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Jewish World Review March 26, 2003 / 22 Adar II, 5763
Michael Ledeen
All Fronts: Military war, political war, psychological war
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
In 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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JWR contributor Michael Ledeen is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of, most recently, ""The War Against the Terror Masters," Comment by clicking here.
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© 2001, Michael Ledeen
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