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To the Editor:
Arthur Herman makes an interesting case for staying in Iraq in order to “win,” but I remain skeptical for a number of reasons [“How to Win in Iraq—and How to Lose,” April]. First, Mr. Herman says that we are there to create a free, open, and liberal society, but that is not how the war was sold to the American people. Second, there has been regular lying on the part of the administration concerning the success of our efforts and the financial and human costs (for example by restricting media coverage of coffins returning home).
Third, insufficient numbers of troops were sent, they were poorly supplied, and generals who dissented from the Pentagon’s preconceived notions were sacked. Fourth, massive amounts of money have been wasted in the reconstruction effort, and companies like Halliburton have received noncompetitive contracts and made vast amounts of money off the war. Fifth, America is not paying for this war as we go. We have gone into debt to pay for it, and taxes have been cut. The cost continues to grow, and there is no end in sight.
Given the systematic untrustworthiness and incompetence of the Bush administration, how can an ordinary citizen like myself support the war? How can one’s natural response to the whole initiative be anything but skepticism? Of course, I would like to see something like the surge strategy work, but this administration is so incompetent, so unrealistic, and so untrustworthy that it is surely foolish for me to go on believing.
Patricia Smith Churchland
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California
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To the Editor:
Arthur Herman writes that the French in Algeria in the 1950’s won the fight on the battlefield against the Islamic insurrection but lost the war because of perfidy at home by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Similarly, the United States military had the North Vietnamese against the wall in 1972, but we had to withdraw in defeat and humiliation thanks to the antiwar Left at home. Finally, he argues, just as we are poised for military victory in Iraq with the surge and the new leadership of General David Petraeus, the toothless Democrats are ready to throw in the towel. Such a radically revisionist history of wars that the French and American militaries actually lost in the field lays the ground for a myth of grievance that will have serious political consequences. And such mythic narratives have their own history.
For decades after the Civil War, the South nourished the idea of the “lost cause,” which asserted that victory had been certain but for bad political leadership under Jefferson Davis and the escape of slaves who had the audacity to fight for the North. In World War I, so it was claimed, Germany won great victories in the east and made huge territorial gains at the 1917 treaty of Brest-Litovsk that would have led to hegemony over Europe were it not for the “stab in the back” by Jews at home and the resulting humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. One should remember such history well before blithely dismissing legitimate opinion at home that the Iraq war was badly conceived, sold to Americans based on lies, and is now lost in the field.
Charles B. Strozier
Center on Terrorism
City University of New York
New York City
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To the Editor:
While recounting supposed successes in Iraq—operations in Najaf “presaging” a better future, Moqtada al-Sadr lying low, and the manual-writing General Petraeus being in charge —Arthur Herman devotes even more of his article to criticizing nefarious defeatism on the home front. One can see why: if the war had been handled competently from the start, perhaps it would have made a difference for the better. But now, as the mismanaged mess is completely unraveling, a Dolchstosslegende (that is, a “stab in the back” myth) is needed to give cover to the hapless originators of the disaster and deflect blame onto the skeptics.
Ole J. Thienhaus
Las Vegas, Nevada
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To the Editor:
Arthur Herman invokes the Vietnam war in arguing for the U.S. to stay and win in Iraq, but does he draw the right lesson from that earlier conflict? The Pentagon Papers tell us that we remained in Vietnam for the better part of ten years not to win but merely to avoid admitting defeat. More than any military repercussion, we feared the damage to our global reputation as the most powerful nation in the world. Unfortunately, the current surge in Iraq is little more than a smokescreen to hide the truth that after spinning our wheels for several years we do not know what else to do, and cannot face the folly of our past actions.
Peter Russert
Los Altos, California
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To the Editor:
Arthur Herman’s article, “How to Win in Iraq—and How to Lose,” should have been titled “How to Fight More Effectively in Iraq—and Whom to Blame When It’s Time to Go Home.” Our real problem in Iraq, however, has nothing to do with how well we fight. The problem is that “winning” has no meaning. Whether our troops leave in two years or in a decade, Iraq will have to go through its own process of reconciliation. We can depose Iraqi leaders, we can contain the territorial ambitions of different factions, but we cannot use our military to shortcut Iraq’s transition to a modern democratic society. Fifty years from now, whatever Iraq has become, it will have had little to do with our occupation. There are better ways to help the country go forward.
Mr. Herman bemoans our “loss” of Vietnam decades ago. I was there as a diplomat, and can assure him that everything the U.S. was fighting for there has been achieved beyond our wildest dreams. Within a few years of our leaving, warring Vietnamese factions unified. Then there began an amazing process of political and economic development. The Chinese army was confronted and beaten in border engagements. Soviet influence in Hanoi was degraded. And now, a mere 40 years later, Vietnam is an important friend to America. Perhaps Mr. Herman can explain how things would look better today if we had “won.”
David Smith
San Francisco, California
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To the Editor:
Arthur Herman’s excellent analysis of the insurgency in Iraq would have been better without the references to “fourth-generation warfare” (4GW) theory. The term 4GW has become a popular rhetorical device for describing the so-called “war on terror” or “long war,” but it has a questionable historical basis, and carries ideological baggage Mr. Herman seems unaware of. It is notable that the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24 (which he himself mentions) does not adopt the 4GW paradigm.
The theory itself has evolved over nearly two decades, from postulating future 4GW as a fight among elite, elusive soldiers using high-technology weaponry to ideas that easily incorporate “non-trinitarian” (non-statist) war, including Islamist terrorists armed with box-cutters. The Spengler-like theorizing of 4GW makes irregular warfare, which is as old as man, the culmination of four centuries of modern military history. Its godfather, military theorist William Lind, is a vociferous opponent of the Iraq war who undoubtedly regards Mr. Herman’s ideas as pure folly.
Guerrillas have always used asymmetric tactics, deception, and propaganda to advance their aims. Alexander the Great battled insurgents, as did the leaders of Rome. What is different today is less the nature of insurgencies than the post-industrial Western societies against which they are directed. Modern insurgents benefit from an almost default acceptance of their legitimacy in the West, especially among Left-leaning elites in academia and the media. These elites almost reflexively believe that insurgents’ goals and tactics are at a minimum understandable due to various grievances, and at the upper limit justifiable and worthy of support.
This is not a new type of warfare, but rather an atavistic kind of war being waged against morally tired societies. To refer to Spengler again, modern insurgencies are like a disease afflicting Western civilization, now apparently entering its winter years.
Jonathan F. Keiler
Iraq
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