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Now
Ever since the November elections and
the Iraq Study Group report, both widely seen as rebukes of the
present war policy, there has been expectation of a new course
in Iraq. A new policy, part of which has been dubbed a "surge,"
is expected in January. Changes are thought to include expanding
the overall size of the army and marines, raising troop levels
in Iraq, increasing troop levels in Baghdad to reduce sectarian
killing, and placing greater emphasis on training Iraqi forces.
Change tacitly admits problems with the old policy, and that
is at least somewhat promising. Nonetheless, serious problems
in the proposed changes suggest themselves--sending in more US
troops not the least of them.
More troops in Iraq might have
helped suppress the insurgency three years ago, but it is unlikely
to work now. There is considerable though not unanimous thinking
that the very presence of US troops on Iraqi soil is the principal
cause of the insurgency. Hence, increasing troop levels invites
comparison with throwing gasoline onto a fire. It will strengthen
the already widespread belief among Sunni Arabs that we launched
the war to humiliate them, seize their resources, and build permanent
bases with which to dominate the Middle East. Support for the
insurgency will increase and, owing to the greater number of
army and marine personnel, so will US casualties. More soldiers
and marines, more hatred and casualties.
More troops will also incur
the wrath of previously acquiescent but increasingly hostile
Shi'as--and not only those loyal to al Sadr. Fear of American
empire building has obtained a purchase outside the Sunni Arabs
and could certainly spread and deepen, thus bringing the already
unsteady coalition closer to dissolution and encouraging more
and fiercer fighting between Shi'a and Coalition forces in the
heretofore less violent south.
The plan to pacify Baghdad
then spread out across the Sunni Triangle, like an oil spot on
water, draws from venerable counterinsurgency doctrines developed
in Malaya and Algeria. But the late hour presents problems for
implementation in Iraq. An observer with even a modicum of local
knowledge might wonder if an American army could ever win popular
support in any Arab country, let alone in one that has been invaded
for dubious reasons, had its government and military summarily
dismissed, experienced the humiliation of Abu Ghraib, suffered
hundreds of thousands of violent deaths, and been hurled into
civil war. In short, winning hearts and minds in the Sunni Arab
region, where memories of centuries-old western interventions
still burn, is today impossible. But we Americans, if nothing
else, are an optimistic and ingenuous and forgetful people.
Insurgent groups--Ba'athist,
army, tribal, and religious--have demonstrated formidable adaptive
skills over the years, altering tactics and locations with great
craft. Concentrating our forces in Baghdad would offer the insurgents
new opportunities. Efforts to pacify Baghdad will require withdrawing
troops from surrounding areas, thereby allowing insurgents greater
opportunities to recruit, train, and operate there. Over the
last year or so, insurgent attempts to cut off the capital from
energy and food have failed, but with fewer US troops on the
supply routes on the periphery, the prospect of critical shortages
will loom, requiring a pullout of many troops only recently deployed
to Baghdad.
Perhaps most ominously, concentrating
US troops in the capital could allow insurgents to begin a bloody
and perhaps decisive campaign--the Battle of Baghdad. By bringing
in fighters from the periphery and increasing attacks on Shi'a
and US troops, insurgents can bring about vicious and sustained
urban warfare, turning large parts of the city into rubble, as
in Fallujah. Casualties on all sides could be horrific. Though
the media have been reluctant to go out into heavily contested
areas in al Anbar and elsewhere, raging battles just outside
the Green Zone can be more easily covered. The images of destruction
will invite comparisons--in Coalition countries and throughout
the Muslim World--to Stalingrad and Hue.
Allocating more resources to
building an Iraqi army will have adverse consequences, though
foreseeable ones. Heretofore, efforts to build an Iraqi military
have largely failed owing to tribal and sectarian fissures in
the country, which preclude unit cohesion and smooth command.
(Many insurgent units, conversely, are built within individual
tribes, thereby avoiding inter-tribal animosities.) Sunni Arabs
volunteer mainly for steady paychecks in dire times; they are
despised, even by kith and kin, as traitors. The Iraqi army comprises
mainly Shi'as, most of whom are more loyal to local leaders and
militias than to the Maliki government. Accordingly, building
an Iraqi army will almost certainly increase Shi'a power, endanger
Sunni Arabs, and solidifying the latter's already considerable
hostility toward the national government and its foreign protectors.
Almost four years on in the
war, the perseverance of our military personnel and the cohesion
of combat units have been remarkable. Despite the hardships of
increasing indifference at home and escalating war overseas,
and despite repeated warnings that the military verges on collapse,
enlistment and reenlistment goals have been met, albeit with
a little jiggering and a lot of bonuses. Commitment to the mission
and more importantly to fellow squad members remains stronger
than the stress and privations, formidable though they are. Confidence
in our troops' commitment and dismissal of dire warnings were
premises of the new policy of more troops in Iraq, which will
necessitate longer tours there and shorter reorganization periods
stateside, at least until more combat units are built in a year
or so.
The new course is undoubtedly
supported by arcane equations that to administration officials,
whose experience with the military may charitably be called limited,
will take on, if it has not already, the status of scientific
truth. That's Washington. But there is a breaking point, and
our military may be nearing it. That's war. Longer tours in Iraq,
at a time of deep pessimism at home over the war, may lead to
more insistent familial appeals and to softening enlistment and
reenlistment rates. The latter may decline especially so among
NCOs and junior officers who have already put in two or more
tours in the Middle East. They might justly conclude that they
have performed their duty--fully and ably--and that it is time
for gentlemen now a-bed, who defer the call to duty by sporting
a yellow ribbon on their cars, to step forward and walk point
for the policies they tout at soirées that seldom receive
GIs.
Unfortunately, there is nothing
in the new war policy to elicit confidence in favorable change.
The word "surge," evocative as it is of progress, confidence,
success, and pleasurable adrenaline releases, undoubtedly came
from the minds of artful policymakers and consultants, whose
vehicles proudly display the aforementioned emblem of American
quasi-patriotism. They trade in images, not reality; rhetoric,
not soldiering; infighting, not fighting; statistics, not dead
friends and family members. Their job now is to sell the nation
on the surge--a policy that could just as easily be called "escalation,"
though they are astute enough to avoid that word and obedient
enough to vilify anyone who does. There is little in American
public life today to suggest they will fail.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
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