Victory at Any Price So Long As It’s Discounted
Ralph Peters on our “victory” in Fallujah:
QUIET isn’t the same thing as peace. As a column of Marines paraded through Fallujah this week, it was done at the sufferance of our enemies. We lost the battle of Fallujah. By surrendering.
The Coalition Provisional Authority insists that quiet streets are what matter. But the streets were quiet under Saddam. As they may one day be quiet under religious fanatics. Is that our sole remaining goal in Iraq? A phony calm that leaves terrorists in power?
We bragged publicly that we would avenge the mutilation of those four contractors at the hands of Fallujah’s thugs. We told the world we would not stop until the city was cleansed of insurgents. And, of course, we swore we would never negotiate with terrorists.
What did we actually do? We negotiated with terrorists, re-empowered Saddam’s thugs in uniform and ran away as quickly as we could go. The Marines insist they could have won, had they been allowed to fight. That’s unquestionably true, but, as North Vietnam’s senior general once pointed out about a different war, it’s also irrelevant.
If Bush is playing politics with the Iraq reconstruction, to look better in the general election, then the war is as good as lost.
Peters is one of my favorites, but he may be jumping the gun here. I’m still not convinced that it is over in Fallujah. Also, let’s keep this in context with what is going on in Karbala and Najaf. I’m sure once our new Iraqi Counter-terrorism group cleans house, they can turn around and shake things up in Fallujah as well.
The lessons of insurgent warfare make it clear that no victory can last without the “home” team getting up and fighting for their country. It isn’t important just to win, but also how we will do so.
I’m with doug on this one. It’s just too darned early to figure Falluja out, with (1) too many variables in play and (2) too little information coming out. It is, of course, the special province of pundits to extrapolate the entire future course of human history from a single data point, but this predilection tends to tell us more about the pundit than the prediction.
In other words, Mr. Peters (who I respect as both an analyst and a writer) seems more or less correct in his “if/then” postulate; i.e., if we say we’re going to do something and fail to do it, then we’re going to have hell to pay later. But he’s extrapolated a bit too much for my taste when he assumes that the “if” has in fact occurred.
As doug notes, this is a tricky situation, with lots of moving parts. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Falluja in the news, nor am I aware of a single definitive Administration or Pentagon explanation of what’s actually taking place there.
Among the Bush Administration’s many interesting tendencies is its reluctance to share information regarding policies in real time. I think this on balance works to their benefit, but it creates an information/explanation vacuum that pundits on every side of every issue feel compelled to fill with their own analysis. However intelligent and perceptive that analysis may be, it’s virtually always based upon incomplete information. Iraq presents this problem in spades.
“Playing politics with Iraq reconstruction” seems unrelated to the settlement in Fallujah, but the political dimension of this solution is evident. And most rabbit trails of consideration continue to lead to a win for the U.S. so long as we respond appropriately to future events.
I’d have preferred to do the modern equivalent of flattening Fallujah and sowing salt in the ruins, making it a tour stop for all future insurgent wanna be’s. That response was well within our grasp. I have repeatedly asked why we inflicted over 100-1 casualties on the insurgents (winnowing their reported numbers down and devastating their all-too-religious belief that they can defeat Marines in combat) and then stopped, allowing a negotiated settlement to take place.
Whether the political dimension was domestic, Iraqi, or “multilateral” we’ve shown that we are not only able to defeat insurgents tactically and in detail, but we are also committed to less violent means of re-establishing he peace. Negotiated settlements DO look good for us domestically, to the Iraqi populace, and to the Rest Of the World.
The situation has to be monitored and our terms enforced though. If heavy weapons are again NOT surrendered to us, we must respond accordingly, else we will have essentially surrendered to the insurgents. In addition, if the insurgents resurrect their conflict against the CPA/U.S., we will be even more justified in extreme measures to re-suppress them, but we will have shown that we “gave them the chance.” In parallel terms, we avoided mosques at all costs at the outset, but with continued used of them by combatants, we’re becoming incrementally more aggressive against them.
We can’t pin this one into the win/lose/draw categories yet. But if we don’t continue to require turnover of heavy weapons and those who ambushed the contractors, it’ll easily fall into the loss column. If we follow through and get those, or go back in should the situation heat up once more, we’ll take the win, and probably with a greater ratio of bad guys lives/prestige taken out this time.
Stephen, what do you think of Wretchard’s posts on the subject (here)? Marines in Falluja don’t seem so glum. Can Peters might have his “at the sufferance” backwards?
I, like many others, have followed with great interest and as much hope as I could muster Wretchard’s posts about Fallujah, and I am getting more optimistic every day. I like and respect Peters, but I heard him on Laura ingraham’s show yesterday and he sounded a bit shrill and defeatist. I am inclined to remain in the wait and see category. I would not be surprised to hear of the Marines engaging terrorist elements and foreign fighters in the outskirts of Fallujah in the next few weeks.
I read the CSM story. Very interesting.
Sounds like Peters wants heads to roll.
After all, we’ve been waiting 25 years to roll Iran’s black turbans.
Patience is a virtue.
If they live well with choice, it could be the best revenge.
All right, what really happened in Fallujah? In Najaf?
In Fallujah, American forces isolated the place and showed what they could do. In the background, they trained and equipped a multiethnic — that’s important — Iraqi force, which is now taking care of the problem with moral and physical support from the Marines.
In Najaf, American forces isolated the place and held back. The local Iraqis got disgusted and started with old habits — forming ad hoc militias — then sequed into helping combined American and Iraqi forces deal with it. It isn’t over, but you can stick a fork in Sadr.
In both cases, the bulk of the important part of the work was done, and is being done, by Iraqis. That’s what we want if we want a functioning country, with a working society, a viable polity, and a genuine economy in Iraq; we cannot do it for them. If what it takes is for Iraqis to get exasperated at American diffidence and delays and take matters into their own hands, that’s what it takes. A little embarrassment is a cheap price to pay for ultimate success.
We don’t want, and I don’t believe George Bush wants, an Imperial satrapy in the Middle East. We want a country we can deal with as a State, whether they like us much or not, and which demonstrates to other Middle Easterners that such a thing is not only possible but desirable. Since the Industrial Revolution imperialism has cost rather than made a profit; we in the United States got the first clue to that in the aftermath of the Civil War. Machiavelli has been obsolete since 1865, at least. Our experience with colonies acquired in the late 1800s and early 1900s confirms that. We’ve already got Puerto Rico; why would we want another one, ten times as big and a hundred times as far away?
But, again, the Iraqis have to do it themselves — if we win, if we do it for them, we’ve only devised another dependency. Bush’s tactics seem to be backhandedly forcing them into taking charge. If embarrassment means success, bring on the ridicule.
Regards,
Ric
Peters has been going nuts with unfounded mind-reading lately. Check his latest polemic against Rumsfeld, where he professes, among other things, that Rumsfeld hates every Officer and every Officer hates Rumsfeld, simply because Peters says so.
Of course, the man gets and always has gotten turned on by the slightest hint of a way to bash Rumsfeld, how he runs things, how he prefers a war to be run, etc. Rumsfeld, y’see, has this mind-control thing where he forces the commanders in Iraq to do things the worst way possible.