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01-19-2007, 12:32 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Postmaster General
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Withdrawal is not an option
Quote:
Withdrawal is not an option
Henry A. Kissinger Tribune Media Services
Published: January 18, 2007
President George W. Bush's bold decision to order a "surge" of some 20,000 American troops for Iraq has brought the debate over the war to a defining stage. There will not be opportunity for another reassessment.
The Baker-Hamilton commission has powerfully described the impasse on the ground. It is the result of cumulative choices — some of them enumerated by the president — in which worthy objectives and fundamental American values clashed with regional and cultural realities.
The important goal of modernizing U.S. armed forces led to inadequate troop levels for the occupation of Iraq.
The reliance on early elections as the key to political evolution, in a country lacking a sense of national identity, caused the newly enfranchised to vote almost exclusively for sectarian parties, deepening historic divisions into chasms.
The understandable — but, in retrospect, premature — strategy of replacing American with indigenous forces deflected U.S. forces from a military mission; nor could it deal with the most flagrant shortcoming of Iraqi forces, which is to define what the Iraqi forces are supposed to fight for and under what banner.
These circumstances have merged into an almost perfect storm of mutually reinforcing crises: Within Iraq, the sectarian militias are engaged in civil war or so close to it as to make little practical difference.
In addition, the Kurds of Iraq seek full autonomy from both Sunnis and Shia; their independence would raise the prospect of intervention from Turkey and possibly Iran.
The war in Iraq is part of another war that cuts across the Shia-Sunni issue: the assault on the international order conducted by radical groups in both Islamic sects. Such organizations as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Mahdi army in Iraq and the Qaeda groups all over the Middle East seek to reassert an Islamic identity submerged, in their view, by Western secular institutions and values.
The most important target is the United States, as the most powerful country of the West and the indispensable component of any attempt to build a new world order.
The disenchantment of the American public with the burdens it has borne alone for nearly four years has generated growing demands for some form of unilateral withdrawal. But under present conditions, withdrawal is not an option.
American forces are indispensable. They are in Iraq not as a favor to its government or as a reward for its conduct. They are there as an expression of the American national interest to prevent the Iranian combination of imperialism and fundamentalist ideology from dominating a region on which the energy supplies of the industrial democracies depend.
An abrupt American departure will greatly complicate efforts to help stem the terrorist tide far beyond Iraq; fragile governments from Lebanon to the Gulf will be tempted into pre-emptive concessions. It might drive the sectarian conflict within Iraq to genocidal dimensions.
Graduated withdrawal would not ease these dangers until a different strategy is in place and shows some progress. For now, it would be treated both within Iraq and in the region as the forerunner of a total withdrawal. President Bush's decision should therefore be seen as the first step toward a new grand strategy relating power to diplomacy for the entire region, ideally on a nonpartisan basis.
The purpose of the new strategy should be to demonstrate that America is determined to remain relevant to the outcome in the region; to adjust U.S. military deployments and numbers to emerging realities; and to provide the maneuvering room for a major diplomatic effort to stabilize the region.
Of the current security threats in Iraq — the intervention of outside countries, the presence of Qaeda fighters, an extraordinarily large criminal element, the sectarian conflict — the United States has a national interest in defeating the first two; it must not involve itself in the sectarian conflict for any extended period, much less let itself be used by one side for its own sectarian goals.
The sectarian conflict confines the Iraqi government's unchallenged writ to the sector of Baghdad defined as the Green Zone protected by American forces. In many areas the militias exceed the strength of the Iraqi national army.
If the influence of the militias can be eliminated — or greatly reduced — the Baghdad government would have a better opportunity to pursue a national policy.
Side by side with disarming the Sunni militias and death squads, the Baghdad government must show comparable willingness to disarm Shia militias and death squads. American policy should not deviate from the goal of a civil state, whose political process is available to all citizens.
As the comprehensive strategy evolves, a repositioning of American forces from the cities into enclaves should be undertaken so that they can separate themselves from the civil war and concentrate on the threats described above.
The principal mission would be to protect the borders against infiltration, to prevent the establishment of terrorist training areas or Taliban-type control over significant regions. At that point, too, significant reductions of American forces should be possible.
Such a strategy would make withdrawals depend on conditions on the ground instead of the other way around. It could also provide the time to elaborate a cooperative diplomacy for rebuilding the region, including progress towards a settlement of the Palestine issue.
Few diplomatic challenges are as complex as that surrounding Iraq. Diplomacy must mediate between Iraqi sects which, though in many respects mortal enemies, are assembled in a common governmental structure. It needs to relate that process to an international concept involving both Iraq's neighbors and countries further away that have a significant interest in the outcome.
Two levels of diplomatic effort are necessary:
The creation of a contact group, assembling neighboring countries whose interests are directly affected and which rely on American support. This group should include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Its function should be to advise on ending the internal conflict and to create a united front against outside domination.
Parallel negotiations should be conducted with Syria and Iran, which now appear as adversaries, to give them an opportunity to participate in a peaceful regional order.
Both categories of consultations should lead to an international conference including all countries that will have to play a stabilizing role in the eventual outcome, specifically the permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as such countries as Indonesia, India and Pakistan.
A balance of risks and opportunities needs to be created so that Iran is obliged to choose between a significant but not dominant role or riding the crest of Shia fundamentalism. In the latter case, it must pay a serious, not a rhetorical, price for choosing the militant option.
In all this, the United States cannot indefinitely bear alone the burden for both the military outcome and the political structure.
At some point, Iraq has to be restored to the international community, and other countries must be prepared to share responsibilities for regional peace.
Some of America's allies and other affected countries seek to escape the upheavals all around them by disassociating from the United States.
But just as it is impossible for America to deal with these trends unilaterally, sooner or later a common effort to rebuild the international order will be imposed on all the potential targets.
The time has come for an effort to define the shoals within which diplomacy is obliged to navigate and to anchor any outcome in some broader understanding that accommodates the interests of the affected parties.
Henry A. Kissinger heads the consulting firm Kissinger & Associates. This article was distributed by Tribune Media Services.
Withdrawal is not an option - International Herald Tribune
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A very well thought out article and a must read.
The whole issue depends on the success of the Iraqi govt and smashing of the death squads.The Iraqi minsters are themselves have interest in either of the factions and at the same time sit in the Central govt.
It is absolutely essential that the US stays aloof from any partisan alignment and has to play a major role in getting other 'actors' into their fold and ensure that the violence is abated and governance gain ascendancy!
__________________
"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
HAKUNA MATATA
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01-19-2007, 12:41 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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Postmaster General
Military Professional
Join Date: 08-20-03
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Quote:
Insurgencies Rarely Win – And Iraq Won’t Be Any Different (Maybe)
By Donald Stoker
Page 1 of 1
Posted January 2007
Vietnam taught many Americans the wrong lesson: that determined guerrilla fighters are invincible. But history shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different. Now that it finally has a winning strategy, the Bush administration is in a race against time to beat the insurgency before the public’s patience finally wears out.
The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of “surging” additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. Iraq’s various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But they’re likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term. Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes.
Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were lucky—they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States. When the Vietcong went toe-to-toe with U.S. forces in the 1968 Tet Offensive, they were decimated. When South Vietnam finally fell in 1975, it did so not to the Vietcong, but to regular units of the invading North Vietnamese Army. The Vietcong insurgency contributed greatly to the erosion of the American public’s will to fight, but so did the way that President Lyndon Johnson and the American military waged the war. It was North Vietnam’s will and American failure, not skillful use of an insurgency, that were the keys to Hanoi’s victory.
Similar misunderstandings persist over the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan, the other supposed example of guerrilla invincibility. But it was not the mujahidin’s strength that forced the Soviets to leave; it was the Soviet Union’s own economic and political weakness at home. In fact, the regime the Soviets established in Afghanistan was so formidable that it managed to survive for three years after the Red Army left.
Of course, history is not without genuine insurgent successes. Fidel Castro’s victory in Cuba is probably the best known, and there was the IRA’s partial triumph in 1922, as well as Algeria’s defeat of the French between 1954 and 1962. But the list of failed insurgencies is longer: Malayan Communists, Greek Communists, Filipino Huks, Nicaraguan Contras, Communists in El Salvador, Che Guevara in Bolivia, the Boers in South Africa (twice), Savimbi in Angola, and Sindero Luminoso in Peru, to name just a few. If the current U.S. administration maintains its will, establishes security in Baghdad, and succeeds in building a functioning government and army, there is no reason that the Iraqi insurgency cannot be similarly destroyed, or at least reduced to the level of terrorist thugs.
Insurgencies generally fail if all they are able to do is fight an irregular war. Successful practitioners of the guerrilla art from Nathanael Greene in the American Revolution to Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War have insisted upon having a regular army for which their guerrilla forces served mainly as an adjunct. Insurgencies also have inherent weaknesses and disadvantages vis-à-vis an established state. They lack governmental authority, established training areas, and secure supply lines. The danger is that insurgents can create these things, if given the time to do so. And, once they have them, they are well on their way to establishing themselves as a functioning and powerful alternative to the government. If they reach this point, they can very well succeed.
That’s why the real question in Iraq is not whether the insurgency can be defeated—it can be. The real question is whether the United States might have already missed its chance to snuff it out. The United States has failed to provide internal security for the Iraqi populace. The result is a climate of fear and insecurity in areas of the country overrun by insurgents, particularly in Baghdad. This undermines confidence in the elected Iraqi government and makes it difficult for it to assert its authority over insurgent-dominated areas. Clearing out the insurgents and reestablishing security will take time and a lot of manpower. Sectarian violence adds a bloody wrinkle. The United States and the Iraqi government have to deal with Sunni and Shia insurgencies, as well as the added complication of al Qaeda guerrillas.
But the strategy of “surging” troops could offer a rare chance for success—if the Pentagon and the White House learn from their past mistakes. Previously, the U.S. military cleared areas such as Baghdad’s notorious Haifa Street, but then failed to follow up with security. So the insurgents simply returned to create havoc. As for the White House, it has so far failed to convince the Iraqi government to remove elements that undermine its authority, such as the Mahdi Army. Bush’s recent speech on Iraq included admissions of these failures, providing some hope that they might not be repeated.
That’s welcome news, because one thing is certain: time is running out. Combating an insurgency typically requires 8 to 11 years. But the administration has done such a poor job of managing U.S. public opinion, to say nothing of the war itself, that it has exhausted many of its reservoirs of support. One tragedy of the Iraq war may be that the administration’s new strategy came too late to avert a rare, decisive insurgent victory.
Donald Stoker is professor of strategy and policy for the U.S. Naval War College’s Monterey Program. His opinions are his own. He is the author or editor of a number of works, including the forthcoming From Mercenaries to Privatization: The Evolution of Military Advising, 1815-2007 (London: Routledge, 2007).
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It may be true that insurgencies rarely win. But then the govt also doesn't!
And one must not look at small insurgencies to compare.
Iraq is a full fledged insurgency with the backing of diverse Islamic ideology (an idea) and not a small rebellion of some nomadic tribal satrap of a Bedouin done well!
Vietnam was a war of ideology and not the overthrow of individuals! Ideologies are hard to defeat. Likewise, religious zeal!
Therefore, Vietnam is relevant, though Iraq is not an ideological issue, but a religious issue between two warring Islamic sects, which has been at each others throat through history, practically since the birth of Islam!
While Kissinger's article is pragmatic. This article seems to be a wee bit off.
I posted both types of views so that the WAB members views could indicate how the issue could be solved, if indeed it can be solved! |
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01-19-2007, 12:44 PM
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#3 (permalink)
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Postmaster General
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