[Mb-civic] SHOULD READ: US Army in jeopardy in Iraq - Gary Hart - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  US Army in jeopardy in Iraq

By Gary Hart  |  March 11, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

IN 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia and, after success at the 
battle of Borodino, marched on and occupied Moscow. Napoleon and his 
generals took over the palaces of the court princes and great houses of 
the mighty boyars.

Sadly for Napoleon, the Russians had different plans for their nation. 
Within days after abandoning their city to the French army, they torched 
their own palaces, homes, enterprises, and cathedrals. They burned 
Moscow down around Napoleon. Denied his last great triumph, the 
disappointed emperor abandoned Moscow and started home. Along the way, 
he lost the world's most powerful army.

Recently one of Islamic Shi'ites' most revered sites, the golden mosque 
in Baghdad, was destroyed by sectarian enemies. By this act and the 
reprisals that followed, Iraq moved a substantial step closer to civil 
war. Though a remote, but real, possibility, an Iraqi civil war could 
cost the United States its army.

Hopefully, leaders are planning for this possibility. If sectarian 
violence escalates further, US troops must be withdrawn from patrol and 
confined to their barracks and garrisons. Mass transport must be 
mustered for rapid withdrawal of those troops from volatile cities in 
the explosive central region of Iraq. Intensive diplomatic efforts must 
be focused on preventing an Iraqi civil war from spreading to Iran, 
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria. Such a potential could make the greater 
Middle East a tinder box for years, if not decades, to come.

But the first concern must be the safety of US forces. It is strange to 
contemplate the possibility that the greatest army in world history 
could be slaughtered in a Middle East conflagration. But prudent 
commanders have no choice but to plan for this danger.

In greatest danger are the units in the Sunni central region cities. 
They are in real jeopardy if tens of thousands of angry Sunni and 
Shi'ite citizens, supported by their sectarian militias, surround and 
then overrun those units before they can be withdrawn.

The United States lost one war not too long ago in Vietnam. Conditions 
are taking shape that could result in the same outcome in Iraq. Not to 
plan now for this apocalyptic possibility would be tantamount to 
criminal neglect on the part of our political and military leadership.

A major part of the dilemma we have created is the result of failure to 
know the history and complex culture of Iraq. As we refused to learn 
from the French experience in Indochina, we also failed to learn from 
the British experience in Iraq. We are on the cusp of religion and 
antique hatred overtaking whatever latent instincts toward democracy we 
may have relied on or tried to instill. We face the reemergence of 
11th-century Assassins and 17th-century ethnic fundamentalism arising to 
replace a century of ideology -- imperialism, fascism, and communism.

The character of warfare and violence is being transformed. The warfare 
of the future is not World War II, or even Korea or Vietnam. It is 
Mogadishu and Fallujah -- low-intensity conflict among tribes, clans, 
and gangs. We are not prepared for that kind of warfare.

The United States is in danger of finding combat forces trapped in a 
civil war that they cannot prevent, control, or win.

America's army is in danger, and that danger is possibly just around the 
corner.

Gary Hart, a former US senator, lives in Kittredge, Colo. 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/11/us_army_in_jeopardy_in_iraq/
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