Iraq, Afghanistan, and the ghost of Vietnam

When the last US combat brigade left Iraq last week, it did so in triumph. The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled across the border into Kuwait leaving an Iraq that is relatively stable, even though many politicians and opponents of the war had called it hopeless less than four years ago. Many of the same people are similarly painting the war in Afghanistan as a lost cause today.

We should all be proud of the magnificent job that the US military has done in Iraq and Afghanistan. Units who fought in these theaters of the War on Terror include soldiers from the Georgia Army National Guard, Rangers from Hunter Army Air Field, and elements of the 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Benning. Georgia soldiers also served with units based around the country and the world.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have long been compared to the US experience in Vietnam with many warning of a quagmire as US forces engaged al Qaeda and Shiite insurgents. It is possible however, that many in this country have learned the wrong lesson from the history of the Vietnam War.

It is widely believed in some circles that it is almost impossible for a conventional force to defeat insurgents fighting a guerilla war. This view is ignorant both of world military history as well as the history of the many small wars that the US has fought around the world. The US military, especially the Marine Corps, has defeated or neutralized insurgents in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and even Vietnam. The story of these and other conflicts is detailed in Max Boot’s The Savage Wars of Peace.

Boot disputes the conventional wisdom that the US military was defeated by the Viet Cong in a guerilla war. He explains how General William Westmoreland was the wrong man for the command of the US forces in Vietnam. Westmoreland was a West Pointer who tried to fight a conventional, big unit war similar to what he experienced in WWII and Korea.

Mounting casualties led to increasing public opposition, especially after the Tet Offensive of 1968. During Tet, the VC violated an armistice to launch surprise attacks around South Vietnam. The scale of the attacks convinced many, including veteran newsman Walter Cronkite, that the insurgency was not nearly defeated, as many in the government and the military had claimed. In reality, Tat was a huge defeat for the VC. WE and ARVN counterattacks decimated VC ranks and they never recovered (Boot, p. 310).

In the wake of Tet, General Westmoreland was replaced by General Creighton Abrams. Abrams implemented a “one war” strategy that focused on “clear and hold” in a manner similar to General Piraeus’ successful strategy in Iraq. William Colby, leader of the CIA’s Phoenix Program was also instrumental in turning the war around. The Phoenix Program targeted VC cadres in South Vietnam and was responsible. The program led to the killing of 26,000 local VC as well capturing 33,000 and inducing 22,000 to defect (Boot, p. 310).

The methods of Abrams and Colby were so successful that in 1970, only two years after Tet, 90% of South Vietnam was under Saigon’s control (Boot, p. 311). Sir Richard Thompson, a counterinsurgency expert, wrote in 1970 that he was “able to visit areas and walk through villages which had been under VC control for years. There was a much greater feeling of security and people were ready to take up arms for the government because they sensed that the VC were weaker…. Existing roads are kept open, and more are being repaired and opened monthly” (Boot, p. 311).

Yet we know that the Vietnamese communists ultimately prevailed, overrunning the South and reuniting the nation under communist rule. So what happened? In a word: Congress.

Richard Nixon began a policy of Vietnamization, turning over prosecution of the war to the Vietnamese and drawing down US forces in the country. As US forces left, the North Vietnamese saw an opportunity. On March 30, 1972, the NVA launched its Easter Offensive, a conventional forces invasion of the South. Nevertheless, the ARVN forces were able to hold long enough for US airpower to inflict heavy losses on the invaders and the NVA was ultimately turned back (Boot, p. 310-311).

The strong showing led the North Vietnamese to sign the Paris Peace Treaty on January 27, 1973. This was a victory for the United States since it imposed an immediate ceasefire in addition to stipulating the withdrawal of US troops. President Nixon promised the South Vietnamese that the US would come to their aid if the North Vietnamese broke the ceasefire (http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html).

Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese, President Nixon was forced to resign in 1974. Even before that, Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment on June 19, 1973 which banned US military activity in Southeast Asia after August 15. Congress also cut aid to South Vietnam from $1.26 billion to $700 million (http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html). The North Vietnamese sensed blood in the water.

In 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a second conventional invasion of the South. This time, without American airpower or aid, the ARVNs fell back. Boot reports that the situation was so dire that the South Vietnamese troops had to reuse bandages taken from corpses (p. 310-311). With no American help forthcoming, an angry South Vietnamese President Thieu pleaded, “If [the U.S.] grant full aid we will hold the whole country, but if they only give half of it, we will only hold half of the country” (http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html). Instead, Congress granted no aid and South Vietnam fell in 55 days.

Many of the prominent Democrats who prevented the US from honoring its commitments to South Vietnam also opposed the Iraq War. These include Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.

Knowing the full story of the fall of Saigon, the lesson that we should learn is that when our enemies cannot defeat us on the battlefield, they sow dissension at home. They realize that their best chance is to exhaust the political will of the government’s civilian leaders. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the NVA, stated “We were not strong enough to drive out a half-million American troops, but that was not our aim. Our intention was to break the will of the American Government to continue the war” (Boot, p. 316).

A very real danger is that history will repeat itself in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks in large part to the sacrifice and hard work of the US military, Iraq is now much more stable than many observers believed possible a mere four years ago. The turnaround is also due to President Bush’s troop surge and General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy. Afghanistan has further to go, but variations on the same strategy could also work there given enough time. It is a testimony to the stabilizing effect of US forces, and the reality of the danger that remains, that more than half of Iraqis did not want US troops to leave yet (http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2010/08/poll-60-of-iraqis-want-us-troops-to-stay.html).

Much of the violence in Iraq was caused by Shiite militia groups supported by Iran. Iran pledged to the Iraqi government in 2007 that it would stop equipping and training these groups (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110600853.html). This pledge may have been partly to reduce the violence in Iraq and lull the US into a false sense of security, making it politically easier for the Obama Administration to withdraw US combat troops. It might also have been inspired by the possibility of uniting Iraqi Shiites into a political bloc that would elect a government friendly to Iran.

As Iran moves ever closer to developing nuclear weapons, it is possible that they will become emboldened by President Obama’s stated goal of a withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan by July 2011. A nuclear armed Iran that is faced with only token US opposition might well decide that a conventional invasion of Iraq is in their best interests. After all, Iraq is a long-time enemy that fought a decade long war with Iran in the 1980s. Perhaps more importantly, Iraq also controls significant oil reserves. Control of Iraq’s oil would make Iran exponentially more powerful on the world stage. Nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf and conventional forces in Iraq would also threaten the vast oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

The danger for the United States is that, like the Americans of 1975, we will be tempted to wash our hands of Iraq if an Iranian invasion comes. To do so, would be a mistake of the worst order. Not only would Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf threaten our own economy, it would also threaten our allies Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, as well as the economies of the industrialized world. It would be very difficult to form a “coalition of the willing” to stave off a nuclear-armed terrorist state.

Additionally, it would further damage America’s reputation abroad if countries in which the US has invested vast amounts of men and material are allowed to fall to Iran. A fall of Baghdad and Kabul would arouse similar emotions as the famous photo of US embassy personnel being evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the Saigon embassy. It would lead our allies to question whether we can be counted upon and our enemies to sense our weakness.

Americans should make no mistake: Just because US forces are no longer in a combat role in Iraq, it does not mean that the war is over. It merely means that US troops are less likely to die in combat and that native forces are doing the lion’s share of the work. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to continue for some time as long as al Qaeda and Iran continue to oppose the elected governments and the US doesn’t cut off aid. As George Orwell once said, “the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.”

Sources:
Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace. Basic Books, New York, NY. 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110600853.html
http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96350333
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2010/08/poll-60-of-iraqis-want-us-troops-to-stay.html

Denver CO
August 27, 2010

Source: http://captainkudzu.blogspot.com/2010/08/iraq-afghanistan-and-ghost-of-vietnam.html

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The Illusion of a ‘Limited War’ Against Iran - Who Forgot the Pasdaran?

By Mahan Abedin
Guest editorial for Informed Comment

August 12, 2010 - The frank admission by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and America’s highest ranking officer, that the U.S. has plans to attack Iran to prevent that country from acquiring nuclear weapons, is being treated with the utmost seriousness in political, intelligence and military circles in Tehran.

This is the first time that a high-ranking U.S. official has spoken about the existence of military plans to prevent the Islamic Republic from crossing the nuclear threshold. There is considerable evidence that Mullen’s frank statement, coupled with the Obama Administration’s increasingly hostile and dismissive attitude towards Iran, and reinforced by the fourth round of United Nations sanctions imposed in June (followed by even harsher unilateral sanctions imposed by both the European Union and the United States), has radically altered the Tehran regime’s strategic calculations on the possibility of a military confrontation with the United States.

Hitherto the conventional wisdom amongst strategic policy makers in the Islamic Republic was that the U.S. would adhere to the ‘no war no peace’ policy, irrespective of the bellicose rhetoric of American leaders and officials. The policy of ‘no war no peace’ has characterized Iranian-American relations since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979.

The basic premise of this policy is that at different stages Iran and America edge towards war or peace – depending on the prevailing strategic scenario in the region – but never quite actually achieve either. The result is that most of the time the two states are somewhere in the middle conducting a Cold War, in which leaders and officials from both sides trade insults and engage in ideological and political grandstanding, but stop well short of the point where further escalation of tensions might trigger a hot war.

For the past thirty-one years this policy has benefited most of the key stakeholders, including hardline political factions in both countries, the regional Arab states, Turkey, Pakistan and Israel. All have benefited from this Iranian-American Cold War, insofar as the paucity of diplomatic and political relations between Iran and America has continuously opened up a wide range of strategic, political and economic benefits. By the same token, these stake holders would have much to lose if Iran and America actually engaged in real fighting. While this argument has manifold shortcomings, nonetheless it does capture a large part of the reality of Iranian-American relations since 1979. In any case it is what key Iranian strategic policy makers have believed all along. Until now that is.

Despite the fact that a few days before Mullen’s statement, the supreme commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC—Sepah-e-Pasdaran in Persian), Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Jafari, dismissed U.S. threats, claiming that America “would not dare to attack Iran”, other IRGC leaders have in recent months continuously warned of the immediate and long-term fallout of any military confrontation. The head of the IRGC’s political-ideological unit recently warned of “dire” threats to regional security in the event of an American military attack. Meanwhile Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s defence minister and a former commander of the IRGC’s elite Qods Force (responsible for special foreign operations), has pledged a “robust” response to any American military aggression against Iran.

It has been clear for months that the mood of IRGC commanders has been changing and Mullen’s statement appears to lend credence to the strategic calculations of the Revolutionary Guard commanders. This development is of the utmost significance, since in the event of an Iranian-American military confrontation, the IRGC is expected to be at the forefront of containing the American assault and retaliating with military measures of its own.

In fact, in the event of a military confrontation Iranian leaders are likely to relieve the regular Iranian military from fighting, so as to keep them out of harm’s way and maintain the integrity and fighting strength of the regular armed forces. There is another reason for this decision and that has to do with the depleted capabilities of the national military; in the past thirty years the national armed forces have insidiously lost power and prestige to the IRGC. It is worth noting that Iran is the only country in the world that operates two completely independent military commands; one centred on the regular armed forces, and the other on the IRGC, which operates its own ground forces, navy and air force, as well as a myriad of intelligence and security services. Moreover, the IRGC controls all of Iran’s strategic military assets, including mid-range ballistic missile capability.

It has become fashionable to paint the IRGC as an economic conglomerate more interested in making money than fighting for the values of the Islamic Revolution. Much of the reporting on IRGC economic activity is inaccurate and disingenuous and is indicative of the faux-naif style of analysis often employed by Western journalists and analysts.

The truth is that whilst the IRGC has a sizeable economic wing centred on the Khatam ol-Anbia complex (Qarargah-e Khatam ol-Anbia), its economic and financial activities are kept strictly separate from its fighting units. In any case, the IRGC is foremost an ideological army that is totally and unequivocally committed to the survival of the Islamic Revolution, and the political-religious system that emerged from that revolution. Even former reformist president (and now opposition leader) Mohammad Khatami referred to the IRGC as the “most ideological armed force in the world.”

American political and military leaders would be mistaken if they believed they could get away with a “limited” military strike on Iran, designed to destroy that country’s nuclear infrastructure. Any military strike on Iran by the United States will be interpreted by Iran’s rulers, and their IRGC enforcers, as a direct assault on the integrity and the very existence of the Islamic Republic. From a strategic point of view, IRGC commanders will interpret any American strike as the beginning of an existential conflict, and will respond appropriately.

A top priority for the IRGC high command is to respond so harshly and decisively so as to deter the Americans from a second set of strikes at a future point. The idea here is to avoid what happened to Iraq in the period 1991-2003, when the former Baathist regime was so weakened by sanctions and repeated small-scale military attacks that it quickly collapsed in the face of American and British invading armies.

The range of predictable responses available to the IRGC high command include dramatic hit and run attacks against military and commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf, the use of mid-range ballistic missiles against American bases in the region and Israel and a direct assault on American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. All these options are likely to be used within 48 hours of the start of hostilities.

What is less predictable is the response of the IRGC Qods Force, which is likely to be at the forefront of the Pasdaran’s counter-attack. One possible response by the Qods force is spectacular terrorist-style attacks against American intelligence bases and assets throughout the region. The IRGC Qods Force is believed to have identified every key component of the American intelligence apparatus in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are likely to put this information to good use, especially since the Qods Force suspects that the CIA had a hand in last October’s Jundullah-organised suicide bombing targeting IRGC commanders in Iran’s volatile Sistan va Baluchistan province.

The IRGC navy will also play a key asymmetrical role in the conflict by organising maritime suicide bombings on an industrial scale. By manning its fleet of speedboats with suicide bombers and ramming them into American warships and even neutral commercial shipping, the Pasdaran will hope to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 40 percent of world crude oil supplies pass.

The combination of these asymmetrical forms of warfare with more conventional style missile and even ground force attacks on American bases in the region will likely result in thousands of American military casualties in the space of a few weeks. The IRGC has both the will and wherewithal to inflict a level of casualties on American armed forces not seen since the Second World War.

Even if the United States manages to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and much of the country’s military assets, the IRGC can still claim victory by claiming to have given the Americans a bloody nose and producing an outcome not dissimilar from the Israeli-Hezbollah military engagement in the summer of 2006.

The political effect of this will likely be even more explosive than the actual fighting. Not only will it awaken the sleeping giant of Iranian nationalism, thus aligning the broad mass of the people with the regime, it will also shore up Iran’s image in the region and prove once and for all that the Islamic Republic is prepared to fight to the death to uphold its principles. Suddenly Iran’s allies in the region – particularly non-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas – would stand ten feet tall.

Ironically U.S. military aggression will likely accelerate the actualisation of the very scenario that American political and military leaders insist they are determined to prevent, i.e. a nuclear armed Iran. Even if we accept the contentious proposition that Iran’s nuclear programme has a military dimension, the immediate reaction of Iran’s rulers to military aggression would be to start a crash programme to produce a nuclear weapon, as a means of deterring future aggression.

Contrary to what Mike Mullen and other American military commanders appear to believe, a military attack on Iran really is the very worst option. Its consequences for Iran, the region and the United States are dangerously unpredictable, to the extent that any decision to attack would be nothing less than stunningly reckless and quite possibly the worst strategic mistake in American military history. Responsible actors in the international system should exert the maximum effort to avoid an Iranian-American War.
Mahan Abedin is a Middle East analyst.

Source: http://levantnotes.blogspot.com/2010/08/illusion-of-limited-war-against-iran.html

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'Iran will block Hormuz if attacked' ...

Top Iranian military official Brig. Gen. Ali Shademani

August 17, 2010

'Iran will block Hormuz if attacked'

A senior Iranian military official says Iran will take full control of the Strait of Hormuz should Washington opt to launch aggression against Iran.

"The country's armed forces which are under the (Islamic Revolution) Leader's command are in the highest state of preparedness." head of the Operations Department of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Ali Shademani was quoted by Mehr News Agency as saying on Tuesday.

"Three measures are in store to counter any potential aggression against the country", he said.

"The first action would be to take full control of the Strait of Hormuz whereby we wouldn't allow any move by anybody", the top military official underlined.

He said the enemy 'will be brought to its knees' as soon as it makes a move.

As for the second measure, General Shademani said, "We are keeping a close watch on all American military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq."

"With the slightest move against Iran, we will paralyze the troops stationed in those bases and won't allow them to make any move." he stressed.

The top general also elaborated on the third plan.

"Israel is the United States' backyard", he highlighted, "So we will disturb the peace there."

"The US and Israel well know that we can do it", he added.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/139100.html

Source: http://articlesofinterest-kelley.blogspot.com/2010/08/iran-will-block-hormuz-if-attacked.html

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