Posted on 03/29/2003 9:12:19 AM PST by giotto
Why Bush faces terrible choices
We now know the start, but how does this end? The stiff resistance of Iraq's armed forces has already deprived George Bush of the outcome in Iraq that he most wanted and expected - the swift collapse of the Baath regime and the triumphant liberation of a grateful Iraqi nation. But the war is just over a week old. It can still end in many different ways. Here are the three most likely scenarios - and one very unlikely one. RUMSFELD'S REVENGE It is still entirely possible that the US could bring the war to a swift and relatively cheap conclusion. One way might be to find and kill Saddam himself. The opportunistic strike against him on that long ago first night of the war suggests that the US has a close intelligence track on his movements. They might get him at any time. It is also still entirely possible that Central Command might conjure a spectacular operational coup. So far the American campaigning has been surprising only in its lack of surprises. But it is not too late for that to change, and for Tommy Franks to transform the campaign by a Napoleonic stroke - bold, unexpected and devastating. We haven't seen it yet. The modest airborne deployment into Kurdish areas over the past few days so far looks more like an attempt to forestall Turkish military moves into northern Iraq than a serious second front in the battle for Baghdad. SLOW AND SURE Without a touch of Napoleon, the most likely trajectory of the campaign over the next few weeks is all too obvious. Mop up the persistent resistance throughout southern Iraq, build up forces on the outskirts of Baghdad, push through the Republican Guard divisions to the city, and then work through the city block by block. This will need more troops and more time. People in the Pentagon are now talking of months, not weeks. That is right, if the US and its allies continue to adopt the very conservative approach to casualties that has characterised the war so far. Considering the level of resistance that the coalition forces have faced, they have taken very few casualties, and appear to have inflicted far fewer than one might have expected as well. If those casualty levels - coalition and Iraqi civilian - are to be kept down, the coalition will need to keep moving slowly and carefully. That will disappoint those who were encouraged by the US Administration to think that this would be a swift and painless operation, but it shouldn't cause panic. After all, the triumphant Gulf War of 1991 still took eight weeks. It's too early to talk of quagmire just yet. FAST AND FURIOUS Nonetheless, a campaign that drags out for several months will start to erode public support for the war in the US, and inflame Arab, Islamic and wider international opinion. There may be long weeks in which the slow and steady approach delivers little obvious progress. Bush may therefore feel compelled to adopt more aggressive tactics, using firepower more indiscriminately and pushing coalition forces to take more risks. For example, the Republican Guard divisions around Baghdad could be dealt with faster, if they were hit with the kind of saturation bombing that destroyed their predecessors in Kuwait in 1991. But the cost in Iraqi civilian casualties might be very high indeed. Alternatively, coalition forces could be thrown against the Iraqi defences more recklessly, speeding up progress but also driving up our own casualties. The costs of these approaches are all too obvious. In fact, Bush is caught in an iron triangle of competing imperatives. He wants a quick war, with minimum coalition casualties and minimum Iraqi casualties. As long as Iraq's army keeps fighting as it has this week, he cannot have all three. Either the war will be slow, or it will be bloody for one side or both. If the Iraqi forces fight very well, it is just possible that the war might be all three. THE UNTHINKABLE Just for the sake of completeness, it is worth mulling over the worst-case scenario. How long would the war have to drag on, with how many thousand casualties on both sides, before Bush decided that it was not worth it, and sought some kind of ceasefire? I must say I find it hard to imagine it coming to that. One week's sustained resistance by Iraq's soldiers is surprising enough. For them to keep it up for months against a really determined US assault would be almost unthinkable. So let's put that possibility to one side and look beyond the end of the war itself. Whichever combination of the three more likely scenarios we see played out, the successful invasion of Iraq will only be, in Churchill's words, the end of the beginning. It does not now seem possible that the coalition forces will be feted by Iraqis as liberators, but it is still quite probable that they will at least be accepted by the population as a necessary if unwelcome means to be rid of Saddam. If so, with skill, care and tact, the coalition might still manage a relatively peaceful transition to a stable and broadly pro-Western Iraq under some kind of democratic rule. But here again there are grimmer possibilities. This week's resistance does suggest that Iraqis do not want their political future dictated by America. Many will not want to see the Stars and Stripes flying, even metaphorically, over the holy places at Karbala. Iraq's resistance to American rule might not end with Saddam's downfall, even if its armed forces are destroyed. Iraqis could mount a sustained campaign of stubborn, sullen and sometimes violent resistance to an alien occupying force. There is an Arabic word for it. They call it intifada. And like their Palestinian brethren, Iraqis resisting a US occupation might not fight alone. Their stand against the coalition must already be stirring the hearts of Arabs and Muslims around the world - eclipsing Egypt's temporary success in the first week of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war to become the most noteworthy resistance of an Arab army against Western forces in modern times. A US-occupied Iraq could become like Afghanistan under Soviet occupation, a focus for Arab and Islamic resentment of the West, and a magnet for violent fundamentalists. I wonder what Osama bin Laden is thinking? Hugh White, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (www.aspi.org.au), writes regularly for The Age. These are his personal views.
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/28/1048653858907.html
March 29 2003
But the war is just over a week old.
At this point, I lost total interest in this article. Does anyone else see the glaring contradiction here?
Yes, and it is noticeable that a lot of Westerners would pass out from sheer ectasy to see the U.S., Brits, and Aussies face reversals. Their hope lies palpitating on the floor. It won't happen, but they can hope and then spin. We're fighting on two fronts, really, and only one of them is military.
No doubt Saddam will soon exist only in the history books along with other tyrants like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, etc. etc. This has become absolutely necessary and will be done. However, I am not as confident in the proposed nation-building in the war's aftermath. The tribal population in the region is too fractious, uncivilized and barbaric. Our prolonged presence after Saddam's demise will only serve to inflame and unite them against us.
Have you been living under a rock for the past decade?
We tried your and Bill Clinton's' plan. We did nothing about Middle Eastern attacks for year after year, and it got us 9/11.
Doing nothing and waiting for further attacks is not an option.
Tell it to the Marines.
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