It is now becoming increasingly clear that the US position in Iraq is, quite literally, unwinnable. (This is the case despite the absence of any defintive statement from the US command authorities regarding what it would be that would actually constitute a US “victory” there.) We therefore all need to pay close attention to the implications and the possible modalities of the US defeat that will be unfolding there over the months and years ahead.
One of the first things to bear in mind is that, whereas the US has shown in the past that it is capable of being a (relatively) generous, gracious, and far-sighted winner, these are qualities that it has notably not shown when faced with defeat. In Cuba, in 1961, the invasion that President Kennedy launched at the Bay of Pigs was repulsed by the island’s Cuban defenders– and the US has consistently, through every single change of administration in Washington ever since, continued to try to punish Fidel Castro and the Cuban people for having done that. In Vietnam, in 1975, the nationalist forces were also able– after a long and difficult struggle– to force the last remaining US forces to quit Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in a very humiliating form of disorganized scramble. And for 20 years after that, the US continued to try to punish the Vietnamese people for having inflicted that defeat on them…
I am not saying here that the anti-US forces in Iraq will necessarily be able to inflict that same kind of “decisive” defeat on the US forces there– though I wouldn’t rule that out completely. What I am saying is that if the US is forced to withdraw forces from Iraq in some form of disorder, as now seems extremely likely, then we should expect that withdrawal to be accompanied (“covered”) by the US taking some extremely vindictive actions against the country. These would have two aims:
- 1. to “punish” the Iraqi people for having failed to rally round the American plan for their country, and
2. to “send a message” to everyone else around the world that the cost of challenging US power around the world will still– even though the US may have been forced to suffer a defeat in Iraq– continue to be high.
Moreover, if past practice is anything to go by, the US authorities might plan to continue these acts of “punishment”– as in the case of Cuba or Vietnam– for many years or even decades after the moment of the defeat itself. For US strategists, such policies are couched in the broad terms of retaining or regaining the “credibility” of the “US strategic posture” in the world.
A lot will depend, of course, on the precise manner in which the US defeat continues to unfold.
- * Will it happen over a timeline of months or of years?
* Will it be marked by one or more relatively “cataclysmic” events on the ground, or will it be more of a steady erosion of the US position inside the country?
* Will US strategic planners have the time (and get the orders from above) to plan for the truly massive operation of staging an orderly withdrawal of the scores of thousands of US troops from Iraq, or not?
* Will the withdrawal–or, in a famous euphemism from the 1980s, the “redployment offshore”– be negotiated in any way with any Iraqi (or mainly Iraqi) armed movements that will then take their place?
* Might hawks within the US administration seek to “cover” the withdrawal by launching a further military operation elsewhere, as a way of distracting domestic American opinion from the humiliation of withdrawal from Iraq? (In 1983, remember, the US invaded Grenada precisely as a way to distract US attention from the withdrawal from Lebanon.)
* Might Washington seek to limit the erosion in its position in Iraq by undertaking a partial withdrawal (concentration) of its forces in a small number of areas like Kurdistan, Baghdad airport, or some portion of the south– and what would the effects of such an internal concentration of forces be?
Regarding a partial pullback, one option that is not open to the US in Iraq is the “Afghanistan option”, whereby the great bulk of the US forces would be pulled back inside the capital city (as opposed to inside the airport), leaving the rest of the country to be ruled by local warlords; and sending out to the other parts of the country only intermittent deployments of US “Special Forces” to carry out punishment operations on a hit-and-run basis.
This is not an option in Iraq because the capital there is actually one of the “hottest” zones for the US troops. In addition, the relationship between the capital and the rest of the country is very different in Iraq than in Afghanistan; and Iraq has a much more developed social-political system than Afghanistan– one in which, except in Kurdistan, there are no local “warlords” as such to hand over to…
I expect, however, that somewhere in the Pentagon, military planners are already considering some combination of the above three “partial pullback” options? To do so would be, broadly, to follow the strategic precedent established in Vietnam and elsewhere. If Pentagon planners are indeed considering such an option for Iraq, this would require them to continue to support separatist political currents throughout the country
I don’t believe George Bush is going to leave Iraq alone as long as anything remains standing there. He’ll have to withdraw most of the ground troops before long, but I would look for the air war to escallate at the same time. He will conclude, just like Nixon, that the only option is to bomb them until they plead for mercy. We’ve already seen some of this in Falluja and the recent operations in Anbar. It’s going to get worse and more widespread.
If I lived in Iraq and had the means to leave, I would definitely get out now.
yes, ever since JFK’s humiliating Bay of Pigs defeat by the brave Cuban defenders, America has been plotting against the Cuban people and their benevolent leader Fidel Castro…all the talk of jailed dissidents, desperate boat people, etc., is CIA-inspired deception.
Actually, in the begining Castro was not a communist. He choose USSR where the US refused to accept defeat. And please, before that, remember american support for Batista. Just take a look at the Platt Amendment, and you will easily notice the similarity with Iraq.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/platt.htm
In particular :
“The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence”
and :
“To enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the Government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the ]?resident of the United States”
Some things change, others stay the same.
Superb post, Helena.
I hope you won’t mind me passing it on.
It’s right on the ball.
This is exactly where the principal effort should be concentrated.
Yes, I agree with Dominic. Found this to be one of the most interesting and instructive posts that I’ve read (at JWN and elsewhere) in quite a while.
A total US withdrawal from Iraq requires not just a thorough rethinking of US strategic goals in the area between western China and the eastern Mediterranean– but beyond that, it also requires a fundamental re-evaluation of the relationship between the US citizenry and the other peoples of the world.
If only that “fundamental re-evaluation” could take place. I would feel more confident of its likelihood if just one of our political leaders was raising the question you raise. Like all societies we tend to generate the leadership we deserve. My fear is that it will take some kind of cataclysm to relax our belief in American exceptionalism which is such a threat to the world.
Thanks for raising the issue once again.
Would it be too bold to say that we ARE the leadership we deserve, No Pref?
“Might hawks within the US administration seek to “cover” the withdrawal by launching a further military operation elsewhere, as a way of distracting domestic American opinion from the humiliation of withdrawal from Iraq?”
This might be a plausible scenario. But there’s one factor that’s being overlooked here: domestic politics. Given the risks involved in another military action (where?), it’s more likely that the Administration will launch a domestic political offensive by way of distraction from a withdrawal from Iraq.
The precedent is Nixon in ’72. Basically the Nixon Administration’s policy was to lose the war in Vietnam while persuading its political base that the war was actually being won. Remember the hysteria generated over the POW “issue”? There was in fact no issue at all, but Nixon used it to pretend that bringing our POWs home was a major war aim (as if the US fought the war in order to free POWs!). And this “offensive” conducted for domestic political consumption worked: to this day you will find Republicans arguing that Nixon “won” the Vietnam War (or would have won except for Jane Fonda and Watergate) because “we got our POWs back”.
What form might a political offensive take now? The most likely version would be: Liberal Traitors Stabbed America In The Back. Bush’s political base has already been primed to believe this. And we can already see the meme taking shape in, for example, the explosive reaction to Senator Durbin’s remarks about Guantanamo.
So what does this long-winded post come down to? Basically this, that dealing with the consequences of a US defeat in Iraq is first and foremost a problem in home front politics rather than external relations. The stakes are extraordinarily high because the only possible outcome of a Republican-inspired Stab In The Back campaign is: dictatorship. And that would have a fateful impact not only on this country’s internal affairs but also on US relations with the rest of the world.
There will not be a total withdrawal from Iraq for many years if our government has its wish. What will happen is the troops will withdraw to the ‘Enduring Bases’ being build in the desert. Chaos will be the norm outside these bases, preventing any organized Iraqi protesting of the ‘theft’ of their land. From these bases the US will be able to project military power in the region.
This is the REAL reason the war was fought. The US wanted a replacement for the Saudi bases. What better spot than in the country of the enemy of both Saudi Arabia and Isreal? This is not just killing two birds with one stone, its killing a LOT of birds with one stone (from the administrations point of view).
a) replaced Saudi bases
b) protection of Isreal
c) a ‘threat wedge’ between Syria and Iran
d) destruction of Saddam
e) removal of Iraq as a threat to Isreal for many years
f) large military pressence near the oil fields
g) a show to the world what happens to those who oppose us
e) payoffs (through contracts) to ‘political allies’ of the republican party
For George Bush and Dick Chaney Iraq has been and will be (forever) a ‘no lose’ adventure. They will retire to MILLIONS in ‘payback’. Quite simply, they do not care about anything else besides their monetary and political agenda. And more the better is brother Jeb can be elected on a ‘fix Iraq’ platform.
The present Iraq is EXACTLY what was wanted by Bush and friends.
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“The present Iraq is EXACTLY what was wanted by Bush and friends.”
I agree; Paul Wolfowitz when he headed the office of special plans, his advices was Iraq war that paid for itself.
Warren – I think your (a) – (e) summary of the initial strategy is pretty accurate. However, I do not agree that things have turned out the way they wanted. What they wanted was something like the old Shah of Iran – a nice, docile client who would obey orders and keep the population under control. This ain’t it. Just having soldiers holed up in forts while chaos rages outside will not achieve their ends. It might be enough to form a launching pad for an attack on Iran (as Sy Hersh, Scott Ritter and others continue to predict), IF the public and Congress would go along with it, but they won’t. Listen – thank GOD these guys are incompetent, right?
“It might be enough to form a launching pad for an attack on Iran (as Sy Hersh, Scott Ritter and others continue to predict), IF the public and Congress would go along with it, but they won’t.”
Several months ago I thought Hersh and Ritter were right and that Tehran would be the next stop. Now I doubt it, and for two reasons: military manpower and oil prices.
The manpower situation is wretched enough already. War with Iran would make a draft inevitable. Oil is hitting $60 a barrel. War with Iran would mean $100 a barrel oil(leaving aside the peak oil crunch late this year or next). So the Republicans face the voters next year with European gasoline prices and 18-year olds getting letters from their friendly local draft boards? I don’t think so!
So it’s Red Herring Time at the White House. Drag in 9/11 at every opportunity. Turn up the volume on the Liberals Are Traitors meme. Karl Rove doesn’t just do politics any more. He’s also making policy. And the Administration’s policy for the foreseeable future will be dirty, divisive, scapegoating politics.
“One of the first things to bear in mind is that, whereas the US has shown in the past that it is capable of being a (relatively) generous, gracious, and far-sighted winner, these are qualities that it has notably not shown when faced with defeat. ”
Right on, no better friend, no worse enemy.
David
Helena,
Thanks for raising these important issues, but, unfortunately, I think the situation is far worse than the one you paint.
First,
Are the people in the Bush administration anywhere near ready yet to consider a total withdrawal from Iraq? I don