BAGHDAD — Last week was not a good one for those who were
starting to feel a little optimism about the direction of events in
Iraq. At last count, some 200 people have been killed by car bombs
and gunmen gone wild. I happened to witness one of the car bombs
about a quarter mile away from my office window. It was by far the
loudest and most frightening of any I have ever seen or heard. It
is now reported to have been a 500 lb. bomb. If that is true, then
a quarter of a mile is as close as I ever want to be to one of
those things.
There is no doubt that what is going on here is a Shiite versus
Sunni battle that has the potential of turning into an
honest-to-God civil war. Very early last Wednesday morning, I heard
a car bomb go off in the distance. I have learned from six months
of careful listening that car bombs have a peculiar and readily
identifiable sound about them. Something akin to the V-1 “buzz
bombs” that fell on London in the waning days of World War II.
What I had not realized at the moment I heard the explosion, was
that the lives of 112 people had been snuffed out in that instant.
A Sunni terrorist drove a mini-bus packed with explosives up to a
crowd of day laborers; men waiting for an opportunity for a job
that would enable them to put food on the table for the family for
one more day. As the terrorist saw that his mini-bus was attracting
the attention of the crowd, he beckoned the men to come closer with
talk of jobs. At the moment that they pressed against the mini-bus,
the terrorist detonated the car bomb and killed them all in the
name of Islam.
I must confess to a sense of deep frustration when I hear many
people (including President Bush) talk about how “a few terrorists
have hijacked one of the world’s great religions.” What happened
today in the name of Islam was unadulterated barbarism. Why is
there no outcry of disgust from all the followers of “one of the
world’s great religions”? If the “vast majority of Islamists” are
good people as we keep hearing, why haven’t we heard from some of
them?
I’D LIKE TO MENTION A COUPLE OF occurrences here from about three
weeks ago. The first was an announcement that the U.S. will remain
in Iraq for four more years. That piece of news, coming as it did,
in the midst of “withdrawal schedule” prattle, had a very positive
impact on the morale and spirit of most Iraqis. Regardless of what
you might hear or read in the mainstream media, the vast
majority of Iraqis don’t want us going anywhere. They were
enormously encouraged to hear we are going to be here for quite a
while longer.
Iraqis who think about and plan for their futures (and that’s
quite a few of them) were starting to wonder if the “withdrawal
schedule” being flogged so eagerly in the MSM was not evidence that
George W. was forgetting Margaret Thatcher’s strong admonition to
Bush Senior not to “go wobbly.” But most agree that Bush the
Younger does not require this kind of spinal reinforcement at
all.
Talk about an early withdrawal once again brought up the Vietnam
analogy. This time, however, it was not about “quagmire,” but about
“bugout,” which many see as another possible analogy between the
two wars. Whatever someone like the ever-fatuous Barbara Boxer may
be saying, talk about the U.S. leaving Iraq has simply not found an
audience here.
A second event three weeks ago involved my good fortune in
sitting in on an impromptu and informal meeting of senior military
officers. Some were active duty; some were retired and in Iraq with
major contractors. As always in such get-togethers, the subject
very quickly turned to the war and its progress. All the senior
officers, to a man, asserted that we are winning — but each warned
that militarily it won’t be a work of art. All of them, to a man,
think we will win a major victory. Each warned, in somewhat
different words, that Clausewitz might have trouble deciding
precisely in which chapter of his book to highlight this victory.
But the most important thing I learned was all are convinced that
the U.S. and President Bush will achieve their vitally important
long-term strategic and military objectives.
This group of officers (there were seven altogether) was in very
close agreement on a number of issues and predictions. The first is
that between now and the election at year’s end, the level of
violence and killing will be extremely high. All agreed that the
violence will continue well into next spring. It will end only
after one final, very bloody and convulsive explosion of death and
violence. That explosion will have an incredulous “world watching
in awe and wonder,” as one of them put it. They all agreed this
final bloody convulsion — a remorseless and savage Shiite versus
Sunni battle — will be an absolutely essential part of
the process of readying Iraq for a peaceful future.
These officers also agreed that the deciding element in settling
the convulsion will be the new Iraqi Army. A growing number of
well-informed observers are becoming convinced that the Americans
are in the process of creating an army that will fight, an army
that won’t run, and an army whose main interests are secular. At
present the new Iraqi Army is earning its spurs in the west, far
from the prying eyes of the U.S. and international media who are
not prone to leaving the creature comforts of Baghdad, such as they
are. The Iraqi Army performed well the other week in Tal Afra. It
will probably succeed in sealing off the Syrian border; something
long in need of being done. It is becoming the tip of the spear,
and, if the U.S. Army training officers have done their work well,
we will be seeing more and more of these Iraqi soldiers all over
the country.
Perhaps the most important lesson drawn from the meeting with
the seven officers was that one can’t simply fall into depression
every time a car bomb explodes. What we have to do is to keep our
eye on the “prize,” which is the total achievement of our strategic
goals in the Middle East. Those are the establishment of a
powerful, long-term, military, economic, intelligence, and
political presence in the entire area, with Iraq as its focal point
and home base.
The Middle East has served as the cradle and fountainhead of
every aspect of worldwide terrorism that Islam has
attempted to impose on America and the West. No country in the Arab
world is better suited to be the “headquarters” of the war against
Islamic terrorism than Iraq. It is centrally located, inherently
rich, and of all the Arab countries the least Islamist and the most
secular. Militarily, it is a country of wide open spaces. It has an
infrastructure of many military bases, particularly air bases,
which are Saddam’s legacy. Today, in Northern Iraq, which is
distinctly friendly to the U.S., our military forces are settling
in for a long stay. Bases in Northern Iraq will enable us to keep a
very close eye on all those “friendly outposts of Islam” such as
Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi
Arabia, and the Gulf States.
Americans have to realize that we live in an incredibly
dangerous world and that we have clearly been at war since 9/11.
What many Americans, aided and abetted by the liberal media, try to
believe is that this is not a war because there are no massed and
uniformed armies, and no front lines to be seen on maps in the
morning papers. Absent those features, in their opinion, this is
not a real war.
The Islamist terrorists fight their war with car bombs, suicide
bombers, airliners crashing into buildings, and the killing of tens
of thousands of women and children in the name of Allah and Islam.
Theirs is indiscriminate killing intended to terrify and coerce the
political leadership to engage in massive acts of appeasement so
that “the Islamist will go away and leave us alone!”
In the next two years, in my opinion, the U.S. will have
established the kind of presence in Iraq and Afghanistan that will
enable us to wage the long-term war on Islamic terrorism that
George Bush had in mind when, right after 9/11, he warned about the
need for the American people to be prepared to fight a very long
war.
During the Cold War the U.S. ringed the Soviet Union with bases
in countries all over the Northern Hemisphere. That encirclement
drove the Soviet leadership to fits of apoplexy and, occasionally,
to very foolish foreign ventures.
During this war we won’t be on the fringes of Islam. We will be
in Iraq. We will be right in the heart of Islam. Right in the midst
of the enemy who would kill us all. And, when the realization of
that sinks in, the American people will finally know why we went to
war in Iraq.
IF THE RESULTS OF THE IRAQI elections lead to the establishment of
a secular government, then Bush and the U.S. will have been the
clear winners. Everyone’s choice for prime minister is Ayad Alawi.
If he is whom we get, we and George Bush will have hit the
jackpot.
The selection of Alawi as the eventual winner is primarily based
on the conclusion that he has played his hand masterfully. He has
put many miles between himself and the violence of the past 6
months. In fact, Alawi could campaign on the motto: “Let the good
times roll!” and win handily.
Alawi is tough, secular, and a savage infighter. It may well
turn out that his poor showing last January was a blessing in
disguise for him. For Iraq to be ready for a stable government,
there is agreement that the country will be required to go through
a massive bloodletting. This process will ultimately exorcise all
the demons left over from Saddam. If Alawi had won in January, he
would have lost his turn because he mistimed his arrival.
Fortunately for Alawi, it is not always good to be the early
bird.
As the world’s only superpower we have an obligation to
ourselves and to the rest of the world to impose discipline on all
the trouble-makers and terrorists, with or without the help of our
allies. The obvious reason for this is that our safety and
security demand it. To those who would ask, “Why is that our job?”
my reply would be to suggest they read the speech Tony Blair
delivered to Congress on July 17, 2003. On that occasion the Prime
Minister was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his loyal
support of the United States during the events leading up to the
Iraq war.
Toward the end of his acceptance speech, Blair took careful note
of what must cross the mind of every American by saying to us:
“And I know it’s hard on America, and in some small corner of
this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I’ve
never been to, but always wanted to go… I know out there there’s
a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own
business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country,
‘Why me? Why us? And why America?’”
The Prime Minister answered his own question:
“Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this
moment in time, and the task is yours to do.”
John Connly Walsh works for an American company in
Baghdad.
Copyright 2005 John Connly Walsh
