Postscript on Civil War

A civil war is different from other kinds of warfare. In a civil war, our opponents' only goal is to make us leave. That's what made Vietnam such a hard war to win. Our opponents were willing to sustain high losses in order to make us leave, and that's what they did. Our goal, which was to keep the country divided, was extremely hard to achieve if we did not have a strong and motivated local force fighting on our side. In fact, we did not have such a force, and we did not achieve our goal.

We can see a similar situation in Iraq: soldiers on the other side who are much more motivated than the soldiers on our side, and a simple goal to make us leave. A difference is that we can carry out ground operations against our opponents more effectively. We can attack Falluja, Najaf, and Baghdad on the ground, but we could not deploy infantry to Hanoi.

We can't lose this war, but it's not at all clear how we can win it, either. The word quaqmire was inappropriate for Vietnam, and it's not helpful for Iraq, either. It suggests that we get sucked in, as with quicksand, and that we have no way to get out: no exit strategy, as they say.

But we can get out easily if we recognize the nature of the situation we're in. In a two-sided war against a unified state, or against an alliance of unified states, one side has to win decisively, or both sides have to agree to stop fighting. It does no good to declare peace if the other side keeps attacking you. In a civil war, where an outside power fights to support the weaker force, the outside power can withdraw any time. The exit strategy is a simple one, if not easy to execute. In this case, we don't even have to admit that the original invasion of Iraq was a mistake. The Iraqis are grateful that we got rid of Saddam Hussein: they were grateful in April 2003 and they still are. We just have to admit that we made mistakes after getting rid of him. Then the path is clear for an honorable withdrawal.

So these reasons - there'll be a civil war, we can't lose the war, we can't appear to lose it - all of these reasons for staying in Iraq are misconceived. The question is, what serves our interests, given the situation that exists right now? The answer now is the same answer that held when we rolled the first tanks over the border: start planning for disengagement. Let the Iraqis build their own state, because they don't want our help. If we let them alone now, they'll be our friends later.