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The Next Act
By William S. Lind
>Wars, most wars at least, run not evenly but in fits and starts, settling down into sputtering Sitzkrieg for long intervals, then suddenly shooting out wildly in wholly unpredicted directions. The war in Iraq has fallen into a set pattern for long enough that we should be expecting something new. I can identify three factors –there may be more –which could lead to some dramatic changes, soon.
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I suppose this would be the stagnation critical lefties refer to. Is the war in Iraq in a “sitzkrieg” mode? I’d have described the situation a bit more fluidly. The Coalition basically has settled in occupation, but there are various different strategic thrusts involving gradually more retrained and retrofitted Iraqi regulars against specific areas of apparent insurgent control. The Sunni triangle has been fractured somewhat, there are coordinated major operations at irregular intervals in different major cities as problems arise and efforts are undertaken in Najaf, Fallujah, Basrah, Tikrit... In Bagdad there have been changes, more Iraqi regulars, fewer checkpoints, more coordination in specific neighborhood operations, better response time and fewer mistaken strikes.
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Osama bin Laden’s latest message. Most observers, including the White House, seem to have missed its significance. In it, bin Laden offered us a truce (an offer we should have accepted, if only to attempt to seize the moral high ground). The Koran requires Moslems to offer such a truce before they attack. The fact that bin Laden himself made the offer, after a long silence, suggests al Qaeda attaches high importance to it.
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I was unaware of the Koranic requirement of a truce offer prior to renewing assault. Can anyone confirm whether in the past caliphs have always offered a truce befote attacking? I think OBL idealizes his role as caliph and would expect he’d conform his conduct to theirs in the past.
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Why? My guess is because they plan a major new attack in the U.S. soon. I would be surprised if the plan were for something smaller than 9/11, because that could send the message that al Qaeda’s capabilities had diminished. Could this be "the big one," the suitcase nuke that most counter-terrorism experts expect somewhere, sometime? That would certainly justify, perhaps require, a truce offer from Osama himself. Of course, al Qaeda’s plan may fail, and it may be for an action less powerful than setting off a nuke on American soil. But the fact that Osama made a truce offer should have set off alarm bells in Washington. So far, from what I can see, it hasn’t.
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A tactical nuke of this sort has about a 20 mile burst radius, that certainly would be escalation and likely entail a similarly enhanced response, what would be the impact of a 20 megaton nuke somewhere in the Kashmir? Aside from the adverse environmental effects, would this deprive OBL and his mininos of a viable hideout?
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In Iraq, Shiite country is turning nasty. The Brits are finding themselves up against Shiite militias around Basra. Muqtada al Sadr has made it clear he is spoiling for another go at the Americans, saying his militia would respond to any attack on Iran. In Baghdad, the Shiites who run things are finding American interference increasingly inconvenient. We are now talking to at least some Sunni insurgents, as we should be, but that means our utility to the Shiites as unpaid Hessians is diminishing. Put it all together and it suggests the improbable Yankee-Shiite honeymoon may soon end. When it does, our lines of supply and communication through southern Iraq to Kuwait will be up for grabs.
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The US and Coalitioneers are more than unpaid Hessians to the Iraqi Shia. Without the foreigners, Shia would still be under Sunni repression, they owe their newfound authority and capacities to the intervention and know this makes their tenure precarious. The solution is to integrate the other groups into something tolerably functional which can run things while working with the US and Coalitioneers who control financial disbursements.
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We are moving towards war with Iran. Our diplomatic efforts on the question of Iranian nuclear research and reprocessing are obviously designed to fail, in order to clear the boards for military action. It will probably come in the form of Israeli air strikes on Iran, which, as the Iranians well know, cannot be carried out without American approval and support.
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The Iranians today promised to use “all necessary means” should anyone take any military action to interfere with their nuclear programme. They announced today they'd send everything they can make airborne to attack Israel the moment its first combat jet crosses their airspace.
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In Israel, it was Sharon who repeatedly refused the Israeli generals’ requests for air strikes; he is now out of the picture. His replacement, Olmert, is weak. The victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections gave Olmert’s main opponent, Likud’s Netanyahu, a big boost. How could Olmert best show the Israeli electorate he is as tough as Netanyahu? Obviously, by hitting Iran before Israel’s elections in late March.
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So an Israeli attack would be mere electioneering?
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In Washington, the same brilliant crowd who said invading Iraq would be a cakewalk is still in power. While a few prominent neo-cons have left the limelight, others remain highly influential behind the scenes. For them, the question is not whether to attack Iran (and Syria), but when. Their answer will be the same as Israel’s. Washington will assume Iran will respond with some air and missile strikes of its own. Those may occur, but Iran has far more effective ways of replying. It can shut down its own oil exports and, with mining and naval action, those of Kuwait and the Gulf States as well. It can ramp up the guerilla wars both in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
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These are different responses. Iran’s proponed oil export reductions found no support from OPEC which will maintain current maximum production outputs. Taking Iran’s oil off the market really doesn’t harm the US as much as it does China and the EU, but both are not as dependent on Iran’s oil as the US would be on Mexico’s or even Venezuela’s. But no Iranian oil would diminish the volume on market at this would necessarily result in some fraccional rise in costs. The actual proportion of the price rise due to Iranian shutoffs is probable its share in global oil production. I don’t think Iran could effectively shut down the Gulf with mines, not for long, it would harm them too and mines are easy to detect and remove. More support to guerrillas in Afganistán or Iraq wouldn’t be very effective either and there is the likelyhood increased involvement would involve more frequent and numerous Iranian captures and intercepts.
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It could also do something that would come as a total surprise to Washington and cross the Iran-Iraq border with four to six divisions, simply rolling up the American army of occupation in Iraq. Syria might well join in, knowing that it is only a question of time before it is attacked anyway. We have no field army in Iraq at this point; our troops are dispersed fighting insurgents. A couple dozen Scuds on the Green Zone would decapitate our leadership (possibly to our benefit). Yes, our air power would be a problem, but only until the Iranians got in close. Bad weather could provide enough cover for that. So could the Iranian and Syrian air forces, so long as they were willing to expend themselves. Our Air Force can be counted on to fight the air battle first.
As I said, when a war has been stuck in a rut for a long time, thoughtful observers should expect some dramatic change or changes. Any one of these possibilities would deliver that; together, they could give us a whole different situation, one in which our current slow defeat would accelerate sharply.
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I don’t think “thoughtful” the best epithet for observers concerned over stagnation in military conflict who predict dramatic change. War isn’t a movie or TV show that has to hold an audience’s ratings or interest, they sometimes do stagnate and this could be due to circumstances on either side. Wars of attrition are typically portracted siege-like efforts with limited strategic deployments adequate for situations which don’t require an all out effort.
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William Lind [send him mail] is Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation. The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Lind, writing in his personal capacity.
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(same goes for mine)
Feb 2, 2006, 01:28 am
