Iraq: Churchill’s
Nightmare Revisited
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
Last
month, political violence killed 3,700 civilians
in Iraq and this month’s toll may be higher.
Every month, more than one hundred thousand Iraqis
are fleeing their homeland. One hundred forty
thousand US troops, unable to quell the growing
violence, have been turned into bystanders, hunkering
down to protect themselves.
The similarity with Vietnam is apparent to any
but the most blinkered observer. In 1965, US President
Johnson had felt that a chain of disastrous events
would unfold if he did not put American troops
on the ground in Vietnam. Over the next ten years,
disastrous events would unfold despite a growing
US presence. The US would ultimately be forced
out in a humiliating exit. As the world watched,
the last US helicopter would lift off the American
Embassy’s roof just as a North Vietnamese
tank would knock down its front gate.
Early in the Iraq war, US Air Force Secretary
Jim Roche told Defense Secretary Rumsfeld that
the conflict could become another Vietnam. Rumsfeld
bristled, “Of course, it won’t be
Vietnam. We are going to go in, overthrow Saddam,
get out. That’s it.”
As casualties mounted, President Bush joined the
chorus of those who felt that Iraq was not another
Vietnam. To Bush, the main lesson of Vietnam was
that US presidents had failed to show a steely
resolve. He decided to cast himself as a new Winston
Churchill, the iconic hero of the Second World
War. But this would prove to be an unhappy parallel
for two reasons.
First, when US forces entered Berlin in 1945,
it signaled the end of hostilities. Many years
of generally peaceful occupation followed and
ultimately Japan and Germany were transformed
into pro-American democracies.
When US forces entered Baghdad, the real war had
just begun. The USSR faced the same situation
when its troops entered Kabul in 1979. There was
no lack of resolve in the Kremlin for staying
in Afghanistan. But ten years later, US-armed
mujahideen guerillas drove the Soviets out by
escalating the cost of occupation to unacceptable
levels.
Second, Bush forgot that Churchill, who had looked
like a giant at the end of the Great War in 1918,
when he was serving as secretary of state and
defense, turned out to have feet of clay just
three years later.
As the Ottoman Empire fell into disarray, Churchill
wanted to diminish French, Russian and German
influence in the Middle East and to obtain secure
access to the region’s oil. He also saw
a unique opportunity to reconcile Arab and Jewish
interests in Palestine by sending in British forces.
The chosen liberator was Lieutenant-General Sir
Stanley Maude whose legions were drawn largely
from the British Indian Army. The Ottoman provinces
of Baghdad and Basra were the first to be “liberated,”
Palestine was next, followed by Syria and Lebanon.
But something went wrong in a hurry. The Arabs
began rioting in Palestine and rebelling in Iraq.
An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen
against the British occupation swept through Iraq
in the summer of 1920. Revolts also broke out
in Palestine.
Air Commodore Arthur Harris declared, “The
only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand,
and sooner or later it will have to be applied.”
The Royal Air Force was brought into action, and
thwarted the rebellion by killing nearly 9,000
Iraqis. But there was great concern in Westminster,
since the operation had cost more than the entire
British-funded Arab uprising against the Ottoman
Empire in 1917-18.
Churchill suggested the use of chemical weapons
against “recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment.”
Specifically, he suggested the use of poisoned
gas against uncivilized tribes “to spread
a lively terror.”
Nothing worked against the restless Arabs. Soon,
an exasperated Churchill would confess to His
Majesty’s government that it was spending
millions for the privilege of sitting atop a volcano.
Commenting on the nightmare, the Empire’s
“Last Lion” would write: “At
first, the steps were wide and shallow, covered
with a carpet, but in the end the very stones
crumbled under the feet.”
Let us fast forward to the drama unfolding in
Washington today about its Iraq policy. While
books continue to churn out about the fiasco,
US Senator John McCain of Arizona, a presidential
aspirant in the 2008 elections, is calling for
more US troops to be sent to Iraq. He believes
that there can be no political solution without
a military victory.
One would have thought that McCain, who fought
in Vietnam and spent many years imprisoned in
the “Hanoi Hilton,” would have better
digested the lessons of that conflict. On the
contrary, McCain’s beliefs bear an eerie
resemblance to Johnson’s convictions.
In his recent Congressional testimony, General
Abizaid rejected calls to either boost US troop
levels to quell the violence or to start a phased
withdrawal from Iraq. He said the level of violence
there was “unacceptably high” and
that the US military should focus on training
Iraqi units. Abizaid’s remarks eliminate
any doubt that new thinking has begun to gel together
in the Pentagon.
In an interview with the British Broadcasting
Corporation, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger
stated that “a clear military victory in
Iraq was not possible.” Kissinger called
for redefining the American course in Iraq. This
was a sharp comment coming from a man who, according
to Bob Woodward, regularly advises President Bush
on Iraq and whose deputy, Paul Bremer, was the
second US proconsul in Iraq.
During his journey through Southeast Asia, Bush
remained non-committal on Iraq. The Churchillian
resolve was gone. Perhaps someone had handed him
a copy of Elizabeth Munroe’s “Britain’s
Moment in the Middle East.” In that book,
Lord Curzon is reported to have asserted in February
1919 that the British had done more “in
two years for [Mesopotamia] than had been done
in the five preceding centuries.”
Just a year later, Gertrude Bell would pen the
ultimate mea culpa to imperial occupation, “It
is true that we are largely suffering from circumstances
over which we couldn’t have had any control.
The wild drive of discontented nationalism …
and discontented Islam might have proved too much
for us however far-seeing we had been; but that
doesn’t excuse us for having been blind.”
Reviewing the British “victory” in
the Middle East, Munroe concluded, “All
talk of liberating small nations from oppression
was so much cant.” The British, having learned
their second lesson in Iraq, have declared their
intention to pull out by spring. The Americans,
still absorbing their first lesson, should take
a cue from their former imperial masters. It is
time to dispense with false pride.
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