We may – I repeat may, for history is a fickle correspondent – may be at the critical moment in the U.S. project in Iraq.
The current Battle of Baghdad is a test of wills as well as of arms for the Americans. A second intensive campaign is being undertaken to wipe out the terror which haunts Baghdad streets.
From this distance, it is hard to judge the many elements in the conflict. But drawing on some experience with insurgencies in other parts of the world, I know enough to know statistics are meaningless. I cringe every time it’s said less than 10 percent of the terrorists are “foreign fighters”. In Vietnam the small number of Northern Vietnamese and retrained Southerners from “the French war” infiltrated back into the South were critical to the Communists’ early effort. Just as I imagine suicide bombers, the terrorists’ most effective weapon, are largely non-Iraqi, and relying on Syrian and Iranian logistics connections, the foreign element and the near-open borders, are critical to the insurgency.
What must concern us, at this moment is to understand what is at stake and at what moment in the conflict we have arrived. On the first, I dare say President Bush was eloquent at his press conference in mid-August. Unfortunately, as always, not a lot got through the media screen of the always critical but rarely judicious Capital media.
And Bush was certainly correct in twice quoting General John Abisaid were the Americans to abandon the Iraq effort, “they” would come after us. It is almost a cliché to repeat on the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11. But it apparently is necessary. America was attacked before there was an expeditionary force in Iraq by psychopathic killers intent on murdering as many innocents as possible. And it would be attacked, were it possible for the terrorists, if the U.S. withdrew immediately from Iraq.
But returning to Baghdad: the tipping point in war is always difficult to know at the moment it occurs. In Saigon only my old Ozzie friend, the counterinsurgency expert Ted Serong, understood immediately the Tet offensive was the end of the insurgency. Had U.S. forces taken his advice and moved out quickly after the Communist thrust into Saigon and other cities was repulsed, much of the later history would have been different. What became apparent to all later was the North had sacrificed its guerrilla cadre in a foolish belief in the Marxist “general uprising”. It didn’t happen for while most Vietnamese were intimidated, they were not pro-Communist.
From that time on, Hanoi could win, if it were to win, only with conventional arms against Saigon’s superior American-trained and supplied South Vietnamese RVN. Alas! The Congress, surreptitiously aided and abetted by President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger, in their pursuit of détente with the Soviets and attempted manipulation of the Chinese Communists against Moscow, with a public heartsick over the losses, cut off that logistics tail, bringing on the 1975 catastrophe.
Now, emboldened by their success in opening Shi’a-Sunni wounds, exploiting most Iraqis’ fear, the terrorists are attempting to create chaos in Baghdad and disgust and resignation in the U.S. So far, their campaign has had less success. Whatever the rationalizations, the recruitment of Iraqi police [even infiltrated by the sectarian militants] and soldiers, is one testament to the hope of most if not all Iraqis for stability under a new democratic regime.
In the U.S., Bush, despite the polls, seems to have made his point with the home front about the necessity of winning in Iraq as a touchstone for the continued fight against the terrorists to come. The sophisticated position of most Americans until now, even while apparently believing the intervention was a mistake or badly managed, or both, yet appreciate the necessity not to turn tail and run, appears for the moment to be holding.
There is little doubt it is eroding under the relentless narrow political campaign of highly partisan Democratic leadership and the anti-Bush media, all part and parcel of the American democratic process. In addition, now the American public is treated to such contorted arguments as Sen. McCain’s, who denouncing every aspect of the war, nevertheless asks for a continued pursuit of its goals. [McCain begs a lot of questions – not the least, how this will get him the presidency.].
The outcome could well hang on the next few weeks of trying to reduce the violence in the Iraqi capital. The terrorists, too, know there is an American election coming. And just as the U..S. command with its Iraqi allies has geared up for a suppression campaign, the terrorists and their allies in Tehran and Damascus will make their maximum effort before November. And it may well come down to a subtle and persuasive interpretation of the events on the ground, somehow transmitted to the American people, if a victory of the Battle of Baghdad is to be had.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@cox.net),
is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent
for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com and East-Asia-Intel.com.
