(from http://www.ft.com)
By Anthony Cordesman
Published: July 30 2003 20:23 | Last Updated: July 30 2003 20:23
It is far too soon to talk about prolonged guerrilla warfare in Iraq. So far, the threat has come largely from small cadres of Ba'ath party followers and Saddam Hussein loyalists in central Iraq. They can operate more because Sunnis still fear the old regime, and resent the US occupation for its initial failures in providing security and nation-building, than because they have popular support. The US and its allies can defeat this kind of opposition if the nation-building effort gathers momentum and the US combines focused military action and suitable concern for Iraqi civilians. However, if the US blunders, it not only may lose the peace but also could create a third Gulf war.
This could occur as the result of some combination of the following mistakes:
Rather than progress towards an Iraq for the Iraqis on their terms, the Americans muddle through. It starts to look as if they will be there for five to 10 years, rather than 12-24 months. Rather than set goals to attract genuine Iraqi support, the US appears to be rebuilding Iraq in its own image.
The nation-building effort, including economic recovery, is too slow and too many promises are not kept. Local security falters. Well intended reforms either do not work or pay off too late to generate any gratitude. The US and its allies try to find the leaders they want, rather than those the Iraqis want. Rather than screening the Ba'ath and Iraqi military as individuals, they reject some of Iraq's best people, who went along with Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in order to survive.
The US and its allies deal with the guerrilla threat by acting more like occupiers than liberators. US forces increasingly huddle behind their own security barriers, distancing themselves from ordinary Iraqis. The US has tactical military successes but alienates a large number of Sunnis in the process - Sunnis who feel increasingly disenfranchised as the Shia and Kurds gain a fair share of wealth and power. Remnants of the Ba'ath and Saddam loyalists mix with new elements of Sunni Islamic extremists to present a continuing threat. Even those Sunnis who do not want Mr Hussein come to demand a US/UK withdrawal from their country.
The US tries too hard to prevent religious Shia from gaining power. It alienates the Shia majority, which has largely tolerated - but not supported - the US/UK presence. The result plays into the hands of religious hard-liners and Iran. The same pattern of resistance and violence emerges in the south that now exists in central Iraq.
Growing sectarian divisions complicate the nation-building effort. The Kurds continue to support the US and Britain but the Kurdish factions resume their power struggle as the cash flow from the oil for food programme and from smuggling dries up. The assertion of Kurdish power creates resentment among Sunnis and Turkomans and strains relations between the US and Turkey.
US efforts to create a federal structure that can bridge the ethnic and sectarian divides fail to prevent inter-communal violence. No Iraqi faction is convinced that a federal state will give it a fair share of real power. Fear of prolonged occupation, and the feeling among most Iraqis that those who go along with the US effort simply do so as appeasers and for their own benefit, undercuts the nation-building effort and adds to the unrest.
The US tries to handle all of these problems on the cheap. Washington talks up Iraq's oil wealth even though the country has already lost six months of oil export revenues and half of its export production capacity. The US tries to rehabilitate Iraq's petroleum industry according to its own priorities and without Iraqi technocratic and political input. Ordinary Iraqis come to feel their oil is being stolen and oil revenues are not used as the glue to unite Iraq's divided factions in some form of federalism.
The US fails to confront its allies with the need to forgive Iraqi reparations and debt - claims potentially amounting to more than $200bn - leaving Iraq angry and without a financial future. It improvises solutions in Western market terms, failing to realise that oil export revenues are the only glue that can hold Iraqi federalism together. The US and its allies try do the right thing in economic and technocratic terms but end up increasing Iraqi distrust and hostility.
Iraqis believe that the token 40,000-man Iraqi army formed by the US leaves Iraq defenceless against Iran and Turkey and dependent on US and British occupying forces. Even those officers who seem to support the US and UK secretly become nationalistic and hostile.
Each step in this process pushes the US and its allies towards greater dependence on returned Iraqi opposition leaders who have little real influence and credibility and on Iraqis willing to go along with the occupying powers solely for their own gain. It also creates an insecure environment for the real task at hand: rebuilding the Iraqi nation.
There is nothing inevitable about this worst case scenario. Indeed, these are precisely the pitfalls that US, Britain and others involved in the nation-building effort will try to avoid. But if they fail, the US may end up fighting a war against the Iraqi people. This is a kind of "asymmetric" war the US should never have to fight and cannot win.
The writer holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington
By Anthony Cordesman
Published: July 30 2003 20:23 | Last Updated: July 30 2003 20:23
It is far too soon to talk about prolonged guerrilla warfare in Iraq. So far, the threat has come largely from small cadres of Ba'ath party followers and Saddam Hussein loyalists in central Iraq. They can operate more because Sunnis still fear the old regime, and resent the US occupation for its initial failures in providing security and nation-building, than because they have popular support. The US and its allies can defeat this kind of opposition if the nation-building effort gathers momentum and the US combines focused military action and suitable concern for Iraqi civilians. However, if the US blunders, it not only may lose the peace but also could create a third Gulf war.
This could occur as the result of some combination of the following mistakes:
Rather than progress towards an Iraq for the Iraqis on their terms, the Americans muddle through. It starts to look as if they will be there for five to 10 years, rather than 12-24 months. Rather than set goals to attract genuine Iraqi support, the US appears to be rebuilding Iraq in its own image.
The nation-building effort, including economic recovery, is too slow and too many promises are not kept. Local security falters. Well intended reforms either do not work or pay off too late to generate any gratitude. The US and its allies try to find the leaders they want, rather than those the Iraqis want. Rather than screening the Ba'ath and Iraqi military as individuals, they reject some of Iraq's best people, who went along with Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in order to survive.
The US and its allies deal with the guerrilla threat by acting more like occupiers than liberators. US forces increasingly huddle behind their own security barriers, distancing themselves from ordinary Iraqis. The US has tactical military successes but alienates a large number of Sunnis in the process - Sunnis who feel increasingly disenfranchised as the Shia and Kurds gain a fair share of wealth and power. Remnants of the Ba'ath and Saddam loyalists mix with new elements of Sunni Islamic extremists to present a continuing threat. Even those Sunnis who do not want Mr Hussein come to demand a US/UK withdrawal from their country.
The US tries too hard to prevent religious Shia from gaining power. It alienates the Shia majority, which has largely tolerated - but not supported - the US/UK presence. The result plays into the hands of religious hard-liners and Iran. The same pattern of resistance and violence emerges in the south that now exists in central Iraq.
Growing sectarian divisions complicate the nation-building effort. The Kurds continue to support the US and Britain but the Kurdish factions resume their power struggle as the cash flow from the oil for food programme and from smuggling dries up. The assertion of Kurdish power creates resentment among Sunnis and Turkomans and strains relations between the US and Turkey.
US efforts to create a federal structure that can bridge the ethnic and sectarian divides fail to prevent inter-communal violence. No Iraqi faction is convinced that a federal state will give it a fair share of real power. Fear of prolonged occupation, and the feeling among most Iraqis that those who go along with the US effort simply do so as appeasers and for their own benefit, undercuts the nation-building effort and adds to the unrest.
The US tries to handle all of these problems on the cheap. Washington talks up Iraq's oil wealth even though the country has already lost six months of oil export revenues and half of its export production capacity. The US tries to rehabilitate Iraq's petroleum industry according to its own priorities and without Iraqi technocratic and political input. Ordinary Iraqis come to feel their oil is being stolen and oil revenues are not used as the glue to unite Iraq's divided factions in some form of federalism.
The US fails to confront its allies with the need to forgive Iraqi reparations and debt - claims potentially amounting to more than $200bn - leaving Iraq angry and without a financial future. It improvises solutions in Western market terms, failing to realise that oil export revenues are the only glue that can hold Iraqi federalism together. The US and its allies try do the right thing in economic and technocratic terms but end up increasing Iraqi distrust and hostility.
Iraqis believe that the token 40,000-man Iraqi army formed by the US leaves Iraq defenceless against Iran and Turkey and dependent on US and British occupying forces. Even those officers who seem to support the US and UK secretly become nationalistic and hostile.
Each step in this process pushes the US and its allies towards greater dependence on returned Iraqi opposition leaders who have little real influence and credibility and on Iraqis willing to go along with the occupying powers solely for their own gain. It also creates an insecure environment for the real task at hand: rebuilding the Iraqi nation.
There is nothing inevitable about this worst case scenario. Indeed, these are precisely the pitfalls that US, Britain and others involved in the nation-building effort will try to avoid. But if they fail, the US may end up fighting a war against the Iraqi people. This is a kind of "asymmetric" war the US should never have to fight and cannot win.
The writer holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington
