Iraq and Afghanistan

Yesterday’s paper brought a lengthy Op-Ed by two Dartmouth political scientists on the insurgency in Iraq. It reluctantly came to the conclusion that we were almost sure to fail unless we divided up the country or turned it over to another strongman, neither of which alternatives they approved. They argued their case with reference to seven major insurgency wars: France in Indochina, the United States in Indochina, the British in Malaya, the French in Algeria, Israel in the Occupied Territories, and Russia in Afghanistan and in Chechnya. Only the British won. But their opponents in Malaya were a minority within a minority — and yet it took twelve years.

However, on examination one can find ways in which all the other insurgencies were also quite different than what we face in Iraq. For one thing, as readers of this blog have heard too often, the guerrilla war in Vietnam against the Americans was won not by guerrillas but by divisions of North Vietnamese troops led into Saigon by tanks. In this case and Afghanistan, the guerrillas were heavily supported with money and arms by an outside power (USSR in Vietnam and US in Afghanistan). The insurgency in Iraq receives some outside support, but not anything like the support of a major power such as the United States in Afghanistan. Next, and most important, the goals of the guerrillas in these examples were well spelled out and known by all participants. Generally, they wanted a country of their own. Now to the extent that our opponents in Iraq fight on the basis of “kick out the foreigner”, this would seem to be a similar situation. However, for most Iraqis (the Shi’a and Kurds) the situation is by no means so simple. They see an opportunity to have a country of their own only if the foreigner succeeds in putting down the Sunni Arab minority. Movements such as that of Muqtada al-Sadr seriously confuse this issue, but the anti-Sunni Arab cause still seriously conflicts with the insurgency’s nationalist cause outside of the Sunni Arab heartland.

With all the caveats, it is still the case that putting down an insurgency such as that in the Sunni Triangle remains a very difficult task. It would be less difficult if we really intended to stay indefinitely. Regardless of some extremists in the White House, the American and British people (and even less other Coalition partners) do not intend to stay. We do not have twelve years. Without linguistic skills, often remaining in the country only a few months, the Americans soldiers are hardly the skilled colonialists that the British and French were. Insurgencies of this kind are more easily contained through police work than through the use of Marines, tanks, and artillery. We also have trouble depending on our local “native forces”. As the authors of the Op-Ed point out, the use of local security forces has often failed in these situations. They are generally poorly trained and poorly motivated. This sounds like most of the units on our side in Iraq. Unfortunately, with unemployment at record levels, most members of these forces simply sign up for a job. And when we do have some motivated local forces, such as the Kurds, they may be considered almost as much outsiders by the locals they confront as we are.

The one bright spot continues to be the inability of the insurgency to actually come up with a reason for fighting. Recent evidence suggests that the number that are outsiders fired by Islamic Jihadism is actually quite small. Most are nationalists, and most of the money is coming from money hidden in Syria by the Baathists as things fell apart. Many of the insurgent soldiers are also mercenaries, paid in some cases by the number of Americans killed. The old Baathist vision for Iraq is unlikely to enlist many outside its closed ranks. Their rallying cry is essentially negative and anti-foreign. This can be potent enough in some cases, but for most Iraqis it is likely not. The interim government and the Americans have at least an image of the future society they want. The Baathist nationalists do not. We can hope this will eventually be their undoing.