In article , jwenting at hornet dot
demon dot nl (Jeroen Wenting) wrote:

Yup. Notably, its thesis implies that significant numbers of Iraqis
(and Afghans) believe that the western powers are planning to occupy
their countries indefinitely and will have to be forced out. Or why
else would they be doing suicide attacks?

Define "significant numbers"...

Enough to make it impractical to govern the countries conventionally,
develop the economy and generally reap the benefits of a free society.
They would seem to have such numbers.

It has been known for centuries that a small dedicated guerilla force
can do damage way out of proportion to its size, the current
situation in Iraq is no exception to that.

Yes. You also need to consider what fraction of the population is
backing them in ways that don't involve firing guns or building IEDs.
This ranges from keeping lookout and making 'phone calls when
interesting things come along the road to feeding them, providing safe
houses, etc, etc. And that's a much larger fraction of the population.
Then you want to consider what fraction of the population is positively
on the US side and willing and able to help. And that's quite small,
because when they speak up, or get spotted helping, someone shoots them,
and the US can't do much about it.

The problem in Iraq is that due to the political situation it is
deemed unacceptable to effectively wipe out the guerilleros by
employing overwhelming power in large scale operations.

Yes. Because when you do it, you create more of them, because of the
people who have been pushed too far in assorted ways, some of which
aren't significant at all to Americans or other westerners, but make an
Arab feel that he must take revenge or die trying. The US Army and
Marine Corps are finally getting to grips with this idea, as expounded
in the new field manual. But they've done an awful lot of damage in the
mean time.

One of the simplest examples: a squad comes into an Iraqi's house,
either by busting in or knocking and letting the door be answered. Once
inside, they push the head of the family to the floor in front of his
wife and/or children. To a westerner this is a minor, if real,
humiliation. Unfortunately, to an Arab, it is a killing insult. He does
not have the freedom to be an inferior position in his home in front of
his family: he has been unmanned by this. It's at least as embarrassing
as it would be for a US marine NCO to be found in the back room of a
leather bar, wearing a dress and make-up, by the Air Force Security
Police.

You may feel that's a crazy way for the Arabs to feel. It seems that way
to me. Unfortunately, it's also a fact that that's the way they do feel,
and if you want to change it, you will have to occupy their country,
imposing a different culture by main force, for about three generations.

Effectively the process of routing them out has been turned into a
civilian police style operation rather than a military style seize
and occupy operation.

Yes. The reasons that isn't going to work, in its current form, are
rather more subtle. The population do not recognise the cause of the
occupation as being just - "you got rid of Sadam, if that was all you
wanted, why are you still here?" All the things that tended to tear Iraq
apart, and were only restrained by Sadam's repression are still there,
with decades of pent-up pressure. And Syria's and Iran's prices for
helping - which might well not work anyway - are going to be too high
for the USA to pay.

The same happened in Vietnam and failed miserably there. Israel under
international pressure tried the same agains the PLO and failed
miserably as well. The Germans in WW2 tried the same against the
French resistance and failed miserably.

For all three of those, neither military-style occupation nor civilian-
style policing worked. The "blame the Iraqis" spin is already well
underway. That's probably what's going to be used to cover a withdrawal.

Bush talked today about increasing the size of the US Army & Marine
Corps. He isn't going to get enough volunteers to increase them to the
needed size - enough to sustain about half a million troops in-country -
and if he institutes conscription, the Republicans will lose the 2008
elections thoroughly. Since US domestic politics ultimately matter more
to the US government than overseas entanglements, a pull-out is the only
obvious answer. I'm not saying that some clever plan couldn't be hatched
to settle this all acceptably all round. But it's going to have to be
damn clever.

--
John Dallman, , HTML mail is treated as probable spam.