Osama bin Laden dead: what to do now?

Whither US policy now that OBL is dead

Now that Osama bin Laden has been declared killed by the U.S. what should be their next step?

Snouck's answer: this is a good time to declare a victory and get the hell out of the quicksands of the Middle East and Afghanistan.

However the attack Obama instigated NATO attack on Libya shows the American government has not learned that attacking Muslim countries is a bad idea. The West's greatest problem these days seems to be the inability to learn lessons, caused by the dogmatic belief in human equality.

US Forces withdraw from Urban Centres in Iraq

Operational redeployment

The US is withdrawing its troops from Iraq's urban centres. The troops are arrayed in "belts" around towns and cities. The question is whether this is a victory for the US or for its enemies. According to the NewYork Times:

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has taken to calling the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq’s cities by next Tuesday a “great victory,” a repulsion of foreign occupiers he compares to the rebellion against British troops in 1920.

US political and military leadership is not challenging their supposed ally, Mr. Al-Maliki. (I wrote a post on November 24 2005 advising the strategy of withdrawing US Forces to locations outside the cities.)

The original strategy of the US

The strategy of the US after the attack by the Jihadists on 9-11 consisted of invading Iraq to turn it into a democratic model for the rest of the Middle East. A democratic Iraq would undermine autocratic Middle Eastern regimes and usher in an era of democracy. This democratic era would than take away the "root causes" of Middle Eastern discontent with the West.

Iraq becoming a newer, bigger Lebanon

Rather than becoming a haven for Freedom, Iraq became a violent tangle of sects and tribes. The US was never able to deal with it. After calming the country down after the surge the US military is now leaving the urban centres to the newly constituted Iraqi security forces under the control of Mr. Al-Maliki and the Shia.

Gaining legitimacy in the eyes of the majority sect

Mr. Al-Maliki and his government are now faced with a fight with the Sunni minority. The Sunnis allied themselves with the US during the surge in return for the US paying a tribute. On the other hand Mr. Al-Maliki faces competition for the hearts and minds of the Shia from even more radical elements. For PM Al-Maliki the alliance with the US is increasingly becoming a burden. He needs to divest from the US and strengthen other alliances with local powers. These will be shia Iran (never mind who wins the present power struggle there), the Kurds, Turkey, Jordan and if possible Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

The US is facing different set of problems now

Meanwhile in the US the state of California is so broke that it can not cover 25 percent of the budget. The Federal government is refusing to bail out the state. It the Federal government will not bail out California, will it be interested in continuing to pour treasure into Iraq?

This amounts to something bigger than the US defeat in Vietnam. It is like the USSR having to withdraw from its internationalist duty in Afghanistan.

Why did the strategy of democratization fail?

The US leaderhip are so in thrall of the equality dogma, that they failed to take into account that the Middle East belongs to a different Civilization than Eastern Europe, where democratization has proven more successful. The Islamic faith is extremely hostile to Western ideas of government. This makes it difficult to mobilize the population for an effort supporting a Western-led endeavor and easy to mobilize the population to those who are opposed to the West.

Blackwater changes its name

Blackwater USA, the US Private Military Firm (PMF) changed its name. It is now going to do business under the brandname Xe. The rebranding reflects the bad reputation the firm earned operating in Iraq, as a result of killing civilians.

The firm was the number one PMF used by the USA to fight the insurgency against their occupation of the Middle Eastern country. It was responsible for the security of the State Department Staff in Iraq including governor Paul Bremer and his successor John Negroponte.

The US heavily depends on personel provided by PMFs in its struggle against terrorists motivated by Islam, who are waging Jihad on the USA and other Non-Islamic nations.

Blackwater denied licence to operate in Iraq

Denied licence to operate

The U.S. Private Military Firm (PMF) Blackwater Worldwide was denied a licence for operating in Iraq forthwith. The Iraqi Ministry of Home Affairs oversees the licencing of PMFs in Iraq.

Blackwater history in Iraq

Blackwater has operated in Iraq since the U.S. invasion of 2003. It was charged with protecting officials of the U.S. State Department which was initially responsible for overseeing the Civil administration of Iraq and later the transfer of authority to the Iraqi government. Former Governor of Iraq Bremer amended Iraqi law in such a way that employees of PMF could not be held accountable for their actions in order to ensure that U.S. State Department personel would receive maximum protection by the PMF bodyguards.

Securing the U.S. Governor of Iraq

Blackwater was the number one PMF contracted by the Americans for bodyguarding in Iraq. They were responsible for guarding the governor of Iraq with a security detail of three small helicopters and 24 bodyguards.

Popular discontent with presence of PMFs in Iraq

In 2007 Blackwater became the center of controversy when they massacred 17 civilians in Nisour square in central Bagdad. Since then the Iraqi public has been very hostile towards the presence of the firm in their country.

A cooldown in Iraq - U.S. relations

The fact that the Iraqi government is trying to get rid of the group that is guarding U.S. Diplomats may indicate that they are trying to distance themselves from the U.S. which coincides with new U.S. President Obama´s intention to decrease U.S. in Iraq while increasing efforts in Afghanistan.

Bigger picture: The Surge

Steve Parkin of Ontario TV interviews General (ret.) Douglas Macgregor on the bogus, make believe war the US is waging. On "terror". Not on Islam. I repeat, not on Islam. The specific subject is the much touted surge.

Douglas Macgregor makes many interesting and commendable observations.

View the interview here.

A strengthening Anti-American coalition

The response to the terror attack on New York in 2001 was the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both countries were not able to resist the US military superiority and succumbed to occupation.

Both however are massive liabilities to the US, eating away resources.

The ruling elites of Non-Western nations looked on in initial alarm at the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Their fear was for their own hides in case the US might try something similar with their own nations, removing the elites from power and bringing Iraq-style disorder to their nations.

Already before the war in the Middle East there was concern in China and Russia about US-hegemonism. In order to strengthen themselves these nations, which are growing in economic and societal power and centeredness started to improve their co-operation.

Initially the co-operation took the form of weapons sales by the cash-starved Russians to the Chinese, plus the transfer of military technology to the Chinese military. Later the co-operation was solidified in the form of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), a formal alliance with a permanent secretariat and staff, based in the capital of China. Kazakhastan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan also became members of the alliance.

Important goals of the alliance is furthering trade between the member states and the fight against terrorism against the member states. China is a dynamic economic and monetary powerhouse and an increasingly strong competitor of Western Nations. Russia is also becoming economically stronger, while it also has technological and military production strength. It furthermore has vast oil reserves, which are increasingly becoming scarce, hence the rising price of oil. The other nations in the alliance are also strong in oil and commodities, underwriting the economic expansion of the more prosperous members of SCO.

Recently Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan became members of SCO. This means that the alliance now borders on US occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Four members of SCO have nuclear weapons (Russia, China, Pakistan and India). The alliance gives Iran enormous strategic depth.

The US is under pressure of the Taliban in Afghanistan. And under pressure of Sunni nationalist and Islamic groups of fighters. These groups are fighting in a highly dispersed pattern, in order to nullify the US lead in firepower.

The US forces fighting the Sunnis in and around Bagdad, the core of the Sunni demographic in Iraq are depending on a long supply line to the port city of Basra on the Persian Gulf. Astride the supply line lie the Shia villages, towns and cities. The Shias thus control US logistics. Weapons, food, spare parts, re-inforcements, fuel, medical evacuation can be turned of if the Shia Mullahs. The Shia Mullahs have been put in power by the US organised elections. And by the dismantling of the old Iraqi Army and the nationalist Baath party, which left religious and tribal groupings as the only forms of social and political organisation in Iraq.

Iran is also able to cut off oil supplies to the rest of the world due to their ability to interdict shipping when it travels through the Hormus Straits, the bottleneck for transporting Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Iranian and most of Saudi Arabia's and Gulf State oil deliveries. Just threatening the flow of oil to Asia and the West would send the oil price sky high, slowing down investment in the US economy and hurting the US labour market, which is already under pressure from out of control Mexican immigration.

The US has a technological edge over Iran, militarily. It will be able to destroy Iranian air defense easily and defeat the Iranian Army in the field. However it will run in far greater trouble than it is currently in when it tries to occupy Iran's population centres and faces a new urban guerrilla from its 68 million population.

And then the Iranians will be able to pull the plug on the US Army in Iraq's logistics lifeline and deny the world economy of its oil in a market that has no swing capacity, as in 1973.

The threats that the US have uttered against Iran on Israel's behalf are essentially empty.

The Church speaks out. In Australia

Cardinal George Pell has written a thoughtful piece on the confrontation between immigrant Islam and secular Australia. He enumerates the usual problematic nature of Islam, its offensive, universalist notions, its connection between violence and spirituality, its emphasis on procreation and its ability to sustain high birth rates in connection to the low Western birth rates. A most salient paragraph in my opinion is:

"These two examples show that there is a whole range of factors, some of them susceptible to influence or a change in direction, affecting the prospects for a successful Islamic engagement with democracy. Peace with respect for human rights are the most desirable end point, but the development of democracy will not necessarily achieve this or sustain it. This is an important question for the West as well as for the Muslim world. Adherence to what George Weigel has called “a thin, indeed anorexic, idea of procedural democracy”[21] can be fatal here. It is not enough to assume that giving people the vote will automatically favour moderation, in the short term at least[22]. Moderation and democracy have been regular partners in Western history, but have not entered permanent and exclusive matrimony and there is little reason for this to be better in the Muslim world, as the election results in Iran last June and the elections in Palestine in January reminded us."

"Belief in a thin, [...] procedural democracy". The idea that society, organised human life can be reduced to a simple procedure, a ritual, is one of the biggest threats of the West to itself.

There were the usual nauseating cries from the Left demanding that the Cardinal be punished for speaking out, because naturally the Left knows better and everybody disagreeing with them is an idiot who has to be silenced.

Such a nice thing that Truth has been contracted out to the Left. Saves everyone a lot of thinking for themselves.

An Osiraq style attack

IK:
Snouck - What are your views about pulling off an Osirak ?

(IK refers to the 1981 attack by 12 Israeli F-16 Fighters on the Osiraq nuclear power plant near Bagdad. The plant was used by the Iraqi's to built nuclear weapons. The attack destroyed the nuclear core of the reactor with stunning accuracy, just before it was going to be used to burn uranium).

Snouck:
Very difficult. I understand that the Iranians are hiding their facility deep underground and that presently there are not weapons able to penetrate so deeply, neither conventional (bunker busters) nor nuclear weapons. So disabling the Iranian nuclear program would require a military occupation of areas in Iran to search for the facilities and to destroy them. It would be difficult and risky to pull off, especially if the facilities would not be found quickly. Facilities hidden in urban areas would be most difficult to dismantle, due to the difficulty of fighting in urban terrain.

Unpopular Message

The number of visitors to this blog rose steadily by about 10 percent per week. Yesterday the number of visitors took a 25 percent dent however, especially in visits from the USA. I guess my message about the lost war in Iraq was not a popular one.

Still I stand by my endorsement of Van Creveld's assessment.

The war in Iraq is not going well. There is no victory in sight. I saw some horrible footage yesterday from a film made by Jihadi's. It was shot of American soldiers on the streets in Iraq in armoured vehicles and humvees. They were getting shot by Jihadi snipers. The footage was accompanied by religious chanting in Arabic. The footage of well-equipped US soldiers with million dollar Equipment and sensors standing around seeing nothing is an illustration of the warnings of Van Creveld.

What to do against the Jihad against the West? The democratisation of the Middle East is not working. I have always maintained that it is impossible. Because Iraqi and most other Middle Eastern societies are too fractured along religious (Sunni, Shia) and tribal and ethnic lines to be able to live in a democratic society. Francis Fukuyama wrote a book "Trust" about the necessity of trust and understanding between citizens in a society in order for people to co-operate vulontarily. This is a necessary precondition of democracy. Middle Easterners do not trust one another. High levels of trust are only found in Europe, European derived societies such as Australia and Japan. That is why they need dictators to run societies. That is why civil wars break out.

That is why democracy in Iraq won't work. So if we pursue a defence against Jihad we must shed our illusions about the possibility of democratisation of reshaping the enemy in our own image. The US Army is not an instrument of social reform. Conservatives should understand this. There will be new terror attacks on Western targets. Globally. And something needs to be done. Otherwise people in Europe and the US will lose confidence in their governments and we get instability in our homelands.

A Fool's War

Martin van Creveld, the Israeli war guru who is an expert on warfare in these times we are living in and on the diminishing power of the state wrote a scating piece on Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq. Title: "Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War" The US troops have been in Iraq since 2003. Since then 2,000 soldiers have been killed and only a tine minority of Americans support the war. It is obvious that the US forces must be withdrawn. The question is when and how. Van Creveld ominiously compares the situation in Iraq to Vietnam. And Iraq will be more dear to the US then that war.

During the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam the American handed over their equipment to the South Vietnamese. This is no option now. The Iraqi Army is much weaker than even the ARVN and todays equipment is incomparable more complicated. After the victory of the Communists in 1975 the North ended up with mounains of sofisticated American weapons, which they used to devastating effect in the Vietnam Chinese war of 1979 and the ousting of the Khmer Rouge. Also Vietnam had a centralised government whereas Iraq is a jumble of competing groups.

Clearly, then, the thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a classic withdrawal.

Van Creveld continues to state that first the US forces have to concentrate on Bagdad and then to pull back to Basra and Kuwait.

A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not.

And

a complete American withdrawal is not an option; the region, with its vast oil reserves, is simply too important for that.

The reasons the presence is necessary is that Iran must be deterred from filling the power vacuum. Teheran will be the greatest benefactor from Saddam being toppled. Saddam was the US ally before the first gulf war used as a counterweight to the power of Iran. Now that counterweight is gone the US will have to do the work themselves in order to protect the Gulfstates.

A continued American military presence will be needed also, because a divided, chaotic, government-less Iraq is very likely to become a hornets' nest. From it, a hundred mini-Zarqawis will spread all over the Middle East, conducting acts of sabotage and seeking to overthrow governments in Allah's name.

So the second benefactor of the Second Gulf War is Al-Queda. Great news!

However, Turkey, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Israel are also likely to feel the impact. Some of these countries, Jordan in particular, are going to require American assistance. Van Creveld ends by naming the invasion the greatest mistake in 2,000 years (4 Roman legions massacred by the Germans in the Teutoburger forest). And calls for impeachment of Bush and his cronies.

Long war

There is long war ahead of us. The election news coming out of Iraq is upbeat. Let us suppose that power in Iraq can be handed over to a democratic and reasonably pro-Western government in Bagdad. And that the government will be able to keep the Sunni Muslims happy and maintain peace and order.

Billions of dollars have been spend on defeating Saddam Hussain and on keeping the US Army in the field against small bands of Baathist and Islamist Insurgents. 2.100 US troops got killed as well as 98 Brits.

So how much closer is the US and the West to security? How does a safe and pro - Western Iraq prevent Islam from taking over Western countries through Immigration, superior birth rates in combination with terror attacks? This is not only a danger for Europe but for the US as well. Especially in the cities around the great lakes Muslim communities are growing. Assimilation is prevented by defenses like the Mosque, halal food, special clothing items prescribed by the religion, circumcition and restrictions on mixed marriages. These are the defenses that allowed the Jewish communities to survive in Europe and the Middle East for 2.000 years.

The difference is that the Muslims are more of a demographic and ideological threat than the Jews. The Jews were always a small minority, without a spectacular birthrate and their religion does not order them to bring the societies they live in under Islamic control.

The Pentagon is now struggling with this problem. Fighting the insurgents in Iraq have brought greater understanding of the force that is motivating them: the Qoran and the vision of the Caliphate.

The following are exerpts of an article that was posted on frontpage magazine a few days ago:

The enemy appears indefatigable, even more active now than before 9/11.Are the terrorists really driven by self-serving politics and personal demons? Or are they driven by religion? And if it's religion, are they following a manual of war contained in their scripture?Answers are hard to come by. Four years into the war on terror, U.S. intelligence officials tell me there are no baseline studies of the Muslim prophet Muhammad or his ideological or military doctrine found at either the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency, or even the war colleges.

So the Pentagon reacted to the 9/11 armed with the best weapons money can buy, but had not stocked up well it's Armoury of Knowledge. However this is being rectified as the conflict continues.

But that is slowly starting to change as the Pentagon develops a new strategy to deal with the threat from Islamic terrorists through its little-known intelligence agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity or CIFA, which staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at home and abroad. CIFA also supports Northern Command in Colorado, which was established after 9/11 to help military forces react to terrorist threats in the continental United States.

CIFA is the new name given to the former polygraphic institute of the US Department of Defence. "Its mission is to produce a common Defense Department counterintelligence operational picture, and deliver unique and actionable information to key decision makers in federal, state and local governments". Polygraphs are used to interrogate captured suspects and prisoners of war. A service that exist to extract useful information from prisoners, must have a library of concepts that its enemies use to shape their ideologies. In order to interpret answers or cues the interrogator must know the full range of ideologies that the enemies of the West use to motivate themselves. Just as a good interrogator of captured North Vietnamese Communist troops had to have a good idea of Communism and Vietnamese Nationalism in order to understand what a captured North Vietnamese soldier or officer was telling him during the American involvement in the Vietnam war (1962 - 1972). So has the modern day interrogator develop the meta data to interpret the data that prisoners are "sweating out". And the meta data has to be passed up to the decision makers for them to be able to understand the facts that be passed on later. So they can act upon the data.

Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Now military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad."Today we are confronted with a stateless threat that does not have at the strategic level targetable entities: no capitals, no economic base, no military formations or installations," "Yet political Islam wages an ideological battle against the non-Islamic world at the tactical, operational and strategic level. The West's response is focused at the tactical and operation level, leaving the strategic level -- Islam -- unaddressed.

Any war has next to a Military level also Political, Religious and Cultural spheres in which battle has to be joined in order for victory or even just survival to be attained. Military dominance is worthless without concious striving towards Political, Religious and Cultural dominance.

So far the conclusions of intelligence analysts assigned to the project, who include both private contractors and career military officials, contradict the commonly held notion that Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked or distorted by terrorists. They've found that the terrorists for the most part are following a war-fighting doctrine articulated through Muhammad in the Quran, elaborated on in the hadiths, codified in Islamic or sharia law, and reinforced by recent interpretations or fatwahs."Islam is an ideological engine of war (Jihad)," concludes the sensitive Pentagon briefing paper. And "no one is looking for its off switch.

According to CIFA "Islam is an ideological engine of war". And this is the message it is bringing to the higher ups in the American governement and the Defense Bureaucracy. But is it a welcome message? What is keeping the message back from being transmitted upward?

the briefing states, ... government-wide "indecision [over] whether Islam is radical or being radicalized

We know the evil force that is keeping those who rule our societies, our elites from seeing the truth. Their vision is shackled by the same legal and cultural powers that they use for thought control over the masses. Need I whisper its name?

It also ties Muslim charity to war. Zakat, the alms-giving pillar of Islam, is described in the briefing as "an asymmetrical war-fighting funding mechanism." Which in English translates to: combat support under the guise of tithing. Of the eight obligatory categories of disbursement of Muslim charitable donations, it notes that two are for funding jihad, or holy war. Indeed, authorities have traced millions of dollars received by major jihadi terror groups like Hamas and al-Qaida back to Saudi and other foreign Isamic charities and also U.S. Muslim charities, such as the Holy Land Foundation.According to the Quran, jihad is not something a Muslim can opt out of. It demands able-bodied believers join the fight. Those unable -- women and the elderly -- are not exempt; they must give "asylum and aid" (Surah 8:74) to those who do fight the unbelievers in the cause of Allah.

The productive classes of the West are worn down by the costs associated with mass immigration. Such as providing services and transfer income to the third world masses, often Muslims, that invade our nations, while the right to speak out against it is taken away by the power hungry state. Meanwhile the enemy strengthens itself with funds, technology provided by other civilisations. Do we drive Syrian cars or carry Egyptian watches? Run Libian Software on our computers?

In analyzing the threat on the domestic front, the Pentagon briefing draws perhaps its most disturbing conclusions. It argues the U.S. has not suffered from scattered insurgent attacks -- as opposed to the concentrated and catastrophic attack by al-Qaida on 9-11 -- in large part because it has a relatively small Muslim population. But that could change as the Muslim minority grows and gains more influence.

CIFA is saying what has been argued by Immigration reformers for decades. Mass third world immigration is a threat to the core populations of the West.

The internal document explains that Islam divides offensive jihad into a "three-phase attack strategy" for gaining control of lands for Allah. The first phase is the "Meccan," or weakened, period, whereby a small Muslim minority asserts itself through largely peaceful and political measures involving Islamic NGOs -- such as the Islamic Society of North America, which investigators say has its roots in the militant Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslim pressure groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose leaders are on record expressing their desire to Islamize America.

They new immigrant communities initially speak softly and deferentially, which comes naturally when you are small and marginal. This we saw in Europe in the 60 to 80ties.

In the second "preparation" phase, a "reasonably influential" Muslim minority starts to turn more militant. The briefing uses Britain and the Netherlands as examples.

During this phase Islamic communities use the Qoran to create pockets of influence in the urban centres, the government bureaucracy and in the political system made invisible by the wizardry of the High Priests of Political Correctness.

And in the final jihad period, or "Medina Stage," a large minority uses its strength of numbers and power to rise up against the majority, as Muslim youth recently demonstrated in terrorizing France, the Pentagon paper notes.

Second and Third generation Muslims rise against the Infidels all over the Western world. But they seem to be impatient and make mistakes with their timing. Too much exposure to the time scale of the hectic West?

It also notes that unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam advocates expansion by force. The final command of jihad, as revealed to Muhammad in the Quran, is to conquer the world in the name of Islam. The defense briefing adds that Islam is also unique in classifying unbelievers as "standing enemies against whom it is legitimate to wage war.

Muslims are ordered to get on top in the societies they live in at the expense of the present power elite.

Right now political leaders don't understand the true nature of the threat, it says, because the intelligence community has yet to educate them. They still think Muslim terrorists, even suicide bombers, are mindless "criminals" motivated by "hatred of our freedoms," rather than religious zealots motivated by their faith. And as a result, we have no real strategic plan for winning a war against jihadists.

Without a strategy to gain the commanding heights and the Stronghold of the enemy, Western forces are stumbling in the valleys and swamps, sinking in the crud with the heavy weapons and technology, without really hitting the enemy. New fearless fighters keep challenging our soldiers. Where do they come from? Where is their secret hideaway?

Even many intelligence analysts and investigators working in the field with the Joint Terrorism Task Forces have a shallow understanding of Islam."I don't like to criticize our intelligence services, because we did win the Cold War," says a Northern Command intelligence official. "However, all of these organizations have made only limited progress adjusting to the current threat or the sharing of information."Why? "All suffer heavily from political correctness," he explains.PC still infects the Pentagon, four years after jihadists hit the nation's military headquarters."A lot of folks here have a very pedestrian understanding of Islam and the Islamic threat," a Pentagon intelligence analyst working on the project told me. "We're getting Islam 101, and we need Islam 404."The hardest part of formulating a strategic response to the threat is defining Islam as a political and military enemy. Once that psychological barrier has been crossed, defense sources tell me, the development of countermeasures -- such as educating the public about the militant nature of Islam and exploiting "critical vulnerabilities" or rifts within the Muslim faith and community -- can begin."Most Americans don't realize we are in a war of survival -- a war that is going to continue for decades," the Northcom official warns.It remains to be seen, however, whether our PC-addled political leaders would ever adopt such controversial measures.

There it is again. PC is blinding us. PC is cloaking our enemy. We will never find his Stronghold even less destroy it if we allow bad thinking to cloud our minds.

The way out in Iraq

How to win the war in Iraq

The war in Iraq is going badly for the USA. After having defeated the Iraqi Army quite easily the Americans have a hard time establishing peace and order in Iraq. A small number (about 20.000 to 30.000) of insurgents keep inflicting losses on American and coalition troops, on the new American sponsored and trained Iraqi Army and on the Iraqi population. What to do?

First we have to check what the goal is of the USA in Iraq. The cause of the war is clear, it is the attack by political Sunni Islam on the USA on 9/11. The Bush administration connected the attack on the twin towers first with the rulers in Afghanistan and then with the rulers of Iraq. Also the Bush administration alleged that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be used to attack the USA again.

It is now clear to everyone that there were no WMD in Iraq. There have been elections both in Afghanistan and in Iraq so by democratic logic the problem should be over and the American Forces should be able to withdraw from the Middle East.

But nobody sees it quite so. Not the Americans who dare not to withdraw although they want to, not the new governments and not the Islamists who continue to attack and inflict losses on the American and pro American forces and terror on the population.

The American government has to find a way to convince everyone that they have won and resistance is futile. To do that at home in America is not so difficult, the Bush administration controls most of Mainstream Media there. But they have to convince the Islamists they have won.

I figured out a simple, step by step strategy that might just do it.

If it has not been done yet, get serious about setting up a intelligence organisation in Iraq, concentrating on spying on the Sunni population. 20.000 spies should be enough, for 20-30,000 insurgents. Secondly get serious about training an Iraqi Army that can hold the population centres against Sunni Islamists. About 120.000 men should be enough to hold all cities and towns in Iraq. You can recruit them from the Shia and Kurd ethnic groups. With a 120.000 men one has got enough troops to hold out against the 20.000 – 30.000 Sunni Islamists. Selecting Shias and Kurds will ensure the loyalty of the troops in fighting Sunni Islamists. This will have been done already.

Select about 20.000 men from the 120.000 to become officers, sergeants and corporals, to lead the other 100.000. The soldiers can be taught to march, salute and shoot. That will not take more than 8 weeks and will have been done anyway, by now. Divide them in 13.500 squad sized groups of 7 or 8 men. Equip them lightly, with AK-47s, RPGs and Light Machine Guns (LMG).

Train the 20.000 to be Corporals, Sergeants and second Lieutenants. Select the men for leadership, high morals, perseverance and intelligence. This takes more time. After say four months let the Lieutenants and the NCOs take over the training of the squad men. Let the first 1.000 Iraqi squads go on patrol with American and British troops so they can learn on the job.

If things go well after two months pull out all Western troops out of all cities and towns apart from Baghdad, into deserts bases near the towns, cities AND the highways to the South where the ports are.

The Sunni Islamists are strong in the cities where they can attack the Americans from up close. The American Tanks, Armoured Vehicles, Helicopters, Communication Equipment and Artillery do not give the Americans any advantage in the cities. But in the desert with the free fire zones all around the conventional strength of the American is actually a great asset. Secondly it also means that the Americans are always menacingly nearby and can suddenly pounce on the Sunni insurgents, while the Islamists cannot hurt the Americans. Thirdly it means that the Americans are not hurting the civilian population. Right now a lot of civilians are hurt by American firepower when the Americans are responding to guerrilla pin pricks with their overwhelming but blind firepower. This translates in lots of recruits for the Islamists and has to be stopped. Finally with the Americans out in the deserts they are well poised to keep the Iranian Army from getting any funny ideas about meddling in Iraq.

Create an Iraqi Army Engineering Corps of about 20.000 men. Have them construct new roads, bridges and bypasses in those areas where the roads from the Southern ports are running through or nearby Sunni neighbourhoods and where there is a constant threat of ambush and mines against logistics convoys to the pro American forces in the rest of the country. Supplement the strength of the Iraqi Engineering Corps by letting local construction contractors in on lucrative contracts, to create jobs and a powerful pro American lobby.

Now recruit a second batch of 120.000 Kurds and Shia’s. Hey, throw in some Sunni’s too just to show YOU ARE NOT PREJUDICED.

With the Americans out in the desert and the Iraqi Army in squads in the cities and towns the Islamist cells will start attacking the Iraqi Army squads. In order to get an edge over the Army Squads they will band together in groups of 20-30 men and appoint sergeants and lieutenants to command these groups. To house them, feed them and equip them they will appoint kitchens, safe houses and armouries in neighbourhoods and streets friendly to them. This will be mostly in Sunni neighbourhoods. There will be a maximum of 1,200 of these groups. Make sure you have your spies in there by now, especially in the garages, markets, mosques and coffee houses.

If the Iraqi Army is not strong enough to police the Sunni Neighbourhoods, allow them to pull back into their own ethnic neighbourhoods, which they may defend.
Also make sure to set up funds administered by Kurdish tribal leaders and Shia clergy to pay out considerable amounts of money to the families of killed Iraqi Army personnel. Have community leaders collect money from their ethnic/religious base and add a dollar for every dollar contributed to the funds. Pay out sums of at least 10.000 -20.000 US dollars to the families of martyrs. Also have ethnic leaders and clergy establish funds for hospitals and such. Make available excellent medical and other care for Army wounded. Send American doctors to Iraq and attract the best Iraqi Medical staff to these show piece medical facilities.

Now you take the Iraqi army second Lieutenants that show exceptional ability and promote them to Lieutenant. Form 3 squads into platoons of about 20 men. If losses are heavy pull back out of the Sunni neighbourhoods and concentrate mostly on the Kurdish and Shia ethnic areas. If losses are light keep harassing all known groups of Islamist Insurgents.

Having to oppose the Iraqi Army organised in squads and based on the Shia and Kurd areas and the US Army out there in the desert and on the border the Islamists have to select the most attractive target. Targeting the US Army in the desert will only bring occasional successes and regular losses. So the Islamist forces will concentrate on the Sunni areas and attack the Shia and Kurdish units especially the ones who venture onto Sunni turf. In order to take on the new platoons the Islamists will have to band together in bigger organisations for neighbourhood defence and for attacks on Army strongholds. So they will organise in company sized units and appoint captains to officer them. Also they will be looking for Iraqi and other Sunni Muslims with officer training to command such groups. The company sized Islamist forces will more and more look like regular army organisations. They will need training grounds, arms and munitions depots and hospitals, garages for vehicles, workshops for weapons, communication equipment and tools. There will be a maximum of about 170 of these groups. It will be easy to list them and to follow them. Unfortunately smaller groups will branch off them, which complicates things.

Basically what is happening is that you are dictating the shape that the enemy will take in order for him to be victorious. Because the enemy is not under strong central command there will be no way for him to oppose the shape that his forces are taking. By now there will also be conflicts of interests between company sized Islamist groups which can be used to gain information on the Islamist forces.

Select a company (150-200) sized unit in a particular Sunni neighbourhood in a particular town that is also partly Kurdish or Sunni, with a Iraqi army unit plus a intelligence gathering cell. Invite reporters from American and Iraqi television broadcasters. Make sure everything is known about the Islamist forces. All the names of the warriors. The location of the their houses and infrastructure. The names of their brothers and cousins, their wives and girlfriends. Know their habits. Where they eat and sleep and an exact weapons count. Surround the town using Americans in vehicles and establish roadblocks. Control all roads, paths and fields. Then attack them using both Iraqi Army units with American Special Forces Officers and units of US Army personnel. Do not use vehicles or helicopters but attack through the streets or alleys, the sewers or the roofs, just use any angle to quickly take care of the whole group. Avoiding to use vehicles will enable surprise.

Televise the victory on Iraqi and American national TV. Then do nothing for a while. Keep sending squad and platoon sized Iraqi Army units against the Islamists. Never mind if they are defeated again and again by the Islamists. Presenting a string of small successes to the Sunni Islamists is essential to the success of the strategy.

Now again take the promising Iraqi Army Lieutenants and send them to further officer training. Train about a 150 of these promising Lieutenants to become Captains and form 5 platoons into companies of about a 120 troops. Some of these companies can not be housed in Shia or Kurdish neighbourhoods but will be housed in former Iraqi Army barracks or US Army bases. Also other staff will have to be trained such as logistics, technical and maintenance specialists. For non-combat roles soldiers can be taken that were wounded and are not fit to return to combat duty.

Have the newly formed companies attack or threaten to attack Sunni Islamist’ strongholds. Equip them with some heavy arms, such as combat engineering equipment (Tank dozers, Armoured heavy howitzers, heavy engineers transporters, D-9 Armoured bulldozers). Some of the strongholds will band together and form battalion sized units (600 – 800 men). They will build up arms and munitions stockpiles and all kinds of military infrastructure and bases. Supposing that about 15 of these units will come into existence, comprising about 10,000 personnel it is now time to move in the US Army and have them crush these battalion sized units using heavy fire power and equipment. TV crews must be ready to show large amounts of weapons and men taken, killed or destroyed. This will be the time to declare a full victory and quickly pull out most of the American troops. It will be wise to retain a considerable training unit to train the Iraqi Army up to division levels and also to keep an US Army brigade (3.000) in the desert near Baghdad. The war will continue for a long time between the Iraqi Army and the Sunni Islamists. The main thing however is having declared a victory and gotten the bulk of the troops out without losing face.

The Western media will lose most of its interest. The regime in Iraq will be reasonably secure because it is based on the biggest ethnic and religious blocks in the country and they will have access to the world market for arms. Obviously the Sunni ethnic group will whither and eventually many of them will emigrate to Sunni Muslim countries such as Syria and Saudi Arabia. The latter is contrary to American interests but there will be little that can be done to prevent it. Also the political, cultural and military influence of Iran will increase and although something can be done by keeping strong ties to the Shia leadership and supporting the Iraqi media, this is basically something that American policy have to take in their stride and is food for thought in case of planning of further military adventures in the future.

Important goals for the USA, such as a reasonable stable and peaceful society in Iraq, run by people who are friendly towards the USA and also a little dependent on them (because of American arms and training) will be met by this policy. Also it is a way to get the USA out without losing too much face. It will be problematic that the Kurds and the Shias will form power blocks and perhaps even clash with each other. This may cause involvement of Turkey (Kurds) and Iran (Shias).