The Baathists' Blundering Guerrilla War

[MKSheppard]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... ge=printer

The Baathists' Blundering Guerrilla War

By Gary Anderson

Thursday, June 26, 2003; Page A29

When I predicted April 2 in an article on this page that a Baathist insurgency movement would follow a conventional coalition victory in Iraq, I believed that resorting to guerrilla warfare was the most obvious course of action for the true believers in a regime facing inevitable defeat. I also said that I believed that they would foul it up. They promptly did so; if nothing else, they are predictable.

Given the chance to lie low and bide their time -- waiting until the Americans were well into a withdrawal before striking -- the Baathist leadership, or what is left of it, chose instead to tip its hand while the American presence in Iraq was strongest. By doing so, these Baathist leaders, a loosely knit network operating in the Sunni triangle northwest of Baghdad, caused U.S. forces to pour into a region that should have been their natural sanctuary. Now they are facing retaliation from the U.S.-led coalition at precisely the time they should be resting and recovering.

If the Baathists had followed the classic insurgency doctrines preached by masters such as Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, they would have kept a low profile, spreading agitation and propaganda while the U.S. occupation forces waned in strength. They should have waited for a struggling, post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi central government to try to take control in the region before striking. Instead of a weak, fledgling democratic Iraqi regime, the Baathists are facing a seriously aroused U.S. liberation force still at the height of its power and competence.

In the classic first stage of an insurgency, the rebels build on public discontent to create local covert sanctuaries and muster their strength. They engage in hit-and-run attacks to show the population that they exist, but they try not to draw undue attention to their activities. The high-profile attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqi allies in recent weeks are more like the second stage of a classic insurgency, in which the guerrillas have established a base of public support and have covert sanctuaries among the general population. The Baathists have neither. They remain unpopular, a residual cancer, operating only in the region where they have some civilian support. And they have many enthusiastic enemies among the civilian population, backed up by American firepower that is increasingly in search of retribution. This is not the way to start a popular revolution.

Any successful revolution needs a popular cause. The Baathists want the Americans out of Iraq. But if there is a popular sentiment in Iraq that trumps a desire to see an eventual U.S. withdrawal, it is the desire of the vast majority of people to have seen the last of the Baath Party. Again, this is not a promising building block for a popular liberation front.

This brings us to the question of how to best deal with this misanthropic proto-revolution. The answer is simple: We need to put it out of its misery early. This appears to be exactly what U.S. Central Command is doing. The current crackdown in the Sunni triangle is the only way to deal with this kind of overt challenge to the authority of occupation forces. We should not sell the decentralized nature of this revolution short. We need to remember that al Qaeda is also a networked organization. The difference is that al Qaeda spent years building covert cells, gaining operational experience and creating overt and covert sanctuaries before launching its spectacular operations. This is what makes it imperative to crush the Iraqi insurgency early.

The Baathists may be poor fighters, but they are accomplished thugs. If they are not dealt with firmly, they will begin again to intimidate the rest of the Iraqi population. We should redouble our efforts to hunt down and bring to justice the worst elements of the old regime -- and not just members of the deck of 52. The Iraqi people need to see that evil actions have consequences.

The next step will be subtler. We need to look at this situation as an opportunity as well as a problem. We need to create a force capable of replacing the U.S. occupation force with an Iraqi institution capable of taking up the counterinsurgency campaign without replicating the brutality of the Baathists. The creation of such an internal "people's army" is not without precedent; it was done in the Philippines in the first part of this century by the Americans and in Burma by the British after World War II. Something similar was the core of the Israeli state as it created a nation of citizen-soldiers to deal with both British and Arab foes. This will take patience, but it is also the eventual ticket out for U.S. and other coalition forces.

The people's army should be a temporary fix. Once the Sunni triangle is declared Baath-free, this force can be disbanded, with its veterans providing recruits for the new national army and police as well as the cadres for a new democratic political leadership. Doing this in the Sunni triangle is beyond the competence of the resurrected traffic cops who will likely suffice in the rest of the country. Waiting for a regular army to take up the counterinsurgency job while Americans patrolled the streets of Iraq's most anti-American cities wouldn't fly with the respective Iraqi or American publics. An interim measure that can be implemented in the near term is necessary.

Our U.S. Special Operations forces have the knowledge and experience to provide the training cadre for such an Iraqi "people's constabulary." We also have a strong pool of retired and former members of the Marine Corps Combined Action Program from the Vietnam era to draw on. An Iraqi internal security force must be well indoctrinated in respect for human rights and democratic traditions. It could well become the cradle for the first true democracy in the troubled Middle East.

The writer is a retired Marine Corps officer who served in Lebanon and Somalia.

"The shovel is brother to the gun." C. Sandburg

[Vympel]

This article presupposes that those attacking the Americans *must* be former regime fans and Ba'athist 'dead enders'. I've seen no proof to that effect.

That aside,

Given the chance to lie low and bide their time -- waiting until the Americans were well into a withdrawal before strikin ...

Instead of a weak, fledgling democratic Iraqi regime, the Baathists are facing a seriously aroused U.S. liberation force still at the height of its power and competence.

But, the US forces would've only withdrawn once services and a workable government/ defense force was operable, and in that case, would've lost much of their support. Better to attack now, with the filthy American occupiers omni-present in the region, on again off again electricity, intrusive weapons searches, looting, disorder, and general chaos, than wait when the Iraqi people have less to be pissed off about.

he high-profile attacks on U.S. forces and Iraqi allies in recent weeks

High profile? Which high profile attacks? At best, several soldiers get shot at a day.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

High profile? Which high profile attacks? At best, several soldiers get shot at a day.

Exactly, and so this really comes down to a morale test, since it's hardly enough to attrite our forces in-country.

[NecronLord]

It makes a lot of assumptions about the enemy, based on no intel.