Monday, March 24, 2003

The Lebanonization of Iraq Suddenly I had a nightmare about the American withdrawal from Iraq in 2021.  How many of us can remember the recent history of Lebanon.   In an attempt to destroy the Palestinians in refugee camps, Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.  The Christian Philangists took the opportunity to renew their war with the Palestinian refugees, and the country endured a long period of civil war and factionalism, culminating in a war of attrition against Israel, finally forcing an Israeli withdrawal 18 years after the original invasion.   All the ingredients for the disaster in Lebanon are in place in Iraq.  The U.S. has invaded, and is so out of touch with reality that its war planners were actually disappointed that Iraqi civilians didn’t welcome them with open arms.   Then they seemed shocked when Iraqi troops adopted guerrilla tactics.   But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or an armchair general to know that in every unequal conflict of the past fifty years, when faced with the superior firepower and technology by the West, local forces have resorted to guerrilla war whenever they were supported by nationalism or popular ideology.   So why didn’t the American war planners consider guerrilla war?  Probably because that would have immediately changed the cost benefit equation.    Let’s assume that the Iraqi’s don’t rise up and greet the Americans as liberators.  Then the Americans come in as occupiers, Arab and Iraqi public opinion sees the resistance fighters as heroic, and under the American military regime, all the factions within and outside of Iraq begin to jockey for position.   Among the Kurds, Turks, Shia’s, Sunni’s, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the Israelis, the temptation to turn the American force to their advantage will be overwhelming, and will likely lead to miscalculation.   Then as the Americans overreact—let’s say they become embroiled in a standoff between the Kurds and the Turks, and end up sacrificing the Kurdish interests, suddenly some factions begin to have a strong interest in defeating the American occupation—not forthrightly with uniformed troops like sitting ducks in the desert as Rumsfeld would have it, but with religion, suicide bombers, guerrilla tactics and a lengthy war of attrition.   Once the U.S. finds itself sucked into a war of attrition it will lose.  The war planners will be forced by the logic of terrorism to take harsher and harsher measures against the civilian population, as the Israeli’s are doing to the Palestinians, and as a result, the hatred of the population for the occupier will grow and grow.    This cancer will threaten the secular Arab governments, and after a bloody and generations long war, the U.S. will be pushed out of the Middle East on a tide of Arab religious fanaticism.   Unlike the Israelis, we don’t live there, so we can leave.  But ultimately, Arabia will be for the Arabs.   Why is this a nightmare.  Because George Bush is a perfect foil for Osama bin Laden.  Bin Laden calls this war a crusader war.  Bush is a true crusader, determined to put his God-given values in place around the world. The U.S. is well on its way to the war of civilizations that some have longed for.   When we protest the war, we are actually trying to save the existing system of international balances, which though messy, is still friendly to the U.S. and a global economic system.  The defeat of the U.S. in a regional generations long war will mean the end of America’s role as the only superpower.  Our country will turn inward, militarism will be the object of public revulsion, and rather than a pax Americana, we will be facing a world of strategic rivalry that the U.S., with only 5% of the world’s population, will not be able to ultimately win. Our fear will lead to the death of democracy.   The basic rule of the schoolyard is if you have to play with everyone, don’t force them all to gang up on you at once, no matter how big you are.   Oh, it’s only 2003, and the Iraq war is supposed to be over within a few more weeks.  I’m glad I woke up. 10:01:15 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Toby Sackton. Last update: 4/2/2003; 11:23:16 PM.