LESS OF US; MORE OF THEM

Iraq is not another Vietnam, but the coalition needs more men (John Keegan, 21/08/2003, Daily Telegraph)

The bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad on Tuesday raises two principal questions. The first, couched in media language, asks: "Is Iraq becoming another Vietnam?" The second, a policy-maker's question and the more important, asks: "Are there enough coalition troops to pacify the country and, if not, how many more are needed?"

The answer to the first question is comparatively easy to give. No, Iraq is not becoming another Vietnam, nor is it likely to turn into one. The situations are quite different, much as alarmists would like to draw similarities. Many factors differentiate the nature of the disorders, including terrain, politics and the strategic location of the trouble spot. [...]

[T]he opposition, so far as it can be identified, does not resemble the VC in organisation, leadership or experience. [...]

[T]he Ba'ath party, so far as it survived, is a minority, not a mass organisation. In recent times, it has been associated with defeat, not victory, and its leadership has either been destroyed or is in hiding. [...]

The Kurdish north is undisturbed. The Shia south is largely untroubled, despite sporadic attacks on the British. It is in the Sunni centre, around Baghdad, that the murders and bombings are taking place. They are directed against the Americans, but it remains unclear by whom.

Some of the insurgents are die-hard supporters of Saddam, some are local Islamists, and some are foreign fundamentalists connected more or less closely with al-Qa'eda.

One hesitates to quarrel about strategic military assertions from the great John Keegan, but it seems he's asking the wrong question on that second one, particularly in light of his answer to the first. Given who it is we're fighting, the question should really be one that Vietnam does teach: who is more competent to identify the enemy, us or the Iraqis, particularly the Shi'ites, themselves?

The answer seems obvious. It is extraordinarily unlikely that American troops can sort out an Iraqi Shi'ite from an Iraqi Sunni from a Saudi al Qaeda from a Syrian Ba'athist, but quite probable that the Iraqis can. Will adding more and new American troops improve our ability to differentiate one Arab from another? Not bloody likely is it?

What is required is a sustained period of ruthless rooting out of past oppressors and new trouble makers and the folks with the greatest interest in that process and the best background to do it are the Iraqis who will be running the place when we leave. Turn 'em loose and get out of their way. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 20, 2003 8:21 PM