Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stated that U.S. forces would not become heavily involved in any civil strife, leaving it instead to Iraqis to sort out the problem. This approach, which mirrors the relatively passive approach U.S. troops took to the reprisal violence after the Feb. 22 bombing, has an understandable appeal. But it is akin to our decision to stand aside and allow wanton looting after Saddam Hussein fell in April 2003, and it could have comparably disastrous consequences.
He says we'd need to wade hip deep into the brewing struggle with our troops and avoid the mistakes of April 2003 when we did not forcefully stop the lotting and disorder in Baghdad following the collapse of the Saddam regime.
There are several problems with this thinking.
First, it is set forth by Michael O'Hanlon. God love him but he is so clueless sometimes that it is frightening. And I don't mean to be cruel. O'Hanlon clearly is highly educated. And if he is on NPR he is usually the most reasonable person on the air. And he can honestly try to remain an honest commentator. But he is just always a bit off and so misses the mark.
Second. Saying we should not let Iraqis keep tempers tamped down because we failed to intervene in April 2003 ignores the very real fact that there were no Iraqi forces to turn the job over to in April 2003. That we did not stop the looting is no reason to imply that we failed because we turned the job over to non-existent Iraqi security forces.
Third, nobody has written anything to convince me that the insurgency was caused by our failure to stop the looting. These weren't Sunnis looting who were encouraged by our failure to shoot several hundred of them to start a revolt against the new order. These were Shias looting the symbols of the hated regime. Is O'Hanlon seriously arguing that we could have stifled Sunni anger at losing power by killing or wounding several thousand looting Shias? Wouldn't this course of action have actually just enflamed average Shia hostility and added it to Sunni hostility and pro-Iranian Shia hostility to create a national resistance against our forces when only weeks earlier most Shias had welcomed our destruction of Saddam's hated regime?
And fourth, it ignores the fact that in the aftermath of the Sammara bombing, Iraqi security forces did indeed successfully hold the ring and prevent the long-anticipated (hoped for?) civil war that the press says is finally here.
I really have to wonder what it takes to become a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Now would be the time for them to reassess their standards.
