Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War

http://www.forward.com/articles/6936

By Martin van Creveld
November 25, 2005

The number of American casualties in Iraq is now well more than 2,000, and there
is no end in sight. Some two-thirds of Americans, according to the polls,
believe the war to have been a mistake. And congressional elections are just
around the corner.

What had to come, has come. The question is no longer if American forces will be
withdrawn, but how soon ? and at what cost. In this respect, as in so many
others, the obvious parallel to Iraq is Vietnam.

Confronted by a demoralized army on the battlefield and by growing opposition at
home, in 1969 the Nixon administration started withdrawing most of its troops in
order to facilitate what it called the "Vietnamization" of the country. The rest
of America's forces were pulled out after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
negotiated a "peace settlement" with Hanoi. As the troops withdrew, they left
most of their equipment to the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam ? which
just two years later, after the fall of Saigon, lost all of it to the
communists.

Clearly this is not a pleasant model to follow, but no other alternative appears
in sight.

Whereas North Vietnam at least had a government with which it was possible to
arrange a cease-fire, in Iraq the opponent consists of shadowy groups of
terrorists with no central organization or command authority. And whereas in the
early 1970s equipment was still relatively plentiful, today's armed forces are
the products of a technology-driven revolution in military affairs. Whether that
revolution has contributed to anything besides America's national debt is open
to debate. What is beyond question, though, is that the new weapons are so few
and so expensive that even the world's largest and richest power can afford only
to field a relative handful of them.

Therefore, simply abandoning equipment or handing it over to the Iraqis, as was
done in Vietnam, is simply not an option. And even if it were, the new Iraqi
army is by all accounts much weaker, less skilled, less cohesive and less loyal
to its government than even the South Vietnamese army was. For all intents and
purposes, Washington might just as well hand over its weapons directly to Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi.

Clearly, then, the thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a
classic withdrawal.

Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will
have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to
the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole
misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israel out of
Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single
night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will
happen in Iraq.

Not only are American forces perhaps 30 times larger, but so is the country they
have to traverse. A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a
sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly
will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long
time to emerge ? if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and
will take place whether George W. Bush, *** Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and
Condoleezza Rice like it or not.

Having been thoroughly devastated by two wars with the United States and a
decade of economic sanctions, decades will pass before Iraq can endanger its
neighbors again. Yet a complete American withdrawal is not an option; the
region, with its vast oil reserves, is simply too important for that. A
continued military presence, made up of air, sea and a moderate number of ground
forces, will be needed.

First and foremost, such a presence will be needed to counter Iran, which for
two decades now has seen the United States as "the Great Satan." Tehran is
certain to emerge as the biggest winner from the war ? a winner that in the not
too distant future is likely to add nuclear warheads to the missiles it already
has. In the past, Tehran has often threatened the Gulf States. Now that Iraq is
gone, it is hard to see how anybody except the United States can keep the Gulf
States, and their oil, out of the mullahs' clutches.

A continued American military presence will be needed also, because a divided,
chaotic, government-less Iraq is very likely to become a hornets' nest. From it,
a hundred mini-Zarqawis will spread all over the Middle East, conducting acts of
sabotage and seeking to overthrow governments in Allah's name.

The Gulf States apart, the most vulnerable country is Jordan, as evidenced by
the recent attacks in Amman. However, Turkey, Egypt and, to a lesser extent,
Israel are also likely to feel the impact. Some of these countries, Jordan in
particular, are going to require American assistance.

Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention
withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military
as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a
team different from ? and more competent than ? the one presently in charge of
the White House and Pentagon.

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since
Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush
deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial
along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of
time to mull over their sins.

Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University, is
author of "Transformation of War" (Free Press, 1991). He is the only
non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers.

http://www.forward.com/articles/6936



Alan

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