Chanting their demands for work, [the demonstrators] marched toward Saddam Hussein's old Republican Palace, headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority ... When I asked one of the organizers why they didn't go to their own leaders in the Iraqi Governing Council, he looked blank. "We don't know where they are," he said.That's no surprise. One month after the council's 25 members were handpicked by Bremer's office, its members work in a largely empty office building, surrounded by American military cordons and coils of barbed wire. They carry American-issued MCI cell phones, with an American area code (914).
Too bad they can't call American 911:
Iraqi Clerics Unite in Rare Alliance
A popular Sunni Muslim cleric has provided grass-roots and financial support to a leading anti-American Shiite cleric, a rare example of cooperation across Iraq's sectarian divide that has alarmed U.S. officials for its potential to bolster festering resistance to the American occupation ...Sabatoge Suspected in Iraq Explosions
A fresh wave of violence took its toll on Iraq on Sunday as a second blaze hit a crucial oil export pipeline, a water pipeline was blown up and six Iraqis were killed in a mortar attack on a Baghdad prison.
Baghdad in Water Crisis After Pipe Blast
The explosion in northern Baghdad blew a hole in a 5-foot-diameter water main early Sunday, flooding streets and forcing engineers to cut off water to all of Baghdad.
Danish Soldier Killed in Battle with Iraqi Looters
A Danish soldier and two Iraqis were killed in southern Iraq in a gun battle between troops and a group of looters stealing power cables, a British army spokesman said on Sunday.
What we have here is a classic demonstration of asymmetrical warfare -- except in this case, the asymmetry is all in favor of the resistance, and all against the coalition. Making a country an ungovernable hell is clearly a lot easier than turning it into a stable, functioning democracy.
It's starting to look like even the American military juggernaut may not be able to cope with the problem that has plagued colonial "pacification" programs since the end of World War II. Access to even basic modern weaponary -- AK-47s, RPGs, high explosives -- has become a powerful "force multiplier" for the natives, proportionately more powerful, perhaps, than the high-tech revolution has been for Western militaries.
It's true that in a stand-up fight, ala the post-9/11 U.S. attack on Afghanistan, the advantage enjoyed by a modern combined operations is crushing. But in a guerrilla war -- or more precisely, in a "4th generation war," one that combines classic guerrilla tactics with terrorism, subversion and clandestine political work -- the technological superiority of the West still appears open to challenge.
Counter-insurgency techniques are supposed to compensate. And if Iraq were the West Bank -- or El Salvador, or the Guatemalan highlands -- there are proven methods that could be applied: unrelenting pressure on the civilian population, including the selective use of terror, to discourage collaboration with the insurgents; economic warfare to destroy the enemy's logistical base; the segregation of neutral populations in strategic hamlets. And, of course, the ruthless extermination of any forces -- guerrilla or civilian -- found within predefined free-fire zones.
But Iraq isn't any of those places -- not least because the coalition has defined it war aims in such a way as to make a successful counterinsurgency program difficult, if not impossible.
Israel's goal in the West Bank has always been to destroy the political and economic viability of the Palestinian community, to weaken its ability to challenge the creation of a Greater Israel. In El Salvador and Guatemala, the goal of the military governments running the wars (with U.S. assistance) was simply to exterminate the insurgents and restore the existing semi-feudal social order.
In Iraq, however, the coalition's stated objective is to remake the country into a bastion of democracy and prosperity in the Middle East. At this point, there is no other plausible rational for the war -- especially since failure to stabilize Iraq would leave the region (and the struggle against terrorism) worse off than if the invasion had never happened.
But success requires political stability, physical security and a speedy revival of Iraq's battered oil industry. The coalition needs a showcase Iraq -- not the smoking ruins of burned out villages and a sullen, decimated population, which is what successful counter-insurgency campaigns tend to leave behind.
Promoting stability and security would be difficult enough -- in a country that has rarely known either -- but the reliance on oil exports to pay the bills is a particularly dangerous Achilles Heel. It's tough to imagine a vital industry more vulnerable to disruption and sabotage.
How can the circle be squared? Right now, the preferred solution seems to be to borrow some elements of a successful counter-insurgency effort -- such as the creation of civilian "militias" to polarize local communities and act as the occupation's eyes and ears on the ground -- but without applying the kind of unrestrained, overwhelming military force that might crush popular support for the resistance. If anything, the coalition is going in the opposite direction -- scaling back the scope of its search and destroy raids because, in General Ricardo Sanchez's words, "I started to get multiple indicators that maybe our iron-fisted approach to the conduct of ops was beginning to alienate Iraqis."
Very perceptive. But counter-insurgency isn't -- and never has been -- about winning hearts and minds. This is just a convenient fantasy that allows America to pretend it's not playing the role of colonial occupier in Iraq. Counter-insurgency is about breaking the enemy's will to resist, by convincing the civilian population that the cost of supporting the guerrillas is unbearably high.
The customary tool is organized violence -- unlimited, genocidal violence in the case of Guatemala and El Salvador, controlled violence ("force, might, beatings") in the case of Israel and the Palestinians.
The question isn't whether America is capable of applying violence in the required quantity. If Vietnam wasn't proof enough, the antiseptic U.S. war against the Serbs should be.
Remember that after the initial U.S. air attacks against Serb forces in Kosovo failed to achieve the desired results, NATO turned its attentions to Belgrade, which was subject to a prolonged strategic bombing campaign -- one specifically designed to inflict pain on the civilian population, thus forcing Slobo Milosevic to the bargaining table.
The gambit succeeded, but at a price, as the conservative military analyst Andrew Bacevich explains in his recent book, American Empire:
Targeting government facilities, communications networks, the electrical grid, oil refineries, factories and infrastructure, allied aircrews would wreak whatever level of havoc was required to convince Milosevic that he had had enough. Put simply, instead of searching ineffectively for Serb forces scattered among the villages of Kosovo, NATO would go after downtown Belgrade. People might die as a result, but few if any of them would be wearing the uniform of a NATO nation.
At least 500 civilians died in the bombing, Bacevich notes. How many more died as a result of weeks without power, water or working sewage systems is probably incalculable. At the height of the blitz, Bacevich adds, the Clinton administration made it clear it was willing to go much further, if needed, to salvage American prestige:
On June 2 (1999), with the outcome of Operation Allied Force still at issue ... Samuel R. Berger summoned a group of "wise men" to the White House. To counter the perception that the president lacked the mettle to see things through, Berger outlined for his listeners "four irreducible facts.""One, we will win. Period. Full stop. There is no alternative. Second, winning means what we said it means. Third, the air campaign is having a serious impact. Four, the president has said he has not ruled out any option. So go back to one. We will win."
I don't know of any reason to believe the Bush Administration is any less determined to impose its will on Iraq by whatever level of violence is ultimately necessary. That's not the problem. The problem is the absurdly ambitious goal the administration has set for the coalition -- not just to conquer and subjugate Iraq, but to build it back up again as a functioning, self-governing state, moderate, pluralistic and friendly to the West.
Classic counter-insurgency tactics, ruthlessly pursued, won't lead to the New Iraq®. But neither will the current halfway measures, which -- at best -- can only maintain the current stalemate.
This leaves the coalition with three choices:
Given the administration's track record, door number three looks like the winner. Which means the Governing Council is likely to continue hiding behind American barbed wire, making phone calls on American cell phones with an American area code for a long, long time to come.
Dang, Billmon -- this was one hell of a post. We are sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire. One that our great-grandchildren will find reprehensible.
I've always wondered what Kool-aide this administration was drinking to make them believe that their "Strength through force" would win the day. I suspect that they thought if they could get rid of Saddam they would automatically be seen as stronger and more intimidating than Saddam. The problem has always been that they forget that Saddam was one mean dude when keeping people in line. For this group to keep people in line will take them being much more nasty than Saddam. So what will the Bushies do to intimidate the average Iraqi now?
The real chance that the PNAC had was if their "winning the hearts and minds" had been successful. Then they would have had a way to make their "occupation" more than just a "how to rip off the Iraqis in one easy step". As it is now, Iraqis are more inclined to distrust everything coming from the Bushies. But, I never expected the Bush administration to be any better at being compassionate and sane humans there in Iraq than what we've seen here.
How does one say "Guernica" in Arabic?
Billmon, I was wondering if you've seen Chuck Spinney's excelent website Defense and the National Interest. If not I think I should plug it here. Chuck Spinney is a (now retired) pentagon analist who'se been writing and thinking about fourth generation warfare since before the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and his website is a good primer on the topic.
Just for the hell of it, Sherman Alexie has a cogent, albeit "light" take in The Stranger this week y'all might be interested in.
Well, W. bases much of his politics on these 10 words: "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." Only the first three words are verifiable. Here are Barbara Tuchman's six powerful words: "War is the unfolding of miscalculations."
Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the gang miscalculated. Nobody wins a war. Ask Jesus.
Whoops. Don't quite know what I did with that link. Here it is.
http://www.thestranger.com/2003-08-14/reservations.html
Israel's goal in the West Bank has always been to destroy the political and economic viability of the Palestinian community, to weaken its ability to challenge the creation of a Greater Israel.
Israel's goal has "always" been to destroy the viability of the Palestinian community in the West Bank? So Rabin, Peres, Barak & the entire Oslo peace plan fits into this "always" time-frame how exactly? Please don't tell me you consider sincere attempts at peacemaking to be part of the same scheme as Sharon's.
Actually, the USA has no options but #3. The USA, for all its military might, does not have enough troops in uniform to impose its will in Iraq. The USA can not raise a large enough army to do so before it is too late. The international community does not have enough available troops to provide the margin of victory. If they did, they might not want to help a government who has missed no chance to tell them to jump in a lake. In the decade or so that our involvement in Iraq might last, the US Army will be able to do nothing other than to deal with Iraq. Forget North Korea, forget Taiwan, forget anything else that might arise, the US Army is in Iraq for the forseeable future, and will be able to do nothing else but pray for victory in Iraq.
I think that the Bushies completely took for granted the American "soft power" which permeated the pre-war world. We got our way so often, seemingly effortlessly, that they mistook that hegemonic state of affairs for a natural one--rather than one that required a lot of building and maintenance.
So when they went to war with Iraq, they thought they were just briefly interrupting the status quo, opeing the tap for the "hard power" that we had in reserve. Once we had won--and we most assuredly would win--we could get our armies out of there and go back to enjoying the pre-existing hegemony, with a little bonus: Our own little oil factory.
Instead, they killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. This war has accelerated the decline and fall of the American empire by at least twenty years.
Israel's goal has "always" been to destroy the viability of the Palestinian community in the West Bank? So Rabin, Peres, Barak & the entire Oslo peace plan fits into this "always" time-frame how exactly? Please don't tell me you consider sincere attempts at peacemaking to be part of the same scheme as Sharon's.
Good PR to get the American Public (the only public stupid enough & sufficiently uninformed to fall for such rethoric) to support Israel.
From the beginning of Oslo until 2002, the settler population almost doubled. While the U.S.-backed Mitchell Plan of 2001 called for a freeze in settlement construction as a "confidence-building measure" by Israel, the expansion continued. Currently the Israeli settler population in the occupied territories has topped 400,000-about 200,000 in the West Bank, 200,000 in Arab East Jerusalem, and about 6,000 in the Gaza Strip. In spring 2002, the Israeli Peace Now organization documented 34 new settlements that had been established during the Sharon government's term. see attached URL
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=184
If you don't like that one, just google "'Oslo Accord' Settlements"
Getting the Serb army out of Kossovo was really a whole lot easier than holding down a conquered Iraq. How long, I wonder, before someone suggests just handing the whole place back to the Turks? There are two partial analogies I find really frightening for the occupation. the one is the Israeli invasion of the Labanon. The other is Chechnya.
There are two partial analogies I find really frightening for the occupation. the one is the Israeli invasion of the Labanon. The other is Chechnya.
I don't think this can turn into a Lebanon or a Chechnya. The Russian and Israeli populace is hardened to these types of ultra-hardcore counter-insurgencies. I think Americans are too squeamish for us to adopt the kinds of tactics that would be needed.
So, as Billmon said, option 3 looks like the clear front-runner. We'll muddle through until we realize that the costs of occupation have bled us dry, then we'll fork over as many contracts to Halliburton as we can before we get the hell out.
914? So Iraq is just another suburb in Westchester (NY)? I wonder what Iraqis would think if they knew how many Jews lived in Scarsdale, New Rochelle, etc.
When 845 was instituted after Putnam County and some others were split off from Westchester's are code, people were assured that though painful, the process of switching was necessary because 914 was running out of numbers. Apparently the reason it was running out of numbers was because they were being exported to Iraq.
It is all for a worthy cause: making the world safe for the likes of Halliburton.
you know option 2 seems just as bad.
the idea that the governing council can run anything without the american guns is silly. I'm not sure that the UN has the capability to do its thing in a large, heavily armed, and unstable country such as Iraq.
actually, I think the only solution involves a ton of bonafide economic assistance with the hope that slowly armed resistance becomes less attractive.
the idea that this could happen by privatizing Iraqi industries is silly since no one in their right mind, Haliburton included, is going to want anything to do with Iraq as long as it stays the way it is right now, not to mention what happens in the future. it would be silly anyway, as Argentina has shown but spouting that sort of dogma about Iraq qualifies as a psychiatric problem at this point, hence Bremers bleating on this topic.
Further, any large scale economic assistance is going to need massive security from day one... I don't think that would be possible under international auspices.
Anyway, that hundreds of billions of US government funds are going to go into reconstruction projects in Iraq will never happen.
It seems like the only possible path is increasingly escalation of armed conflict until, one day, a large contingent of US soldiers is captured and/or killed. In the process the US military will kill alot of Iraqis. If this happens in Baghdad, there will be some really violent riots which will not look good on TV.
The only question is whether this happens before or after Nov. 4 2004.
Excellent post.
There is a 2a option, which might work, which is to make a deal with the Shia clerics (there is already a makeshift deal with the Kurds), and leave the country to them.
aWol says we are making good progress in Iraq. Didn't anyone read the paper he released?
There is always #4: Claim that the US tried to be nice and rebuild Iraq into a good democratic nation, but the Iraqis were just too damn evil and stupid to accept the generosity, and start classic "beat 'em senseless" tactics.
Eric Alterman cites this report that suggests the Pentagon knew well in advance how things would turn out. The inability of the current admin to see what is actually before them is disturbing beyond all measure. Great post Billmon.
Hmm . . . 914. That's my area code here in marvellous Mamaroneck, NY. Does that mean that I can make local calls to the middle east now?
you know, you have to expect the bureaucratic mind repeats itself:
think Iraqification + Iraqi Governing Council = Troop pull-out.
but, whatever the admin. does will be guided by the election campaign, you can count on that.
Eric Alterman cites this report that suggests the Pentagon knew well in advance how things would turn out.
Surely you're not suggesting the Pentagon would listen to anything the Central Intelligence Agency might say?
So Rabin, Peres, Barak & the entire Oslo peace plan fits into this "always" time-frame how exactly?
Rabin is the source of the "force, might, beatings" quote. He was Shamir's defense minister when the intifada first broke out in 1987.
Rabin and Peres were also both members of the Labor government that launched (or at least permitted) the settler movement in the early 1970s -- under the guise of creating a "security" belt in the occupied territories.
Oslo notwithstanding, Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza (and particularly the West Bank) have ALWAYS been designed to turn the territories into an economic colony, in which the land, the water and the economy are all dependent upon and controlled by Israel. This has been true under both Labor and Likud governments.
For sources on this, read any of the research products produced by Meron Ben Venisti's West Bank Data Project. Or read his book, Intimate Enemies.
The perverse result, of course, has been to make the two-state solution practically impossible -- meaning Israel will eventually face the choice of either being overwhelmed demographically, converted into an obvious apartheid state, or will have to consider some semi-sanitized version of ethnic cleansing -- the so-called "transfer" solution.
But that's a subject for another post.
Counter-insurgency is about breaking the enemy's will to resist, by convincing the civilian population that the cost of supporting the guerrillas is unbearably high.
Billmon, you seem to be advocating this crap. You're saying, "halfway measures will get you nowhere. If you want to win, you'll have to be ruthless". Yeah, ruthless with the civilians, because you can't find the guerrillas?
Let's get this straight: To target the civilian population is a coward's game. It's immoral. It is a war crime of the highest order. Forget it.
So, the occupation is bound to fail because the only alternative is criminal, and it probably wouldn't even work? Why, yes. The occupation was a big mistake. And in real life, you pay for your mistakes. It's simple, really.
Billmon, you seem to be advocating this crap.
Hardly.
So, the occupation is bound to fail because the only alternative is criminal, and it probably wouldn't even work?
Bingo.
Oslo notwithstanding, Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza (and particularly the West Bank) have ALWAYS been designed to turn the territories into an economic colony....
Sorry, Billmon, you can't just brush of Oslo with the word "notwithstanding". The very fact of Oslo itself directly contradicts your thesis. (Though, as you said, this topic deserves another post of its own.)
The perverse result, of course, has been to make the two-state solution practically impossible -- meaning Israel will eventually face the choice of either being overwhelmed demographically, converted into an obvious apartheid state, or will have to consider some semi-sanitized version of ethnic cleansing -- the so-called "transfer" solution.
Or dismantle most settlements and reach a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians that leaves them with a viable state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza - just as Barak attempted to do at Taba. Just because Sharon is in power now and those efforts are not presently being made obviously doesn't mean that they will never be possible once again. Hell, back in 1991-2 at the Madrid conferences, no one ever thought something like Oslo would be possible in the first place.
One more comment on Oslo. To the Palestinians living in the territories it soon became clear that in practice, it brought them little benefit. Not only did the settlements continue to grow, the Israelis had a stranglehold on Palestinian travel and the economy and exploited these opportunities. The corruption of the Palestinian authority didn't help either. Recoomended reading on this topic: "Drinking the Sea at Gaza" by Isrraeli journalist Amira Hass.
Greetings
Karl Heinz
Hamburg, Germany
Um, excuse me, but wasn't the reason we went after Milosevec and the Serbs at least somewhat related to the fact that "ethnic cleansing" was going on to the tune of 100,000 Bosnian lives — you know, genocide light? Attributing the bombing of Belgrade soley to the preservation of Ameican "prestige" may make for entertaining sarcasm but I really think the source problem here was a certain appalling degree of Serbian misbehavior, you know?
Last one to the rape camp's a rotten egg!
Imperialism Lite is hard to do. The British developed a knack for doing imperialism well, though it wasn't very light or humanitarian. Churchill himself favored gassing the natives, and terror raids from the sky would help put down rebelling towns. If the peasants still rebel against the crown, they are rounded up and thrown in concentration camps, and released after their spirit is broken and social networks have crumpled - they can have a new life, when they have no will to live.
Nasty, Isn't it?