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US opts for a failed Israeli
strategy
By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - With the Iraqi
insurgency intensifying and United States casualties
mounting by the day, the US is turning to its good
friend Israel for inspiration and lessons. Increasingly,
the tactics being adopted by the US occupation forces in
Iraq appear to be modeled on those used by Israel in the
occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
Media reports reveal that Washington has been
consulting Israel on how best to quell the insurgency
and consolidate its occupation of Iraq. Seymour Hersh
writes in The New Yorker that the Pentagon has sought
"active and secret help" from the Israelis.
"According to American and Israeli military and
intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and
intelligence units have been working closely with their
American counterparts at the Special Forces training
base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to
help them prepare for operations in Iraq," writes Hersh.
Another report in The New York Times says that senior
American officials have gone to Israel to learn from the
latter's urban counter-insurgency warfare strategy.
In an opinion article in the Lebanon's Daily
Star newspaper, Ed Blanche, a member of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies in London,
writes that US officials have been talking to Shin Bet,
Israel's domestic security service. Shin Bet and
Israel's military intelligence have a formidable
intelligence network in the Occupied Territories and in
the militant organizations, as well. The Americans,
Blanche says, urgently require a similar network in
Iraq.
Blanche argues, "It's in the realm of
gathering usable, real-time intelligence on its elusive
enemy that the Americans must make some significant
headway as fast as they possibly can, and Israeli
expertise in fighting Arabs, understanding their culture
and motivation, could be invaluable."
While
cooperation with Israel in an intelligence network will
help the Americans' military campaign, copying a failed
Israeli strategy to crush resistance makes little sense.
Can the Israelis coach?
The Americans
have been rather reluctant to admit that the Israelis
are coaching them in Iraq on the art of occupation. But
whether or not they are willing to admit the liaison,
there is enough evidence to prove it on the ground.
The similarities between the tactics employed by
the Israeli Defense Forces and the US occupation forces
in Iraq are striking. In Iraq, the Americans are now
using what many consider to be excessive force and more
air power. Their strategy includes use of
surface-to-surface missiles, 24-hour surveillance by
unmanned aerial vehicles of suspected insurgent areas,
large-scale search-and-seizure operations and frequent
crackdowns on a sullen, increasingly hostile civilian
population.
As in the Gaza and West Bank, entire
villages said to be hotbeds of insurgent activity in
Iraq's Sunni triangle have been sealed off with barbed
wire to control and monitor the movement of people.
Entry and exit to these villages is possible only
through checkpoints guarded by the Americans and
restricted to those with US-issued identification cards.
According to media reports, US aircraft and
artillery are flattening buildings that are used for
mounting attacks on American forces in Iraq. As in the
West Bank and Gaza, homes of suspected insurgents are
being demolished in Iraqi towns and villages. Like the
Israelis occupying Gaza and the West Bank, the American
occupation forces in Iraq are taking into custody and
holding hostage the family members of wanted suspects in
order to pressure the wanted person into surrendering.
And as in Israel, the US strategy in Iraq is aimed not
only at neutralizing insurgents but also at collective
punishment of the local population for supporting the
insurgents.
The Americans are said to be
considering imitating the Israeli tactic of small units
carrying out "targeted assassinations". According to
Hersh writing in The New Yorker, "a new Special Forces
group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled
from Army Delta Force members, Navy SEALs, and CIA
paramilitary operatives, with many additional personnel
ordered to report by January. Its highest priority is
the neutralization of the Ba'athist insurgents, by
capture or assassination."
Hersh writes: "The
American-Israeli liaison on Iraq amounts to a tutorial
on how to dismantle an insurgency. One former Israeli
military-intelligence officer summarized the core lesson
this way: 'How to do targeted killing, which is very
relevant to the success of the war, and what the United
States is going to have to do. He told me that the
Americans were being urged to emulate the Israeli Army's
small commando units, known as Mistaravim, which
operate undercover inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
They can approach a house and pounce' the former officer
said."
In the Israeli view, the officer told
Hersh, the Special Forces units must learn "how to
maintain a network of informants". Such a network, he
said, has made it possible for Israel to penetrate the
West Bank and Gaza Strip organizations controlled by
groups such as Hamas, and to assassinate or capture
potential suicide bombers along with many of the people
who recruit and train them."
The London Guardian
reports that teams of US special forces are already
behind the lines inside Syria attempting to kill foreign
jihadis before they cross the border into Iraq. It says
that a group focused on the "neutralization" of
guerrilla leaders is being set up. The report quotes a
former senior US intelligence official as describing the
operation as "basically an assassination program ...
This is a hunter-killer team".
Quoting a former
Special Forces official who pointed out that the problem
with head-hunting (assassinations) is that you have to
be sure "you're hunting the right heads", Hersh warns
that the proposed man-hunting missions in Iraq could go
horribly wrong, a they did in Vietnam where many of
those who were killed had no links with the insurgency.
On the face of it, using Israeli tactics appears
to be paying off - at least in the short run. Adopting
Israeli tactics in Iraq has yielded quick results for
the US. According to Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez,
the top military commander in Iraq, attacks on allied
forces across Iraq have halved in a couple of weeks from
40 a day to 20 per day.
But this aggressive
counter-insurgency strategy could prove disastrous in
the long-run. Israel's strategy might have cut the
number of suicide bombings but it has also enraged an
entire generation of Palestinians and ensured that the
Palestinian militant groups will never run short of
volunteers. Similarly, hundreds of ordinary Iraqis who
have no links to the insurgency find the Israel-inspired
American tactics humiliating. Winning hearts and minds
is crucial to weaken an insurgency but the current US
strategy is further alienating the already angry Iraqis.
Wrong lessons
American commandos are
being trained by the Israelis and learning their ways.
But they don't seem to have drawn the right lessons from
the Israeli experience: Israel's strategy has failed to
quell the uprising in the Occupied Territories, despite
years of ruthless, aggressive counter-insurgency
measures.
Besides, the Americans seem to have
paid little attention to what even the top brass of the
Israeli army are now admitting. In October, Israel's
army chief, Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya'alon, warned
that Israel's measures in the Gaza and West Bank were
counterproductive. The continued curfews, reoccupation
of towns and severe restrictions on the movement of
Palestinians, combined with the resulting economic
crisis, were increasing the threat to Israel's security,
he said.
"In our tactical decisions, we are
operating contrary to our strategic interest," General
Ya'alon said. "It increases hatred for Israel and
strengthens the terror organizations."
What
makes General Ya'alon's warnings particularly
significant is that he is not known to be soft on
Palestinians. And yet, the Americans aren't listening.
So, why is the US imitating the Israelis in
dealing with the Iraqi insurgency? It seemingly is an
attempt at reducing US casualties for now. It is aimed
at quelling the violence before next year's presidential
election, with little concern about how the tactics will
play out in the long term.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
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