September 30, 2004

IRAQ: WHAT TO DO NOW

HORSEFEATHERS TELLS IT LIKE IT IS—AND SHOULD BE

War, like life, is a work in progress. And like life it is always imperfect. Those who know war know that nothing stays the same for long. Defeats or victories may result in new challenges, new opportunities, and new political constrictions which require reassessment and revision. Only the foolish and the naïve expect unvarying success in the pursuit of war.

The United States fought a short, brilliant war in Iraq that eradicated a large conventional army and its sophisticated defenses. We destroyed the tyrannical regime of Saddam completely, captured him, killed his two corrupt, sadistic and unstable sons who were to become the next generation of tyrants, and captured a large number of powerful members of Saddam’s kleptocratic regime. When we started we thought that would be enough, but we learned quickly that our assumption was incorrect.

We now face a new form of the old enemy and new challenges, and these have led to new understanding and new opportunities.

What have we learned from the political and military experiences of the past year?

WE HAVE NO GOOD SOURCES OF INTELLIGENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

First we learned that our political and military intelligence about the Middle East is inadequate, and that we need to recruit a robust network of Arab spies in every Arab country and train Americans to work with them. (There is almost nothing that money can’t buy—including Arab intelligence.) We must go back and learn how to play the Great Game as the British did in protecting Victoria’s Empire. The weapons have changed since then, but the cynical games of diplomacy and betrayal in dealing with the complex network of sects and partisans in the area have not.

We discovered, too late, that we had no reliable and consistent source of intelligence about Iraq. Even today, notwithstanding some improvement in the situation, there is insufficient, and often unreliable intelligence.

WE ARE ALONE IN THIS FIGHT

We must learn that we have no friends in the Middle East, only enemies and seeming friends, who smile behind our backs at our naiveté and native altruism.

Indeed, the past year has demonstrated vividly that we have no friends even among our friends in the international world. Governments are not people, they have no hearts and no consciences, they know only their own national interests. So let’s try to get over our foreign policy sentimentality—the Saudis are not our friends, the Brits are not our friends, the Canadians are not our friends, not even the Poles.

Throughout history states have made allegiances which endure for varying periods of time, until they are no longer useful to one party or the other and then they are dissolved. And that is true today. Our leaders must learn to rid themselves of their feelings of human compassion, their sincerity, their honesty when operating in the sphere of foreign policy—in war and diplomacy there is no morality.

WE CAN DEFEAT ANY CONVENTIONAL FORCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In a short and brilliant war we had the will and means to defeat a formidable conventional army with relatively few casualties suffered on our part. The Iraqi army was the largest and most advanced Arab army in the Middle East and its defeat did not go unnoticed in Libya, Syria, and especially Iran.

BUT GUERILLA WARFARE IS SOMETHING NO CONVENTIONAL FORCE CAN FIGHT AGAINST AND WIN

In the last year our forces have been stymied by having to fight what amounts to a guerilla war against insurgents made up of leftover dead-end elements of the Baathist regime and foreign operatives from various extreme Arab groups. There are probably also many young men—mujahedeen—in the Sunni triangle armed with automatic weapons who volunteer to fight with the hard core insurgents but who have no specific cause and have been swept up into the insurgency by inertia. None of these fighters are trained warriors but they are canny fighters who shoot and bomb and run away to shoot and bomb another day.

Guerilla wars cannot be won by conventional forces, especially in urban areas where they can find protection anywhere and fade into the background. Their fighting methods are totally at odds with our highly trained and disciplined soldiers and these methods exploit our soft spots. The insurgents use children, women, schools, mosques, to hide in or hide behind without any scruples, thus putting our soldiers at a serious disadvantage.

Guerilla wars are always the wrong wars in the wrong place at the wrong time for our conventional forces.

THE SUNNIS ARE OUR SWORN ENEMIES FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE

The Sunni Triangle contains a large and complex network of Sunni tribes who are dedicated to the memory of Saddam. They are sworn enemies of the United States and anything that they perceive as being connected to America. They are a formidable source for a guerilla army and will continue to be so. The only solution is to destroy their leadership and as many of them as can be found. Perhaps when they are sufficiently chastened they might become more reasonable.

THE SHIA HAVE THEIR OWN AGENDA AND THEIR ALLIANCE DEPENDS ON HOW WE FIT IN WITH THEIR PLANS

The Shia continue to be ambivalent about the Americans. Under the leadership of the cleric Sistani they will play political ball. But their aim is a political majority in the new government. If they feel that the American government does not support their political aims, they may become our enemy.

THE KURDS ARE SOLID ALLIES

The Kurds have been our allies from the beginning. What they want is autonomy. They work, fight, and play well with us and can be counted on.

IRAQ IS NOT, HAS NOT, AND WILL PROBABLY NEVER BE UNIFIED—AND WAR IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF ITS HISTORY

The closest that Iraq has come to national unity in its short history of about 80 years has been during the reign of the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The social, cultural, and political forces of the region have been so powerfully centrifugal for the past 1300 years that it required the constant threat of a murderous strong man to hold the elements of the polity together.

Mesopotamia, consisting of three major provinces centered around Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, had been loosely governed by the Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire for four hundred years more or less. In no sense did these three great cities with their distinct cultures, sects, religious values and tribal networks think of themselves as unified even though they paid obeisance to one ruler, the Caliph in Constantinople.

The Ottoman Empire, having bet on the wrong horse in World War I, was dissolved in 1918, and the region of Mesopotamia came up for grabs. The bureaucrats of France and England then cobbled together a kingdom for Prince Feisal I and called it Iraq. It had no other reason for its existence as a nation state except to serve the political interests of Great Britain and France. The British, to whom Iraq was mandated by treaty, wanted to pay off their debts to the Arabs and keep the mineral rights of Iraq in their sphere of influence.

The constitutional monarchy with Feisal at its head lasted from 1921 until his death in 1933. And although Iraq officially became independent in 1932, it remained under British protection unofficially through World War II. Shortly thereafter, without Britain’s parental guidance, Iraq became politically unstable. From 1946 for the next twenty years regime followed regime through revolutions, coups, military dictatorships, and assassinations, until one man emerged who was unscrupulous and brutal enough to murder all of his rivals—Saddam Hussein.

Among the ordinary people residing in the three sections of the country there has never been any natural, economic, social or political inclination to unite or to stay united as one integrated nation—the elites notwithstanding. Even during the long reign of the Ottoman Empire there was no unity in Mesopotamia. There was only little allegiance to the Sultan in Constantinople, and what held the provinces together were local loyalties to one’s clan, tribe, village, town, religious sect, or ethnic group.

And furthermore, such local loyalties have, since time immemorial, been the breeding ground of rivalries and wars at all levels—clan, tribe, religious sect, and ethnic group. The Middle East, and Iraq in particular, because of its heterogeneous population, has been a land of violence and war forever. No doubt that is why every man in Iraq must own an assault rifle. It is part of the core culture.

WHAT TO DO NOW: THE HORSEFEATHERS DOCTRINE

Some—John Kerry, Pat Buchanan, and the French—say cut and run, more or less. Some—George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Neocons—say stay till they’re singing Yankee Doodle, more or less: that our God-given mission in history is to bring freedom and democracy to those benighted nations of the world who do not yet have it.

Horsefeathers has another view.

FORGET THE YANKEE DOODLE IDEOLOGY

Sure. We love democracy and the Bill of Rights. But there’s a difference between valuing freedom and democracy highly and making it the condition for exiting a war. History shows that democracy and political freedom evolve over many centuries of political struggle within a state. It took Great Britain twelve hundred years to get to Magna Carta, and then another eight hundred years to get to universal sufferage. It took Switzerland 700 years.

Democracy is a political jewel that is very expensive and costs much struggle and blood. There is no way that it will come to Iraq quickly and without the loss of Iraqi blood. We cannot pay for their freedom with our blood. They must decide to own the priceless asset and fight for it. In a culture that prizes tribalism and Islam over the Rule of Law, democracy will be a long time coming.

So our policy goal must change from bringing democracy to Iraq to fostering democracy in Iraq. That is a political goal that is easily achieved and can be continued indefinitely. We can provide advice, some economic help, and even some special forms of military assistance, but we cannot fight for their everyday democracy. That is the price they themselves must pay for owning their freedom.

LET’S DRINK TO CIVIL WAR—ANOTHER GRAND OPPORTUNITY

Much has been made of various estimates about how things will turn out in Iraq before, during, or after the January election. The worst case scenario seems to be that Iraq might split up into three parts, and/or become embroiled in a civil war. This prospect is often used by some as a reason to stay in Iraq fighting the Iraqi war of independence for the Iraqis. It is also used as a stick to beat the Bush administration for undertaking the Iraq war in the first place.

The fact is that it really doesn’t matter one way or the other. If the three states split up they will be in no different position than they were before Iraq became a nation. During that time they managed to have some degree of peace with one another except for an occasional little war now and then. In those not too distant days there would be some violence between one town and another and then peace would be declared and some degree of equilibrium would occur. And this cycle might repeat itself decade after decade as it has for hundreds of years.

Doubtless the various factions will fight over oil, water and electric power. The Kurds have oil and water, the Shia have oil, and the Sunnis have water and electric power. So each group has something of value that they will fight about and eventually compromise over—that is, if the Americans and the rest of the world mind their own business. Eventually the Iraqis will tire of fighting. It may take months or even years, but eventually they will tire and settle their problems the way they have for many centuries. This does not require the wisdom of Western bureaucracies.

Not only is civil disturbance in Iraq not a catastrophe—from the historical perspective it is business as usual—but it might turn out to be an important diplomatic and military opportunity. For it is in such turbulent and politically shifting times that it is possible to make bargains with various factions to get intelligence and support in exchange for help of one kind or another. Much can be gained in this situation.

STOP BEING GIRLIE-MEN:
STAY THE COURSE BUT CHANGE IT

If John Kerry, Pat Buchanan, and Jacques Chirac can all agree on something—pulling out of Iraq—there must be something really wrong with such an idea. The trouble is that they are looking only at the risks of staying in the region and are blind to the opportunities. There is an alternative to both retreat and remaining in an ideological trap with ever increasing sitting-duck casualties.

If you change our military mission from passive and defensive—from fighting guerillas—to taking the initiative in the form of opportunistic special operations against highly valuable targets, then staying on makes sense as part of the war against terror.

THE KURDS—THE KEY TO THE NEW STRATEGY

The Kurds are Muslim but not Arab. They are well organized. They do not hate Americans, and they are good fighters and worthy allies. Throughout the Iraq war they have been steadfast members of the coalition. They deserve our help and loyalty. If we asked to establish a long-term military base in the heart of the their mountains there is little doubt that they would welcome such an idea. Why? Because it would stabilize their section of the country, protect their region’s oil wells, and protect them from incursions from Turkey, Iran and Syria. It would also bring in welcome dollars to the area in return for supplies and labor.

Establishing a military base in Kurdish Iraq accomplishes many things. It makes good our word to stick it out in Iraq; it allows us to deploy in a more tolerable climate among people who welcome us and who will cherish and protect our presence there as valuable allies. This base would be part of a network of bases in Kuwait and the Gulf, but it would have the advantage of being centrally located and easily accessible to both Iran and Syria, which if we did nothing else would put pressure on those countries and would be a force multiplier in our diplomatic relations.

But such a base could have many other functions.

It could become a center for recruitment and training of Arab speaking spies and operatives to add to our regional intelligence network.

It could be a base for mounting small-scale incursions and special operations that might be needed to accomplish the destruction of nuclear weaponry in Iran, killing terrorist groups and leaders in the Sunni triangle, kidnapping or killing enemies in Syria, and doing all kinds of necessary “wetwork” in a quiet and efficient manner. It would be a center for many kinds of secret observations among our enemies while enjoying the protection of the surrounding Kurdish population.

The nation-states who support our terrorist enemies by word or money or deed must feel threatened and be punished in order to get them to stop their terrorist constituents, and a nearby special-ops base capable of small-scale operations might be the right instrument to accomplish this.

Such a base of operations would allow us to achieve the primary aim of our policy in the Middle East—to make life difficult for those who would harm us. It would be a constant headache to Iran, Syria and Iraqi insurgents. It would give very serious leverage to our diplomatic demands to force the nations that sponsor terrorists to give us intelligence about them, turn them over to us, or inhibit their operations. Imams in Saudi Arabia must be silenced when they teach anti-Americanism, rich men in Syria must be punished if they support anti-Americanism, nuclear advances must be stopped dead in Iran. The terror-supporting nations must worry that someday they will find their leadership quietly disappearing or dying mysteriously, or learn of opposing parties finding new wealth and encouragement out of nowhere, or hear of the palaces of Saudi princes suddenly catching fire for no apparent reason.

We have had such long-term bases in Korea, West Germany and even Cuba where we are totally surrounded by our enemies. Such a long-term base in Kurdish Iraq would provide unusually safe and cheap opportunity to allow our forces to do what they do best—maintain the offensive and do so in the service of a strong diplomatic thrust.