington Post, November 21, 2013; David D. Kirkpatrick, “Egyptian Attacks Are Escalating Amid 

Stalemate,” The New York Times, October 7, 2013; Loveday Morris, “Christians in Syria Face 

Growing Hostility,” The Washington Post, October 5, 2013. In addition to Egyptian security 

personnel being targeted, Egyptian Coptic churches have been attacked.

79 Abigail Hauslohner and Erin Cunningham, “Egypt Marks Anniversary; Clashes Kill 

29,” The Washington Post, January 26, 2014.

80 Abigail Hauslohner and Erin Cunningham, “Police Station Bombings, Clashes Kill 10 

in Egypt,” The Washington Post, January 25, 2014.

81 Michele Dunne and Thomas Carothers, “Loose Lip Service,” The Washington Post, 

Janaury 24, 2014.

82 Robert Worth, “Egypt Is Arena for Influence of Arab Rivals,” The New York Times, 

July 9, 2013. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will provide $8 billion in cash and 

loans.

83 Walaa Hussein, “Egypt may take Nile dam dispute with Ethiopia to UN,” Al-Monitor, 

January 20, 2014; Ayah Aman, “Egypt-Ethiopia Nile dam talks hit dead end,” Al-Monitor, 

January 17, 2014.

84 Liam Stack, “With Cameras Rolling, Egyptian Politicians Threaten Ethiopia Over 

Dam,” The Lede, Blogging the News with Robert Mackey, June 6, 2013; Thanassis Cambanis, 

“Egypt and Thirsty Neighbors Are at Odds Over Nile,” The New York Times, September 25, 

2010.

85 Carlotta Gall, “Tunisian Islamist Finds Hope in Challenging Time,” The New York 

Times, August 4, 2013; “Libya, Military Tries to Push Militias from Capital,” The Washington 

Post, November 19, 2013.

86 Karim Mezran and Jason Pack, “Libyan stability at risk,” Foreign Policy.com, May 2, 

2013.

87 Abigail Hauslohner and Karen DeYoung, “Amid Libya’s Many Militias, U.S. Wants 

to Build New Force,” The Washington Post, December 3, 2013; “Libya, Military Tries to 

Push Militias from the Capital,” The Washington Post, November 19, 2013; Ghaith Shennib, 

“Libya’s Deputy Spy Chief Is Abducted at Tripoli Airport,” The Washington Post, November 18, 2013; “Libya, Prime Minister Urges Opposition to Militias,” The Washington Post, 

November 11, 2013.
46 

INSS Strategic Monograph

88 Michael R. Gordon and Jodi Rudoren, “Kerry Achieves Deal to Revive Mideast 

Talks,” The New York Times, July 19, 2013.

89 Roger Cohen, “Fayyad Steps Down, Not Out,” The New York Times, May 3, 2013.

90 Jennifer Rubin, “Kerry’s Dangerous Game,” The Washington Post, July 22, 2013.

91 William Booth and Anne Gearan, “As Talks Begin, Jewish Settlements Loom as Challenge,” The Washington Post, July 29, 2013.

92 William Booth and Ruth Eglash, “At Temple Mount, Dreams of Prayer Raise Fears 

of Violence,” The Washington Post, December 3, 2013.

93 Charles D. Freilich, “National Security Decision-Making in Israel: Improving the 

Process,” The Middle East Journal 67, no. 2 (Spring 2013), 257–266. 

94 Jodi Rudoren, “Region Boiling, Israel Takes Up Castle Strategy,” The New York Times, 

January 19, 2014.

95 Liz Sly and Suzan Haidamous, “Hezballah Warns Israel of Retaliation for Attack,” 

The Washington Post, February 27, 2014.

96 Hirsh Goodman, “Losing the Propaganda War,” The New York Times, February 2, 

2014.

97 “UAE convicts 30 of Muslim Brotherhood Ties,” The Washington Post, January 21, 

2014; Haneen Dajani, “UAE Muslim Brotherhood trial: 30 referred to top court,” The 

National, June 19, 2013; and Marc Daou, “Tensions Flare Between the UAE and Muslim 

Brotherhood,” France24.com, January 1, 2013. 

98 Thomas Friedman, “The Other Arab Awakening,” The New York Times, November 30, 

2013.

99 “Bahrain Arrests “‘Iran-linked’ Cyber Group,” Al Jazeera, June 13, 2013; Nour Samaha, “Hezballah: The EU’s New Terrorists,” Al Jazeera, July 23, 2013.

100 Claude Salhani, “Bahrain Places Hizbollah on Terrorist List,” Oilprice.com, April 9, 

2013; “Hizbollah Added to Terrorist List of Bahrain, A First in the Arab World,” JNS.org, 

April 10, 2013.

101 Glen Carey, “Clashes in Saudi Capital Between Police, Foreigners Kill at Least Two,” 

The Washington Post, November 11, 2013.

102 “Saudi Arabia: Decree Lays Out Penalties for Fighting Abroad,” The New York Times, 

February 3, 2014.

103 Toby Matthiesen, “A ‘Saudi Spring’: The Shia Protest Movement in the Eastern 

Province 2011–2012,” The Middle East Journal 66 (Autumn 2012), 628–659. This article 

highlights that Saudi Arabia experienced “the largest and longest protest movement in its 

modern history.”

104 Robert W. Worth, “Yemen, Hailed as Model, Struggles for Stability,” The New York 

Times, February 18, 2013.

105 “Two Saudi border guards killed in ambush in southern town,” Al-Arabiya, November 5, 2012.
47

The Nightmare Years to Come?

106 Angus McDowall, “Yemen Security Chief Tells Iran to Stop Backing Rebels,” Reuters, December 9, 2012; Reuters also sources Yemen’s Saba State News Agency on reported 

Yemeni government arrest of an IRGC spy ring.

107 “Saudi Says Detained ‘Spy Ring’ Linked to Iran,” Al Jazeera, March 26, 2013.

108 “Digest,” The Washington Post, June 10, 2013.

109 “Yemen: Parties Agree to Federalism,” Agence France-Presse, The New York Times, 

December 25, 2013.

110 Ahmed al-Haj, “13 Dead in U.S. Drone Strike, Yemeni Security Officials Say,” The 

Washington Post, December 13, 2013.

111 “Yemen: Rivals Agree to Truce,” The New York Times, January 14, 2014.

112 Ahmed al-Haj, “13 Dead in U.S. drone strike.”

113 Tik Root, “Yemen’s Defense Ministry attacked,” The Washington Post, December 6, 

2013.

114 CSIS Gulf Military Balance, 155, 220; Robert F. Worth, “Yemen, Hailed as Model, 

Struggles for Stability,” February 18, 2013.

115 Ernesto Londono, Karen DeYoung, and Greg Miller, “Grim future seen for Afghanistan,” The Washington Post, December 29, 2013.

116 Azam Ahmed and Matthew Rosenberg, “Deadly Attack at Kabul Restaurant Hints at 

Changing Climate for Foreigners,” The New York Times, January 19, 2014; Sayed Salahuddin 

and Pamela Constable, “Attack on Kabul restaurant leaves at least 14 dead,” The Washington 

Post, January 19, 2014.

117 Pamela Constable, “Our Haven, Shattered,” The Washington Post, January 20, 2014.

118 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Report (SIGAR), July 30, 

2013; David Isby, Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires, A New History of the Borderland, rev. ed. 

(New York: Pegasus Books, 2011), 187–243; Kevin Sieff, “Shrinking oversight in Afghanistan,” The Washington Post, July 30, 2013; Ernesto Londono, “Report Faults Afghan-run 

Security Force,” The Washington Post, July 30, 2013; John R. Allen, Michèle Flournoy, and 

Michael E. O’Hanlon, Toward a Successful Outcome in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Center for 

a New American Security, May 2013); Rod Norland, “Despite Education Advances, A Host 

of Afghan Woes,” The New York Times, July 21, 2013; Kevin Seiff, “Dempsey Urges Kabul to 

Ink Troop Deal Soon,” The Washington Post, July 23, 2013; and Dexter Filkins, “The Afghan 

Bank Heist, The New Yorker, February 14, 2011, 48. 

119 Ernesto Londono, “Amid Drawdown, Test for Drug War,” The Washington Post, January 16, 2014.

120 Allen, Flournoy, and O’Hanlon.

121 Kevin Seiff, “Without U.S. Helicopters, Afghans Struggle to Save Wounded,” The 

Washington Post, May 19, 2013; Kevin Seiff, “Afghan Army Struggles with Lack of Reach,” 

The Washington Post, July 10, 2013.
48 

INSS Strategic Monograph

122 Michael M. Phillips, “U.S. Trains Elite Afghan Units Before Exit,” The Wall Street 

Journal, December 11, 2013. 

123 Matthew Rosenberg, “Afghan Officials Spar over 2014 Vote,” The New York Times, 

October 18, 2012; “Trends in Militancy across South Asia, A Region on the Brink,” a Report 

of the CSIS Transnational Threats Project and the CSIS Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program, Washington, DC, April 2013.

124 Tim Craig, “Afghanistan ‘Pentagon’ on Hold as Money Runs Out,” The Washington 

Post, December 9, 2013.

125 Kevin Sieff, “A Crumbling Investment,” The Washington Post, January 31, 2014.

126 Kevin Sieff, “Karzai Said to Suspect U.S. in Insurgent Attacks,” The Washington Post, 

January 28, 2014; Azam Ahmed, “Impasse Over Security Deal Adds to Afghan Economy’s 

Troubles,” The New York Times, December 10, 2013.

127 Matthew Rosenberg, “Government Dossier Accusing the U.S. in Carnage Amplifies 

Doubts About Karzai,” The New York Times, January 26, 2014.

128 Azam Ahmed, “Impasse Over Security Deal Adds to Afghan Economy’s Troubles,” 

The New York Times, December 10, 2013.

129 Kevin Seiff, “U.S. Rejects More Visas for Afghan Interpreters,” The Washington Post, 

November 11, 2013. 

130 Ibid. 

131 Tim Craig, “Sectarian Unrest in Pakistan Stirs New Fears,” The Washington Post, January 16, 2014.

132 Tim Craig, “Pakistan’s Capital of Violence,” The Washington Post, February 15, 2014.

133 Karen DeYoung, “Pakistan Plans Military Push in Tribal Area,” The Washington Post, 

February 26, 2014.

134 Zahid Hussein, “Pakistan’s Taliban Nightmare,” YaleGlobalOnline, August 23, 2012; 

Gustav Ranis, “Is Pakistan a Failing State?” YaleGlobalOnline, August 25, 2012; and Paul 

Miller, “It’s Not Just Al-Qaeda: Stability in the Most Dangerous Region,” World Affairs Journal, March/April 2012.

135 Shaiq Hussain and Tim Craig, “Pakistan Plans to Charge Musharraf with Treason,” 

The Washington Post, November 18, 2013.

136 Anatol Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011), 6.

137 Office of the DNI, National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2030, 75.

138 Ibid.

139 Shashank Joshi, “Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Nightmare: Déjà vu?” The Washington 

Quarterly, Summer 2013.

140Global Trends 2030, 45.

141 Ibid., 75.

142 Rama Lakshmi, “Polarizing Politician to Lead Indian Opposition Party’s Election 

Effort,” The Washington Post, June 9, 2013.
49

The Nightmare Years to Come?

143 Ellen Barry and Hari Kumar, “Congress Party Defeated in Indian State Elections,” 

The New York Times, December 8, 2013. The Bharatiya Janata Party won the most seats in 

Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.

144 Rama Lakshmi, “Polarizing Politician to Lead.”

145 Lieven, 5.

146 Ibid.

147 Nick Langton and Sagar Prasai, “Will Conflicts over Water Security Shape South 

Asia’s Future?” Issue Perspective 2, no. 1, CSIS, March 23, 2012.

148 Robert D. Kaplan, “A World With No One in Charge,” The Washington Post, December 5, 2010.

149 David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and Creation of 

the Modern Middle East (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1989), 15.

150 Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows, The Ultimate Insider’s Story of the Five Presidents and 

How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 16.

151 Ernest R. May and Richard E. Neustadt, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for 

Decision-makers (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 34–57.

152 Harold P. Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes 1962–1968 (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998), 2.

153 Ibid., 1.

154 Ibid., 3.

155 Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle, Memoirs of the National Security Advisor 

1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), 358. 

156 Gary Sick, All Fall Down, America’s Tragic Encounter With Iran (New York: Random 

House, 1985), 346. Sick also explains that the NSC requested a National Intelligence 

Estimate (NIE) in June 1978: “The official views of the CIA were on the record as of the 

August report mentioned above, and the basic drafts of the NIE reflected those judgments. 

. . . Failing to achieve consensus, and with the situation in Iran deteriorating rapidly, the NIE 

was quietly shelved by Admiral Turner in September,” 92.

157 Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 

1979), 1258–1261.

158 Sick, 14.

159 Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books, 1983), 

438. 

160 Ibid.

161 Brzezinski, 361.

162 Robert E. Huyser, Mission to Tehran (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 18.

163 Carter, 443, 449–450.

164 Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II, The Inside Story of the Invasion 

and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Vintage, 2007), appendix, 570. 
50 

INSS Strategic Monograph

165 Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Caveat, Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (New York: MacMillan, 1984), 317.

166 Ibid., 306.

167 Ibid., 317–318.

168 Ibid., 318.

169 Robert C. McFarlane, with Zofia Smardz, Special Trust (New York: Cadell & Davies, 

1994, 206. Also see Patrick Tyler, Fortress Israel, The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run 

the Country—And Why They Can’t Make Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 

303–319. The account parallels McFarlane’s view on Israeli decisionmaking and attitude 

toward U.S. leadership. 

170 Also see Tyler for President Reagan’s anger at the timing of the Israeli invasion, 303. 

171 Amos Perlmutter, “The Middle East: A Turning Point? Begin’s Rhetoric and Sharon’s 

Tactics,” Foreign Affairs 61, no. 1 (Fall 1982).

172 Ibid. Also see Tyler, chapters 10 and 11, for a more in-depth discussion of Israeli 

personal and political dynamics prior to and during the Lebanon war.

173 Ibid.

174 Tyler, 315.

175 CSIS Gulf Military Balance, 147–149.
51

The Nightmare Years to Come?

About the Author

Regis W. Matlak is a Visiting Distinguished Research Fellow in the Institute 

for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Mr. Matlak is a 

retired 33-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Clandestine Service 

and a former member of the Agency’s elite Senior Intelligence Service. He served 

as Co-Director for Intelligence on the Ambassador Ryan Crocker/General David 

Petraeus Joint Strategic Assessment Team in Iraq during 2007 and, in the same 

capacity, on U.S. Central Command’s Commander’s Assessment Team, including in 

Afghanistan, during 2008–2009. During his CIA career, Mr. Matlak served on the 

National Security Council staff as Deputy to Special Presidential Envoy Zalmay 

Khalilzad; Deputy Director, National Intelligence Council Strategic Futures Group; 

CIA Faculty Chair at the National War College; and CIA Officer-in-Residence at 

Georgetown University.