送交者: HunHunSheng 于 2005-12-22, 20:06:37:
The Free Congress Commentary
By William S. Lind
On War #145
Two False Options
By William S. Lind
[The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Lind, writing in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the opinions or policy positions of the Free Congress Foundation, its officers, board or employees, or those of Kettle Creek Corporation.]
In his address to the American people last Sunday evening, President George W. Bush said, “Yet now there are only two options before our country: victory or defeat.” As usual, Mr. Bush is wrong.
Victory is not an option, and it never was. The strategic objectives the Bush administration set for this war – a peaceful, democratic Iraq that would be an American ally, a friend of Israel, a source of unlimited oil and of basing rights for large American forces – were never attainable, no matter what we did. Strategies invented in Fairyland cannot be implemented in the real world. Pity the military that is ordered to try.
Defeat is an option. In my last column I described one way that could occur, an Israeli and/or American attack on Iran that leads Iraqi Shiites to join the Sunni jihad and cut our lines of supply and retreat through southern Iraq. There are additional scenarios that could lead to a dramatic American defeat, a defeat we could not disguise to anyone, not even ourselves. Presumably, this is not an option we wish to select.
The most promising options, of which the President of the United States seems to be unaware, are those which end the war and bring American troops home without an outright American defeat. This is how most limited wars end, with some sort of compromise peace, official or unofficial.
I have discussed two such options in previous columns. One is a request from the Iraqi government that we leave, which would give us a golden bridge out. Another is to cut a deal with nationalist and Baathist elements of the Sunni insurgency, a deal where we would stop fighting them and provide them some political support while they clean up al Qaeda.
Two recent stories in the Washington Times suggest the second option may now be within reach. On Sunday, December 18, the paper reported that precisely these Sunni resistance groups had enforced an election truce, allowing Sunnis to vote. More,
The truce resulted from weeks of negotiations between U.S. officials and insurgents that have been recently labeled by President Bush as “rejectionists.” . .
The willingness of U.S. officials to talk directly with many, if not most, insurgents marked a huge change from American thinking at the outset of the war.
Hurray for those “U.S. officials!” Here at last is some genuine good news from Iraq.
The Washington Times story on Monday, December 19, was even more promising:
Influential political and religious figures within the leadership of Iraq's minority Sunnis are displaying sharp divisions on how to end what they all agree is an unacceptable U.S. occupation of Iraq. . .
The increasingly prevalent view is that the United States is not only part of the problem, but that it can become part of the solution. That perspective was explained by an influential religious sheik (Abed al-Latif Hemaiym), who has in the past been close to dictator Saddam Hussein. . .
"The time has come to solve the problem between us and the Americans, and through the minimum cost," said the soft-spoken sheik. . .
"There is a historical opportunity to get out of this bloodshed and reach peace. We can reach peace [only] through dialogue," he said.
He pointed out that Sunnis had suffered severely in the two years of conflict since armed insurgency began, noting, "We are the main losers, then the Americans, while the main winners are the Iranians."
That summary of the war’s results is right on the money.
The question is whether Washington will grasp this opportunity before it fades away. It means halting our war against the Baathists and nationalists, in what would be an acceptance of local defeat. But it opens the door to a potential strategic victory against our real enemies, Islamic non-state forces such as al Qaeda. If, subsequent to an American deal with the Baathists, they root al Qaeda out of Iraq, it will be a greater win for us than if we defeated al Qaeda ourselves, because it will have been beaten by fellow Arabs and Moslems. That strikes directly at al Qaeda’s legitimacy.
If the Bush administration means what Mr. Bush said, that the only choices are victory or defeat, then it will let this heaven-sent opportunity pass. We will continue to pursue unattainable victory until we are totally defeated. Let us hope the President’s speech was just the usual eyewash for domestic consumption, and somewhere adults are working for the negotiated settlement we so desperately need and which now may be within reach.
Note: To end the year with what I hope may be a bit of Christmas good cheer, I am happy to report that a number of captains at the Marine Corps’ Amphibious Warfare School at Quantico have organized seminars to help improve the draft of FMFM 1-A, Fourth Generation War (available on the www.d-n-i.net website) and also to draft both training and tactics manuals for 4GW. We hope to have the latter drafts available by the end of the academic year.
On War #144
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
By William S. Lind
[The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Lind, writing in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the opinions or policy positions of the Free Congress Foundation, its officers, board or employees, or those of Kettle Creek Corporation.]
The main question about the war in Iraq was never whether it would go well or go badly. The question was whether it would go bad fast or go bad slowly. So far, it has gone bad slowly, which was always the greater probability. But the possibility remains that it could go bad fast. The greatest likelihood may be during that most delicate of military arts, the withdrawal.
At least behind closed doors, a consensus is emerging in Washington that America will leave Iraq in 2006. Whether the White House will accept that consensus or resist it is yet to be seen, but the result will be the same either way. At this point, the Bush administration has about as much credibility on Capitol Hill as Napoleon had in Paris after Waterloo. On the House side particularly, where every seat is up next November, the watchword is sauve qui peut. As Dr. Johnson said, being about to be hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.
A Rumsfeld OSD that assumed the war would be easy may also assume a withdrawal will be easy. History offers a note of caution. In war, getting in is often simpler and safer than getting out. Martin van Creveld recently warned that America’s withdrawal from Iraq could prove messy, for Americans as well as Iraqis. Xenophon’s Anabasis might serve as a useful if not entirely encouraging preview. The 10,000 did make it back to Greece, most of them anyway, but few enjoyed the journey.
What scenarios should our planners and policy-makers consider? As the best case, logic suggests that Iraq’s December elections might be seen by Iraq’s “key man,” Shiite Ayatollah Sistani, as the turning point. A new, Shiite-dominated government will probably be elected to a four-year term. What better move for him than to issue a fatwa saying that it’s time for the Americans to leave? His Shiites are getting restive at the American presence, he has to compete for his leadership role with firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr, and as the man who kicked the foreign occupiers out, he could reach across Iraq’s central divide to offer a deal to the Sunnis, perhaps restoring a real Iraqi state. In the face of a Sistani fatwa, Iraq’s government would almost certainly have to ask the American troops to leave.
Our response should be, “Hallelujah!” This would give us the golden bridge we need, a way out where we could claim with at least some credibility that we were not beaten. It would also probably mean a relatively safe and orderly exit. The Bush administration has said we would leave if the Iraqis asked us to, and the new U.N. resolution under which our presence in Iraq is authorized requires us to do so. If the White House resisted, it would get trampled into the dirt on Capitol Hill by elephants and donkeys alike.
As the worst case, we should envision what might happen if Israel or the U.S. or both attack Iran. Israel has recently indicated that unless international efforts to secure Iran’s nuclear program succeed, an Israeli military action is likely sometime next year. Iran has said publicly that it will regard an Israeli attack as an attack by America also. If Iran’s influence in Shiite southern Iraq is as great as reports suggest it is, the obvious Iranian response would be to blow up the magazine by attacking the American lines of supply – and withdrawal – that come up from Kuwait. Add a Shiite insurgency to that of the Sunnis, and an American withdrawal could start to look like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, with sand substituting for snow.
There are of course a wide range of possibilities between these two extremes. An American withdrawal might lead to a truce with nationalist elements of the Iraqi resistance; they would have succeeded in their objective and would have no need to continue fighting us. Jihadi elements, however, might redouble their efforts, both to humiliate the Americans and to prevent the emergence of a real Iraqi state. In Shiite country, a lot of young men might think it’s now or never if they want a piece of the glory of having fought the world’s greatest superpower. Muqtada al-Sadr might turn his Mahdi Army loose on us again, as part of his bid for power in a post-American Iraq.
As I wrote in an earlier column, the question of how we withdraw from Iraq should be at the top of the Grossgeneralstab’s planning tasks. If the same kinds of optimistic assumptions that guided our invasion of Iraq also shape our plans for withdrawal, we could find ourselves in what one old Pentagon planner used to call “a fine kettle of fish.”