Lagniappe

 

 

Scott Sullivan :
Kristol would lose Iraq's battle of Baghdad

To his great credit, William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard Magazine is not a typical neo-consevative. Most neo-conservatives, when facing a faltering global war on terrorism in Iraq, recommend immediate regional and global escalation by attacking counties like Iran, Syria, China and Russia. In the neo-conservative playbook, the wider and more intense the US anti-terror conflict, involving states far from the Persian Gulf, the better for US strategy. Alternatively, a US
failure to escalate against Syria, China and Russia is seen as a sign of
insufficient US commitmernt, even defeat.

This neo-conservative stance, of course, is not meant to taken as policy.
The neo-cons are merely posturing, pure and simple. By calling for
immediate and widespread US escalation, the neo-conservatives believe they
have found the safest and highest political ground. Because the neo-con
escalation mantra will never be tested in practice, they will never be
proved wrong. From the safety of their escalation perch, safe from all out
war, they can condemn their many opponents as appeasers.

In truth, the neoconservative mantra for universal escalation is a recipe
for US defeat. Hitler lost WW II because he fought simultaneously on two
major fronts. Two fronts is small change to the typical neoconservative,
who would have the US fight on five or six fronts, the more the better.

William Kristol commits this same neoconservative mistake, on a smaller
scale, with his recommendation for US escalation in Baghdad. Kristol
recommends increasing US troops in Iraq by 50,000 personnel, most to be used
in defending Baghdad (see "Time for a Heavier Footprint," Weekly Standard,
17 November). In previous op-eds, Kristol calls for a significant increase
in the number of combat troops in Baghdad so that the Us and its Iraqi
allies can win the battle for the city and therefore the country.

Kristol's advice is wrong, wrong, wrong. Such a Baghdad-first policy plays
directly into the hands of Ahmadinejad and Al-Qaeda by facilitating Iraq's
partition into three ethnic states. It would end in a military
catastrophe for US forces that would be a combination of Dien Bien Phu and
the Battle of Algiers. Finally, in a Baghdad inferno, it would lead to the
annihilation of the US's main ally in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi
Army (See "Baghdad is a US Deathtrap," Iran-watch.com).

Kristol makes this mistake with a Baghdad-first policy because he misses the
most important feature of Iraq's conflict. The main contradiction, as Mao
would say, is not between Iraq's terrorist and resistance groups and the US,
but between these groups and Iran. At this moment, the US is only a
placeholder to Iran, and is preparing to hand over power to Iran as the US
withdraws.

Iran has no interest in holding Baghdad, which is in the hands of its
enemies (mainly the Sunnis and Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army), and is the
administrative center for a centralized Iraqi state. For Iran, Baghdad,
like Carthage, must be destroyed. Who will do this for Tehran? The US and
all of Iran's Sunni and Shia rivals will destroy Baghdad and the centralized
Iraqi state.

Instead of Baghdad, Iran wants to take Basra and southern Iraq, from which
it can dominate Baghdad and control the exit routes for US troops. Iran's
plan is to take Basra while supporting Kurdish acquisition of Kirkuk, which
will enrage the Sunnis, who will lose their last access to Iraq's oil
revenues, and will respond by torching Baghdad. As Baghdad's conflict
deepens, Kurdistan and Shiastan will emerge from Iraq's wreckage as
independent states.

Moreover, as the US reduces its presence in al Anbar province in favor of
defending Baghdad , al-Qaeda forces would fill the political vacuum, as is
happening today. Al Anbar province is directly connected to Baghdad, so
that the Al-Qaeda forces would inevitably become major combatants in
Baghdad, which today is not the case.

All of this is very good for Iran and very bad for everyone else, especially
the US, which would find itself trapped in unending urban combat in Baghdad
under assault by virtually all of Iraq's hostile factions. Beirut
peacekeeping during the Reagan Administration, which became a US fiasco,
would in retrospect appear be like a walk in the park compared to urban
combat in Baghdad.

Unlike many of Iraq's issues, this one is a no-brainer. There is no such
thing as the defense of Baghdad. If the US posture in Iraq comes down to
the defense of Baghdad, the US has already lost the war.

In fact, there is but one reason to redeploy US forces to Baghdad, and only
one. That is, the US should redeploy to Baghdad only if it is willing to
support an al Sadr-Sunni national salvation government determined to push
Iranian and al-Qaeda forces out of Baghdad and Iraq altogether. Syria, Saudi
Arabia, and Turkey would lend support. Under these conditions, Baghdad must
and would be defended.

 

Scott Sullivan is a former Washington government employee. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld News 11/21/06

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