Published on February 20, 2004 By EMacy In Politics
''America will lose the war in Iraq''

By Frank Deliu, J.D.

02/17/04: (YellowTimes.org) – Now that is a bold claim to make, considering America's overwhelming military victory that took about less than a month.

However, one must remember that wars are ultimately a tool of politics, a way to get your opponent to agree with your point of view (albeit a nasty one that should be used as a last resort).

Bearing that in mind, wars that have been militarily "won" have ultimately been considered "losses" due to their failure to achieve their political objectives.

An example of this anomaly is Vietnam. If you look back at the casualty figures for the U.S. war there you will see that for every American that died at least 20 times that many North Vietnamese died. In theory, had the war gone on another x number of years America would have won by attrition.

However, that is exactly why the war was a failure, and ultimately a defeat. Its political objectives of pacification, reunification and the like never caught on, so to speak.

Thus, the resistance continued, and continued, and continued until finally the will of the Viet Cong was stronger than the will of the American public. Then came the withdrawal.

The same will happen in Iraq and the war will have been a defeat for the Americans. A review of the four major pre-war objectives will evince this.

One goal of the war was to prevent a despotic dictator/regime from maintaining its WMDs. Based on present evidence this was an impossible goal, because the dictator/regime in question did not in fact have WMDs. Moreover, the credibility of America has been shattered as this becomes plain to the rest of the world (and the millions of pre-war protestors, Hans Blix, Scott Ritter and the others who predicted no WMDs would be found).

Another stated goal of the war was to prevent Iraq from working with terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. Considering the amount of attacks being launched against U.S.-led coalition troops, the war actually increased terrorism in Iraq.

Yet another purpose of the war was to democratize Iraq and make it a model for the Arab world, an ambitious plot that would have made T.E. Lawrence envious. Ignoring America's lack of credentials in this arena (less than 50 percent voter turnout in the Republic ranks the United States #139 in the world in this category), the plan has now shifted into not allowing direct elections but instead forcing a Caucus Electoral College System on the Iraqi people (and we know how well that worked in America in 2000). Another point worth making is that Iraq is in real danger of breaking up into a civil war, again another possible opposite effect.

The final "official" goal of the war was to liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam and his sycophants. In this regard, the Bush administration cites palaces contrasted with torture cells and mass graves to show the evil of the former regime, as if someone had even questioned this. So whilst it is true that the Iraqi people are not subject to such arbitrary and capricious punishment anymore, what they are instead subjected to are bombings, kidnappings, unemployment, etc. Before the government was killing and starving them, now it is more random, coming from all directions.

Now we get into a few of the "unofficial" motives for the war and these are where the impending departure from Iraq really hurts America most (as the non-accomplishment of the official reasons essentially only hurts the Iraqi people).

The most obvious nefarious aim of the war was oil, as the millions of anti-war protestors highlighted with varying levels of ingenuity. With an unstable theocracy in Saudi Arabia, Iraq would make a good backup for the #1 consumer of oil in the world. However, should the U.S. pullout without having installed a puppet to protect American interests (and it appears the Shi'a will not stand for a puppet and they have a track record of having overthrown the Shah in Iran), then this silent purpose of the war will go unmet as well.

Another unnamed reason for the war was to re-shape the Middle East using Iraq as a model. The Kurds are interested in their own state, or a federation with autonomy for them at worst. The Shiites want direct elections that will virtually assure their ascension to power. The Sunnis want a return to the good ole' days of Saddam when they ruled and prospered. Thus, the only likely outcomes are a civil war or breakup of the country. If this is the plan for a new Middle East, then the problems fomenting in that region that are hurting Western interests are only in their infancy.

One other plausible reason for the war was that the American hyper-power needed to throw its muscle around and a weakened Iraq (by over a decade of sanctions) would be just the place to do so with minimum casualties. By any account, the resistance has been stronger than expected and proven itself adept at fighting the Americans in a guerilla war. Should America leave Iraq having failed in most or all of the patent and latent purposes of war, then the fundamentalist Islamic and Pan-Arabic movement will only grow bolder at having helped send home another empire bloody.

Conspiracy theorists can put forth errata on the other masked reasons for war (government contracts, etc.). I tried to focus on the generally consensus of the obvious hidden reasons.

Perhaps things will change and all the neo-con predictions about WMDs, terrorist links, flowers, candies and hugs for the "coalition," democracy, and freedom will come true; and maybe the industrial war machine and American resolve will still win the day. Nevertheless, judging from the past 10 months, the downward spiral is the trend.

[Frank Deliu is an American/Romanian lawyer educated both inside and outside of the United States

Comments
on Feb 20, 2004
I agree, they will lose, unless Nato backs them, which they do not deserve at all.


I find it amazing that the US helped rebuilt Germany after 1945, "Marshall Plan"
and forgot to even plan that for Iraq 50 years later. ??!!

IMO if you are willing to wage war to liberate a people than you have to
invest at least the amount of cash the war costs in rebuilding.

.....who is gonna sell that to the public?

You can tell the people ( especially the uneducated Gung-ho patriots )
we are so cool, we are gonna "liberate" a country..BAM..BAM..BAM...we are the strongest
coolest gang of pistoleros in the World, and God is with us! APPLAUSEAPPLAUSE

tell them: okay its gonna cost 80Billion $ to lead the war.
That will work, after all War is a cool thin to wage, makes you feel strong.

But if you had to tell them:
Okay, to make this work we will invest 160billion $ in rebuilding the country. in the next 3 years.
and after that 10 billion for the next 10 years.

Every taxpayer in the world would rather shoot his Head of gov´t than see him running off with
all the money to bring it to some underdeveloped place.

The americans broke the window, and now they want the rest of the neighbourhood to pay for it.

- Weltregierung

( Ooops, that was more than i wanted to write, sorry for hijacking this )
on Feb 20, 2004
Great stuff Welter. It surprises me that little forethought was sunk into The Rebuilding of a ripped up country, Iraq really is a mess post sanction-life_now look at it_still no power, running water_the basics.
This is true:
Every taxpayer in the world would rather shoot his Head of gov´t than see him running off with
all the money to bring it to some underdeveloped place.

Thanks for commenting:)
on Feb 20, 2004
you are very welcome Where in NL are you?
on Feb 20, 2004
. The US just send $88 billilon to Iraq, $22 billion of which is strictly for rebuilding on top of the $10 billion already sent. Plus other countries of donated around $15 billion in reconstruction grants. Don't let your anti-Americanism blind you.
on Feb 21, 2004
You'd think for that amount they'd atleast have restored the power/ water. The occupation is a disaster, admit it_the citizens even freely admit life was better under Saddams regime, atleast they had basic services. For that amount of cash you'd think the people in America suffering, would have a right to be pissed off_taking their hard earned tax dollars to some fucked up country, like Iraq_post sanction.
Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown and Root are overcharging for EVERYTHING ( so I read) CONFLICT OF INTEREST: cheneys old company getting the contracts. Most countries would see the SHAM, but not my native land. They, I mean this example called Wardell, cheer for it!
You have missed the point of this article_which is further evidence the American occupation isn't reducing terrorist attacks but fueling more anti american cells_like a recruitment ad for the Islamic Army. ( a billion strong )
But the Americans have created this_America wanted it so let America clean it up and pay for it without calling in NATO or the UN.
How dare you assume I am Anti American, Mr WARdell. Just searching for the truth. Does that search blind me or does it guide me_perception again.
Cuckoo_ what time is it.
Weltregierung_I am very far south west, near the coast and Belgium(Zeeland or "sea-land")You said you are in Hamburg?
Cheers, all you peasants.
lol


on Feb 21, 2004

E. Macy

"The occupation is a disaster, admit it"

Occupation != War. We won the war. The excuses you list for the war were, sorry, for people like you. Hussein violated the terms of his cease fire and ended up hiding in a hole. Hooray. Everything thereafter is gravy. Half of the dishonesty in politics is smoothing things over for the unrealistic public.

Frankly, catering to the opinion of people who are opposed to war is what causes this kind of mess. We can't fight to the best of our ability because we have to satisfy bleeding hearts, and then those same bleeding hearts whine because we didn't fight to the best of our ability. Face it, you won't ever be satisfied with how the situation ends because you opposed the war in general. You'll find the negative no matter what. When you let people who are opposed to a war influence you on how to fight it, you are being counter-productive. Their interest isn't in seeing it end for the best. If it did they'd have nothing to post on blogs.

The occupation is what THEY make out of it. There are plenty of pissed off Iraqis standing around bitching about rebuilding... maybe they could lend a hand?  Maybe the effort that goes into building bombs could be better delegated?  They have blown up more of their oil infrastructure than we ever did.  Should I feel bad that they have to wait in line for gas?

I wish the best for the people of Iraq, but the moment they had the freedom to start rebuilding their nation the base responsibility shifted to them. We could have easily bombed them to the stone age and never set foot on the ground. If enough of them spit on our efforts, they'll sit in their rubble, and maybe we'll have to do it over in a few years. Maybe then they'll learn. Maybe not.

on Feb 21, 2004
three cheers for the red white and blue!
on Mar 14, 2004
Why are people so Anti-American? People say that $88 billion dollars is like a lot of money, and to them I say pshaw. That's small potatoes compared to the rest of our budget, and it was for a war that was more necessary than the Kosovo one. I find it funny that it's only been a few months after the war and people are complaining about what a failure it is. Geez, it's like we have to have all the problems solved the day after fighting ceases.