A hollow victory in Falluja
Daryl G. Press and Benjamin Valentino The New York Times
Thursday, November 18, 2004
HANOVER, New Hampshire The textbook urban assault on Falluja reflected well on the dedication, training and equipment of the American military. Unfortunately, it has not brought the United States appreciably closer to achieving its political objectives in Iraq. In fact, history suggests that America has slim hopes of defeating the insurgency, and that its best chance for "success" depends on redefining what it would consider a victory.
American troops killed as many as 1,000 insurgents in Falluja and seized stocks of weapons and ammunition. But neither guns nor dedicated fighters are scarce in Iraq. What is most troubling is that the guerrillas enjoy support from a sizable fraction of the population in the Sunni heartland.
While major operations like the attack on Falluja create the appearance of progress, over the last 60 years major powers have learned repeatedly that there is virtually no connection between seizing territory and defeating an insurgency. Insurgents do not seek victory on the battlefield.
The first rule of insurgency is to avoid large-scale battles with the government; guerrillas attack on their own timetable against civilians and isolated military units. Shrewd insurgents concede territory, melt away when enemy units approach in force, and then snipe, kidnap and bomb from the shadows. It was no surprise that the insurgents started isolated actions in Mosul, Samarra and other cities as soon as the attack on Falluja began.
If seizing cities was the key to success in a counterinsurgency, one might have expected a French victory after the battle of Algiers in 1957, an American victory after the defeat of North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces in Hue in 1968, and a Russian victory over the Chechens after the retaking of Grozny in 1995. Instead, the French and Americans lost, and the war in Chechnya drags on.
As T.E. Lawrence famously described it, fighting rebels is "like eating soup with a knife." Guerrillas do not depend on vulnerable lines of supply and communication, so counterinsurgents must target them directly, and even a few thousand armed guerrillas can create chaos in a country of tens of millions. Guerrillas camouflage themselves among the population; frequently the only way to distinguish an insurgent from a civilian is when he (or she) opens fire.
This is why the history of counterinsurgency warfare is a tale of failure. Since World War II, powerful armies have fought seven major counterinsurgency wars: France in Indochina from 1945 to 1954, the British in Malaya from 1948 to 1960, the French in Algeria in the 1950s, the United States in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Israel in the occupied territories and Russia in Chechnya. Of these seven, four were outright failures, two grind on with little hope of success, and only one - the British effort in Malaya - was a clear success.
As long as the insurgency in Iraq rages, it is unlikely that America will achieve the political goals it set for itself - a unified, democratic Iraq as the first building block in the broader democratization of the Middle East. In fact, America must now worry about the emergence of an Iraqi government dominated by anti-Western jihadist groups, or a perpetual civil war among the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish communities that would kill millions and create fertile ground for terrorist groups like Al Qaeda to recruit, train and plan.
Given these horrific possibilities, perhaps the United States should set its goals more realistically, and focus on the achievable. Some have suggested that America let Iraq divide itself into independent Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish countries. This might avert a prolonged, violent struggle for control of the central government after the United States withdraws. Still, history - most recently that of Yugoslavia - suggests that partition is a risky, bloody business. Millions of people would be forced from their homes, and many would not leave without a fight. Furthermore, the mini-countries carved out of Iraq may be swallowed by their larger neighbors; the Shiite area would be very attractive to Iran.
A second distasteful alternative is to support the consolidation of power in the hands of a new secular strongman. This may bring peace of a sort, but it would be a bitter result for the Iraqi people after their brief taste of freedom. Saddam Hussein was able to keep his politically, ethnically and religiously divided state together only through nearly constant repression; it seems unlikely that any successor could rule with a velvet glove.
These are depressing prospects. The fact that America must consider them underscores the caution that should be employed before deciding to go to war. Still, given where things stand today, if the United States can find a way to withdraw most of its troops over the next several years and leave behind an Iraq that is not in a civil war, that is not a haven for Al Qaeda and is not an immediate threat to its neighbors, history may well record it as an odds-defying success.
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