THE STRATFOR
WEEKLY: 7 July
2003
by Dr. George Friedman
U.S.
Counterinsurgency Strategies in Iraq
Summary: The appointment of Gen. John
Abizaid as head of U.S. Central Command
opens a new phase in both the Iraq campaign and the war
on al Qaeda. In order to wage
follow-on operations against al Qaeda, an
effective counterinsurgency operation must be launched
against the Iraqi guerrillas.
This is a politico-military imperative.
Politically, the United States must demonstrate its
effectiveness against the
full spectrum of opponents. Militarily, the United
States must show it can project forces from Iraq while
the base of operations
remains insecure. Directly suppressing an insurrection without
indigenous support historically has been difficult,
but Iraq has a built-in opposition to the guerrillas:
the Shiites in the south. But
their desire to dominate an Iraqi government
-- and their ties to Iran -- runs counter to U.S.
policy. This means Washington
will have to make some difficult choices in
Iraq, and in the end will give away some things it
does not want to give
away.
Analysis: U.S. Army Gen. John
Abizaid will
officially take over as head of Central
Command during the week of July 7. His mission will be
not only to stabilize the
situation in Iraq, but also to command the main
U.S. offensive against al Qaeda. The summer offensive
that Stratfor has written
about has begun, and Abizaid's mission will be to
wage war, integrate the various operations into a
coherent whole and achieve
the goal of the offensive: to further undermine
al Qaeda's ability to strike at the U.S. homeland.
In war, no
plan unfolds as expected. This war began in a
completely unexpected fashion
on Sept. 11, 2001. As is inevitable,
the course of the war has taken unexpected turns. The
most recent and significant
turn of this war has been the emergence
of a guerrilla war in Iraq. To be more precise, it
appears to us that in Iraq,
as in Afghanistan, the fighters on the ground
understood that they could not win a conventional war. Rather than engage in the
sort of conflict at which the United States
excels, they put up token conventional resistance, all the
while planning to engage the
United States in unconventional warfare
over an extended period.
In other
words, the Iraqi forces understood
that they could not defeat the
United States in conventional war. Instead, the Iraqi
war plan consisted of
declining conventional engagement and subsequently engaging U.S.
forces in operations in which their advantages
were minimized and their weaknesses were exposed.
This has left the
United States with the following battle problem: It
must wage the broader summer offensive while
simultaneously containing,
engaging and defeating the Iraqi guerrillas.
This is not an easy task, not only because it spreads
U.S. forces thinner than
planned, but also because the challenge posed by
the guerrillas has trans-military
implications,
politically and
psychologically. Abizaid must not ignore these
considerations and must
integrate them into his war plan. This is neither
easy nor optional.
It is useful to begin by recalling the overarching
strategic purpose of
all of these operations: the disruption of al Qaeda
and potential follow-on
groups to prevent further major attacks on the
United States. The Iraq campaign was an element in this
broader strategy, designed to
achieve these three goals, in increasing
importance:
1. The elimination of a regime that potentially could
support al Qaeda
operations.
2. The
transformation of the psychological architecture of the
Islamic world. The perception
in the Islamic world, developed since the
U.S. withdrawal from Beirut in 1983 and reaffirmed by
events since then, was that
the United States was incapable of resolute
action. The United States was seen as powerful
militarily, but as lacking
the political will to use that power. U.S. forces withdrew after
taking minimal casualties in Beirut and
Somalia. In Afghanistan, the United States halted
operations after
seizing major cities, apparently because it was unwilling
to engage in more extended
conflict. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was
designed to change the Islamic world's perception --
accepting anger at the United
States in exchange for greater fear.
3. The creation
of a base of operations that would allow the
United States to bring
political and military pressure to bear on a cluster
of nations the U.S. administration sees as directly or
indirectly sustaining al
Qaeda operations -- in particular Saudi Arabia,
Syria and Iran. Riyadh began shifting its position prior
to the Iraq invasion.
Immediately after the end of the campaign, the United
States turned its attention to follow-on operations
against Syria and Iran. These
operations have been primarily political
since the end of the Iraq campaign, but the constant
threat exists that they could
move to a military phase at any point.
The
guerrilla war in Iraq strikes directly at the second
objective of the Iraqi
campaign. It is what Stratfor has called a
trans-military goal: It is rooted in a military operation but ultimately
arrives at an issue that transcends the purely military -- namely the
psychological perception of the United States and the credibility of U.S.
military threats. As a
secondary matter, it also
complicates the logistics of follow-on operations
after Iraq. At the moment, that is not the primary
issue -- although it should
be emphatically noted that an evolution
in the conditions in Iraq very well could undermine the
U.S. ability to use Iraq as a
base of operations.
The
problems that have arisen in Afghanistan and Iraq are rooted in U.S.
strategy. The United States invaded
both countries as a means
toward other ends, rather than as ends in themselves. The
invasion of Afghanistan was
intended to disrupt al Qaeda's main operational
base. The invasion of Iraq was intended to bring U.S.
power to bear against al
Qaeda's enablers in the region. In neither
case did the United States have an intrinsic interest in
either country -- including
control of Iraq's oil. (end of excerpts. Attached in full)
