Tom Friedman says ‘In or Out’ while Stephen Biddle says ‘Go Deep or Get Out’. It’s strange to see two different people make the same argument on the same day…one in the New York Times and one in the Washington Post. They agree that it makes no sense to stay in Iraq with less troops. Either we ramp it up, or we should completely bug out. No half measures. No compromise solutions. It’s true that Friedman makes an exception for Kurdistan (and I tentatively agree), but they both are adamant that we not stick around with some half-ass plan to train Iraqi troops or hunt terrorists.
I’m glad they are making that point. I think Biddle put it best.
Moderation and centrism are normally the right instincts in American politics, and many lawmakers in both parties desperately want to find a workable middle ground on Iraq. But while the politics are right, the military logic is not.
I saw Sen. Mark Pryor on the Senate floor today pleading with his colleagues to not take party-line votes on an issue as important as Iraq. He wanted them to embrace Sen. Salazar’s mealy-mouthed do-nothing compromise amendment. It’s a nice sentiment, but it isn’t happening and it shouldn’t happen. One side in this debate must win and win decisively.
But I want to talk about something else that Friedman touched on. In discussing the advantages of leaving Iraq he discussed Iran.
Fourth, we will restore our deterrence with Iran. Tehran will no longer be able to bleed us through its proxies in Iraq, and we will be much freer to hit Iran — should we ever need to — once we’re out. Moreover, Iran will by default inherit management of the mess in southern Iraq, which, in time, will be an enormous problem for Tehran.
Before you throw up your hands and say ‘Great. No matter what we do we wind up making an attack on Iran more likely’, hear me out.
Iran is not all the horrible things that its worst detractors like to allege. But they are definitely not our friends. They are not friendly with our Arab allies. And I don’t think they have any more ability to control Iraq than we have. If we want to screw Iran we can do little better than to put the entire mess in Iraq directly in their laps. Pulling out should weaken Iran and tie them down, while restoring our deterrent credibility when it comes to convincing them to cooperate with the IAEA and other international efforts to prevent them from becoming another nuclear power.
Even if you could care less whether Iran has a nuclear bomb and don’t think that the international community has any right to tell them what to do, a strengthened America and a weakened Iran will make it less likely that hawks will resort to nukes of our own. Bush has done severe damage to the entire framework of collective security and non-proliferation, but we might be able to correct that over time.
In any case, I think there is serious doubt about whether Iran will benefit from a U.S. withdrawal. I think they will suffer. And I believe al-Qeada elements will be decimated by Iraqis in short order and go fleeing back to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Friedman makes one other point that we have to take seriously.
The minute we start to withdraw, all hell will break loose in the areas we leave, and there will be a no-holds-barred contest for power among Iraqi factions. Our staying there with, say, half as many troops, will not be sustainable…
…Getting out, on the other hand, means more ethnic, religious and tribal killings all across Iraq. It will be one of the most morally ugly scenes you can imagine — no less than Darfur. You will see U.S. troops withdrawing and Iraqi civilians and soldiers who have supported us clinging to our tanks for protection as we rumble out the door.
This is echoed by Biddle:
Without a major U.S. combat effort to keep the violence down, the American training effort would face challenges even bigger than those our troops are confronting today.
The American combat presence in Iraq is insufficient to end the violence but does cap its intensity. If we draw down that combat presence, violence will rise accordingly.
The post-occupation Iraq will definitely be as ‘morally ugly’ as anything we’ve seen since Bosnia and Serbia went toe to toe. And we do not want to be sitting around in bases in the country doing nothing but watching the rotten fruits of our fantasies.
I can see a limited role for troops in Kurdistan as a way to prevent Turkey from invading (they have mobilized 140,000 troops to the border this week). Other than that, we should just get out. And that is what the Democrats should insist on.
I understand why having US troops guarding Iraqi sand dunes creates an easy target (and remember they’d be 100% legitimate targets) for the Iranians should the US go to war with them. That said, in the event of a war (and lobbing a few cruise missiles at Iran = going to war), surely Iran would just start killing US soldiers in Afghanistan instead?
Also, Iran would certainly close the Straights of Homuz, thereby forcing the US to bring carriers within range of Iranian attack. Oil prices would go through the roof, but worse, imagine the political consequences of a lucky hit on a carrier.
Iran might also take the war to the US mainland – its easy enough for some Iranian commandos to slip across the border, buy a machine gun or two, drive into the Pentagon carpark (or other reasonably open suburban military installation), throw off their civies thus revealing Iranian uniforms, and start machine gunning the US soldiers there. Presumably it would also be within the rules of war to kill politicians – it would certainly be okay to blow up infrastructure etc. When things become too hot, Iranian soldiers would simply surrender and become legitimate prisoners of war.
Economic recession, a US on the verge of bankruptcy, no country willing to buy US bonds (not even China!), an exhausted army, worn out equipment, death and destruction at home. Not sure it would be worth it.
Well, the Iranian government presents little evidence that they are saner than our own. But hopefully they are cognizant of something Hunter S, Thompson once observed.
Translated to modern times, this means that we will nuke the crap out of Iran if they so much as look at us sideways and contemplate a domestic terror offensive. In fact, we may do it without them doing that. So, as long as Iran is aware that we have no qualms about turning them to glass then we really shouldn’t have to worry about them attacking us here. Similarly, we would probably nuke them if they shut down the Straits of Hormuz and let gasoline go over $7/gallon. But if we at least have some troops available, we might opt to go in a non-radioactive direction. Unfortunately, I doubt it.
It’s our conventional weakness that makes us so dangerous.
Why would it be a ‘domestic terror offensive’? Surely its just legitimate war.
As for the nuclear response, this would be unfolding around 2 or 3 years from now, and would the US be willing to nuke the Iranians when the Iranians might well have a nuclear weapon of their own?
Would you accept the loss of New York?
Dude…
If one Sbarro gets bombed anywhere in the 50 states it will be total mayhem here. We don’t tolerate being made uncomfortable AT ALL. And we definitely don’t give a shit WHY someone made us feel that way.
Also…Iran is not 2 or 3 years away from a bomb.
They are a decade or more away from a bomb.
And what does one bomb do when you are facing our arsenal?
What are you going to do, turn Tehran to glass twice?
If the Iranians can still deliver a nuke after the US has vapourised Tehran, do you really think they’d say, “Fair cop, we’ll just sit here and admire the glow”? No, if they retain the capability they’ll be looking to nuke the US, without worrying whether the US will nuke Tehran a second time.
This is silly.
Iran has no bomb. Even if they put it on a mule, it would be no threat to us.
So why are you talking about the need to restore the US’s deterrent ability in relation to the Iranians? Why would any attack be needed against Iran if they are at least a decade away from a bomb?
The deterrent is important in getting them not to pursue a bomb. And currently we have no non-nuclear deterrent. That is what makes the situation so dangerous. I would note for you that the Congress took two unanimous votes today. The first was over Lieberman’s amendment that says that Iran is in a state of war with America. The second was a sense of the house vote that condemned British educational unions for boycotting Israeli academics.
Whatever the merits of these votes, it is clear that it is a totally politically untenable position in this country to be opposed to blasting Iran into the stone age. And that is before we are specifically provoked. I don’t know what to do about this problem but we can’t ignore it.
BooMan said: “The deterrent is important in getting them not to pursue a bomb. And currently we have no non-nuclear deterrent. That is what makes the situation so dangerous.”
I think you’re conflating cold war MAD deterrence with non-proliferation deterrence. They are different problems, and need different solutions.
Non-proliferation strategy is more than sending in a gunboat to shoot up a native village. It actually needs sophisticated diplomacy.
Iran is a reasonably sophisticated and socially cohesive 2nd world country that isn’t going to let the US fire a bunch of cruise missiles (conventional) and then walk away as if nothing happened.
My guess is that it’d be much more rational to stop all the dick waving and instead normalise relations with them. We could drop all the stupid trade boycotts/embargos and instead encourage international investment in Iran. In 10yrs Iran would have a strong middle class that will want nothing more than a quiet and prosperous life. If they didn’t feel threatened, they’d be less inclined to make the massive investment needed to develop nukes.
Imagine if someone had had the courage to normalise relations with Iran ten years ago. Would Iran now be committing scarce resouces in the massive quantities needed to develop a nuke?
There IS NO EVIDENCE THAT IRAN IS PURSUING A BOMB.
STOP REPEATING BUSH’s LIES, BOOMAN.
The Kurdistan thing would be a nightmare in itself – look at a map, it’d be surrounded by enemy countries, and would have a chance of getting a drop of oil to the sea.
How will US forces get into this landlocked country, how will they be resupplied? It’d be even more of a liability that Israel. Hell, it would just offer yet another tempting target for the Iranian should the US be dumb enough to start a war.
Well…could be. It depends. Ideally, we would be resupplied through Turkey, which is an ally. But that could get tricky since the forces main objective would be to keep Turkey out of Iraq.
Exactly, Turkey wouldn’t even let the US transit through Turkish territory to attack Iraq, so its definately not going to help the US assist the Kurds set up a state. Turkey knows that 20yrs after the Kurds have a state, the kurds living in eastern Turkey will be looking to join the sovereign kurds.
Don’t be so sure.
We have a lot of clout over Turkey.
Turkey resisted US pressure during Bush II’s invasion of Iraq, and surely the US has less clout now than then.
No. I don’t think so. I think we have just as much clout as we always had with Turkey. In fact, Turkey will probably find it easier to have us there preventing them from having to cave in to domestic warmongering.
If the Turkish government allowed the US to transit, my guess is that it wouldn’t be long before they were replaced by the Turkish Islamic Government.
Turkey’s democracy is shaky enough without the secular government having to spin a tail to the electorate explaining how its suddenly a good thing that the Kurds get to take half of Turkey in 20yrs time.
This is more complicated than you are making it.
Turkey needs our support for many things, including efforts to join the E.U. Plus, they already resupply us.
“…including efforts to join the E.U.”
In the current climate, no way is Turkey getting an EU club T-shirt. The EU won’t outright say no, but they’ll string along the process for the next 20yrs.
Kurds are a hot-button issue in Turkey, and domestic politics trumps international politics in Turkey as well as the US.
“…..replaced by the Turkish Islamic Government.”
Before that happens the Turkish military would most likely intervene.
The first Turkish constitution was drawn up in 1921 and reformed by Kemal Ataturk in 1924. It is known for its secularism and the military have sworn to uphold the founding father Ataturk’s legacy. That is why they have intervened and taken over power in the country on some occasions, the latest being in 1980 led by General Kenan Evren. It was under his leadership that the current Turkish constitution was accepted in parliament and the reason for the coup was the Turkish military’s dismay over what they believed was a communist influence in politics and rampant corruption. This was viewed as a threat to the old Ataturk legacy.
Earlier this year the Turkish military rattled their sabres again when the current foreign minister Abdullah Gul announced his candidacy for President in Parliament. His announcement led to popular protests and the rattling of sabres from the military since his candidacy was perceived as a threat to Turkey’s secular constitution since Abdullah Gul belonged to Justice and Development party an offspring of the Turkisk Welfare party broken up by the military in 2000 since it was perceived to by to much in collusion with religious Islamic elements and thus a threat to the Turkish constitution.
Sorry, the last paragraph goes like this:
Abdullah Gul belongs to Justice and Development party, an offspring of the Turkish Welfare party broken up by the military in 2000 since it was perceived to be too much in collusion with religious Islamic elements and thus a threat to the Turkish constitution.
Booman said: “And I don’t think they have any more ability to control Iraq than we have. If we want to screw Iran we can do little better than to put the entire mess in Iraq directly in their laps. Pulling out should weaken Iran and tie them down,…”
and: “In any case, I think there is serious doubt about whether Iran will benefit from a U.S. withdrawal. I think they will suffer.”
If the US walks out of Iraq and a bloodbath ensues, Iran would either sit and watch, limiting their involvement to funding Iranian friendly groups in the South. Seems to me that that won’t be any great problem for them.
On the other hand, lets say the bloodbath becomes so bad that there’s an international outcry as the cameras show millions of refugees crossing the several borders. Famine ensues for those who stay. The UN debates the problem, but the Security Council refuses to help (ie the US vetoes any proposal that puts Russian or Chinese peacekeepers in Iraq).
Iran sees an oportunity (or maybe legitimately feels the need to help the Iraqis), and mobilises 500,000 troops and sends them into Iraq on a humanitarian mission. Is the US really going to condemn them for doing that? Is the US really going to start bombing Iranian troops escorting food convoys to the starving civilians in Bahgdad?
Is the US really going to be surprised when the newly formed Islamic Government of Iraq issues oil exploration exploitation contracts to Iran, or agrees with Iran to move their joint border so that Iran gets a few super oil fields.
Quoting self, in hope of getting some response:
May I inquire why you aren’t addressing this essential matter in your posts? It’s even in your local press now (emphasis added):
Noone expects the White House to “lead.” But it’s disgusting that this isn’t even being talked about on the socalled American left.
Ooh boy.
We have a two-party system where one party thinks every Muslim is both a terrorist and a possible traitor. We are going to have a hard time selling a mass immigration of Iraqis into this nation. The party that supports it will be punished severely.
But, it’s something that should be done.
Talking about it is certainly about as unhelpful to ending the war as anything I could imagine.
But you also have to realize something about my personal politics. I am not in favor of America taking on a special role in Kosovo, Darfur, Rwanda, etc. I do not want America taking responsibility for these things. We should work with other nations in a collective way, but we should absolutely get out of the business of being the first to be called to fix other people’s problems.
Does Norway want to take over for us for a few decades? Will you buy all the ship and planes you’ll need?
Iraq presents a different problem because we are actually responsible for the problem. But that doesn’t change the fact that we can’t fix it.
So, yeah, I support granting citizenship to Iraqi refugees. But this problem is beyond our capability to handle or even substantially mitigate. And that’s true both politically and logistically.
I have a significant problem with the migration solution. Seems to me that it tends to be the best & brightest who get accepted, and they’re the ones that Iraq will need if its to rebuild a civil society.
That said, there might be a moral imperative to take the Iraqi’s who would certainly be strung up as US-collaborators. But not any significant numbers.
Tell it to Sirocco. He will no doubt find your position morally indefensible, but it only reflects the political realities here.
[looks for the button labelled “undo your reply”]
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(Firedoglake) – Right after Sen. Lieberman voted against U.S. troops on the Webb amendment, he launched his new Iran Amendment – cosponsored by pals Kyl, Graham, Collins and Sessions with strong support by McCain – and Senator Levin could not fall over himself fast enough to display his love of his big pal from CT. Watch here – but prepare yourself – it will test your gag reflex mightily. (Thanks as always to Crooks and Liars for being on top of the news!)
This gist of the amendment:
It is the sense of the senate that Iran is participating in acts of war against the United States. (h/t OpenLeft )
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Only one party?
Yeah, aren’t you a charming lot.
Glad to hear you say that. Fat load of good it does though, as long as:
Correction: it is unhelpful to ending American engagement in the war. As you stress yourself, the war is likely to pick up when the US takes off the lid. If you aren’t prepared to also advocate an effort to take humanitarian responsibility by accepting refugees, what is the merit of your campaign for withdrawal? How is it better than the Bush/Lieberman plan of clinging on as long as possible?
What’s the relevance of this silly question? Right, there isn’t any:
Indeed, you actually are.
Correction: that doesn’t change the fact that you, the American people, don’t want to take the only step that could mitigate at least a bit of the misery you have caused.
Granting citizenship to most of these people isn’t necessary or even desirable. I am talking about granting temporary refugee status to part of the dwindling professional middle class. Iraq will need them when it regains stability. Meanwhile they are no use to anyone dead, or living hand-to-mouth in Amman and Damascus as beggars or prosititutes.
Logistically? Don’t make me laugh. I guess the affluent superpowers of Jordan and Syria are better equipped to deal with it? To repeat, Sweden alone took in 18,000 Iraqis last year. That’s right, Sweden (population: 9m). The way this will play out is that, when the US pulls out and Jordan and Syria are packed to the brim, then Europe will be left to absorb the floodstorm of refugees, all while the US socalled left celebrates the “end of the war” and the US right crows about the birth of “Eurabia.”
I am not a big defender of America’s attitude toward foreigners. I don’t know if you just followed the immigration debate here, but our xenophobia is so strong that even reasonable Republicans were badly scalded by even the suggestion of a compassionate policy. And Hispanics are beloved here compared to Arabs.
Technically, you are right, we have the space and wealth to take in a large amount of refugees. That’s also true about Hispanics and it didn’t even come close to happening.
You can call that charming or you can call it something more accurate, but after six years of constant fear-mongering it is not easy to turn around and say that we need to bring in thousands of potentially angry Iraqi refugees.
We did it in Vietnam but that was a totally different situation. First, we never were attacked by the Vietnamese here at home. Second, there is a religious component here that outweighs any ethnic factor. Third, there was much more surface legitimacy to our occupation of South Vietnam than there has ever been for our occupation of Iraq. Bringing in anti-communists after Vietnam was a lot less painful than bringing in collaborators from our occupation of Iraq. How do we judge their loyalty?
I don’t disagree that this is an ugly situation. But you have to understand that the very ugliness is being used as an excuse to prolong the war. And I reluctantly concluded a long time ago that the ugly consequences could not be prevented by prolonging the war.
So, I will advocate a refugee program but I very much doubt it will be sufficient or satisfactory, and it will be poison politically.
Good. Speak up for what is right and leave the politicking to the politicians. That’s all I ask of you.
Prevent Turkey from invading Iraqi Kurdistan? Really, who is going to prevent a Turkish incursion or all-out invasion of northern Iraq? The U.S.? Ducky, a war between NATO members. Do you think the U.S. military is up to a clash with Turkey. The Turks have many cards to play: number one, military violence. The U.S. is powerless in the situation it has created and just… has… to… get… out and make reparations and amends to the new Iraqi government once it emerges from the mess. The sooner the people who run the show realize that the game is over and the end has to be organized, the better off everyone wil be. Of course no one is organizing anything. And as far as Iran is concerned: wishful thinking. The Republicans had the Grand Ayatollah hold the U.S. embassy hostages until after the election of two of their own (Reagan, Bush I), they were in cahoots with Saddam in his war against Iran and looked aside when chemical weapons (bought in the West?) killed Iranians and Kurds (Reagan, Bush I), then sold weapons to Iran against U.S. law (Reagan, Bush I who pardoned the criminals to save his own hide) and invaded Iraq on false pretexts (Bush II). The Iranians want a nuclear weapon? I would too if I had to deal with the U.S. And I’m not excusing the horrible things that happen in Iran (hanging homosexuals, stoning an adulterer to death, imprisoning people for their opinions and things I’ve not yet heard of). It’s just the flaming hypocrisy of U.S. moralizing that gets my goat. I recently spent a month in Iran. The Iranians are ready for the showdown if it comes.
We are not hearing the Democrats or political pundits deal with the predictable calamity and humanitarian crisis that will ensue on US troop withdrawal. The head is in the sand on the future. This is not about politics; it’s about people
“The post-occupation Iraq will definitely be as ‘morally ugly’ as anything we’ve seen since Bosnia and Serbia went toe to toe. And we do not want to be sitting around in bases in the country doing nothing but watching the rotten fruits of our fantasies.
….we should just get out. And that is what the Democrats should insist on.”
Democrats versus Republicans is no longer even important. Neither have a solution except further death and destruction.
Time to go to plan B: PARTITION. Oh, yes. Then Iran will dominate the Shiites and expand their influence. So what? Will that somehow transform the Middle East; will the Shiite partition become theocratic, which must be stopped at all costs? Why? Will Iran then nuke the Vatican? What bullshit. Neither the Democratic or Republican plan for Iraq, stay or withdraw, is or will work, except to encourage slaughter of more and more Iraqis. Unification of Iraq is not working.
Plan B is also the only way to keep gasoline prices between three and four bucks. Isn’t that the primary issue confronting Americans, who now feel that discovery of dozens Iraq bodies or hearing about another suicide bombing is the norm, boring?
Democrats and liberal pundits are just not dealing with the reality. Their eyes are closed.
Plan B doesn’t work either – Partition is very ugly once you start thinking about the logistics of carrying it out.
First, geography gets in the way – Iraq is a desert country, so only small parts are actually capable of supporting reasonable population densities.
Second, are you going to move the factories? Who gets the oil fields? Who gets access to the sea, and who is landlocked and surrounded by enemies? What are you going to do when the outer partition refuses to allow food into the inner partition?
Third, how do you move 5 million people in a war zone? Imagine how many years it would take, how many trucks would be needed (presumably you’d let them take their belongings), how many families will be split, how many children mislayed, how many of the old, young and infirm will die enroute?
Fourth, will you be providing defence for the thousands of trucks as they’re picked off by the insurgency? Can a family forced to leave their house dynamite it to stop others taking it over? Will you pay compensation for the value of the house? Will you stop the insurgency group who is leaving from blowing up local infrastructure like hospitals, water mains, electricity plants, salting the local farms. Once one group does it (and someone will), what insentive would the other groups have for undertaking similar attacks in revenge?
Fifth, Have you built permanent accomodation for people to live in when they arrive in their new partition? How about the water supplies for the new townships? What about employment, will there be jobs waiting for them? What about food, what about farms. Who will the leaders be? Will society reform, or will the place become a ghetto?
Partition is ugly. Assume a million deaths at least.
Partitioning Iraq has its down side, but least of the difficulties are the ones you find. Iraq was a British creation, a synthetic one, of three peoples who still live relatively apart.
The rest of this article is on Slate:
Kurd Sellout Watch, Day 421
Should we partition Iraq?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, April 27, 2004, at 6:56 PM ET
“Iraq is not salvageable as a unitary state.” So writes Peter Galbraith, America’s pre-eminent Kurdophile, in the May 13 New York Review of Books (“How To Get Out of Iraq”). Leslie Gelb, formerly an assistant secretary in Jimmy Carter’s State Department and subsequently a diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times, made a similar point on the Times op-ed page in November. Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who writes on military strategy, has been calling for the breakup of Iraq for nearly a year. Reluctantly, Chatterbox is starting to think Galbraith, Gelb, and Peters have a point.
“The Iraq we’re trying to herd back together,” Peters wrote in July 2003, “consists of three distinct nations caged under a single, bloodstained flag.” Iraq was famously invented in 1921 by Winston Churchill, then the British colonial secretary tasked with carving up the recently defeated Ottoman Empire. Churchill’s main concern was to consolidate areas containing, or suspected to contain, oil fields. He achieved that at the expense of long-term political stability. From the start, mistrust existed between the country’s three predominant groups: the Shiite Arabs in the south, the Sunni Arabs in the middle, and the Kurds, who weren’t Arabs at all, in the north. A succession of regimes managed to yoke these three groups together only through varying degrees of repression, with Saddam’s the most repressive of all. Short of putting a tanned, rested, and ready Saddam back in charge–a possibility we can surely rule out–government by repression is no longer an option.
The Kurds are also a mixture of shia and sunni, yet they’re not fighting each other (well, they are, but not along religious lines). If we accept that the Kurdish shia and Kurdish sunni can live together, why is it said to be obvious that arab shia and arab sunni are unable to live together?
The fact is that arab shia and arab sunni have lived side-by-side in that area for six hundred years. If they were always involved in white hot sectarian war, then one of them would be extinct by now.
“six hundred” should read “sixteen hundred”
No one said that peoples from these sects are unable to live together. There is plenty of intermarriage between shia and sunni in Iraq. The problem is that there is sectarian strife. If we withdraw, partition may be one way of preventing the breakout of a full scale sectarian civil war, which could be horrific and end up killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
We had best prepare for a tough, ignominious retreat as well. You cannot move 150,000 troops, their equipment, and 150,000 more mercenaries out of Iraq along a single north/south highway into Kuwait without incident. It’s going to be ugly.
Booman, the ease with which you repeat the Bush administrtion talking points that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is disturbing to say the least.
Throughout the evolutionary history of mankind, technical innovations in warfare have always accompanied humankind’s development in the other most beneficial areas for the species. America is standing in a position similar to the English troops in the colonies just before the start of the revolutionary war. The British had the strongest, best tactically trained soldiers in the world at the time. However, under these conditions, the American militias were forced to adopt the combat style of the American Indians in order to balance out the overwhelming odds realized by the British. The guerrilla tactics involved utilizing high levels of familiarity with the deep forests in which they picked the time and the location for their battles with the British platoons. This was in stark contrast to the famed stationary “rifle squares” tactics used by the British, which were the most formidable battlefield tactic known at the time, but was of little use against an invisible enemy hidden in the underbrush firing from a variety of different obscure positions.
On the other hand, the Iraqi IED represents the latest version of the most revolutionary tactic to be introduced into the battle zones of urban combat. The IED was created as a desperate answer by the Iraqi underground to the overwhelming military might of the American forces in Iraq. The ultimate success and continued development of the efficiency of the IED ultimately rendered American Tanks useless as a viable armored component in the theater. Keep in mind that tanks were considered the most technological advanced weapon on the battlefield until recently.
The tactics pattern that is emerging out of the Vietnam war and the Iraq war is one where weaker but fanatically dedicated indigenous fighters (in which their own country has become a battlefield) are utilizing the ground (digging tunnels, digging pits in mother earth) as their main support to help implement counterattacks upon the invader. America lost the war in Vietnam due to the hundreds of miles of secret tunnels dug by North Vietnam which were used to transport Viet Cong to virtually any location in the South. The extent of the North’s underground tunnel network covered an extended range of over 400 miles and was only revealed by the North after the war ended. (See Time Magazine Library for further info.)The tunnels were dug while the US Air Force was pattern bombing the Vietnamese jungles.
In Iraq, IED trenches are being dug and armed while American military are on patrol in other areas. It is important to recognize the origin of today’s weapons of choice. The IED’s are Iraqi home grown weapons which did not exist before the Iraq invasion. Whereas the suicide bomber collaterally destructive weapon is a home grown Iranian religiously energized, fanatically inspired tactical weapon, created to be used by the Palestinians against Israel.