As
US forces penetrate ever deeper and more destructively into the Iraqi city of
Fallujah, each of the major players in this violent drama is engaged in a
complex, constantly shifting calculus involving ways of turning events to their
advantage. Of the many possible outcomes to the battle of Fallujah, the four
that seem most plausible follow, starting with the one that might be viewed
most positively by the administration of US President George W Bush. In sum,
they offer us a grim picture of how the window of success has closed on
American strategists in Iraq. Even the "best" outcomes below (from the
administration's point of view) have lost the trappings of freedom and
democracy that helped justify the invasion 19 months ago.
The Hama solution In 1982, Syrian president Hafez al-Assad put down a potential nationwide
revolt of religious activists associated with the Muslim Brotherhood by killing
upwards of 20,000 people in the city of Hama, in essence flattening its central
districts in the process. In an Iraqi version of the "Hama solution", the
Americans and their Iraqi allies would take Fallujah relatively quickly - at
whatever cost to its essential infrastructure - in the process killing the
majority of the resistance fighters in the city along with uncounted civilians
who were too poor, young, old or infirm to flee before the invasion. Fallujah
would then act as a terrifying example to other rebellious Iraqi cities. The
end, however temporary, of Muqtada al-Sadr's Shi'ite insurgency in the early
autumn increased the likelihood of success for such a move, freeing up as it
did US troops from Najaf in the south and from the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City in
Baghdad. At the same time, the many month-long threat of a massive attack on
Fallujah seems to have created fracture lines in the resistance between
indigenous groups seeking political solutions that might avoid mass civilian
casualties and smaller groups of foreign jihadis, unbound by local ties and
determined to fight to the death.
On the other hand, all those months of saber-rattling evidently allowed many
local fighters and jihadi leaders to leave the city before the invasion began,
a troublesome development for American strategists and the interim government
of Iyad Allawi as they seek to pacify the larger Sunni triangle in time for
announced elections in January. In the past week, after all, insurgents
reoccupied the city center of Ramadi, attacked fiercely in Samarra, fought it
out in Baghdad neighborhoods, and left authority in Mosul tottering, while US
troops were occupied with the battle of Fallujah - and these were just a few of
the many indications that, no matter what happens in Fallujah, the insurgency
is anything but defeated.
Yet if enough resistance fighters are killed to reclaim Fallujah and sap the
force of the insurgency in other cities, American strategists can at least hope
to be on their way to a limited pacification of Sunni Iraq. Sunni leaders might
next be bought off or co-opted and enough followers, fighters and civilians
killed elsewhere to quiet the country for the next several months. Iraq would
then have its "successful" election, and the Bush administration would breathe
a huge sigh of relief. So would Allawi, who, according to a senior Iraqi
official with whom I've spoken in recent days, is still livid that the
Americans bypassed him to negotiate an end to the siege of Najaf. (According to
my source, the bandaged hand Allawi sported during his recent trip to New York
came from "banging his hands on the wall" after learning of a secret meeting
between US ambassador John Negroponte and Shi'ite rebel leaders.) In one
fashion or another, in this scenario, "democracy" would mean an extension of
the Allawi government via a limited and managed election.
The ongoing, seemingly ceaseless violence in the Palestinian Occupied
Territories under Israeli occupation reminds us that pacifying an occupied
population is an endless job. But if, as the Bush administration now hopes, the
insurgency can simply be tamped down, when it resurfaces next spring it will be
the problem of an elected Iraqi government. US troops, in the meanwhile, would
largely be withdrawn to a dozen or more major bases, lowering American
casualties; yet they could be called back into action any time violence
threatened to get out of hand. Iraq would then take its place beside Colombia,
Israel and Sri Lanka, to name only a few of the many countries plagued by
ongoing but "manageable" political violence - while the US would remain astride
the second-largest oil reserves in the world. This is today the best option
available to the Bush administration.
The Jenin scenario If Fallujah is largely subdued but low-level fighting continues for weeks
or months in its back streets, chaos and anarchy might increase across the
country, forcing a curtailment or postponement of the January elections, and
yet the overall situation might not spin completely out of US control. The
Allawi government would remain more or less in power in Baghdad and US troops
could continue to occupy the country indefinitely (under the argument that the
US can't leave Iraq in the midst of chaos). The insurgency would be slowly
exhausted over a longer period of time, laying the groundwork for a
post-independence system favorable to US interests.
Here, the example of the 2002 Israeli siege of the Palestinian refugee camp in
Jenin might prove the model for the present Fallujah campaign. It stirred up
great anger, violence and chaos in Palestinian society and outrage
internationally, but when the dust settled - as it usually does - Israel's
strategic position was actually stronger than before.
Even if the dust doesn't settle quite as advantageously in Iraq, or settle at
all, Bush administration hawks could turn the ensuing low-level chaos to their
immediate advantage by allowing it, or encouraging it to spread to Syria (near
whose border the US recently staged a bloody invasion of the Iraqi town of Tal
Afar) or Iran (already in the sights of senior administration officials,
regardless of any nuclear deal its leaders may sign with the Europeans). In
fact, it is well known that Israeli operatives have been working with Kurds in
both border regions to gauge the feasibility of such a scenario. In the
meantime, according to Iraqi officials I've spoken with, US oil companies are
quietly exploring the 90% of Iraq where oil deposits have yet to be tapped,
free of potentially embarrassing scrutiny by a media focused on urban violence
rather than desert oil. American casualties would also remain limited; media
attention modest; and so a Jenin scenario would be seen, under the
circumstances, as a quiet but significant victory by the Bush administration.
The 'British' solution (or 1920 revisited) If the invasion of Fallujah backfires - if the fighting drags on and, for
instance, there is evidence of large-scale civilian casualties, perhaps
broadcast to the world by a dreaded al-Jazeera reporter via video phone - Iraqi
public opinion might be inflamed to the point of sparking a more general Sunni
or yet more significantly Sunni-Shi'ite revolt. This actually happened in 1920
when occupying British troops tried to use massive force to pacify the country
and the results were devastating for the occupiers (as well as the occupied);
or if the resistance in Fallujah proves more resilient or better armed than US
military officials assume it to be and is capable of dragging out the fighting
until a desperate compromise solution along the lines of the deal to end the
Najaf siege becomes inevitable, a revolt might also be encouraged; or if the
insurgents, with months to plan, left only a minimal force in Fallujah to fight
a delaying action against the Americans and their Iraqi allies and are able to
conduct a larger, sustained insurgency across Sunni (and parts of Shi'ite)
Iraq, as seems increasingly likely, the result could be the same.
Any one of these developments or any combination of them would destroy what is
left of the credibility of the Americans and of the interim Iraqi government.
If not contained, the present insurgency, facing overwhelming and relatively
indiscriminate US power, could spark a more general revolt, joined by
significant number of Shi'ites (whose leaders, unlike during the first siege of
Fallujah in April, have so far remained relatively quiet). It would capitalize
on the intense anger felt by a country that has seen as many as 100,000 of its
citizens killed in the past 18 months. With the political costs of retreat
almost incalculable, the Bush administration in turn might ratchet up the
violence (as it did in Vietnam) before considering real withdrawal strategies,
hoping that the prospect of tens of thousands of further deaths in the next
year would lead Iraqis to accept some continued US military presence in the
country and, most important, a continued hand in the management of the
country's petroleum resources.
The 'French' scenario Any version of the "British" solution might, sooner or later, lead the Bush
administration into the thickets of the even more unsettling "French" scenario.
In this, a growing awareness of the human toll of the occupation, coupled with
levels of political corruption that are already staggering would lend force to
a desire to internationalize the next phase of Iraq's transition to full
sovereignty. (A former top Allawi aide, who recently escaped the country,
summed up Iraqi despair on the issue of corruption in lamenting to me that "the
new regime is the same as Saddam's, just with different faces.") The "French"
scenario might involve the intercession of France, Germany and Spain, joined by
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and supported by a resurgent
worldwide anti-war movement aroused by the ongoing horrors of Iraq. With the
insurgency still under way, pressure would be applied for a ceasefire coupled
with an internationalization of the transition to sovereignty based on the
complete failure of the US and the Allawi government to stabilize the country.
French President Jacques Chirac's stated desire to build a counterweight to US
power and Annan's rising displeasure with US actions could encourage such a
development, as could the resignation of the Sunni members of the interim
government and a full-scale Sunni boycott of any future US-organized elections.
While the US and the British would likely veto any Security Council resolution
to mandate such a move, the groundswell of support for it could lead to major
changes in the management of the occupation in the lead-up to elections.
If all four outcomes described above are striking for what they reveal about
the narrowing of the Bush administration's grand vision of a democratic and
prosperous Iraq, the last one - a kind of final humiliation - would certainly
be fiercely resisted by US officials and the Allawi government (nor would some
factions of the insurgency be any too pleased by the possibility).
The wild card in the current crisis is the Iraqi people who, since the toppling
of the Saddam regime, have more often than not remained horrified spectators
while their country's political landscape has been reshaped. This passivity,
though understandable given the Iraqi experience over the previous two decades,
has proved as disastrous for them and their country as the passivity of
Palestinians was during the crucial early years of the Oslo peace process
(which in actuality allowed Israel to increase significantly its West Bank and
Gaza settlements, while Yasser Arafat cemented his autocratic and corrupt rule
virtually cost-free).
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call for a massive non-violent mobilization to end
the siege of Najaf and the success of women's groups in preventing a rollback
of their social rights both demonstrate that the Iraqi people can become active
shapers of their own destiny. Were the Shi'ites to pour into the streets
nationwide, as they did in Najaf in response to Sistani, the Iraqi situation
would immediately take on a different look and the US occupation might find its
days quickly numbered. But can Iraqi society challenge the violent calculus of
US military planners and insurgents alike with a vision of a future free of
occupation and autocracy, corruption and extremism? More than wishing the
Iraqis well, the international community needs to get its hands dirty to ensure
that they have a fighting chance.
Mark LeVine is professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and
Islamic studies at the University of California Irvine and author of the
forthcoming books Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis
of Evil and Overthrowing Geography (Tel Aviv-Yafo) and The Struggle for
Palestine, 1880-1948. He is also the editor with Viggo Mortensen and Pilar Perez
of Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation. He last spent time in
Iraq in the early spring of this year.
This article appeared previously on
Tomdispatchand is used by permission.
