« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »

The "Lull" in the War

Few story links here; sorry. Just a passing note on the stalled-out US invasion.

The old plan is gone, and the war is a waiting game now. The Bushies' shrill and discredited insistence that they are moving steadily ahead only illustrates the point. The administration now realizes that, owing to its haste in mounting a failed first invasion, it's got to fight a different war from the one it bargained on. This means a new plan, additional troops and additional supplies, and in the meantime more CNN footage of saturation bombing designed to "soften Iraqi resolve" and give the folks at home something to watch.

We're talking about days or weeks of stasis, in other words, unless one side or the other elects to do something daring. But even if the respective combat forces only sit glaring at each other for a while, it doesn't mean the war will be on hold; the tactical picture shifts and grows more risky every day.

Watch two things: Iraqi civilian casualties, and the involvement of forces from outside Iraq in the widening anti-US resistance movement. You can already see the civilian casualties mounting--all those pyrotechnic bombardments in Baghdad and other towns are hitting something, after all. And however masterfully the American media buries the particular details of the toll, civilian deaths are exploding, and becoming day by day a bigger story in the rest of the world. (Just go to the main Arabic Al-Jazeera page--unlike the English page, you can at least reach it--and look at the pictures posted each day.)

On the second count, of Arab volunteers flocking to Iraq from elsewhere around the region, some American observers would like to pretend that there is no great peril involved since these guerrillas/terrorists (take your pick; the distinction is mostly in the eye of the beholder) are either independent or affiliated with non-state groups. "Syrian elements" may attack us in Iraq or elsewhere, but not the Syrian government; hence the influx of non-Iraqi Arab volunteers pose no danger to the US's fragile rapport with "neutral" or pro-Western Arab governments. (The secretary general of the Arab League is plenty concerned about a spillover of the war.)

This is pure absurdity. Leaving aside what those elements might do to destabilize pro-US Arab regimes in their own backyards, there is another question: Have we forgotten all the Bush administration's talk about what it would do to states that "harbor terrorists"? Syria and Iran could well and justifiably consider themselves drawn into war by the actions of elements they don't control, and proceed accordingly. Or the US could choose to involve them on its own initiative.

In short, the coming days and weeks are anything but a lull in the war; they are a critical time for determining whether the US can ever pull back from this war in a manner that does not open up a dozen more Pandora's boxes.  

Posted by Steve Perry at March 31, 2003 6:17 PM

« Syria and Iran Answer Powell | Main | The Civilian Toll So Far »