July 11, 2003

July 11, 2003

HORSEFEATHERS UPDATES IRAQ POLICY

BEWARE CHRISTIAN FORBEARANCE IN MIDDLE EAST FOREIGN POLICY

Yale Kramer

The sum of virtue is to be sociable with them that will be sociable, and formidable to them that will not.—Thomas Hobbes

In war flexibility in the degree of ruthlessness is of vital importance. War involves such a variable collection of rapidly changing situations that our soldiers must be given allowance to change their military approach until the very last enemy has surrendered unambiguously or lies dead at their feet.

On April 2 , April 8 and most recently July 6, Horsefeathers articulated some of its views on the politics of post-war Iraq. Events since the major fighting ended around May 1 require readjustment of our policies and methods.

In the last two months we have learned the following: We have only partially defeated the regime, which was the primary military aim of the war. At best we have driven Saddam Hussein and his minions into hiding. It has become increasingly clear that the Syrians are blood brothers of the Sunni/Tikriti/ Saddamites and will conspire to store and hide Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, hide Iraq’s top leadership, and provide guerrilla fighters to harass remaining anti-coalition forces.

We know also that thousands of soldiers of the various Special Guard units took off their uniforms after the capture of Baghdad and faded into the background of everyday life awaiting the call to arms that they expect will come sooner or later. So there is a large segment of the Sunni Iraqi population that overtly or covertly continue to be our enemies. They actively and passively work against our aims and policies, and do not accept the idea that Saddam has been defeated and will never return. They know that in 18 months there will be another election in the U.S. and the next president may decide that commitments to Iraq are too costly and that that America may tire of war and casualties, as in the aftermath of Desert Storm, and leave Iraq. Saddam will then return and wreak his vengeance on any who helped the Coalition.

To complicate matters even more there are intelligence reports from Israeli sources that suggest that Saddam can count on a large Syrian force of Sunni tribesmen to be loyal guerrilla fighters against the Coalition, especially since he can pay them well with the billions he looted from the Iraqi treasury when he took flight:

“The US military in extending the Iraqi battlefield to Syria… has found the border region inhabited by a hostile population of some two million Arab Bedouin nomads who have little regard for lines on the map…. Their tribal range .… encompass[es] the Al Qaim region abutting the Syrian border as well as the Saddam clan’s Iron Triangle defined by the towns of Ramadi, Samara and Tikrit north of Baghdad.

“…. the Arab aristocracy of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia is honored to establish marital ties with these Bedouin chiefs. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, for example, is married to a tribal chief’s daughter.

“Sunni Muslims, these Syrian tribesmen are defined most of all by their Arab identity and allegiance. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources in the region have discovered them, even more than Saddam diehards, spearheading the guerrilla assaults on US forces in the Tikrit-Fallujah-Mosul Sunni enclave and blowing up northern Iraqi pipelines. Because of their support, the central Iraqi heartland remains effectively under the dominance of the Saddam Hussein clan and its supporters.

“US military planning, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources, had counted on first capturing Baghdad, then moving in on the “iron triangle” to sever the land links between the Syrian Bedouin and Iraqi Sunni Arab tribes.

“This has not happened. American troops hold the centers of main Iraqi towns – or more realistically their military headquarter compounds and quarters as well as Iraq’s few main highways - but not the interior, which is ruled by Syrian Bedouin tribal fighters and Saddam loyalists.”

This report, of course, provokes fear in some Iraqis and hope in others. And if it is even remotely true it is extremely important to revise our strategic aims and war policy immediately. These new realities must be acknowledged. And if the public is informed about the new situation in a timely way it will accept changes in policy. After all, this new understanding could not have been known before we put boots on the ground and Saddam to the test. But now we must adapt and reformulate our Iraqi policy to serve our own interests.

Unfortunately, Bush foreign policy is driven, at least publicly, by Christian-American idealism, which in this case has taken the form of a rescue fantasy—we are going to save Iraq from Saddam the monster and replace him with Thomas Jefferson. This was not a war against the Iraqi people, we told the Iraqis and the world, but only against Saddam and his gang. Our soldiers were warned not to hurt the Iraqis, only free them and treat them kindly. Unlike other victors in the Middle East we did not rape, pillage, burn, and loot; instead we brought chewing gum, candy bars, ready-to-eat meals, potable water, and the anarchy induced by our friendliness, tolerance, and laisser-faire attitude which we, at first, mistook for freedom.

It seems increasingly clear that a very large number of Iraqis in Baghdad and the western parts of Iraq were and continue to be active and passive supporters of Saddam. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of such people are doing whatever they can to undermine the work of the Coalition, if not committing acts of sabotage and murder then applauding these acts and not cooperating in the apprehension of the criminals and guerrillas. Thus, it is important first of all to call these Saddam supporters—whether they were B’aath Party members or not—to task.

DECLARE WAR AND PEACE

It is clear that we have brought peace to northern Kurdish Iraq and southern Shiite Iraq. Those areas of peace should be rewarded by being given priority in the process of reconstruction and political normalization.

In western Iraq however, the so-called Iron Triangle and home of Saddam and his supporters—in cities like Tikrit, Falluja, Ramadi—the situation is totally different. There is no peace and no likelihood of peace until Saddam’s followers—visible and invisible—are completely crushed. This area should be publicly identified as a war zone in which wartime rules exist for the population.

The population should be assumed to be enemies whose civil rights can not be returned until the area is pacified. They should not be rewarded by attempts at reconstruction. And indeed the restraints against civilian casualties cannot hold because many of the men in this area are combatants in disguise, and must be held responsible if non-combatant civilians are hurt. They can’t have it both ways—be secret soldiers and not be responsible for innocent victims. This area should not be occupied by our forces, so that they will not become targets for assassination and sabotage. The only purpose for sending troops into this area is for intelligence probes, raids, and attacking organized forces when they are found. (More about this below.)

Baghad is a more complex problem. It is neither at peace nor at war with us. There appears to be a large number of enemy operatives at work who kill our soldiers, sabotage any attempts to reconstruct and stabilize the city, and threaten those who assist the coalition or would like to assist in the city’s revival. This situation requires the following solution:

CONTINUOUS MILITARY PRESENCE IN IRAQ

This is a golden opportunity which was won in a brilliant war. We must not give it up. We’ve got boots on the ground which gives the US incalculable leverage and power amongst Middle Eastern nations. Our presence is a constant threat to our enemies and reassurance to our friends. Our military presence multiplies our diplomatic power tenfold. We can have constant monitoring of signal and human intelligence in powerful ways from this vantage point. We can mount small and large-sized incursions by Special Forces when necessary. And finally our sustained military presence will stabilize the region politically.

The military presence should be distributed in various locations: a naval/ air base in the south, a central base in or near Baghdad, and an air base in the Kurdish north to keep the Turks reassured. These can be established on a fifty or hundred-year lease. Relax, Iraqis, we’re settling in for the long haul to protect you, not to occupy, you so you might as well get used to us. We will keep your dinars flowing.

In order to keep our boys happy in Iraq their duty tours should not be longer than six months in the summer and nine months in winter with extra pay in the winter and double extra pay in summer. The military bases should be as comfortable and pleasant as they are at home so that when the men are not training or on a military expedition they can relax and enjoy themselves as they might stateside.

And finally the Pentagon and State Department should establish Institutes for Middle Eastern Studies taught by a distinguished faculty to American men and women who want a career in diplomacy and/or intelligence. These should be supplemented by schools for Iraqis who are interested in studying Government Administration, Western style.

A PARAMILITARY POLICE FORCE

Baghdad needs a uniformed Coalition-trained paramilitary force, perhaps fifty-thousand strong to patrol streets, guard hospitals and shops and, of course, utilities. It would be supervised by Iraqi leaders and could call on our forces if it encounters organized resistance. A deadline should be announced stating that American soldiers will begin withdrawing from guarding and patrolling the city section by section, and will be replaced by Iraqi members of the Iraqi paramilitary. The Iraqis must accept this responsibility. American forces are not suited for guard duty in a guerrilla-dominated environment, and they should not be asked to risk their lives.

OUR NEW MILITARY STRATEGY

Our new situation and understanding requires that all coalition forces adopt a new strategy. From now on we must be only on the offensive. We must give up all defensive tactics except to defend our own military centers. No more patrolling Baghdad and other cities on guard duty. We end up being sitting ducks in such situations. Those duties can be undertaken by the paramilitary force or by soldiers of other nations who make less appealing targets. Too often in our military history we have been targets of enemy guerrilla forces. We don’t do well in those situations. We’ve lost touch with our revolutionary ancestors, who were terrific at that sort of thing. They loved fighting guerrilla style, picking off the Redcoats one by one from behind rocks and trees.

Western Iraq—from Baghdad to the Syrian border and beyond is a rough and tough country which lends itself to guerrilla warfare. If we tried to put boots on the ground and occupy the area of the Iron Triangle we would be playing our enemy’s game. And there is no need to. The support for Saddam’s insurgency in the Iron Triangle may persist for months or years, or even decades. But it doesn’t really matter as long as it remains confined to western Iraq and the rest of Iraq continues to progress and prosper.

The only times that troops should be on the ground in this untamed section of Iraq is for the purposes of attack—intelligence probes, raids, getting weapons, attacking organized groups of the enemy, and finding Saddam himself. We must patrol the air space over this section with unmanned and manned aircraft and strike from the comfort of our bases when and where we wish. Our strategy from now on must be to do what our men do best—attack. The supporters of Saddam must know that they are in danger everywhere, and that there is no place to hide in western Iraq or Syria.

What we must not do is to try to get the Iraqis to love us, and to mistake our moral and political values for theirs. We must stick to the business of protecting our national interests. It doesn’t matter if they don’t like us, it only matters that we accomplish our political aims. If we succeed in that the Iraqis will respect us and find us square dealers.