The Iraq war - what a mess! The Washington Post recently had a worthy article by David Ignatius urging a bi-partisan approach on the part of Dubya and Nancy Pelosi to take US policy forward. They should aim for a policy based on a lesser US role that both parties can sign up to, and that will outlast the current US administration.
Why do people in the West still have so many dreams and illusions about Iraq? Some basic home truths seem to have been missed, namely:
1. There is no democracy in Iraq. Democracy is not the same thing as holding elections. There is a certain element of mass psychology to democracy - a critical mass of people need to know it and want it and be prepared to accept the result of an election even if it is not what they voted for. If this state of mind is not there, to hold elections is to do no more than go through the motions, as is the case now in Iraq. If the coalition forces left now, Iraqi democracy wouldn't last a week, to be replaced by warring factions who would take no notice at all of the result of the last Iraqi election. The eventual winning faction would then institute an iron rule not dissimilar to Saddam Hussein's.
2. There is no solution that will combine a stable government friendly to the West with Iraqi independence and territorial integrity. The Kurds have wanted to be independent every since Iraq came into being at the end of the First World War. The last thing they want is to have to take orders from Baghdad. The Sunnnis and Shia hate each other from centuries of the Sunni minority lording it over the Shia majority. The two communities are not easy to separate geographically, so once the US leaves, they will fight it out in a very ugly way until one comes out on top. Interestingly, Al-Qaeda would probably back the Sunnis and Iran the Shias. Dubya may not have noticed, but Iran and Al-Qaeda don't much like each other.
3. There is nothing the US can do about Al-Qaeda or the Shia militias in Iraq. It's like trying to fight cancer by genetically engineering every cancer cell. The only way to stop that kind of guerilla war by force is to flood the country with millions of troops (a G.I. on very street corner) or to throw human rights out of the window and imprison or massacre large numbers of people. History is full of examples of guerrilla victories, or of insurgencies suppressed, but only with the most brutal methods. Dubya should think back to America's own history. How many troops would the British have needed to suppress the American Revolution? A very large number, because millions of Americans wanted them out. As soon as the British redcoat's back was turned, the American minuteman got out his musket and formed a militia. Every time the British took repressive measures, it made propaganda and recruits for the revolutionaries. It's all vividly depicted in the Mel Gibson's film The Patriot. Dubya should think of Fallujah in terms of Bunker Hill.
There is no good solution possible in Iraq, and there never was. It would have been far better never to have invaded. 20-20 hindsight? No. Dubya just didn't think it through properly. He knew Iraq was ethnically divided. He knew from Vietnam and various US interventions in Latin America that democracy can rarely be imposed by force. He just ignored those examples and thought it would be like Germany in 1945. He did not seem to realize that the example of Germany was very different. It was invaded by about 18 million Allied troops. He invaded Iraq with 300,000. Nearly all Germany's men of military age were dead or in prison camps. Iraq's were mostly alive and free and armed. The Germans feared that if they resisted beyond the formal surrender the Allies would do to them what the Germans had done to the Jews - massacre them. The Iraqis do not fear this from the Americans.
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