Newly installed Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Neville
Rodriguez Zapatero Chamberlain announced that he will pull all
1,300 Spanish troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, keeping his
election promise to the Spanish people and al-Qaeda. Portugal may
soon follow. That amounts to a bigger win for al-Qaeda than even
9-11. While the Spanish action will boost al-Q recruitment, it’s
not likely to have much effect on the fight to secure Iraq. With or
without the Spanish, the insurgency accelerates, the new Iraqi
security forces are refusing to fight other Iraqis, and the death
toll of American and coalition troops mounts at an alarming
rate.
On Sunday, there was heavy fighting near the city of Al Qaim,
where some of the heaviest fighting took place last year. Al Qaim
sits on the Syrian border, along the Baghdad to Damascus highway.
It’s been a transit point for everything from Saddam’s WMD (which
probably were shipped into Syria and Lebanon) to key members of the
Saddam regime. Baathist Syria’s major involvement in the insurgency
in Iraq continues, as does Iran’s. Iran now says it will stop
helping restore order in Iraq. Iran’s help, of course, is in the
form of funding and operational direction for terrorists such as
Moqtada al-Sadr and his “mahdi militia.” Sadr’s influence has
spread to southern Iraq, where his troops are engaged against
British forces.
Last week, American commanders said they needed more troops in
Iraq to help quell the insurgency. The main response to that is to
stop the drawdown of American troops, extending the stay of many
beyond the planned one-year tours. About 130,000 Americans and
other coalition forces — the only other major force being about
8,700 Brits — are being stretched thin by the constant fight to
corner insurgents and pacify the Sunni Triangle and Shia areas
where Sadr’s forces are attacking. It’s fair to ask: are our troops
over-extended? Do we to recruit more, maybe even restore the draft?
The answer is yes and no. We need more troops in Iraq, but we don’t
need a draft to get them there.
PART OF THE TREMENDOUS strain on our troops comes from the fact
that we’ve been acting with too much restraint in quelling the
violence. Fallujah is surrounded and relatively quiet, but Marines
there are still under fire. We are awaiting the conclusion of
negotiations between city “leaders” and representatives of the
Iraqi Governing council, seeking the turnover of the barbarians who
killed and mutilated American security workers there weeks ago. In
the holy city of Najaf, Sadr’s militia is given sanctuary because
of a series of religious holidays and because the most prominent
Shia cleric, Ali al-Sistani, warns against Coalition forces
entering the city.
Sistani’s silence on Sadr’s actions — and his warning against
American forces entering the city of Najaf — is a most dangerous
omen. If he, like Sadr, is listening to Iran, all of Iraq could
soon be aflame. One commentator said last week that Sistani is in
favor of a new government which separates “mosque and state.” That
is so horribly wrong, we have to hope that Mr. Bremer isn’t of that
same mind. Sistani — whether of not in league with Iran — wants
Iraq to be a religious state with Shari’a law governing all. We
cannot allow this to happen.
American Ambassador Paul Bremer admitted the obvious last
weekend when he said that Iraq will not be stable by the time of
the handover of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30. Before we can
turn Iraq over, the government needs to be functioning. It is not.
The military and security services must be operating. They are, but
only symbolically. We don’t even know who we’ll be turning Iraq
over to on June 30, as the President indicated last week when he
said we’ll turn it over to whomever the U.N. representatives say we
should. Instead, we should delay the turnover until Iraq is ready,
whether it’s June 30, 2004 or June 30, 2006.
We should be taking a much more aggressive approach against the
Iraqi insurgents. If the so-called city leaders in Fallujah don’t
surrender the murderers of our people — and help eradicate the
others who form the insurgency there — we should give the people
of Fallujah a day to get their elderly, women, children and
possessions out, and then use our full range of forces to destroy
the insurgency there. The same approach — cordon off, evacuate
non-combatants and attack — should be used in any other area where
large numbers of insurgents lurk. Bremer and some of the generals
in Iraq have been holding back. We are now paying for that
restraint.
RELIEF AND REINFORCEMENT can’t ever come — as Sen. Kerry kinda
sorta admitted on Meet the Press on Sunday — from either
NATO or the U.N. When Tim Russert asked Kerry how he can say that
NATO and the U.N. will come riding to our rescue when they have
neither the ability nor the desire to do so, all he could say was,
“Tim, that’s the dilemma.” His position is totally bogus, and he
knows it.
Reinforcement can come from redeployment of other forces we have
in too many places around the world. We have tens of thousands of
troops in Germany, waiting to repel a Soviet invasion that ain’t
coming. We should pull out all but the few necessary to maintain
our military hospitals and air bases there, and get the rest into
the fight. We have other forces in other countries that also should
be withdrawn and brought into the war in Iraq. South Korea, which
seems more accommodationist than its circumstances should allow,
should also see the backs of thousands of Americans.
But reinforcements and a more aggressive strategy in Iraq won’t
stop the violence there. We have to admit to ourselves, and say to
the world, what this column has been saying for more than a year.
Unless and until we finish the fight in Iraq, the insurgency will
never allow a stable government to exist. And to do that, we have
to end the regimes of Syria and Iran. When Saddam’s regime fell,
the war was only begun.
Iraq is not Vietnam, because President Bush means to stay and
finish the job. But the job can’t be done without ending the
problems of Iran and Syria. The war against terrorism isn’t against
“terrorism.” That’s a strategy, not an enemy. Terrorist-supporting
states such as Iran and Syria are the enemy. It is only by
defeating them that Iraq can be made free, and the war can be
won.
TAS Contributing Editor Jed Babbin is the author of the
forthcoming book, Inside the Asylum: How the U.N. and Old
Europe Are Worse Than You Think.
