The Washington Post News Articles
Heading for Trouble: Do we
really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years?
September 4, 2002
Country music's most
popular song this summer is a defiantly nationalistic tune by Toby
Keith, in which he warns potential adversaries that if they mess
with us, "we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way." Last
week the Chinese government showed us its way. Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage had brought a conciliatory gesture from the
Bush administration, agreeing to recognize a separatist group in
China's Xinjiang province as a terrorist entity. This
diplomatic contortion was so appeasing that the Economist magazine
labeled its logic "astonishing." And yet the day after Armitage
left, the Chinese government sent its own political signal by
"test-firing" a DF-4 missile, which has a range of more than 4,000
miles and was designed to attack U.S. military bases on Guam.
The implied disrespect of this incident did not
occur in a vacuum, either militarily or diplomatically. As our
country remains obsessed with Saddam Hussein, other nations have
begun positioning themselves for an American war with Iraq and, most
important, for its aftermath. China, which has pursued a
strategic axis with key Islamic nations for nearly 20 years,
received the Iraqi foreign minister just after Armitage's departure,
condemning in advance an American attack on that country.
Russia has been assiduously courting -- both diplomatically and
economically -- all three nations identified by President Bush as
the "axis of evil." Iran -- the number one state sponsor of
international terrorism, according to our own State Department --
has conducted at least four flight tests of the nuclear-capable
Shahab-3 missile, whose range of 800 miles is enough to hit U.S.
forces in the Persian Gulf, Turkey and Central Asia.
Meanwhile, American military leaders have been trying to bring a
wider focus to the band of neoconservatives that began beating the
war drums
on Iraq before the dust had even settled on the World Trade Center.
Despite the efforts of the neocons to shut them up or to dismiss
them as unqualified to deal in policy issues, these leaders, both
active-duty and retired, have been nearly unanimous in their
concerns. Is there an absolutely vital national interest that
should lead us from containment to unilateral war and a long-term
occupation of Iraq? And would such a war and its aftermath actually
increase our ability to win the war against international terrorism?
On this second point, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the Joint Chiefs vice
chairman, mentioned in a news conference last week that the scope
for potential anti-terrorist action included -- at a minimum --
Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Georgia,
Colombia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and North Korea.
America's best military leaders know that they are accountable to
history not only for how they fight wars, but also for how they
prevent them. The greatest military victory of our time --
bringing an expansionist Soviet Union in from the cold while
averting a nuclear holocaust -- was accomplished not by an invasion
but through decades of intense maneuvering and continuous
operations. With respect to the situation in Iraq, they are
conscious of two realities that seem to have been lost in the narrow
debate about Saddam Hussein himself. The first reality is that
wars often have unintended consequences -- ask the Germans, who in
World War I were convinced that they would defeat the French in
exactly 42 days. The second is that a long-term occupation of
Iraq would beyond doubt require an adjustment of force levels
elsewhere, and could eventually diminish American influence in other
parts of the world.
Other than the flippant criticisms of our "failure" to take Baghdad
during the Persian Gulf War, one sees little discussion of an
occupation of Iraq, but it is the key element of the current debate.
The issue before us is not simply whether the United States should
end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a nation are
prepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for the
next 30 to 50 years. Those who are pushing for a unilateral
war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we
invade and stay. This reality was the genesis of a rift that
goes back to the Gulf War itself, when neoconservatives were vocal
in their calls for "a MacArthurian regency in Baghdad." Their
expectation is that the United States would not only change Iraq's
regime but also remain as a long-term occupation force in an attempt
to reconstruct Iraqi society itself.
The connotations of "a MacArthurian regency in Baghdad" show how
inapt the comparison is. Our occupation forces never set foot
inside Japan until the emperor had formally surrendered and prepared
Japanese citizens for our arrival. Nor did MacArthur destroy
the Japanese government when he took over as proconsul after World
War II. Instead, he was careful to work his changes through
it, and took pains to preserve the integrity of Japan's imperial
family. Nor is Japanese culture in any way similar to Iraq's.
The Japanese are a homogeneous people who place a high premium on
respect, and they fully cooperated with MacArthur's forces after
having been ordered to do so by the emperor. The Iraqis are a
multiethnic people filled with competing factions who in many cases
would view a U.S. occupation as infidels invading the cradle
of Islam. Indeed, this very bitterness provided Osama bin
Laden the grist for his recruitment efforts in Saudi Arabia when the
United States kept bases on Saudi soil after the Gulf War.
In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends.
In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets.
Nations such as China can only view the
prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by
the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall. Indeed,
if one gives the Chinese credit for having a long-term strategy --
and those who love to quote Sun Tzu might consider his nationality
-- it lends credence to their insistent cultivation of the Muslim
world. One should not take lightly the fact that China
previously supported Libya, that Pakistan developed its nuclear
capability with China's unrelenting assistance and that the Chinese
sponsored a coup attempt in Indonesia in 1965. An "American
war" with the Muslims, occupying the very seat of their
civilization, would allow the Chinese to isolate the United States
diplomatically as they furthered their own ambitions in South and
Southeast Asia.
These concerns, and others like them, are the reasons that many with
long experience in U.S. national security issues remain unconvinced
by the arguments for a unilateral invasion of Iraq. Unilateral wars
designed to bring about regime change and a long-term occupation
should be undertaken only when a nation's existence is clearly at
stake. It is true that Saddam Hussein might try to assist
international terrorist organizations in their desire to attack
America. It is also true that if we invade and occupy Iraq
without broad-based international support, others in the Muslim
world might be encouraged to intensify the same sort of efforts.
And it is crucial that our national leaders consider the impact of
this proposed action on our long-term ability to deter aggression
elsewhere.
