Although the conservative NY Sun tells us, “Regime change for Iran may be a dead letter in the loftiest councils of world affairs…”, in The Times on Saturday, in a scattershot piece centered primarily on near hysteria about an imminent invasion of Iran engineered by “American crazies” (American policymakers with whom he fervently disagrees are “crazies”, but unfortunately he doesn’t share with us his similarly sublime appraisal of what nuclear-armed mullahs would constitute), economist Anatole Kaletsky relates his discoveries about Iraq:

…Vice-President Cheney viewed the Iraq as a perfect opportunity to prove the “Rumsfeld doctrine” of low-manpower, shock-and-awe aerial warfare, without any need for the US to win allies or for the military to engage in “state-building” tasks…

As an economist, and not a political scientist, Mr Kaletsky apparently missed a memo or two. The U.S. had many allies in Iraq as we know, although Mr Kaletsky is probably one of those who believes that any coalition lacking France is not a legitimate coalition. One might well wonder, then, how on earth the British, Russians and Americans won WWII without a decisive French contribution? Yet today, even if one includes France, no European military west of Russia has even a fraction of the U.S.’s potential manpower; but American strategists understand full well that the U.S. cannot fight any war based on sheer numbers, because the U.S. public will NOT (rightly) accept significant casualties to its magnificent volunteer force for no appreciable returns.

Which brings us to tactics put forward to try to cope with that latter particularly. So-called “shock and awe” was no more than another expression denoting Western rules of warfare for the late 20th and early 21st century: loud, with flashing lights, while simultaneously remaining non-violent . . . in order to minimize casualties to all involved. The enemy are meant to be stunned into dazed surrender within moments of the opening of the display of irresistable might illuminating the night sky, every hair undisturbed on their universally still possessed heads . . . enabling them in due course to file psychological trauma lawsuits.

The opening weeks of the war were a near perfect expression of that. But even then matters were going awry. For even though there had been all the dash, bravery, and “firepower” (the latter usable only as long as it could be 100 percent perfectly targeted) imaginable (and then some) . . . both then and later, there was never nearly enough “smash and blast” of the enemy permitted.

…The peremptory disbandment of the Iraqi Army and the Baath party, now regarded as the worst mistake of the immediate postwar period, was decided at the “highest level” in Washington and was then imposed against the advice of the US military governor Jay Garner, who quickly understood the anarchy that this would unleash…

Whatever the facts of the supposed machinations surrounding the “disbandment“, in any event a practical disbandment took place outside of coalition control; but the end result was pretty much the same. The enemy had melted away in the face of the coalition’s overwhelming technological and organizational superiority. The mistake in dealing with it was that the “melting” was interpreted to mean the enemy’s near total disintegration and, more importantly, demoralization . . . or so it mostly seemed particularly until August 2003, when the UN headquarters in Baghdad was blown up. That attack was a singular statement that the war that was not supposed to be too violent or searing, was bound to become so unless firm measures were taken immediately.

…The list of misjudgments and mistakes could go on and on, but my point should by now be obvious…

Indeed, there is little question that war itself is generally one big mistake, and the side that triumphs is usually the one that makes the fewer mistakes.  So even as it became clear that the conflict was not going simply to fizzle out by September 2003, what was the response?  It was considered instead to be a struggle against “bitter-enders” who needed to be “suppressed”. 

Naturally, those who refused to be suppressed were to be mopped up.  Again, violence was to be extremely focused and limited.  In “mopping” attempts, the enemy’s overt physical destruction was acceptable only as an unfortunate consequence of his not realizing he was supposed to want join in a government of national unity.  Thus with the enemy’s “resurgence” (perhaps a better term than “insurgency”) beginning in late 2003 into 2004, what would become the horrific pattern had already begun to appear.  Defense Link, April 6, 2004:

U.S. forces have been conducting raids in Fallujah and have captured a number of high-value targets, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Norfolk, Va., today…

…The secretary said Marines have cordoned off Fallujah, a hotbed of anti- coalition activity and the site of the killings and mutilation of four U.S. security contractors March 31. “(U.S. forces) have captured a number of people over the past 36 hours,” Rumsfeld said. “The city is isolated. A number of people have resisted and been killed. And it will be a methodical effort to find the individuals who were involved.”

Rumsfeld said the Marines will be discriminating. “Clearly, all of the people of the city of Fallujah were not involved in what took place,” he said…

The secretary said he will listen to the advice of coalition military leaders in determining whether to add more troops in Iraq. He said he will not second- guess commanders in Iraq from Washington. “Both the president and I frequently ask the military commanders if they have all they need — if they have what they need not just in people, but equipment and support,” Rumsfeld said…

…About 135,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, due to the troop rotation occurring now…

How many times has nearly the exact same script been reread since in near countless press briefings?  Using all necessary force to try to defeat the enemy was not considered wholly appropriate.  The campaign in Iraq was supposed to be won . . . without leaving much of an imprint that a war had actually occurred; it wasn’t so much an invasion of Iraq, as a “persuasion of Iraq”.

But that was not any one person’s doing; as we have seen everyone hoped the campaign could have been concluded swiftly with a minimum of casualties for all involved, including Iraqis.  Constrained by such “rules of engagement”, four years on the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF) is still trying to calm the country.  (The significance of that becomes more obvious if one bears in mind that in less than that same time period, the U.S. went from an underprepared, tiny military to a force that had helped throttle BOTH Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.)  And given the mixed (at best) track record of success to date, there is no reason to believe that the MNF and the new Iraqi government will prove able to win the war outright this year, or next year . . . or five years from now, using those same old methods.

It has by now probably been pretty much established that having overthrown the Baathist regime, what should have followed was the coalition truly having established a monopoly on power — briefly.  By that one means that when one chooses to fight a war, one fights to kill and to win, not just to “suppress”.  If the enemy “melts” away, you carefully sift through every male between the ages of 16-45; when you come upon 20 year olds strolling around, you assume the worst, round them up and hold them until a true armistice, or you feel it is safe to release them.  When an enemy who is determined not to be intimidated counterattacks unexpectedly or emerges suddenly with a new set of tactics, you answer that much more forcefully, and you too ratchet up your response.

Not only had the campaign not been fought with sufficient wallop, and not only had the enemy therefore not been “subdued”, but as a consequence the overall approach from May 2003 could not succeed.  For it was hoped victory could be achieved not by killing, but instead by persuasion and “rebuilding infrastructure”. Hence it should hardly be a surprise that the noble attempt to get the presumed “bitter-enders” to lay down their arms through trying to reopen schools, rebuild electric lines and conduct elections under gunfire has simply not worked. The enemy had to be defeated first, before the “rebuilding of infrastructure” could truly commence.

But there is now virtually no chance of the MNF going back.  So unless some new means is found and developed quickly, it appears we are witnessing a stalemate that is simply unacceptable.  ”The surge” has been having some impact, but essentially the MNF is increasingly reduced to trying to impose some sort of facade of civility on internal warring factions.  Meanwhile, the worst of the war continues to beset them, and the search for “a political solution” — to create better conditions for such is “the surge’s” main aim — drones on.  

Since the beginning, U.S. soldiers have fought brilliantly.  However, they have had to fight this war not just with one arm tied behind their backs, but rather, owing both to official edict as well as our civilization’s admirable, innate desire to avoid bloodshed at nearly any cost, to fight it hopping on one leg, while the other leg was restrained and both arms were tied behind their backs.  Their offensive ability was more often than not reduced to an occasional sharp head butt (with profuse apologies always immediately offered afterwards for any pain inflicted, of course). 

Is it therefore any wonder the campaign drags on?  For while there is no chance of an overall MNF military defeat, despite the odds against them the enemy battles on, knowing that any major new MNF military effort beyond “the surge” is unlikely, and in fact politically almost impossible.  Indeed, while there have been local “surge” successes, the MNF’s ability to do more than support the Iraqi government seems out of the question.

So what’s the next move?  Some “political solution” — including one likely to be far from ideal – is all that’s remains. 

(P.S.: There will be no attack on Iran before the end of the Bush administration.  Not a chance.  I’ve already explained why.)

_____________________________

UPDATE, June 21:  Skye and others remain optimistic.  I wish I could share that optimism.  (I have never hoped so much that one of my posts was garbage.)  But four years on, and based on the experience of those four years, I believe that “the surge” will end indecisively . . . and, as a result, back in the U.S. there will be a big political Iraq showdown in September. 

_____________________________

UPDATE 2, June 21: The BBC actually asked the general equivalent of (I kid you not) ”Are you in Aachen? Have you seen any Allied troop movements? If you have any information you would like to share with the BBC, you can do so using the form below“.