So, the United States has completed five years of stay in Iraq. Never mind, as the US public and the world now know, that the invasion itself was based on lies and deceit. Nevertheless, the Americans have ended up destroying a country, leading to the deaths of around 100,000 people and injuries to half a million more. They have themselves lost 4,000 men, those whose deaths have been confirmed, and more than 10,000 injured. During the process, they have also lost credibility as a superpower and created a plethora of enemies, not surprisingly, among the Muslims. In addition, the US economy has taken a massive hit. The massive expenditure on Iraq, with one figure showing that the US would have spent around 600 billion dollars on the war on Iraq by the end of 2008, has certainly contributed to it.
The Iraq war came about as a result of the Bush Doctrine, which calls for confronting regimes that do not adhere to US wishes and, in the eyes of the United States, are found to be developing, acquiring or using weapons of mass destruction. The policy first came to light when two US Department of Defence officials, Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, proposed a new American military and political strategy that was based on three planks. First, the United States must remain the world's only superpower, unchallenged by any other country. Second, the United States should use pre-emptive force in self-defence, wherever necessary. And finally, the US should be able to tackle and eliminate threats to its security unilaterally. The two officials claimed that with the end of the Cold War, the American policy of containment and deterrence introduced by President Truman had become obsolete. However, at that time, the proposal by the two neo-cons, as they later came to be known, sparked great controversy, with President Bush Senior ordering the revision of the strategy and removal of the points about pre-emptive and unilateral action. President Bill Clinton continued the policy of containment and deterrence till 2000. After 9/11, the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released in September 2002, has come to be called the Bush Doctrine. It seeks pre-emption in a world of "terrorist organisations, dangerous regimes, and weapons of mass destruction." It also calls for "acting alone, if necessary," and to extend the benefits of freedom across the globe in order to build "a balance of power that favours freedom".
However, much has been written about these issues. What concerns us here is the lessons that the US military may or may not have drawn from the war.
First, the war and its aftermath have shown that the US military failed to do proper homework about the country that it was invading and was to occupy. The war plan was quickly conceived and implemented with little thought given to questions like how best to proceed with the Baathist machinery and the Iraqi armed forces after the war. What would be the reaction of the majority of Iraqi tribes to the occupation? Would there be a guerrilla war and to what extent? Do they have sufficient forces on the ground to tackle insurgencies or infiltration from Iraq's neighbours? Would there be a deadly sectarian divide and would the Americans be able to control it? Like these, there are a host of questions that the Americans failed to take into account before executing the Iraq war plan. This simply tells us that even the most advanced militaries can goof up without proper planning and preparations.
Second, the war in Iraq has shattered the myth that the US military can fight two major wars at the same time. The fiasco in Iraq forced the Americans to bring to the Arab country troops and other resources earmarked for operation in Afghanistan. After five years of war, they still need a massive number of troops on the ground, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they don't really have them. As a result, the Americans are unable to totally control either of the two countries. So, the lesson number two is that the US military is over-rated in terms of strength and capabilities.
Third, the Second Iraq War has shown that in the present day air forces have a limited role to play in major operations like Iraq and Afghanistan. In the first Iraq War, the United States Air Force had single-handedly provided the Americans with the results they had required. While one can have air superiority and then air supremacy, it does not mean that they one also get the desired results on the ground. The air force in today's wars plays a crucial role in suppressing the enemy's defences but it will not win you the land. For that, you still have to have good troops and resources on the ground. Lesson number three is that there is no replacement for the army for most missions while the air force has its own significance.
Fourth, the Americans have been greatly relying on their advanced war machine to get the results. After Operation Desert Storm, it had been wrongly concluded that modern weapon systems were the most important factor in winning present-day wars. However, the ongoing wars tell us that the US forces are not equipped to fight low-intensity conflicts. Lesson number four is that over-reliance on advanced systems would not always win you a war.
All told, the US invasion of Iraq also tells us that the difference between giving justifications and the actual truth counts a lot in everyday life. The ground given by the US to invade Iraq was that there were weapons of mass destruction. The claim has turned out to be lacking in authenticity. The American government claimed that the war was part of the war on terror. But we know that the Iraqis had no role in 9/11, and also that they were rich in oil supplies. And so on and so forth. Again, the rationale for continuing the US stay in Iraq is given as "we will change the tide." Five years from now, with several hundred thousand more Iraqi casualties and thousands more American servicemen dead, the reality may, once again, be much different.
(The writer is news editor, The News, Karachi. email: abbasrizvi14@hotmail.com)
