The “Not-So-Ugly” American
Those who demonize Americans (in keeping with the personification in Graham Greene’s “The Ugly American”) for the ills of the entire world tend to forget that US government policies do not accurately reflect either the character and/or wishes of the American public. US citizens tend to go along with the policies of their incumbent government even when they do not agree with them, the international perception responds by taking Americans to be either indifferent or insensitive to the problems of the world in pursuing policies which may not be good for the rest of the world. The disconnect between the average US citizen and international geo-politics is not because the ordinary American does not care, he simply knows very little of the world-at-large, an ignorance tailor-made for vested interest to exploit.
US-Iran, Israel, India and Pakistan
On June 7, 1981, Israeli F-15s and F-16s took off from Etzion airbase near Eilat at 4:00 pm, at 5:35 pm, in an action lasting less than 80 seconds, the nuclear reactor at Osirik being built with French assistance was left in ruins. Osirik would have given Saddam Hussain an Iraqi bomb in less than 10 years. After the Osirik raid, nations, (among them India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, South Africa, etc) developing nuclear weapons through clandestine means dispersed their nuclear facilities and buried them deep in secret locations, making it all that much harder for an Osirik-type “solution”. On the other hand the development of Stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, precision-guided bombs, remotely-piloted aerial vehicles, extremely accurate GIS maps, etc gives a potential attacker numerous options, many of them already field-tested in battle in the last 15 years. During the Iraq war the US used covert means, viz (1) extremely successfully in buying off the loyalties of key Iraqi generals so that organized resistance collapsed in the face of the US Blitzkrieg and (2) not so successfully in activating domestic Iraqi resistance (e.g. Washington-based Chalabi) to cause Saddam Hussain any real damage.
Shock and Woe
Propagated across the electronic and print media of the world, Donald Rumsfeld’s blatant psy-war term “Shock and Awe” projected an overwhelming and cataclysmic high-tech strike, its precise and surgical nature meant (1) to take out the regime’s leaders (2) drive raw fear into the psyche of the masses and (3) thus destroy the Iraqi will to fight. Psy-ops is a legitimate weapon of war, if successful the Coalition could have won the war without firing a shot. While the whereabouts of Saddam and his sons Qusay and Uday are still unknown after the one-off surgical hit marking the start of Gulf War-2, the Iraqi regime did not disintegrate like a house of cards as programmed by the Pentagon’s computers. The rapid (and spectacular) Coalition ground offensive reached Najaf and Karbala 80 kms on the approaches to Baghdad before being slowed down by determined Iraqi conventional resistance in key urban areas all along the route of advance as well as harassing “hit and run” tactics on the lines of communication (L of Cs). With food, water, fuel and ammunition getting through in far less quantities than the required optimum, US Central Command seemed to opt for reinforcements (130000 more US troops) and for shoring up the L of C protection before investing Baghdad. But the Coalition did not pause, there was no “operational pause” as suggested by all and sundry. After capturing Karbala and Najaf, elements of the 3rd Infantry captured the “Saddam International Airport”, 18 kms from the city center of Baghdad and renamed it “Baghdad International Airport”. All of Baghdad is now within artillery range. The “real surprise” will probably come from the west i.e. along the Amman-Baghdad road, probably a major armoured thrust. After all, those who seized H-2 and H-3 airfields are not out on a picnic.
Reaping the Whirlwind
Barely past the first week the Coalition has had to twice change/adjust its war strategy. Instead of a cataclysmic strike by 3000 precision guided munitions (PGMs) hitting Baghdad and other Iraqi command centers, in a major surprise the war started with a limited surgical strike to take out (the exact words “decapacitate”) Saddam Hussain and his inner coterie. The Coalition checked for effect, if any, for 24 hours before launching the ground war with an attempted end run (blitzkreig) around major urban areas to Baghdad, an outflanking maneuver through the Southern Iraqi desert. Rumsfeld’s “shock and awe” massive strike came a day after the ground war started. The Iraqis were supposed to roll over and play dead or better still, surrender in droves (Gulf War I – circa 1991) on primetime TV. With the Iraqis fighting back at virtually every major urban area crossing, the plan deviated from the script. For a change, the Iraqis used their military (rather than emotional) head in not giving pitched battle in any open areas (“he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day”) where the Coalition would have loved to pulverize them by superior firepower. Using classic guerrilla tactics, the Iraqis resorted to small unit “hit and run” attacks, providing very few fixed targets for the PGMs (precision-guided munitions) to be effective.
Back to the Past
According to US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, Mullah Umar, who is making a last stand in Kandahar, will probably go down fighting as he is “not the surrendering type”. Or so he is hoping so that Umar does not become a hot potato in their hands. In the meantime Osama bin Laden scurried away to find cover in some hole, probably the Tora Bora cave complex near Jalalabad, leaving in his wake dead and dying strewn across the Afghan countryside, the consequences of his many deeds, viz (1) distorting the Taliban interpretation of Islam and (2) leading them into collective suicide in militarily opposing the mightiest nation on earth. For the sake of his own hide, this man sacrificed not only his trusting hosts but those from foreign lands who believed his spiel, a latter day “Pied Piper” leading a naive and gullible people down the one-way road to death and destruction. Meantime about 1,500 US Marines near Kandahar are carrying out high-visibility exercises around their desert forward base, meant to keep the defenders of Kandahar on edge expecting imminent attack. The idea is to bomb and bluff the Taliban out of their stronghold and avoid casualties. Unfortunately some of the US casualties have been self-inflicted due to misdirected or stray bombs (“friendly fire”).