The light at the end of the tunnel
Jul 03, 2005
If mere rhetoric could bridge the gulf of credibility, President George Bush might have turned the tide with his nationally televised speech on Tuesday evening.
If mere rhetoric could bridge the gulf of credibility, President George Bush might have turned the tide with his nationally televised speech on Tuesday evening. As usual, he strove to blur the distinction between the “war on terror†(which almost all Americans still see as necessary) and the war in Iraq (which they are finally turning against) and promised the viewers that all would end well if they only showed “resolveâ€. But the audience has heard it too many times before.
A majority of Americans now understand that the terrorist attacks in Iraq are a result of the US invasion, not a justification for it. Many have also seen the leaked CIA report that concluded Iraq is producing a new breed of Arab jihads, trained in urban warfare, who are more numerous and deadlier than the generation that learned its trade in Afghanistan. So they do not believe the war in Iraq is making them safer — and they see no light at the end of the tunnel.
Since vice-president Dick Cheney boasted in early June that the insurgency in Iraq was “in its last throes,†more than 80 American soldiers and about 700 Iraqi civilians have been killed. On Monday the new Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, declared that “two years will be enough and more than enough to establish security†— but the previous evening US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mused aloud on UStelevision that the insurgency in Iraq might last for “five, six, eight, 10, 12 years.â€
Even more than casualties, the American public hates defeat, and it can sense panic among the president’s allies and advisers.
The latest polls show a huge swing against the Iraq war in American public opinion, with around 60% now opposing the war and refusing to believe the Bush administration has a plan for winning it.
But that doesn’t mean US troops will actually be leaving Iraq any time soon. There is still the question of saving face.
People forget that American public opinion turned against the Vietnam war in 1968, but that the withdrawal of US combat troops was not completed until 1973. The intervening five years (and two-thirds of all American casualties in the war) were devoted to the search for a way to get US troops out of Vietnam without admitting defeat. At the very least, there had to be a “decent interval†after the US left before the victors collected their prize.
In the end, the humiliation was far greater than if the United States had simply walked away in 1968 — the roof of the American embassy in Saigon in 1975 is among the best-known images of American history — and the US army became so demoralised that it was virtually useless as a fighting force for a decade afterwards. But we are dealing with human psychology here, so the pattern is likely to repeat.
The real deadline for a US withdrawal from Iraq is the three-and -a-half years that the Bush presidency has left. Keeping control of the White House will be the most important consideration for Republicans in 2008, so there must be some resolution of the Iraq problem by then. What might it be?
There is the happy-ever-after ending, constantly promised by the Bush administration and its Iraq collaborators, where all the Iraq communities reconcile, the insurgency dies down and a genuinely democratic government begins to deliver security and prosperity to the exhausted Iraqis. Such an outcome is not impossible in principle, but it is unlikely to occur while US troops are still occupying the country and goading both Islamists and Arab nationalists into resistance.
There is also the roof-of-the-embassy scenario, but that is equally unlikely. The Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq, drawn from a solid block of 20% of the population occupying the heart of the country, have the power to thwart any peace settlement that excludes them.
But they cannot drive US troops out, and they cannot re-establish their political domination over the Shia Arabs and the Kurds even if the Americans leave.
The real problem in securing a “decent interval†that would allow a dignified American withdrawal from Iraq is that the insurgents cannot deliver it — because they are too weak and divided. The foreigners among them answer to no state authority, and the Iraqi majority are overwhelmingly drawn from the Sunni Arab minority whose leadership was decapitated by the American invasion. They are all over the map, in dozens of little organisations, and American negotiators cannot even figure out the key people to talk to.
So, it is going to be messy, and it’s even possible that US troops won’t be out of Iraq three-and-a-half years from now. In which case the next US president will be a Democrat.
Ends
A majority of Americans now understand that the terrorist attacks in Iraq are a result of the US invasion, not a justification for it. Many have also seen the leaked CIA report that concluded Iraq is producing a new breed of Arab jihads, trained in urban warfare, who are more numerous and deadlier than the generation that learned its trade in Afghanistan. So they do not believe the war in Iraq is making them safer — and they see no light at the end of the tunnel.
Since vice-president Dick Cheney boasted in early June that the insurgency in Iraq was “in its last throes,†more than 80 American soldiers and about 700 Iraqi civilians have been killed. On Monday the new Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, declared that “two years will be enough and more than enough to establish security†— but the previous evening US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mused aloud on UStelevision that the insurgency in Iraq might last for “five, six, eight, 10, 12 years.â€
Even more than casualties, the American public hates defeat, and it can sense panic among the president’s allies and advisers.
The latest polls show a huge swing against the Iraq war in American public opinion, with around 60% now opposing the war and refusing to believe the Bush administration has a plan for winning it.
But that doesn’t mean US troops will actually be leaving Iraq any time soon. There is still the question of saving face.
People forget that American public opinion turned against the Vietnam war in 1968, but that the withdrawal of US combat troops was not completed until 1973. The intervening five years (and two-thirds of all American casualties in the war) were devoted to the search for a way to get US troops out of Vietnam without admitting defeat. At the very least, there had to be a “decent interval†after the US left before the victors collected their prize.
In the end, the humiliation was far greater than if the United States had simply walked away in 1968 — the roof of the American embassy in Saigon in 1975 is among the best-known images of American history — and the US army became so demoralised that it was virtually useless as a fighting force for a decade afterwards. But we are dealing with human psychology here, so the pattern is likely to repeat.
The real deadline for a US withdrawal from Iraq is the three-and -a-half years that the Bush presidency has left. Keeping control of the White House will be the most important consideration for Republicans in 2008, so there must be some resolution of the Iraq problem by then. What might it be?
There is the happy-ever-after ending, constantly promised by the Bush administration and its Iraq collaborators, where all the Iraq communities reconcile, the insurgency dies down and a genuinely democratic government begins to deliver security and prosperity to the exhausted Iraqis. Such an outcome is not impossible in principle, but it is unlikely to occur while US troops are still occupying the country and goading both Islamists and Arab nationalists into resistance.
There is also the roof-of-the-embassy scenario, but that is equally unlikely. The Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq, drawn from a solid block of 20% of the population occupying the heart of the country, have the power to thwart any peace settlement that excludes them.
But they cannot drive US troops out, and they cannot re-establish their political domination over the Shia Arabs and the Kurds even if the Americans leave.
The real problem in securing a “decent interval†that would allow a dignified American withdrawal from Iraq is that the insurgents cannot deliver it — because they are too weak and divided. The foreigners among them answer to no state authority, and the Iraqi majority are overwhelmingly drawn from the Sunni Arab minority whose leadership was decapitated by the American invasion. They are all over the map, in dozens of little organisations, and American negotiators cannot even figure out the key people to talk to.
So, it is going to be messy, and it’s even possible that US troops won’t be out of Iraq three-and-a-half years from now. In which case the next US president will be a Democrat.
Ends