Unwinnable war

Earlier this year, prior to Gen. Petraeus' report, the general consensus was that the Iraqi occupation was all but lost. The number of attacks on American troops was rising, the amount of American casualties was approaching its previous monthly peak, and the surge appeared to represent one last roll of the dice by the administration to forestall the growing political pressure for withdrawal.

Now, supporters of the ongoing occupation are arguing – again – that a corner has been turned. They point out, reasonably enough, that the 32 fatalities in Iraq this November are barely 25 percent of the 126 American deaths in May. They note with understandable glee that civilian casualties are also down significantly, that the number of terrorist attacks has fallen by nearly 80 percent and that Democratic politicians who were speaking openly about withdrawal timetables last spring have largely fallen silent.

And they put great importance on the apparent observation that the Sunni insurgents have turned on al-Qaida and are now more or less aligning themselves with the occupation rather than against it. All of this is legitimately good news, and many Republican commentators have declared many signs and wonders indicating that the occupation is verging on ultimate success. The eminent Victor Davis Hanson has even gone so far as to postulate the "Return of the Neocon," however ghastly the prospect may strike most rational observers.

Unfortunately, in the intermediate term, all of this tactical success is entirely irrelevant.

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Most wars go through a period of ebb and flux. Even World War II, after a violent onset that saw the rapid fall of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, featured a relatively tranquil period that was known in England as "the Phony War" for seven months prior to the invasion of France. Given the evidence of various unrelated events ranging from the election of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, in Turkey and the clashes along the Turkish-Kurdish northern border, to the movement of U.S. naval forces, and perhaps most significantly, the imposition of martial law in Pakistan, it should be obvious that the relative peace and quiet bought by 30,000 additional U.S. troops is only a momentary lull.

I wrote the following in an April 2004 column:

The conquest of Iraq no more brought about an end to the global jihad than did the conquest of the Rhineland-Palatinate mean the end of World War II. Nor could it have. Berlin had to fall before the defeat of Nazi Germany could even be contemplated, and it's bizarre to suggest that the occupation of a peripheral Arabic province could end the war while the Clausewitzian center of gravity remains unmolested.

Even in the unlikely event that Iraq truly is approaching pacified status, and the failure of the Iraqi puppet government to achieve any of the political benchmarks set for it by the occupying administration strongly indicates that it is not, there is no way that the neocons' war can seriously be regarded as having been won in any way, shape or form. Charles Krauthammer is right to invoke Inchon in his plea to ignore the political realities of Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni intransigence, but not in the manner in which he invokes it, because Iraq is nothing more than an American imperial beachhead into the Middle East.

An imperial one, not a democratic one, for as we have already seen in Algeria, Palestine, Turkey and now Pakistan, democratic interests and the transnational interests of the American empire are two entirely separate things. Indeed, the neocons are in somewhat of a muddle at the moment, as they can't decide whether they should take advantage of the Iraqi lull to continue to advocate the invasion of nuclear-seeking Iran, or to switch targets to an already-nuclear Pakistan. No doubt we'll learn what they've decided soon, when December's "Hitler of the Month" centerfold is unveiled. I'm hoping for Musharraf myself; who can resist those dark and dreamy eyes?

Tactical success should never be confused with strategic victory. The Iraqi occupation is but one part of a war that cannot be won with conventional strategies, much less conventional strategies that are demonstrably inept. Empire destroyed Persia and Rome, it crippled China and Britain, and it will end the remaining vestiges of America if its temptations are not soon abjured by the American people.

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