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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
York Post.
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 Our
Iraq Mistakes
Forgetting strategy...
[Ralph
Peters] 12/1/05
We aren't
losing in Iraq — thanks to the quality and commitment
of our troops. But we haven't made the progress we could have
achieved had we accepted that a life-or-death struggle in the
Middle East can't be handled like a zoning dispute upstate.
A tragic
flaw in American strategy is that we always seek to be honest
brokers, embracing the "rights" of our enemies at
the expense of our allies. In Iraq, that meant pandering to
the Sunni Arabs, slighting the Kurds and handing Shia demagogues
a propaganda tool to use on those who had suffered under Saddam.
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Ralph
Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books,
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We refuse to face the fact that today's deepest and deadliest
global divide isn't between the Islamic world and the West, but
between the various factions within Islam. Sunni Arab rejectionists
and Shia extremists both may want to see the last of our forces,
but they're saving their sharpest blades for use on each other.
To have any hope of reaching a positive outcome in the Middle
East, you must chose a side and stick to it. Wishy-washy attempts
at mediation alienate everyone.
As a result of our
every-child-deserves-a-prize approach to Iraq's redesign, the
Sunni Arabs continue to view us as their
oppressors, the Shia see us as protectors of the Sunnis — and
our Kurdish allies are scrambling to make deals with Iraq's neighbors
(including Iran and Syria, as well as Turkey) to ensure their
survival should the country explode when our troops depart.
Our reluctance to
kill Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia gangster, turned him into a
hero and a true power broker (he's not afraid to take
sides). The fecklessness of our policies left the Kurds determined
to become the Middle East's new Sparta — their peshmerga
militias remain the most potent force in Iraq after our own.
And the Sunni Arabs, who needed to be broken down before they
could be built up again (think the psychology of basic training),
have been allowed to create an image of heroic resistance.
None of this means
that deposing Saddam was a mistake. Our error was the lack
of a sensible plan for what came after his fall.
Nor does it mean that we should pull out — that would hand
a decisive victory to Islamist terrorists and throw not only
Iraq but the Middle East into turmoil.
Despite ourselves, we're making progress, because the majority
of Iraqis want a return to peace and a chance to build a state
that respects their rights. But the administration's lack of
an informed vision for rebuilding Iraq has left the odds for
an enduring and humane Iraqi state lower than they might have
been; the country's only hope is a federalism so loose that the
Kurdish north and Shia south would be independent in everything
but name.
By favoring one side,
then the other (now-you-shoot-'em, now-you-don't), we've only
deepened Iraqi factionalism. This matters, since the
region's longest-running and most uncompromising struggle isn't
against Western imperialism or even "Crusaders," but
between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Witness the enthusiasm Zarqawi's
terrorists show for killing Shia Iraqis — one taste shared
by Baathist insurgents. The Shia have been kept in imperfect
check only by the admonitions of one aging cleric.
What does this mean
for us? If you want a positive outcome in Iraq, put aside our
domestic differences, because we're going
to need to keep a residual troop presence — at least a
well-armed fig leaf — in Iraq for years to come.
As the Baghdad government gains more control over its own territory,
we'll be able to draw down our numbers. But we'll also have to
accept that the state's forces won't fight terrorists and insurgents
by our babes-in-the-woods rules.
The Bush administration
sought to export American values to the Middle East. The correct
approach in ridding the world of
Saddam would have been to exploit the values pre-existing in
the region's culture. Democracy, yes, but not necessarily one
that Jefferson or Hamilton would've praised. And don't expect
the mullahs to take "under God" out of their pledge
of allegiance.
We did the right thing
by removing Saddam, but our post-war clumsiness turned Iraq
into a steaming pie — with Iran,
Syria and Turkey each craving a piece. Iraq's politicians (with
survival skills honed far beyond any in Washington) are cutting
deals, at home and abroad, that remain opaque to us.
Attempts to make nice
with bitter enemies may yield brief interludes of quiet that
mimic progress — but those respites are never
worth the alienation of our allies. The truth is that the administration's
have-a-nice-day policy hasn't been neoconservative, but neoliberal — seeking
compromise with terrorists and insurgents.
We grew obsessed with tactics, and forgot strategy. We misused
our military by failing to use it effectively. And we have nearly
squandered the great opportunity created by Saddam's fall through
our insistence that the insuperable hatreds in the Middle East
can be resolved through a spirit of compromise suited to a town
council in Nebraska.
Instead of issuing more crybaby calls for withdrawing our troops,
couldn't anyone in the Democratic Party offer a serious plan
to do things better in Iraq? -one-
Ralph Peters'
latest book is New
Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2004 - NY Post
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