I’ve touched on this topic in recent blogs, but I thought it would be useful to summarize why this war is unwinnable. Although the original causus belli changed weekly and our win conditions were never really spelled out, we can infer the final objectives based upon White House pronouncements and consider their attainability.
Regime Change/Iraqi Freedom
Bush demanded loudly and repeatedly for the removal of Saddam and the Baath party; in fact, this was his final ultimatum before the invasion. Now that Saddam and his cronies are nowhere to be found, and U.S. troops are occupying his palaces, we’ve won, right?
Well the problem lies in the ‘change’ part of the objective. Dubya promised a rapid handover to a democratically elected Iraqi goverment within 6 months (conveniently timed around the November elections!), with a total occupation of 18 months. Now the White House is grudgingly admitting that setting up an alternative regime might take a bit longer than 6 months, presumably pushing out the 18-month milestone as well.
But questions of timing aside, the real devil lies in the details – what constitutes an acceptable alternative regime? Dubya has promised to “ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another,” a caveat later expanded by Rumsfeld to preclude either a pro-Iranian regime or an Iran-style Islamic Republic. The difficulty is that the overwhelming majority of the country are deeply religious Shiites (who are already consolidating their power without U.S. help) who have made it abundantly clear in huge, angry focus groups (Bush-speak for demonstrations) that they want an Islamic brand of democracy and will reject any goverment supported by the U.S. This sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
Territorial Integrity
Last year, Bush committed to preserving Iraq’s territorial integrity, in an attempt to get buy-in from the U.N. and to avoid antagonizing fellow NATO member Turkey. Sure to disrupt Bush’s plans is the fact that the Kurds have other ideas. With little opposition from the few U.S. troops in the region, the heavily armed and organized Kurds have been ethnically cleansing Arabs from Kurdish territory. They will probably content themselves with pay-back reprisals against Arabs and Turks until such time as a new target presents itself in the form of troops from a new, Arab-dominated regime intent on asserting authority in the region. At that point, they’ll stop paying lip-service to ‘regional autonomy’ and will launch a full-blown civil war against Baghdad and any occupation troops that might stand in their way.
Disarming Saddam/Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
The rapid breakup of the Iraqi army has left vast amounts of guerilla war-ready arms and munitions in the hands of the populace, including suspected Baath loyalists. As far as the supposed WMD, what possible motive could Saddam have for destroying them on the eve of a U.S. invasion as Dubya recently asserted (he must think Americans are really dumb)? best case, they never existed outside the delusions of the wrong-wing, worst case, they’re now in the hands of terrorists. Smooth move, Dubya!
Winning the ‘Hearts & Minds’ of the Iraqi people & the ‘Arab Street’
First impressions are hard to shake. How seriously can they take American rhetoric after the abject failure of Jay Garner and the occupation to date? My bet is Humpty Dumpty has already had his great fall, and there’s nothing Viceroy Bremer can do to ‘put him back together again.’
Striking a Blow Against Terrorism
Give me a break!
Conclusion?
