A New War
Insurgents’ New, Coordinated Tactics

Note: Due to August and the Labor Day holiday, the normal August 22 issue appears on August 29. Another issue appears next week to return to the regular schedule.

The destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, coming immediately in the wake of successful attacks on Baghdad’s water supply and the country’s oil pipeline system, clearly marked the beginning of a new kind of war for US forces in Iraq. It is not a mere escalation of intensity, but a transformation of method. For months, random acts of sabotage and sporadic attacks on US troops have been the norm. But the apparently coordinated attacks on oil and water, and the bombing of the UN complex (and the earlier bombing of the Jordanian Embassy) reveal a degree of planning, coordination, and tactical implementation that is far more sophisticated than what has been seen before. This is not random terrorism and disruption: it is a tactical campaign.

It was not immediately apparent whether the attacks were carried out by indigenous Iraqis or by international “volunteers”, though US claims that Iraq is drawing international terrorist elements to the country appear to be true: this is the Afghanistan of the first decade of the new century, the place to have a chance to take on a superpower. But whether the planners of the attacks are ex-Ba‘athists or some mix of al-Qa‘ida (as the latter now claims), Chechens, and the like, one thing is clear: this is the battle that Saddam Hussein planned for. He spoke frequently before and during the war of a long war of resistance against foreign occupation; the virtual disappearance of his elite forces from the battlefield at the end of the war may have been intended as a means of minimizing casualties and bringing about the opportunities for a guerrilla war.

That does not mean that Saddam is necessarily running the battle. The captures of Taha Yasin Ramadan and ‘Ali Hasan al-Majid show that the noose is indeed tightening around the old leadership. But whoever is in charge (and the use of suicide bombing suggests an Islamist factor: secular Ba‘athists are usually not so eager to destroy themselves), this is the war Saddam wanted. Initially convinced that it had won a military victory, the US may have allowed its enemy to define the new battle.

The debate over whether or not the US needs more forces in Iraq should not detain anyone long: of course it does, or at any rate it needs some forces to do things that are not now being done. The type of forces deployed is an important element here: bringing in another armored division is not going to win this kind of war. One of the traditional weaknesses of the US in the peacekeeping field is its lack of a body of trained civilian police. Lacking a national gendarmerie, the US does its best with military police. But the number of Iraqi civilians killed at military checkpoints recently is deepening public anger with the occupying forces; trained civilian police, Iraqi or European, are needed and needed soon. The move toward training substantial numbers of Iraqi police in Hungary is a step in the right direction. But it should have been taken sooner.

It may be true, as US officials have frequently noted, that the north and south are already relatively pacified and focusing on a few attacks distorts the reality on the ground. But the US presence is by no means popular in the Shi‘ite south, even if there is little active sniping. And the instability is no longer limited to the “Sunni triangle” north of Baghdad: as the Jordanian and UN attacks show, and the attack on the water supply as well, Baghdad itself is vulnerable. Its water supply can be disrupted, and friendly embassies (Jordan’s) and the United Nations itself are unsafe despite the large US presence.

No one should underestimate the importance of Baghdad. Most Arab countries are fundamentally urban in their cultural identity, however important agriculture may be to the economy. The capital city is both magnet and symbol of national identity; in some cases the capital is actually known by the name of the country. (Egyptians outside of Cairo still say Misr when they mean Cairo as well as Egypt.) While the capital city’s importance holds true in most Arab countries, it is especially true of Baghdad, ancient capital of the Caliphs, symbolic city of the 1001 Nights, and metropolis of Iraq for centuries. Already Usama bin Ladin’s followers are evoking the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 AD as an image for the American occupation; if the occupation forces are visibly challenged in maintaining order even in the capital, their credibility is weakened.

Symbolic value may greatly exceed military value: it is the “hearts and minds”, not the turf, that one is fighting for. The Vietcong understood this in 1968, when at the outset of the Tet offensive they attacked both the US Embassy in Saigon and the old imperial citadel in Hue. Tet was a military defeat for the Vietcong but a moral defeat for the US. Whoever is behind the recent Baghdad operations understands this now. (On some parallels with Vietnam and lessons on what not to do, see this issue’s Dossier.)

In The Estimate’s analyses of the insurgency in the past two Dossiers, it was noted that the insurgency’s lack of international support and its apparent premature launch might undermine its effectiveness. But the insurgents’ goal, at the moment at least, is not to drive the US out immediately, so much as discredit its credibility and demonstrate the chinks in the American armor. That it is doing successfully, and in fact rather dramatically, presumably in the hope that over the long term, this will attract more support from average Iraqis and weaken the US hold. It is true, of course, that the targets so far are “soft”: the Jordanian Embassy, the UN, the water and oil infrastructure. But these all underscore the failure, to date, to restore that infrastructure and the vulnerability of the international community. They force the US into a garrison position in which it is concentrating on force protection rather than the restoration of normal life. That is the perception the attackers presumably want: the US is a besieged occupier, not a trustee preparing to transfer power to local authority.

What happens next may go far towards defining the outcome of the challenge. It is particularly important as well that the US avoid purely military responses to insurgent strikes, as opposed to a coordinated and thought-through program of pacification and restoration of power to Iraqis. If the US is seen as an occupying power with no exit date visible, the insurgents will gain popular support. Again, the enemy defines the battle.

The question of who the attackers are becomes more important at this level. It is probably true that the old regime is largely discredited outside the Sunni triangle. But a new resistance that includes Shi‘ite elements or that seeks to identify itself with Islam could have a broader appeal. And in the so-called peaceful north, there are troubling early signs of major trouble between the Kurds and the Turkmen; the ethnic mosaic of the north remains a potential problem.

Even more troubling is the fact that the new attacks have coincided — in the case of the bombing of UN headquarters, to the very day — with the deterioration and near disintegration of the “roadmap” for Israel and Palestine. If the Israeli-Palestinian peace process reverts to the old and bloody pattern of strike and counterstrike at the very moment that the US seems increasingly challenged in Iraq, then the danger level in both areas is likely to increase sharply.

It is possible of course that the attackers of the UN compound (and al-Qa‘ida claimed responsibility) were not the same people who hit the water mains and oil pipeline. That might mean that tactical coordination is not as great as it appears, but if it were to prove the case it is no grounds for reassurance: it means that there are multiple groups in the field who must be countered. It looks like a new war in either case.

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