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US Army in jeopardy in Iraq
By Gary Hart
03/11/06 "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violence escalates further, US troops must be withdrawn from patrol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and then overrun those units before they can be withdrawn.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.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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