Past is Prologue: Abroad in Syria with the Ghosts of Iraq PKSOI Papers | Page 29

Neither ORHA nor the CPA , interestingly , had a clear enough mandate based on origin to be able to accomplish this feat of organization . ORHA was created by a Presidential Security Directive with the mandate , but without the authority or support to carry out its intended mission . The CPA came into Iraq with an executive mandate , but its origins are somewhat opaque , 30 as described by the Congressional Research Service in 2005 . The RAND Corporation in 2009 described the CPA as a “ hastily improvised multinational organization .” 31 Thus , while the CPA may have enjoyed the visible support of the administration and come in with the ostensible authority to carry out its mission , the lack of clarity about where it came from 32 fogged perceptions about who it reported to and for what purpose . This would have been bad enough in a purely American mission , but was particularly damaging within a multinational context . The CPA was expected to have a mandate outside of , as well as within , the American component of the mission , which added heavily to the confusion .
The origin of structures and from whence their mandates ’ stem is critical because the clearly understood intent of the mission is fundamental to every aspect of success . That intent defines direction and resource allocation , and is in turn defined by the organization from which it stems . In all of the country contexts listed thus far , this will also be the case . Development in Libya following Qaddafi ’ s death , for example , was largely left to the European powers , whose presence still dominates . International interest in Syrian stability is also higher than usual among European nations , which have shouldered the brunt of the refugees . Garner ’ s view of the organization and purpose of
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