March
25, 2003 7:30 a.m. All
Fronts
Military
war, political war, psychological war.
n a Fox News interview
on Sunday from northern Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National
Congress — the umbrella organization of the Iraqi democratic opposition
— quietly suggested that it might be easier to induce the surrender
of Iraqi soldiers if they were approached by Iraqi opposition leaders
rather than by American military officers. He mentioned in passing that
his soldiers had been ordered to await the arrival of Allied liaison officers.
One must regret that such officers had not been with the INC since the
onset of hostilities — no doubt Turkey’s outrageous refusal
of cooperation for weeks on end made it harder for our military personnel
to access northern Iraq — and their absence will undoubtedly raise
INC suspicions that at least some of our planners had intended to leave
the Iraqi opposition on the sidelines, especially since we have not made
provisions for them to broadcast.
While
we used psychological operations to urge Iraqis to surrender without a
fight, we nonetheless made the liberation of Iraq a primarily military
operation, failing to adopt an aggressive political campaign that would
have clearly demonstrated our determination to liberate the country and
assist the creation of a free country. Just a few weeks ago, the administration
had to go to great lengths to deny stories about plans for an extended
Allied military occupation of Iraq, and to gainsay some of the unfortunate
statements along these lines that officials of the National Security Council
had delivered to the Iraqi opposition.
Whether or not we
actually had such intentions (I doubt it), the unfortunate statements
by administration officials inevitably seemed credible to opposition leaders
because both the State Department and the CIA treated the INC with contempt
for more than a decade. We would have been wiser to demonstrate our real
plans for a new, democratic Iraq, by creating one long before the onset
of hostilities. The northern and southern “no fly” zones were under our
effective control for years. We should have declared Saddam Hussein an
illegitimate ruler, recognized a legitimate government in the two regions,
and invited Iraqis to flee Saddam’s despotism to live freely under a normal
and democratic government. The existence of a “free Iraq” would have shown
the citizens of the country, whether military or civilian, the true nature
of this war in a way no propaganda offensive could possibly achieve. Had
we done so, and had we defended free Iraq from Saddam’s depredations,
we would be far less likely to be facing the fierce battles in the southern
“no fly” zone today.
Moreover, the advance
of a democratic revolution, protected but not imposed by military force,
would have created a model for the war against terrorism, of which the
Iraqi campaign is a major battle, but only that. Our commitment to freedom
will be essential in enlisting the enthusiastic support of the peoples
of Syria and Iran, whose governments are enabling the infiltration of
jihadist terrorists into Iraq. In Iraq and beyond, we should realize that
our most lethal weapon against the terror masters is the will of the people
to be free of their tyrants. In a country like Iran, there have been many
massive popular demonstrations against the regime in the name of democracy,
and we should be actively supporting it (and we’d be a lot more credible
throughout the region if we had supported the anti-Saddam uprisings in
1991 instead of abandoning the Kurds and Shiites to their terrible fate).
The war against
terror need not be primarily military. There is a much greater probability
that our troops will be received as liberators rather than invaders if
we “prepare the battlefield” with concrete demonstrations of the kind
of free society the peoples of the region can expect once we have won.
That way, we will be able to support pro-democracy forces now suffering
under oppressive regimes, as we did in Yugoslavia, the Philippines, and
the Soviet satellites, all of which were liberated without military invasion.
Chalabi is right.
The Iraqi people and their rulers should hear the voice of the free Iraq
that is their future, and they should be given the opportunity to join
it with a minimum of warfare.
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n a Fox News interview
on Sunday from northern Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National
Congress — the umbrella organization of the Iraqi democratic opposition
— quietly suggested that it might be easier to induce the surrender
of Iraqi soldiers if they were approached by Iraqi opposition leaders
rather than by American military officers. He mentioned in passing that
his soldiers had been ordered to await the arrival of Allied liaison officers.
One must regret that such officers had not been with the INC since the
onset of hostilities — no doubt Turkey’s outrageous refusal
of cooperation for weeks on end made it harder for our military personnel
to access northern Iraq — and their absence will undoubtedly raise
INC suspicions that at least some of our planners had intended to leave
the Iraqi opposition on the sidelines, especially since we have not made
provisions for them to broadcast.
