Posted on 04/07/2003 12:34:13 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
'Congratulations on being able to put every rambling piece of drivel in your head all into one neat column," wrote Spencer Callaghan on Friday apropos my thoughts last Thursday. "You may want to reserve your comments on the speed of the U.S. operation in Iraq for when the war actually is over. Any military expert can tell you that the hardest part is still to come ... Baghdad."
You want experts? We got 'em. Well, actually we don't, not at the National Post. But everybody else has. So, in deference to Mr. Callaghan, let us look at what the experts tell us. Here is the man introduced by Peter Mansbridge as "military analyst Eric Margolis," speaking on the CBC the other day:
"The war is not going as well as the U.S. had planned. In fact, it's not going very well at all in that respect. And what I think happened is that the Bush White House failed to listen to the warnings of its generals and professional military men and instead listened to the overly optimistic predictions of its hawkish neo-conservatives ... Also what is unexpected is far from being a few thugs of Saddam Hussein who are fighting, it appears that the U.S. invasion has triggered a national uprising where all Iraqis, except for Kurds, are now rallying to defend the government of Saddam Hussein and appear very eager to fight for it."
Peter nodded gravely. "For all the talk of being on the eve of the battle of Baghdad, you make it sound like it could be a while yet."
Let us now wipe the tears of laughter from our eyes and consult the most respected and authoritative analyst of the Middle East, Robert Fisk of The Independent and also of the Toronto Star. It seemed unlikely that the great man could top his spectacular performance in Afghanistan (sample Fisk headlines: "Bush Is Walking Into A Trap," "It Could Become More Costly Than Vietnam"), but there he was last Thursday and Friday assuring his devoted readers of the impenetrability of the Iraqi defences and that there were no Americans at Saddam International Airport. How then to account for the preposterous claim from the Pentagon that the infidels had seized the joint? Here is where decades of experience in the region pays off:
"Had the Americans found themselves miles away on the edge of the old RAF airbase at Habbaniyeh, one wondered, and confused it with the airport outside Baghdad? Had they sent a patrol up to the far side of the Saddam airport for a few minutes, just to say they'd been there?"
It's impressive to be acquainted with the existence of RAF Habbaniyeh, from where the British flew covert missions over the Soviet Union in the days of the Iraqi monarchy. But it's truly pitiful to be either so ignorant of modern military operations or so blinded by anti-American animus that one would seriously believe the blundering Yanks could have wandered on to a decrepit air base and not known where they were. One begins to appreciate that spending so much time immersed in the ways of the Orient can become a disadvantage: Mr. Fisk might have better advised to pass a couple of years in, say, Newark, driving one of the many Chevy models equipped with an OnStar system, whereby, when one calls to say the car won't start and could they send someone, they reply, "He'll be there in 10 minutes. Our satellite tracking shows you're in the parking lot of Madam Whiplash's House of Bondage on the corner of Elm and State."
That's why, as I wrote during Afghanistan, the best advice is to ignore the "experts." Stick with us National Post know-nothings. The herd of experts stampedes quickly for the lowest-hanging analogy: Vietnam-style quagmire for the countryside, but Baghdad ... Hmm, Baghdad's a city, isn't it? So how about "Baghdad will be another Stalingrad"?
It takes two parties to make a Stalingrad, and both have to be non-democracies willing to shovel large numbers of conscripts into the carnage. That's not how the British or the Americans do things. If you wanted to know how the Brits would approach resistance in Basra, their experience in urban warfare over the last 30 years from Northern Ireland to Sierra Leone is the relevant comparison, not what one tyranny did to another six decades ago.
Two weeks ago, I wrote in this space: "Whether or not Washington succeeded in its aim of 'decapitating' the regime, the Iraqis are doing an awfully good impression of behaving as if they're headless. The significant indicator is not the units that are surrendering, but the ones that are disbanding -- they've concluded they don't need the protection of the British and Americans to keep them safe from the regime's wrath, because the regime is no longer in a condition to enforce its wrath."
On Thursday night, an Iraqi manning an anti-aircraft gun on the highway to Baghdad was killed by a TOW missile from a Marine unit. When Lieutenant Steven Ray Thompson got a look at the gunner's body, he discovered he was a full colonel: "To find that colonel sitting there behind an anti-aircraft artillery piece is rather surprising because, you know, colonels don't do that," said Lieutenant Thompson. "Colonels plan the fight. They don't fight the fight. If a colonel is the one pulling the triggers, that tells me that everybody else has left."
Everybody but Eric and Robert and the other Western correspondents more Baathist than the Baathists. As the old joke has it, Saddam has all the qualities of leadership except followers. That was an obvious trend by Day Three, and the one that mattered. Though it must be distressing to the "experts," the late butcher of Baghdad is out of tricks. Maybe he's been saving it all for one final blow-out -- "Made it, ma! Top of the world!" -- and he's got his network of tunnels wired to explode on signal. But is he in a position to give the signal? And will there be anybody there to receive it?
Granted, the self-nuking of Baghdad would be hailed both as a great victory in the Arab world and as yet another perfidy by the Americans, logical contradictions being no obstacle to Islamist self-victimization. But, unless that's Saddam's end-game, the Iraqi war is over, and those who predicted thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dead civilians and massive popular uprisings might like to consider taking a vow of silence for the next couple of years.
It was obvious to all but the most deluded that the allies would win. All that was at stake was how. A 1991-style collect-the-set coalition would not have been in America's long-term interests. That kind of overwhelming force is a once-a-decade proposition. It would have signalled to Kim Jong-Il, Boy Assad and the rest that America would be too militarily and diplomatically drained to do anything big to them till 2010 or thereabouts.
So the Pentagon needed to prove it could do it a) light; b) fast; and c) without large numbers of casualties among its own troops or Iraqi civilians. In all these, it's succeeded. It's also established new eligibility requirements for multilateral coalitions: The British and the Australians aren't just fig leaf Anglosphere cover, they've made real contributions in their areas of expertise. When the land forces crossed the border, the British supplied about a third of the initial manpower and wound up taking care of southern Iraq pretty much single-handed. Unlike the first Gulf campaign, this style of warfare isn't conducive to token gestures like the dispatch of a rusting frigate. America values allies who bring something to the table.
But I see the naysayers have already moved on to the next quagmire: Washington may have won the war but it risks "losing the peace." Whatever gets you through the night, guys. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the next phase has begun. As David Frum mentioned on Saturday, Syria's already feeling the oil squeeze. And did you know Kim Jong-Il hasn't attended a meeting since they dropped the opening bunker-buster on Saddam's confab? The lessons of Iraq are already being learned in Damascus and Pyongyang, if not at the BBC, CBC, New York Times or in Robert Fisk's Baghdad bedsit.
Yes, but were both feet in-bounds?
Which is yet another good reason to have fought this war. Not only do we protect ourselves and our allies from WMD, but there is a useful object lesson for other evil dicators that threaten us or our allies.
By the looks of their defensive posture as the coalition crossed the LD and lack of preparation and execution of forces, I would say that Iraqi Colonels don't plan on anything except to die in place. Besides, his family was probably in the watchful hands of the Fedayeen as he manned the gun.
And wouldn't that be special, Oldeconomybuyer!
I just loved this: "The lessons of Iraq are already being learned in Damascus and Pyongyang, if not at the BBC, CBC, New York Times or in Robert Fisk's Baghdad bedsit." I gather these geniuses are simply uneducable.
Thanks for the great post!
Good one.
Wow. That is truly an amazing point and one I hadn't seen discussed previously. We are proving we can indeed fight the "two and a half" wars (not quite, but close) that the experts said we couldn't do. It gives us the flexibility to stare down one tyrant as we dispose of another, and they don't dare test us.
Styen hits another one out of the park.
Steyn ping.
That's a good line.
Let's go to the videotape and see. How do we know they are really Hussein's feet?
-PJ
No one pillories the dufus's better!
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