"Choose the size of your humiliation"
It's not often that I feel the urge to quote approvingly from a former Israeli Prime Minister, but the words attributed to Ehud Barak in conversation with Dick Cheney deserve an airing. The former Israeli premier apparently warned the US Vice President last year that Israel "had learned that there's no way to win an occupation" and that the only issue for the US "was choosing the size of your humiliation."
The more I think about the American occupation of Iraq, the more I agree with Barak. I can't see any way that the US can win its war against insurgents. The occupation has been a mess from the kick-off. First the looting, then the electricity shortages, the disbandment of the Iraqi army, the bombardment of Fallujah, the avoidable battle with Moqtada al-Sadr and, of course Abu Ghraib - this will hardly go down in history as a textbook example of how to win the hearts and minds of an occupied people.
Much of the blame for this mess has been put, fairly in my view, onto the shoulders of the arrogant US administrator, Paul Bremer. It was he who succeeded in alienating key segments of both the Sunni and the Shia populations of the country. But even if Bremer had "played a blinder" over the past year, I still believe that the US would be facing a formidable insurgency, though this may not have become apparent yet.
The problem is not this or that policy of the occupation, but rather, as Barak suggested in his advice to Cheney, the occupation itself. The American invasion and occupation of Iraq can be viewed in a number of ways. But to Arabs, I think it is seen mainly as the hostile insertion of a huge American military force in a large and important Arab state. As such, the US presence in Iraq is the latest in a long line of humiliations for the Islamic world in general and the Arab world in particular.
Those who are fighting this occupation are a disparate bunch; some secular, some Islamist, some Shia, some Sunni, some Iraqi, some foreign. They certainly don't have a common platform or a shared vision of a better Iraq. The only thing which unites these elements is a desire to send the Crusader home with his tail between his legs. Even if Iraq were to lapse into horrible civil war as a result, to the insurgents, Arab and Muslim honour would have been restored.
And this is why I feel that the US can not prevail in Iraq. There are now a sufficient number of people who would rather kill and die than acquiese in US control of a major Arab state. More often than not these people are motivated by the strong religious belief that paradise awaits them should martyrdom come. For them, there is no reason to stop, no urge (beyond the short-term and purely tactical) to negotiate or to compromise. If they fight and die, they go to paradise. If they fight and live, they will see their honour restored.
What then of the US? For all Bush's big talk about not running, one has to ask, when will Americans decide that enough is enough? For all the bellicose rhetoric, there is a limit to the blood price which Americans are prepared to pay. After all, Iraq is not their country. For all their religosity, most Americans are much more concerned with happiness in this world than in the next.
Against an enemy such as the one they now face in Iraq, this is a fatal weakness.