There’s No Winning Strategy for a Lost War

[babylonsister]

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/there%E2%80%99s-no-winning-strategy-for-a-lost-war/

There’s No Winning Strategy for a Lost War

by Pham Binh / June 6th, 2007

snip//

The bottom line is that the U.S. cannot win in Iraq. The British Ministry of Defence did a poll in 2005 that showed 65 percent of Iraqis (that’s 18.2 million people) think attacks on U.S. and British forces are justified.

The basic problem for the U.S. is that there are no social forces in Iraq that want Iraq to be an American satellite. Al-Sadr and the Sunni resistance, which combined probably have more popular support than all of the collaborators in the Green Zone government put together, want the U.S. out ASAP. Among the forces in the Green Zone government, the Kurdish parties want autonomy and their share of oil revenue; the Sunni parties want an end to the occupation, a share of the oil money, and some control over the state apparatus; the SIIC has only collaborates with the U.S. to stay in power. None of them are particularly interested in a permanent U.S. occupation. Furthermore, the Iraqi police and army units that the U.S. created, armed, and trained are merely Shia militias with uniforms and legal authority whose members are routinely caught planting the deadly roadside bombs that have killed so many of our hapless soldiers.

Even the ever-in-denial-because-we’re-making-progress-and-victory-is-around-the-corner-if-only-the-Democrats-stopped-coddling-terrorists Bush administration is beginning to realize that there’s no winning strategy for a lost war, with the exception of Dick Cheney who is still babbling about victory. Bush, whose approval rating now matches his I.Q., has said that after the surge he would implement the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), whose report was published shortly after the Republicans got their long-overdue thumpin’ at the polls last year. Although Bush probably did not bother to read it (the words “Study Group” probably killed what little interest he had), its recommendations were: talk nice to Syria and Iran, step up the training of Iraqi military and police units (apparently the Iraqis blowing up our soldiers need should be doing a much better job), withdraw combat troops, and let the remaining troops hunker down in the four permanent mega-bases under construction.

If Bush does all of the above, it would be the smartest thing he has done in a long, long time. The surge is going to end at some point in 2008 because it is not working and because it is militarily unsustainable.

Bringing the troops home from Iraq is what Americans overwhelmingly voted for in the last mid-term election. Implementing the ISG’s recommendations would allow Bush to take credit for something that he was initially hostile to. More importantly, doing so would deprive the Democrats of the ability to criticize his Iraq policy because he would be implementing theirs. (Leading Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have endorsed the ISG’s recommendations to pull combat troops out of Iraq while maintaining a permanent garrison there. Not one of them spoke out against the administration’s comparison of U.S. presence in Iraq to South Korea, where tens of thousands of U.S. troops have been stationed for over fifty years.)

Bringing some troops home in 2008 would help the G.O.P. a lot with the Iraq problem that cost them so dearly at the polls in 2006. Bush could claim that he was obeying the will of the voters while the Dems would not be able to slam him for stubbornly staying the course. If this redeployment occurs, it would mean the American ruling class has given up on the original aims of the war: complete and total domination over Iraq, the creation of a thoroughly pro-U.S. regime, and a permanent military presence. Instead, they would opt for the ISG’s Plan B: a permanent military presence tacitly tolerated by a semi-independent Iraqi government.

While this would be a step forward for the Iraqis and the U.S. antiwar movement, it would by no means be the end of the war or the end of the fight to get our troops out of Iraq.

[Xipe Totec]

1. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory

When we destroyed the Bath party and Saddam Husein, we lost the possibility of victory.

Because there is no one left to accept defeat.

Without a vanquished enemy to acknowledge defeat,

there can never be victory.