John RapleySINCE UNITED States President George Bush's last State of the Union address, if not before, it has been apparent that the U.S. will almost certainly invade Iraq.
The question is no longer whether, but when, and how. But if diplomacy and international public opinion have failed to bring the war back into question, they have affected both its timing and likely course.
If the U.S. administration had had its way, I strongly suspect this war would have taken place by now; it would have involved a large international coalition; and the U.S. would have done most of the fighting on its own, then left the subsequent occupation and re-construction of Iraq to its allies.
Instead, the war has been
postponed, and while the Pentagon American military headquarters - is still presuming that the bulk of the post-war occupation force will be non-American, this remains far from clear. As it is, the U.S. is preparing to go to war largely on its own, hoping that allies will come on board at the last minute. Some, including the Australians and British, have already committed troops. Some regional allies, including Kuwait, have opened their bases. Yet others, including Turkey, are being more cagey.
Given this high degree of uncertainty, predicting the likely course of the war becomes an even trickier exercise than it normally would be. However, some of the broad outlines of the American plan have begun to come into focus.
THE PATH OF WAR
It will begin with a massive aerial bombardment. United States' air superiority is unrivalled. The 1991 Gulf War decimated the already limited Iraqi air force. As for Iraq's ground defences, British and American aircraft have been using the cover of the no-fly zones erected after the Gulf War to take out what remains of them. Rather like the Taliban did during the American bombing of Afghanistan, the Iraqis will have to hunker down in their trenches and weather the storm.
During the Gulf War, aerial devastation left Iraqi troops stunned and demoralised. Once the allied advance began, they surrendered in droves. Since the Gulf War, American technological superiority has only increased, and some generals are hoping that they can rain down so much carnage that the Iraqi army will just wither. Better yet, some Iraqi commanders may decide to end the misery and overthrow Saddam, saving themselves and their people from further suffering.
Several factors may prevent this best-case scenario from coming into play, though. One is that Saddam is fighting a different type of war this time around. During the Gulf War, he was trying to hold Kuwait. He thus stationed much of his army at the desert front, where it lay at the mercy of American bombers. This time, though, he is trying to hold onto power. Thus, he has left the frontiers weakly defended and withdrawn his best fighters inland where they can defend Baghdad.
What appears to have happened is that Saddam has posted the regular army the least professional, least equipped and least loyal of his troops far from Baghdad. It is conceivable that they will fold up and surrender before the American assault, and possibly even join the invaders. But they are expendable. They might even complicate things for an invading army should they decide to join it.
In the meantime, Saddam may opt for a scorched-earth policy as his forces retreat. They could blow up dams, destroy infrastructure and ignite oil wells. He did the latter in Kuwait, greatly raising the cost of the country's reconstruction. Should he do the same in the midst of war, it would slow the American advance.
The Americans are anxious to open two fronts. They already have one in the south, in Kuwait. They do not necessarily need a northern one from which to apply pressure on Baghdad. But they do want to prevent Iraq from outright collapse. The Kurds would like to create an independent homeland for themselves in northern Iraq. If the Iraqi regime fell, they might well take advantage of the vacuum.
CIVIL WAR
The risk of the conflict spreading beyond Iraq's borders would then augment. Kurds are also present in large numbers in Turkey, Syria and Iran. An independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq might serve as a base for rebel movements in these countries. To forestall this eventuality, and to prevent the Turks taking matters into their own hands, the Americans want to occupy all of Iraq. Unlike in Afghanistan, where they relied on proxy armies to do the dirty work for them, in Iraq it will be too risky. United States' troops will impose themselves swiftly on the ground in order to prevent others from doing so.
The invaders will not likely encounter much resistance before reaching Baghdad. Saddam appears to have dispersed his best forces around the capital. This way, they will be less concentrated and so better able to withstand the first wave of the air war. Afterwards, they will probably be withdrawn to Baghdad. Should they decide to make a last stand there, the war could sink into a carnage that will show up each night on the world's television screens.
The risks are two-fold. One is that the American aerial and technological advantage will count for little in city streets. American casualties could rise sharply. Civilian casualties are certain to do so. And that could make this war, unpopular to begin with, more so everywhere. With satellite television beaming images of mutilated children across the Arab world, popular anger at the Americans, already rising, will worsen. The anti-American terror mill would then be sure to win more recruits.
This would be the worst-case scenario for the war: a hellish carnage that bloodies the Americans all while making them look like baby-killers. Yet even the best-case scenario has risks. Should the generals buckle under the pressure and overthrow Saddam, the job might not yet be finished. To begin with, there is no guarantee a military coup will bring the "regime change" the Americans are demanding. Instead of Saddam, one of his friends or relatives will govern Iraq.
Worse yet, such an outcome might unleash a settling of Iraq's bottled-up ethnic and religious scores. If they do not take full control of the situation, the Americans run the risk of stepping into a civil war. In that case, they might lose the ability to tell friend from foe.
Thus, a military occupation is all but inevitable. Accordingly, Pentagon planners are telling their people to get ready for an occupation of 18 or more months, during which the army will have to run Iraq's daily affairs. Afghanistan again offers no model. In Iraq, there is no opposition figure with the national authority who can just take over the government.
However, neither is it entirely clear that the Iraqi people are ready for a lengthy occupation. Given Saddam's brutal tyranny, the Americans are confident that ordinary Iraqis will welcome them as liberators. Probably many will, at first. But the welcome might wear thin. At the best of times, Iraq has been a difficult country to hold together. At the worst of times - and given current anti-American sentiment in the Arab world, this has to be counted among the worst of times - it could become a minefield.
Winning the war is thus likely to prove the easy part of this invasion. Winning the peace will test American ingenuity in ways that have not been seen in a long time. I would not want to bet too heavily that it is up to the task.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government at UWI, Mona.
