This started as a comment on the current diary, Juan Cole’s response regarding “the UN option”.
Mr. Cole’s suggestions that others fight this war for us, a war, apparently, a guerrilla war, that has to be won, in his opinion, strikes me as uncharacteristically naive.
I haven’t heard of guerrilla wars ever being won. Have you?
His suggestion that the global south fight this war, well, have we asked the people of the global south if they want to die in Iraq to keep factories open in India and Pakistan?
Perhaps he has a clue as to how to fight a guerrilla war and win it, because if he does, I wish he’d share it with us. Right now we are losing one guerrilla war outright, Iraq, and performing questionably in Afghanistan. We all know how the Vietnam guerrilla war ended up. We are also funding a guerrilla war in Colombia with terrible consequences.
If Mr. Cole thinks that by simply replacing our foreign troops, with foreign troops from other countries, will somehow shift this conflict from its current direction…then I would suggest he is not thinking rationally about this.
I don’t see this as a war that can be “won”, no matter who steps into our boots there. It is up to, it has always been up to, the Iraqi people, as to what direction they wish their country to move in.
Mr. Cole, we can take any global situation, and jump to the worse possible consequences. Indeed, we do this all the time, often to drum up support for our ideas and solutions that we propose.
In this situation, Mr. Cole, you are proposing ideas and solutions that involve having other countries commit to sacrificing some of its young people to stave off these possible, horrible consequences.
This to me is a distraction from dealing with the current, horrible consequences, and its only viable solution: withdraw the troops now, stop the killing on our part, and allow the Iraqi people to decide the fate of their nation.
I would support bringing in the UN as a police force, but not as an army to fight the insurgency. No army can win against the insurgency, without a horrible, horrible bloodbath that would be endless in its scope.
Withdraw the foreign, occupying army, and you take away a good part of the incentive to fight in the insurgency. Replace the foreign, occupying army with another, and you simply replace the color of the helmits that serve as targets.
You are forgetting that the insurgency if fighting because they believe there’s is a just cause, just as the North Vietnamese believed. We could not match their commitment because in our hearts, we knew our’s was not a just cause.
This will prove to be true for any occupying army that you send to Iraq, from whatever country. These young men and women will also ask: why am I fighting? Is this a just cause?
I believe, Mr. Cole, that you have been caught up in the fear of consequences, the fear of the future, if we withdraw. Fears must be acknowledge and examined, but I don’t believe we ought to necessarily base our actions on fear.
I do believe that actions should be firmly rooted, as much as possible, into current reality. This was an illegal war to begin with, and an unjust war. Extending this war with another foreign, occupying army will not solve the unjustness of this war in the minds of the Iraqi people.
Interesting post. It’s basically the position I’ll be defending in about a week, if my doubts about my current one – that there is no alternative to a continued US presence, unsatisfactory though that is – reach critical mass.
Meanwhile, back on Sirius-2: War in Iraq Over – We Win
While I’ve no wish to drive up wingnut blog traffic, that is just absurd enough to merit a read.
I think that Cole makes some extremely good points that bear thinking about, but as he made clear, a lot of his thinking is directly influenced by his first-hand experience in Lebanon during that long and brutal civil war.
He thinks that many of the same actors and forces are at play in Iraq, and that if the same kind of scenarios that played out in Lebanon start playing out in Iraq, that the consequences for the region and the world will be far, far worse than the consequences of a continued foreign presence under UN auspices.
Whether or not this is the “Global South” fighting our wars for us or not (and I certainly think that case can be made), his point is that, unfortunately, the US is so badly tainted by our actions and deceptions and brutality that we cannot in any way shape or form maintain ANY visible or sub rosa presence there without further inflaming the situation, and that the consequences of total disengagement on the part of the international community would result in a Lebanon-style meltdown that would be much, much worse than anyone is really imagining.
Again, I am not sure if I agree with him, but that’s where I think he is coming from, and I think it bears consideration.
I think that what SHOULD happen is that our war leaders should be tried for war crimes and if convicted, hung by the neck until dead. That the US should pay unconditional and massive reparations, that our armed forces and engineering capabilities should be put under the orders of either the Iraqis or the UN and forced to rebuild that country at OUR cost…
That, I think would really go a long way toward solving the situation…
But that’s even more implausible, unfortunately, than the UN/Global South option.
I hope someone answers your question regarding whether guerrilla wars have been, or can, be won. I am not enough of a history buff to know the answer. I suspect the answer is no, unless the occupiers are willing to decimate the population and lock up large swaths of fighting age locals. And even that often doesn’t work.
I am also queasy about the idea of paying people from poor countries to die for something we don’t want to die for – but that is a different issue from whether it could work.
If you ask this question, one stock answer is usually the British led 12-year campaign against communists in Malaya which was a succesful military operation over a period of 12 years which started with very aggresive and extremely succesful military tactics but which was finally finished off with a highly successful hearts and minds campaign.
The 14 year British assisted campaign against a popular front in Oman was also a military success of a large force against a small guerilla group.
Of course most guerilla wars start for political reasons and are ended by a political settlement agreeable to both sides. For that to happen, there has to be a willingness for both parties to communicate. It could also be argued that the British case in Malaya was partly a political settlement too because a large sement of the Malayan people got what they wanted although the communists were kept sidelined and were militarily defeated.
Then of course sometimes the guerillas win. Of the three outcomes a victory by the anti-guerilla forces is the least likely.
Also kind of worryingly is that both of the named campaigns were led by the British and it is no secret that their officers in Iraq believe the “war” is lost.