The
Bush administration's recent "get tough" approach to the chaos
in Iraq is predictable and will likely make things worse there
in the long-term. With few good options left in Iraq – few foreign
countries will send troops to help with the American occupation,
inserting more U.S. forces is politically unacceptable, and the
newly created Iraqi security forces resemble the keystone cops – the
Bush administration's escalation of the violence, in an attempt
to quell the Iraqi insurgency before next year's election, comes
as no surprise. But such escalation will kill, wound or anger
even more Iraqi civilians and thus make long-term stability in
Iraq even more unlikely.
Of
all the Bush administration's inept bungling during the occupation
of Iraq, the new aggressive tactics on the ground may take the
cake. Not only are U.S. forces becoming more combative against
the insurgency, they are making no secret about imitating a failed
Israeli model. Like the Israeli forces occupying Gaza and the
West Bank, U.S. occupiers are now bombing or bulldozing houses
and buildings used in attacks against them, wrapping towns in
razor wire, locking them down for 15 hours a day, issuing photo
identification cards for those Iraqis wishing to go in or out
during the other 9 hours and imprisoning relatives of suspected
guerrillas to pressure them to turn themselves in. Senior American
military officials admit that the United States sent officers
to Israel to learn Israeli techniques in urban counterinsurgency
warfare.
Although
the U.S. military is the most powerful in the world, it still
envies the much smaller Israeli armed forces for their history
of winning against larger or multiple opponents. Unfortunately,
war is too important to be left to the generals – Israeli or American.
In
the short term, aggressive counterinsurgency tactics work; in
the long-term they will be disastrous. Aggressive Israeli tactics
have reduced the number of suicide bombings in Palestine – at least
in the short-term. Similarly, more aggressive U.S. tactics have
cut in half the number of attacks on allied forces from 40 per
day to under 20 a day (of course, some of that reduction has to
do with the insurgents redirecting their attacks to "soft" or
non-military targets, which are more vulnerable). In the long-term,
that combative posture – designed to intimidate both the guerrillas
and ordinary Iraqis – will alienate the Iraqi populace, which is
crucial to win over if a counterinsurgency is to succeed. Although
Israel's military has been successful in fighting conventional
Arab armies, its counterinsurgency techniques are only enraging
another generation of suicide bombers. Bombs are cheap and easy
to make, but recruiting young people willing to kill themselves
to fight the enemy is the most challenging aspect of such attacks.
The aggressive Israeli tactics are acting as a recruiting poster
for such would-be terrorists. Similarly, an enraged and humiliated
Iraqi populace will breed and shelter more anti-U.S. insurgents.
Aside
from the bad practical consequences of the American adoption of
Israeli tactics, such imitation has abysmal moral and public relations
implications. Invading and occupying a country with little cause,
leveling its houses and imprisoning parts of its population in
what are effectively urban prison camps clearly violate international
norms. Even worse is holding innocent family members hostage until
suspected guerrillas surrender. In the American tradition of holding
accountable only those who commit a crime, we do not lock up the
families of convicted murders, let alone those of suspected ones.
Apart
from the immorality of U.S. actions, imitating anything Israeli
in an Arab country is horrendous public relations, which is likely
to make the population even more hostile. Such imitation, when
combined with well-publicized politically incorrect statements
on the part of some U.S. soldiers, is guaranteed to generate ill
will in Iraq for some time – even among the Shiite majority in
Iraq). For example, according to the New York Times, when talking
about the new aggressive American tactics, Capt. Todd Brown, a
company commander in the Fourth Infantry Division stated, "You
have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand
is force – force, pride and saving face." Perhaps Custer's men at
the Little Big Horn had similar ignorant and unsophisticated sentiments
about Native Americans.
And
Capt. Brown's boss, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander
who oversees one village gulag, also came up with some condescending
and counterproductive comments for the Times reporter. He succinctly
summarized the American administration's twisted thinking in Iraq
by saying, "With a heavy dose of fear and violence and a lot of
money for projects, I think we can convince these people that
we are here to help them." Lt. Col. Sassaman's quote is reminiscent
of the Vietnam War protesters' satirical characterization of the
American attitude toward the South Vietnamese: "We have to kill
these people to save them." Killing innocent civilians turned
much of the South Vietnamese population against their U.S. "saviors"
and led, ultimately, to a humiliating U.S. defeat. The adoption
of aggressive military tactics in Iraq is likely to have the same
horrible long-term outcome.
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Archived
Columns
Winning
Over Arabs Using Israeli Tactics
12/10/03
Let
Them Eat Turkey
12/3/03
Generating Crises
and Winning Votes by Pretending to Solve Them
11/26/03
'Turning
Point' in the War in Iraq: But Which Way Is It Turning?
11/19/03
Double Standards
in Double Time
11/12/03
Is Iraq Another
Vietnam?
11/5/03
Having a Bad Day,
Wolfie?
10/29/03
Pyrrhic Victories
on Iraq
10/22/03
Can America
"Spin" Away Anti-U.S. Hatred in Islamic
Countries? 10/15/03
A Bureaucratic
Fix for Iraq? 10/8/03
Open Warfare: Bush
vs the Intelligence Community 10/1/03
US Iraq Policy:
The Day the Roof Caved In 9/24/03
The Best of Bad
Alternatives for the Bush Administration in
Iraq 9/17/03
US Intervention
Backfires – Everywhere 9/10/03
Is North Korea
Afraid? 9/3/03
Past articles by
Ivan Eland
Ivan
Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center
on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in
Oakland, Calif. Having received his Ph.D. in national security
policy from George Washington University, Dr. Eland has served as
Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office,
Evaluator-in-Charge for the U.S. General Accounting Office (national
security and intelligence), and Investigator for the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. He has testified on NATO expansion before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and CIA oversight before the
House Government Reform Committee.
Dr. Eland is the author of Putting
"Defense" Back into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security in
the Post-Cold War World and forty-five studies on national
security issues. His articles have appeared in Arms Control
Today, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Emory Law Journal,
The Independent
Review, Issues in Science and Technology, Mediterranean
Quarterly, Middle East and International Review, Middle East Policy,
Nexus, and Northwestern Journal of International Affairs. His
popular writings have been published in the Los Angeles Times,
USA Today, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, San Diego
Union-Tribune, Washington Post, Miami Herald, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, Newsday, Sacramento Bee, Orange County Register,
and Chicago Sun-Times. He has appeared on ABC's "World News
Tonight," CNN's "Crossfire," Fox News, CNBC, CNN-fn, MSNBC, NPR,
PBS, CBC, BBC, and other national and international TV and radio
programs.
His column now appears Wednesdays on Antiwar.com.
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