WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- The main question about the war in Iraq was never whether it would go well or go badly. The question was whether it would go bad fast or go bad slowly. So far, it has gone bad slowly, which was always the greater probability. But the possibility remains that it could go bad fast. The greatest likelihood may be during that most delicate of military arts, the withdrawal.
At least behind closed doors, a consensus is emerging in Washington that America will leave Iraq in 2006. Whether the White House will accept that consensus or resist it is yet to be seen, but the result will be the same either way. At this point, the Bush administration has about as much credibility on Capitol Hill as Napoleon had in Paris after Waterloo. On the House side particularly, where every seat is up next November, the watchword is sauve qui peut. As Dr. Johnson said, being about to be hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.
An Office of the Secretary of Defense run by Donald Rumsfeld that assumed the war would be easy may also assume a withdrawal will be easy. History offers a note of caution. In war, getting in is often simpler and safer than getting out. The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld recently warned that America's withdrawal from Iraq could prove messy, for Americans as well as Iraqis. Xenophon's Anabasis might serve as a useful if not entirely encouraging preview. The 10,000 did make it back to Greece, most of them anyway, but few enjoyed the journey.
What scenarios should our planners and policy-makers consider? As the best case, logic suggests that Iraq's December elections might be seen by Iraq's "key man," Shiite Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as the turning point. A new, Shiite-dominated government will probably be elected to a four-year term. What better move for him than to issue a fatwa saying that it's time for the Americans to leave? His Shiites are getting restive at the American presence, he has to compete for his leadership role with firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr, and as the man who kicked the foreign occupiers out, he could reach across Iraq's central divide to offer a deal to the Sunnis, perhaps restoring a real Iraqi state. In the face of a Sistani fatwa, Iraq's government would almost certainly have to ask the American troops to leave.
Our response should be, "Hallelujah!" This would give us the golden bridge we need, a way out where we could claim with at least some credibility that we were not beaten. It would also probably mean a relatively safe and orderly exit. The Bush administration has said we would leave if the Iraqis asked us to, and the new U.N. resolution under which our presence in Iraq is authorized requires us to do so. If the White House resisted, it would get trampled into the dirt on Capitol Hill by elephants and donkeys alike.
As the worst case, we should envision what might happen if Israel or the United States or both attack Iran. Israel has recently indicated that unless international efforts to secure Iran's nuclear program succeed, an Israeli military action is likely sometime next year. Iran has said publicly that it will regard an Israeli attack as an attack by America also. If Iran's influence in Shiite southern Iraq is as great as reports suggest it is, the obvious Iranian response would be to blow up the magazine by attacking the American lines of supply -- and withdrawal -- that come up from Kuwait. Add a Shiite insurgency to that of the Sunnis, and an American withdrawal could start to look like Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, with sand substituting for snow.
There are of course a wide range of possibilities between these two extremes. An American withdrawal might lead to a truce with nationalist elements of the Iraqi resistance; they would have succeeded in their objective and would have no need to continue fighting us. Jihadi elements, however, might redouble their efforts, both to humiliate the Americans and to prevent the emergence of a real Iraqi state. In Shiite country, a lot of young men might think it's now or never if they want a piece of the glory of having fought the world's greatest superpower. Moqtada al-Sadr might turn his Mahdi Army loose on us again, as part of his bid for power in a post-American Iraq.
The question of how we withdraw from Iraq should be at the top of the Pentagon's planning tasks. If the same kinds of optimistic assumptions that guided our invasion of Iraq also shape our plans for withdrawal, we could find ourselves in what one old Pentagon planner used to call "a fine kettle of fish."
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(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.)
Outside View: Al-Qaida's mistake
By William S. Lind
UPI Outside View Commentator
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The suicide bombings in Jordan recently carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq seem to have blown back on the jihadis. According to Western press reports, almost all those killed were Moslems, including a Palestinian wedding party. Outrage among Jordanians has compelled al-Qaida to issue a quasi-apology, saying the wedding party was not its target. Had Abu Musab al-Zarqawi been a tad more clever, he might have apologized for the "collateral damage."
A column in the Oct. 12 International Herald Tribune by professor of Islamic Studies Bernard Haykel suggests that a rift is opening up among jihadis over the tactic of suicide bombing. Haykel writes, "In fact, growing splits among jihadis are beginning to undermine the theological and legal justifications for suicide bombing. ... There are strong indications from jihadi Web sites and online journals, confirmed by conversations I have had while doing research among Salafis, or scriptural literalists, that the suicide attacks are turning many Muslims against the jihadis altogether. ..."
If we look at this practice from a Fourth Generation War (4GW) picture, what do we see? On the surface, it looks as if Islamic non-state elements are making a major blunder. Fourth Generation war theory, drawing from the late U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd, argues that the moral level of war is the most powerful, the physical level is the weakest and the mental level lies somewhere in between. It would seem obvious that when Islamic elements set off bombs that kill other Islamics, they work against themselves at the moral level.
To some degree, this is certainly the case. Bombings such as those in Jordan do turn some Moslems against al-Qaida in other similar groups.
We might try here to reason by analogy. When the United States drops bombs from aircraft or otherwise dumps firepower on Iraqi cities, towns and farms, it alienates the population further. As the FMFM 1-A argues, success for an outside, occupying power requires de-escalation, not escalation of violence.
But here is where the picture grows murky. The fact is, both sides don't get to operate by the same rules in 4GW. While the very strength of the intervening power means it must be careful how it applies its strength, that is much less true of the weaker forces opposing it. This is an aspect of what respected Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld calls the power of weakness. Viewed from the moral level, a weak force can get away with tactics that damn its vastly stronger enemy. Its weakness itself tends to justify whatever it does.
Suicide bombing is itself a tactic of the weak (which does not mean it is ineffective). The United States bombs from aircraft, where the pilot operates in complete safety against 4GW opponents, with rare exceptions. At the moral level, that safety works against us, not for us. In contrast, the fact that 4GW fighters often have to give their lives to place their bombs works for them. Their combination of physical weakness and apparent heroism leads civilians from their own culture to excuse them much, including "collateral damage" they would never excuse if the bomb came from an American F-18.
Does this mean that al-Qaida and its many clones can ignore the deaths and injuries they cause among fellow Islamics? No. They have to be careful not to go too far, as al-Qaida clearly did in Jordan. But they can still get away with a great deal we could not get away with. The same rules do not apply to all, and much stricter, more disadvantageous rules apply to us than to them. Is that fair? Of course not. But whoever said there was anything fair about war?
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(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
