Iraq? Stratfor Says Run For Cover..............................................................

THE STRATFOR WEEKLY

17 May 2004

Iraq: New Strategies

By George Friedman

Last week, Stratfor published an analysis, "The Edge of the

Razor," that sketched out the problems facing the United States

in Iraq. In an avalanche of responses, one important theme stood

out: Readers wanted to know what we would do, if we were in a

position to do anything. Put differently, it is easy to catalogue

problems, more difficult to provide solutions.

The point is not only absolutely true, but lies at the heart of

intelligence. Intelligence organizations should not give policy

suggestions. First, the craft of intelligence and state-craft are

very different things. Second, and far more important,

intelligence professionals should always resist the temptation to

become policy advocates because, being mostly human, intelligence

analysts want to be right -- and when they are advocates of a

strategy, they will be tempted to find evidence that proves that

policy to be correct and ignore evidence that might prove the

policy in error. Advocating policies impairs the critical

faculties. Besides, in a world in which opinions are commonplace,

there is a rare value in withholding opinions. Finally,

intelligence, as a profession, should be neutral. Now, we are far

from personally neutral in any affecting our country, but in our

professional -- as opposed to our personal lives -- our task is

look at the world through the eyes of all of the players.

Suggesting a strategy for defeating one side makes that obviously

difficult.

That said, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.

We normally try to figure out what is going to happen, what other

people are going to do -- whether they know it or not -- and

explain the actions of others. At times, people confuse

Stratfor's analysis for our political position. This time -- this

once -- we will write for ourselves -- or more precisely, for

myself, since at Stratfor our views on the war range even wider

than those among the general public.

The Mission

The United States' invasion of Iraq was not a great idea. Its

only virtue was that it was the best available idea among a

series of even worse ideas. In the spring of 2003, the United

States had no way to engage or defeat al Qaeda. The only way to

achieve that was to force Saudi Arabia -- and lesser enabling

countries such as Iran and Syria -- to change their policies on

al Qaeda and crack down on its financial and logistical systems.

In order to do that, the United States needed two things. First,

it had to demonstrate its will and competence in waging war --

something seriously doubted by many in the Islamic world and

elsewhere. Second, it had to be in a position to threaten follow-

on actions in the region.

There were many drawbacks to the invasion, ranging from the need

to occupy a large and complex country to the difficulty of

gathering intelligence. Unlike many, we expected extended

resistance in Iraq, although we did not expect the complexity of

the guerrilla war that emerged. Moreover, we understood that the

invasion would generate hostility toward the United States within

the Islamic world, but we felt this would be compensated by

dramatic shifts in the behavior of governments in the region. All

of this has happened.

The essential point is that the invasion of Iraq was not and

never should have been thought of as an end in itself. Iraq's

only importance was its geographic location: It is the most

strategically located country between the Mediterranean and the

Hindu Kush. The United States needed it as a base of operations

and a lever against the Saudis and others, but it had no interest

-- or should have had no interest -- in the internal governance

of Iraq.

This is the critical point on which the mission became complex,

and the worst conceivable thing in a military operation took

place: mission creep. Rather than focus on the follow-on

operations that had to be undertaken against al Qaeda, the Bush

administration created a new goal: the occupation and

administration of Iraq by the United States, with most of the

burden falling on the U.S. military. More important, the United

States also dismantled the Iraqi government bureaucracy and

military under the principle that de-Baathification had to be

accomplished. Over time, this evolved to a new mission: the

creation of democracy in Iraq.

Under the best of circumstances, this was not something the

United States had the resources to achieve. Iraq is a complex and

multi-layered society with many competing interests. The idea

that the United States would be able to effectively preside over

this society, shepherding it to democracy, was difficult to

conceive even in the best of circumstances. Under the

circumstances that began to emerge only days after the fall of

Baghdad, it was an unachievable goal and an impossible mission.

The creation of a viable democracy in the midst of a civil war,

even if Iraqi society were amenable to copying American

institutions, was an impossibility. The one thing that should

have been learned in Vietnam was that the evolution of political

institutions in the midst of a sustained guerrilla war is

impossible.

The administration pursued this goal for a single reason: From

the beginning, it consistently underestimated the Iraqis'

capability to resist the United States. It underestimated the

tenacity, courage and cleverness of the Sunni guerrillas. It

underestimated the political sophistication of the Shiite

leadership. It underestimated the forms of military and political

resistance that would limit what the United States could achieve.

In my view, the underestimation of the enemy in Iraq is the

greatest failure of this administration, and the one for which

the media rarely hold it accountable.

This miscalculation drew the U.S. Army into the two types of

warfare for which it is least suited.

First, it drew the Army into the cities, where the work of

reconstruction -- physical and political -- had to be carried

out. Having dismantled Iraqi military and police institutions,

the Army found itself in the role of policing the cities. This

would have been difficult enough had there not been a guerrilla

war. With a guerrilla war -- much of it concentrated in heavily

urbanized areas and the roads connecting cities -- the Army found

itself trapped in low-intensity urban warfare in which its

technical advantages dissolved and the political consequences of

successful counterattacks outweighed the value of defeating the

guerrillas. Destroying three blocks of Baghdad to take out a

guerrilla squad made military sense, but no political sense. The

Army could neither act effectively nor withdraw.

Second, the Army was lured into counterinsurgency warfare. No

subject has been studied more extensively by the U.S. Army, and

no subject remains as opaque. The guerrilla seeks to embed

himself among the general population. Distinguishing him is

virtually impossible, particularly for a 20-year-old soldier or

Marine who speaks not a word of the language nor understands the

social cues that might guide him. In this circumstance, the

soldier is simply a target, a casualty waiting to happen.

The usual solution is to raise an indigenous force to fight the

guerrillas. The problem is that the most eager recruits for this

force are the guerrillas themselves: They not only get great

intelligence, but weapons, ammunition and three square meals a

day. Sometimes, pre-existing militias are used, via a political

arrangement. But these militias have very different agendas than

those of the occupying force, and frequently maneuver the

occupier into doing their job for them.

Strategies

The United States must begin by recognizing that it cannot

possibly pacify Iraq with the force available or, for that

matter, with a larger military force. It can continue to patrol,

it can continue to question people, it can continue to take

casualties. However, it can never permanently defeat the

guerrilla forces in the Sunni triangle using this strategy. It

certainly cannot displace the power and authority of the Shiite

leadership in the south. Urban warfare and counterinsurgency in

the Iraqi environment cannot be successful.

This means the goal of reshaping Iraqi society is beyond the

reach of the United States. Iraq is what it is. The United

States, having performed the service of removing Saddam Hussein

from power, cannot reshape a society that has millennia of

layers. The attempt to do so will generate resistance -- while

that resistance can be endured, it cannot be suppressed.

The United States must recall its original mission, which was to

occupy Iraq in order to prosecute the war against al Qaeda. If

that mission is remembered, and the mission creep of reshaping

Iraq forgotten, some obvious strategic solutions re-emerge. The

first, and most important, is that the United States has no

national interest in the nature of Iraqi government or society.

Except for not supporting al Qaeda, Iraq's government does not

matter. Since the Iraqi Shia have an inherent aversion to Wahabbi

al Qaeda, the political path on that is fairly clear.

The United States now cannot withdraw from Iraq. We can wonder

about the wisdom of the invasion, but a withdrawal under pressure

would be used by al Qaeda and radical Islamists as demonstration

of their core point: that the United States is inherently weak

and, like the Soviet Union, ripe for defeat. Having gone in,

withdrawal in the near term is not an option.

That does not mean U.S. forces must be positioned in and near

urban areas. There is a major repositioning under way to reduce

the size of the U.S. presence in the cities, but there is,

nevertheless, a more fundamental shift to be made. The United

States undertook responsibility for security in Iraq after its

invasion. It cannot carry out this mission. Therefore, it has to

abandon the mission. Some might argue this would leave a vacuum.

We would argue there already is a vacuum, filled only with

American and coalition targets. It is not a question of creating

anarchy; anarchy already exists. It is a question of whether the

United States wishes to lose soldiers in an anarchic situation.

The geography of Iraq provides a solution. The bulk of Iraq's

population lives in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. To the

south and west of the Euphrates River, there is a vast and

relatively uninhabited region of Iraq -- not very hospitable, but

with less shooting than on the other side. The western half of

Iraq borders Saudi Arabia and Syria, two of the countries about

which the United States harbors the most concern. A withdrawal

from the river basins would allow the United States to carry out

its primary mission -- maintaining regional pressure -- without

engaging in an impossible war. Moreover, in the Kurdish regions

of the northeast, where U.S. Special Forces have operated for a

very long time, U.S. forces could be based -- and supplied -- in

order to maintain a presence on the Iranian border.

Iraq should then be encouraged to develop a Shiite-dominated

government, the best guarantor against al Qaeda and the greatest

incentive for the Iranians not to destabilize the situation. The

fate of the Sunnis will rest in the deal they can negotiate with

the Shia and Kurds -- and, as they say, that is their problem.

The United States could supply the forces in western and southern

Iraq from Kuwait, without the fear that convoy routes would be

cut in urban areas. In the relatively uninhabited regions,

distinguishing guerrillas from rocks would be somewhat easier

than distinguishing them from innocent bystanders. The force

could, if it chose, execute a broad crescent around Iraq,

touching all the borders but not the populations.

The Iraqi government might demand at some point that the United

States withdraw, but they would have no way to impose their

demand, as they would if U.S. forces could continue to be picked

off with improvised explosive devices and sniper fire. The

geographical move would help to insulate U.S. forces from even

this demand, assuming political arrangements could not be made.

Certainly the land is inhospitable, and serious engineering and

logistical efforts would be required to accommodate basing for

large numbers of troops. However, large numbers of troops might

not be necessary -- and the engineering and logistical problems

certainly will not make headlines around the world.

Cutting Losses

Certainly, as a psychological matter, there is a retreat. The

United States would be cutting losses. But it has no choice. It

will not be able to defeat the insurgencies it faces without

heavy casualties and creating chaos in Iraqi society. Moreover, a

victory in this war would not provide the United States with

anything that is in its national interest. Unless you are an

ideologue -- which I am not -- who believes bringing American-

style democracy to the world is a holy mission, it follows that

the nature of the Iraqi government -- or chaos -- does not affect

me.

What does affect me is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is trying to kill me.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia permitted al Qaeda to flourish.

The presence of a couple of U.S. armored divisions along the

kingdom's northern border has been a very sobering thought. That

pressure cannot be removed. Whatever chaos there is in Saudi

Arabia, that is the key to breaking al Qaeda -- not Baghdad.

The key to al Qaeda is in Riyadh and in Islamabad. The invasion

of Iraq was a stepping-stone toward policy change in Riyadh, and

it worked. The pressure must be maintained and now extended to

Islamabad. However, the war was never about Baghdad, and

certainly never about Al Fallujah and An Najaf. Muqtada al-Sadr's

relationship to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the makeup of

the elders in Al Fallujah are matters of utter and absolute

indifference to the United States. Getting drawn into those

fights is in fact the quagmire -- a word we use carefully and

deliberately.

But in the desert west and south of the Euphrates, the United

States can carry out the real mission for which it came. And if

the arc of responsibility extends along the Turkish frontier to

Kurdistan, that is a manageable mission creep. The United States

should not get out of Iraq. It must get out of Baghdad, Al

Fallujah, An Najaf and the other sinkholes into which the

administration's policies have thrown U.S. soldiers.

Again, this differs from our normal analysis in offering policy

prescriptions. This is, of course, a very high-level sketch of a

solution to an extraordinarily complex situation. Nevertheless,

sometimes the solution to complex situations is to simplify them.