December 7, 2003
WIN, THEN WOO:
Hearts and Minds? First, Just Win (Wayne Downing, December 7, 2003, Washington Post)
The recent U.S. crackdown in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq is more than a change in tactics. It appears that the American commanders have devised a daring and risky campaign based on a new reality: that winning the hearts and minds of the Sunni Arab population is less important than winning a decisive victory over a growing insurgency that threatens the larger U.S. strategy in Iraq.The American intent has been clear from the start. The military must establish a degree of security that will allow the coalition to achieve the three key goals of establishing a stable, representative government, restoring basic services to a deprived population and building a free-market economy from a failed socialist state. The problem is that an anti-coalition insurgency has gotten out of hand and has created serious security problems, especially in the triangle region around Baghdad.
Conventional wisdom asserts that winning the hearts and minds of the people is absolutely essential to success in an insurgency. Certainly U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine based on our experience in Vietnam and even as far back as the Philippine insurrection at the turn of the last century validates this dictum. U.S. forces clearly pursued this objective when they started their counterinsurgency campaign this past summer -- but with mixed success.
Until early October, U.S. and coalition forces attempted to treat the entire civilian population (Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis, Turkomen, Assyrians) with kid gloves throughout the country. As the violence escalated -- helicopters shot down, fixed sites bombed, patrols and convoys ambushed, police and political leaders targeted -- it became clear that U.S. forces would have to be more aggressive in the insurgent strongholds in the Sunni Arab region. Reviewing progress in pacifying the Sunni Triangle, I believe that American military leaders finally concluded that their restrained tactics were not dampening the insurgency and were never going to win the hearts and minds of the Sunnis as long as the people were dominated by former regime loyalists and the insurgents. So why try? It was time to take off the gloves.
Has it not seemed likely from the beginning that the fewer Sunni hearts left beating, the easier it would be to change the rest of their minds? Posted by Orrin Judd at December 7, 2003 6:03 PM
I predict that the media will shortly switch from the quagmire-meme to the oppression-meme.
The NYT is already drawing an analogy with Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.
An Iraqi man named Tariq muttered in anger. "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians," he said. "We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."The practice of destroying buildings where Iraqi insurgents are suspected of planning or mounting attacks has been used for decades by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli Army has also imprisoned the relatives of suspected terrorists, in the hopes of pressing the suspects to surrender.
[The article continues with additional analogies.]
Posted by: Gideon at December 7, 2003 8:11 PM
There was a Vietnam era T-shirt that said, in words of substance: "If you have a firm grip on their cojones, their hearts and minds will follow."
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 8, 2003 12:25 AMIt seems our military has never learned, or has forgotten, the advice of Machiavelli when conquering a country -- ruthlessly eliminate the previous ruling elites and their minions before easing your grip on a country. This provides immediate security and you are then seen as magnanimous in the long term.
Unfortunately, we are now doing it exactly backwards, which makes us appear to be inept and brutal tyrants.
Posted by: jd watson at December 8, 2003 12:41 AMDon't put this on the military. It was the politicos pandering to the leftist bleeding hearts that set the tone and now that they've been marginalised we are getting down to business.
The Sharron approach will generate enmity only among the dedicated Ba'athists. The rest will be experiencing the feelings of the revenge they could never act out.