Intention versus Inevitability: Iraq War

It seems like only yesterday that I was a teenager, sporting my so-called leftist fashion ware, such as my Che Guevara shirt, my olive green military style hat, sitting at a coffee shop having a discussion with a good friend of mine since, well, middle school.

This kid was uber smart, never even went to college, his Dad got him an internship with an extension of NASA working specifically on lasers while he was still in High School. As a 10th grader in the 1990's, he was making $8.50 an hour part time. Needless to say he rakes in about $80,000 a year now and hes turning 28. He is an expert with computers and all types of programming languages, I've seen the man do any number of things. You know someone is for real when they can show you their entire custom-made Linux kernel, or shell or w/e the heck it is called, your own "version" of Linux with your own choices of what is presented, the art used, essentially building your own graphics operating system.

So we were having a friendly discussion on who would win in a war, the U.S. Military, or the entire U.S. population of citizens, no holds barred, everything goes, urban warfare. I'd explain that the Military could not destroy the entire resistance or rebellious forces without inadvertently killing their own loyalists mixed into the population thoroughly, and destroy the infrastructure for the various cities and towns, as well as the homes and buildings. I'd explain the U.S. would be in a no-win situation because in order to win they'd have to sacrifice their entire country in the process.

Enter Iraq: My .. does this not seem to be a textbook example of how not to fight a war when faced with multiple independent guerrilla operations, backed financially and with manpower from just about every country in the region? Guerrilla warfare in the desert.. at first it doesnt sound the most effective, but we have certainly seen it used effectively against us. The most "guerilla" elements have been urban guerrilla elements.. due to the "wideopen" terrain it is a bit hard for them to work the countryside like an archetypical guerrilla movement such as .. Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution. This is fine, because they fell back onto one of my own staple arguments: That the government will not kill its entire country, to the point where there is no victor, no emerging winner, nothing left but disaster everywhere, just to claim victory.

What does this mean for Iraq? That the U.S. backed Iraqi Government will fail in a one on one against the Insurgents, because they will not kill all of their own people, everyone, and everything, just to win, because that victory is hollow, you gain nothing but words and corpses. The United States on the otherhand? Regrettably .. we have been known to resort to killing civilians to push the envelope.. just look at WWII Japan. We dropped two Atomic bombs on their mostly civilian populace, at the target areas at least.

So really, it seems as though the big question of the day, which has always been guerrilla 'internal' movement versus Government military, is being played out right now in the fields of Iraq. It seems as though the sides have been picked and the lines drawn in the sand. The U.S. cannot superimpose our destruction over their entire population to the point of desolation, because their own Government, even though our ally, would protest. Sadr would protest.. everyone would protest. Then covert actions taken by Iran and Syria become overt actions.. and new "wars" start. I do not think the supporters of the Insurgents, the haters of America, will allow America to win, even if they have to sacrifice all of their countries, all of their armies, all of their civilians. I'm mainly talking about Iran, the slumbering giant, whom if awakened, could rush that damn Iraqi border overnight. You'd wake up to news reports of a major battle taking place in the East. It would be that quick, the Iranians would use human wave tactics until securing some sort of town, and work from there with fully internal guerrilla help from all the shiite insurgent groups working loosely under al-Sadr.

When this takes place .. it will appear as a popular revolution, a popular Shiite revolution against Occupiers, Zionism, and the Western World.

The Iranians will be welcomed by non-violent Shiite civilians, the majority of the population, and will be assisted hand-in-hand, side-by-side by Shiite militant groups, those under the Mehdi Army al-Sadr umbrella confederacy that is falling apart anyways as well as those groups outside of it, such as the "Badr" affiliated Shiite paramilitary groups. The Coalition forces would be under attack from all sides, and would have to make for a Saigon style departure.

The Shia were okay with us desolating the Sunni, but we have reached a Nexus in Iraq that is not good at all. From here it seems, we can go one of two ways. Peace, and back out of the country, or War, and allow Iran to become a full fledged official participant in the War, turning it quickly into WWIII and our favorite doomsday scenarios all become likely, including those involving Russia and their nuclear arsenal, the same goes for China.

So to go back to the original point, who was right in that debate, me or my friend? So far, the Iraq war, which was a pipedream at the time of the debate, has no end in sight, and we cant completely draw on the lessons learned yet, as victory has not been achieved. From here to victory is a tightrope walk which will be more difficult politically than militarily by far. But I must say .. if the U.S. Military is seemingly not aloud to blow up any ole families' house just because armed men were there, because of the women and children in that home, then certainly they'd have even more reservations over killing their own citizens.. U.S. citizens, in my fictional scenario? So this tactic of human shields.. this tactic of fighting from positions inside residential areas, smuggling people and arms through residential areas .. all of this, yes it is dastardly, but point blank .. it is effective and it works. And to think it would be done any differently by anyone else under similar situations would be an incorrect thought!

So, I feel in the end guerrilla warfare does indeed trump conventional, and even counter-insurgency tactics, as ultimately, the civilian population becomes the chip to bet on .. and nobody wants to lose the entire civilian population, full of loyalists for their own country? Your thoughts?

[edit on 5/1/2008 by runetang]