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How
Iraq might defeat the mighty U.S.A.
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
May 31, 2004
George Bush may be averse to
reading up on the Vietnam war, which he managed to duck,
but how about recalling the famous "rumble in the jungle"
in the Congo, the heavy weight fight between the
unbeatable George Foreman, none of whose opponents had
lasted more than three minutes in the ring, and the up
and coming, always boasting, Muhammad Ali? The fight was
at 4.a.m so that the air was cooler and the American TV
audience could watch it in prime time. In round two, the
weaker Ali appeared to cower against the ropes and
Foreman pounded him again and again, whilst Ali whispered
taunts in his ear, "George, you're not hittin'" and
"George, you disappoint me". Foreman lost his temper and
his punches began to flow wild, while Ali let the spring
in the ropes help him absorb those he landed. By the
fifth round Foreman was exhausted and in round eight Ali
simply knocked Foreman to the ground and he stayed
there.
History is replete with examples,
long before Vietnam, when the weakest win. In his book
"Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars" Andrew Mack argues that
a country's relative resolve explains success in what the
war jargon now calls asymmetric conflicts. And Stanley
Karnow in his landmark study of the Vietnam war observes,
"As a practical strategy the bombing backfired. American
planners had predicted that it would drive the enemy to
capitulation, yet not only did the North Vietnamese
accept the sacrifices, but the raids rekindled the
nationalistic zeal, so that many who may have disliked
Communist rule joined the resistance to alien
attack."
It goes without saying that
victories of the weakest are a minority outcome. One
doesn't have to go back to Thucydides to be convinced of
that- the bombing of Afghanistan, Belgrade and the first
Gulf war are evidence enough. Yet it happens enough to be
worrying. Ivan Arreguin-Toft writing two year's ago in
Harvard University's "International Security" has
examined all the wars of the 200 year period 1800 to 1998
and found two related puzzles. Weak actors were
victorious in 30% of all wars and that in the more recent
era it has happened more often. Could it be that strong
but now comfortable countries have a lower interest in
winning because their survival is not at stake? Delays
and reverses on the battlefield all work in the modern
media-dominated world to discourage war-weary publics
from pursuing a war, if victory seems very far
away.
Guerrilla warfare as perfected by
Mao Tse-tung has been one, well copied, way of reversing
the tables. "In guerrilla warfare", the victor in the
Chinese civil war wrote, "select the tactic of seeming to
come from the east and attacking from the west; avoid the
solid, attack the hollow; attack; withdraw; deliver a
lightening blow, seek a lightening decision…" It was
probably Mao's contribution to military thought,
influencing wars in Cuba, Algeria, Malaya and the
Mujahideen against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan that
has changed the balance of the statistics in favour of
the weaker one winning over the last half
century.
Long ago the U.S. should have tried
to put itself in Saddam's shoes. Saddam was at an immense
disadvantage. Thanks to Gulf War 1 his air force was
gone, half his navy was destroyed, and half his tanks. He
had no nuclear weapons and only rudimentary chemical
ones.
Clearly his objective from the
beginning was to draw the U.S. into urban guerrilla
warfare. Saddam's strategy was to be as much
psychological as military- to convince neighbouring
Muslim populations that an injustice was being done. His
plan was to do his utmost to make the fighting as bloody
as possible and push the U.S., as the French were pushed
in Algeria, to overreact and use methods that bring it
into disrepute, knowing that world opinion would hold the
U.S. to a higher standard than Iraq.
I wrote this column six months
before the war began. (The only change I have made is to
put the last two paragraphs in the past tense.) No
newspaper in Europe or the U.S. published it; only papers
in the Arab world, Africa and Asia. I feel depressed to
see much of it vindicated not least because it is hard
today to see a workable solution. Every option has
serious flaws. Even the UN at this late hour cannot
produce miracles. The only thing I'm sure of is that now
it's everyone's problem and through the UN we have to
pull together to find a way to save Iraq from civil war
and anarchy and from Al Qaeda building up its strength.
The White House and Downing Street have a duty to show
the way by committing themselves unreservedly to UN
leadership.
Copyright © 2004 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
Water on Stone - The Story of Amnesty
International"
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