| |
Strategic trade-offs in
Iraq
By Matthew Riemer
In
response to numerous guerrilla strikes in early November
- the deadliest month for United States forces since the
onset of the war in Iraq - the US leadership initiated a
new hardline policy regarding security in the occupied
country. Originally dubbed Operation Iron Hammer, the
new approach to the emboldened insurgents is decidedly
proactive, with US forces attacking and destroying what
were believed to be guerrilla camps and bases, as well
as supply centers. Since then, areas generally
considered to be civilian have also been subject to a
more aggressive security philosophy.
Perhaps
coincidentally or not, the new approach has coincided
with the capture of Saddam Hussein on the weekend,
although subsequent to that two suicide bomb attacks on
police stations in Baghdad have killed eight people and
wounded more than 20 others.
Nevertheless, the
overall result so far for Washington from the proactive
policy has been a decidedly positive one: attacks on US
forces have decreased significantly, which is often
pointed out by the Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA). At a press briefing in Baghdad recently,
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said: "Over the past
seven days there's been an average of 18 engagements per
day against coalition military, two attacks per day
against Iraqi security forces, and one per day against
Iraqi civilians. These numbers are significantly lower
than recent norms, although we anticipate, and are fully
prepared for, any upturn in attacks in the days and
weeks ahead." In the weeks before Operation Iron Hammer
began, attacks on US troops hovered at around 40 per
day.
Conversely, however, attacks on other
coalition countries have increased. During the weekend
of November 29-30, 14 foreign nationals were killed in
Iraq, including seven Spanish intelligence officers
ambushed and killed south of Baghdad, two Japanese
diplomats gunned down near Tikrit, two Koreans also
killed near Tikrit, and a murdered Colombian contractor.
Additionally, increasingly aggressive security
measures levied on Iraqi towns and civilians may be
alienating an unacceptable number of citizens. Most
recently, US forces have begun surrounding entire
villages that appear to be harboring guerrillas, or from
which mortar fire has come, with barbed wire fences.
Villagers must come and go according to a strict curfew
and acquire numbered identity cards to leave and
re-enter the village. And in some cases, multiple family
members of guerrillas have been arrested as leverage
over the Iraqi resistance. On December 7, the New York
Times ran a story of one such village, Abu Hishma.
In that article, a soldier with the Fourth
Infantry Division, Captain Todd Brown, is quoted as
saying: "You have to understand the Arab mind. The only
thing they understand is force - force, pride and saving
face." Not surprisingly, the villagers aren't pleased
with this new state of affairs. One man told the New
York Times: "I see no difference between us and the
Palestinians. We didn't expect anything like this after
Saddam fell."
Situations like this, which are,
unfortunately, the inevitable result of the US's new
hardline policies, speak to the strategic balance that
must be struck between protecting US forces attempting
to secure the region and the levels of alienation and
oppression felt by the Iraqi citizenry. The US
leadership understands that tactics like these will
naturally result in fewer attacks against their patrols,
but they must carefully examine how bitter the
population is becoming as a result of this inverse
relationship of factors.
One of the most
potentially dangerous developments for the US is the
comparison between the occupation of Iraq and that of
Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, like the
one made above. This issue - the occupation of
Palestinian lands - is one of the most emotional issues
for Iraqis and one the US should be careful of stepping
on if Washington expects the full cooperation with and
acceptance of the American mission in Iraq.
This
analogy is now slowly beginning to gain greater
acceptance; in fact, the US military has explicitly
stated that the Israeli tactics of urban warfare as
practiced in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been
studied and evaluated for application in the new
guerrilla conflict now evolving in Iraq. One of the most
contentious techniques used by the Israeli Defense
Forces is the practice of bulldozing the homes of
families of known militants, a practice the US has
already started to employ in select problem areas of the
Sunni triangle where a concentration of insurgents is
apparent.
The increased security for US troops,
then, comes at a price: increased attacks on other
coalition members and Iraqi police and citizens, and
obvious parallels to the Israeli occupation of
Palestinian territory. Washington will have to evaluate
its new tough security policy, as the more other
coalition countries are hurt, the less likelihood there
is of further countries becoming actively involved on
the ground in Iraq. The real issue for the White House
would seem to be that of short-term security versus the
long-term and far-reaching sentiment of the Iraqi
populace, which is probably the most important factor
that will shape the future of the country.
The
desire on the part of the US leadership to bring some
kind of closure to the conflict in Iraq either before
the 2004 US presidential election or within the next 18
months is highly impractical and likely to create more
long-term challenges if a sovereign and democratic Iraq
is still the intent of policymakers.
Published with permission of the Power and
Interest News Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into various
conflicts, regions and points of interest around the
globe. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
