This has been around for a while, but I think that it's an interesting and thoughtful conservative critique of the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq. Although Lind's stuff has been showing up on websites like Counterpunch since the war started, he defines himself as a "paleoconservative."
For the entire article:
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_07_16/article1.html
For the entire article:
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_07_16/article1.html
Quote:
| How to Win in Iraq by William S. Lind ...I offer my plan for winning in Iraq. The starting point, despite the disastrous course of the war to date, is to realize that the only possibilities for victory lie at the strategic level, not the tactical level. In part this is because we have botched the tactical level beyond redemption... In larger part, we cannot win at the tactical level because this kind of war is not additive. You cannot win at the strategic level simply by accumulating tactical successes. The strategic level follows its own logic, and strategic victory requires a sound strategy. When, as is currently the case, we have no strategy, this fact works against us. If, however, we adopt a prudent strategy, it can work for us. Because a higher level of war trumps a lower, we can yet redeem our many tactical failures at the strategic level. In other words, we can still win. To devise a successful strategy, we must begin by defining what we mean by winning. The Bush administration, consistent with its record of military incompetence, continues to pursue the folly of maximalist objectives. It still defines victory as it did at the war’s outset: an Iraq that is an American satellite, friendly to Israel, happy to provide the U.S. with a limitless supply of oil and vast military bases from which American forces can dominate the region. None of these objectives are now attainable. None were ever attainable, no matter what our troops did. And as long as those objectives define victory, we are doomed to defeat. Fortunately, another objective, the one that actually matters most, may, with luck and skill, still be achieved. That objective—restoring a state in what is now the stateless region of Mesopotamia—must become our new definition of victory. The serious threat to America, in the Middle East and elsewhere, is not any state. Rather, it is posed by a growing congeries of non-state organizations, which we label “terrorists.” Non-state forces win when states are destroyed and are replaced by stateless regions. Even the long-term objective of al-Qaeda is not a state but a restored caliphate, a type of social organization that precedes the state by centuries. In the meantime, stateless chaos will serve very well. Our initial invasion of Iraq and subsequent blunders, such as sending home the Iraqi army and civil service, destroyed the Iraqi state. It has not been rebuilt. We created the illusion of an Iraqi government in Baghdad’s Green Zone, but it is a government without a state. As long as Iraq remains stateless, our non-state enemies win. If a real state can be restored in Iraq, al-Qaeda and the other Islamic non-state forces lose. That is true regardless of the nature of a restored Iraqi state. States dislike competition, and the definition of a state says that it must have a monopoly of violence within its borders. Winning the war in Iraq therefore means seeing the re-creation of an Iraqi state. I say “seeing,” not “re-creating,” because our strategy, if it is to have a chance of success, must proceed from a realistic understanding of the situation in Iraq. We do not now have the power to re-create a state in Iraq, if we ever did. That is due in part to military failure, but it has more to do with a problem of legitimacy. As a foreign, Christian invader and occupier, we cannot create any legitimate institutions in Iraq. Quite the contrary: we have the reverse Midas touch. Any institution we create, or merely approve of and support, loses its legitimacy. A combination of good strategy and some luck may yet enable us to pull our chestnuts out of the fire, but we are in no position to dictate events. We must try, instead, to shape and ride them. An indirect approach to winning the war in Iraq on the strategic level has three central elements. The first is the lesson of Nixon’s trip to China. That brilliant diplomatic move of establishing a rapprochement with China in effect won the Vietnam War for the United States. The threat that drew us into a major war was Mao’s doctrine of exporting wars of national liberation. The new relationship Nixon established with China ended that threat, rendering our defeat on the ground in Vietnam irrelevant. In the case of the war in Iraq, Iran is China, and the first component of a strategy to win in Iraq is to establish a rapprochement with Iran. The Iranians have offered us such a settlement—including a compromise on the nuclear issue—on generous terms. But the Bush administration, true to its hubris, refused to consider it. It seems, however, to remain on the table. The reason a strategy to win in Iraq must begin with a rapprochement with Iran is that any real Iraqi state is likely to be allied to Iran. Even the quisling al-Maliki government cowering in the Green Zone is close to Iran. A legitimate Iraqi government, which is virtually certain to be dominated by Iraq’s Shi’ites, will probably be much closer. A restored Iraqi state that is allied with Iran will quickly roll up al-Qaeda and other non-state forces in Iraq, which is the victory we most require. But the world’s perception will still be that the United States was defeated because its main regional rival, Iran, will emerge much strengthened. If Iran and America are no longer enemies, that issue becomes moot. Once it becomes possible for both the U.S. and Iran to win in Iraq, we must move to the second element of our new strategy: allowing any elements that may hold the potential of restoring an Iraqi state to rise within Iraq. Consistent with an indirect approach, this means letting go. At present, the United States works to suppress any elements that challenge the al-Maliki government. We teeter on the verge of open war with the most prominent of those elements, Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. On the ground, al-Sadr is the leader most likely to restore an Iraqi state, and thanks to his steadfast opposition to the American occupation, he has legitimacy. While he may not have the support of a majority of Iraq’s Shi’ites, majorities do not make history. He is the leader of the Shi’ites who count, which is to say the young men willing to fight. Nor is al-Sadr merely a Shi’ite leader; he has kept open channels of communication to at least some of the Sunni insurgent groups—and perhaps channels not of communication only. Some of the Sunni insurgents clearly have benefited from Iranian support, which may have come through al-Sadr. Of late, al-Sadr has taken care to restrain his followers from revenge attacks against Sunnis, stressing Shi’ite-Sunni unity against the foreign occupier. He has had his eye on the brass ring, the supreme leadership position in a restored Iraqi state, from the beginning. Now he may see it as within reach. Our new strategy would let him grab it. Under his leadership, or that of anyone else in Iraq with a shred of legitimacy, a restored Iraqi state will not be a friend of America...But our new strategy has no such unattainable objective. Its objective is solely the restoration of a real state, and that al-Sadr may be able to accomplish. If he can, we will have little to complain about in terms of his toleration of al-Qaeda. Nor will his close relationship with Iran be a problem, given that we will no longer regard Iran as an enemy. There is, of course, no guarantee that al-Sadr or anyone else in Iraq can restore a state. The only sure thing is that we cannot do so. The one chance of victory we have left is to get out of the way of al-Sadr and anyone else who might be able to re-create an Iraqi state, praying fervently that they succeed. Having failed in our own efforts, it is time to give the Iraqis our place at the gaming table. The third and final element of a strategy for winning in Iraq is to withdraw all American forces as rapidly as possible...within 12-18 months. That is the only way we can create the space necessary for al-Sadr or someone else to re-create an Iraqi state. If we remain and work against him, we undermine both him and our strategic goal. And if we work for him, he loses legitimacy, the sine qua non for re-creating a state in Iraq. In this strategy, our withdrawal is not that of a defeated army. It is a strategic withdrawal—a necessary part of our strategy. That distinction is a critical for our prestige in the world, for the future health of America’s Armed Forces, and for our domestic politics, which could be roiled beyond what any conservative would desire by a vast military defeat. If our new strategy works and our withdrawal is followed by the restoration of a real Iraqi state, we will have learned our lesson about wars of choice, but avoided a catastrophe. If it fails and Mesopotamia remains a stateless region, Iraq is no worse off than it is now, and our troops will be safely out of the mess. There is no chance the Bush administration, locked in a Totentanz with its dreams of world empire, will adopt this strategy. But the presidential debate season has already begun, and a bevy of candidates in both parties are looking around for something, anything that might get us out of the Iraqi morass without accepting defeat. If just one of them picks up on it, those yawningly dull debates might get a lot more interesting. ____________________________________________ William S. Lind is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation in Washington, D.C. |
