Iraq Nears
Its Second Tipping Point
By Dr Ahmad Faruqui
Danville, CA
About midway during the American
invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a spokesman for
the Bush administration said that Iraq had reached
a tipping point since large numbers of Saddam’s
forces had begun to desert the battlefield. Two-and-a-half
years later, Iraq is nearing a second tipping
point, this one dealing with the American presence
in Iraq. The war in Iraq, which had supposedly
ended when President Bush declared, “Mission
accomplished,” on the deck of an aircraft
carrier in May 2003, now resembles the Vietnam
War.
There are some who believe that the US had kicked
the Vietnam syndrome after the Gulf War in 1991.
But, as British historian Niall Ferguson notes
in “Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American
Empire,” the American electorate has become
more sensitive to war casualties since then. Between
April and October 2003, an incremental 350 American
war deaths brought about a 29 percent drop in
the popularity of the war in America. In Vietnam,
it took more than 30,000 war deaths and around
three years to cause a similar drop in public
opinion.
Support for the Iraq war among the American people
has continued to fall. A primary factor behind
the decline in public support for the war is the
rising number of American casualties, which now
include 2,100 killed and some 16,000 wounded.
About two-thirds of Americans are opposed to President
Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, 60 percent
felt it was a mistake to go to war in the first
place, 52 percent would like the troops to be
brought home in the next 12 months and, more tellingly,
50 percent think the US won’t win the war.
Of the last mentioned group, not all assert that
the US cannot militarily win the war but all agree
that the US no longer has the will to win it.
His handling of the Iraq war has handed President
Bush the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency,
which stand at 37 percent. This is in the same
league as President Nixon’s 38 percent rating
during the Watergate crisis.
In his military classic, On War, Clausewitz laid
out three primary factors that account for military
success: the will of the leader, the strength
of the army and the support of the people. A failure
of any of these can lead to defeat. In his book
“On Strategy,” Harry Summers cited
falling public support for the Vietnam War as
the main reason for the American defeat. When
Summers journeyed to Vietnam after the war, he
encountered a North Vietnamese colonel in Hanoi.
Summers told him that the North Vietnamese had
never defeated the US on the battlefield, to which
the Vietnamese responded, “That may be true,
but it is irrelevant.”
Summer cited another major reason for the American
defeat in Vietnam: it was fought without a clearly
defined objective. Interviews revealed that 70
percent of the senior American officers in the
field did not know the war’s objective.
One can presume that the senior American officers
in Iraq are no wiser. The objective has changed
countless times since the war began. First if
was to find and defuse the threat to regional
and American security posed by Saddam’s
WMDs. Once it was concluded that none would be
found, it changed to implementing regime change,
since Saddam was a cruel dictator. Subsequently,
the war planners in Washington wanted the forces
to stay on until they had instituted democracy
through elections and the creation of a national
constitution. Once all of that was accomplished,
the objective was changed to defeating the insurgency.
This is no easy objective to define, let alone
fight for, since it is not clear who are the insurgents
and what are they fighting for. It is even difficult
to determine how many have been killed and how
many more are out there. It is harder to know
where they are coming from. Initially, they were
considered to be a handful of Baath party members.
Then they became thousands of diehard fedayeen,
supplemented by hundreds of foreign fighters.
At some point, they became hundreds of thousands
of Saddam loyalists who lived in provinces that
had benefited under his rule. Now they are the
millions of Iraqi Sunnis.
Not surprisingly, American public opinion is becoming
wary of the war and rapidly losing faith in its
prosecution by the Bush administration whose credibility
is declining by the day. Its slow response to
Hurricane Katrina created the first chink in the
armor. This was followed by the withdrawal of
a Supreme Court nominee. These two events shattered
the myth of Bush’s invincibility. Then came
the indictment of “Scooter” Libby,
chief of staff to Dick Cheney. Troubling reports
about continuing abuse of prisoners and the use
of white toxic phosphorous against Iraqis have
added to the toll.
In an unprecedented 81-19 vote, the US Senate
passed a bipartisan resolution calling on the
President to spell out an exit strategy from Iraq.
Within a few days, a hawkish congressman and former
Marine, John Murtha, declared that no military
purpose was being served by keeping the troops
in Iraq and they should be brought home. Murtha,
who comes from Pennsylvania’s deer hunter
country, denounced the war as a “flawed
policy wrapped in an illusion.”
Up to now, Murtha had been a strong supporter
of the conflict. But after his last trip to Iraq,
he became convinced not only that the war was
un-winnable, but that the continued American military
presence was making matters far worse. Murtha
declared, “We’re the target, we’re
part of the problem,” thereby making himself
the bete noir of the Bush administration. Of course,
Murtha’s comments echo what US military
commanders in Iraq have said repeatedly. Gen.
George Casey, commander of the US forces, told
Congress: “The perception of occupation
in Iraq is a major force behind the insurgency.”
Support for the war among American allies is falling
rapidly. For example, the Italian prime minister
has revealed that he had opposed the war but was
forced into it by President Bush. Iraqi leaders
meeting in Cairo have called for a timetable for
the withdrawal of all foreign forces, mirroring
a perception among more than 45 percent of Iraqis
that attacks against such forces are justified.
While no two wars are alike, there is much that
is common between Iraq and Vietnam. So why then
does the Vietnam analogy spur so much controversy?
Because, as George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-four,
“Who controls the past controls the future.
Who controls the present controls the past.”
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