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| Iraq |
| The Iraq Paradox: Why has it been so much harder than Afghanistan? |
| 2006-07-30 |
| by Robert Pollock, Wall Street Journal BAGHDAD--"How was Afghanistan?" asks an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. "Dusty," I reply, pointing at my shoes, which show every evidence of having been in Kandahar hours earlier. "And remarkably stable," I add: The press corps following Donald Rumsfeld drove from Kabul airport to the U.S. Embassy compound with no significant security, a sharp contrast to the helicopter ride that prudence dictated we take into Baghdad's Green Zone. "We'd sure like to have that kind of situation," my interlocutor says. So why does he think the U.S. mission here has been so much harder? Maybe, he says, because the Taliban didn't have 35 years to create the infrastructure of a totalitarian state, with millions of party apparatchiks and a KGB-trained intelligence service--"the same people who are still killing us today." It's the best answer I heard to a question that nagged me on a recent visit to two of the hottest battlefronts in the war on terror. Iraq, a cosmopolitan civilization, actually knew something of representative democracy before the Baath rose to power in the 1960s. It has an educated middle class, and at least 80% of its population hated the regime when we liberated it. It seemed as fertile ground as any to test the idea that the force of U.S. arms could help improve political evolution in the Muslim world. Iraqis have vindicated that idea by bravely turning out for two elections and a constitutional referendum; but the security situation in Baghdad continues to deteriorate. And the middle class--upon whom so much depends--is fleeing Iraq in numbers. By contrast, Afghanistan seemed to pose more daunting challenges. It is larger, more populous and largely illiterate, with a history of being the "graveyard of empires." It was the actual home of an Islamist regime. And across the border in Pakistan, madrassas turn out a seemingly endless supply of holy warriors. Yet Afghanistan was liberated with only a token U.S. ground force and stabilized with barely more than 20,000. It still has decades to go before basic education levels will allow it to be anything approaching modern democracy. But don't believe the reports of a significant Taliban resurgence; they're greatly exaggerated. Go read the rest of it; it's quite insightful. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #6 Excellent post, and good comments too. |
| Posted by: ryuge 2006-07-30 21:30 |
| #5 Good analysis ZF and AB7790. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2006-07-30 15:46 |
| #4 Logistics. Its just has hard for the bad guys to get their equipment into country as for us. Only we have modern technology, an effective logistics structure to get it there, and the treasury to make it happen. Iraq is pretty much close to infrastructure drop off points in the region for easy movement of men and material from the bankers [Saudis and Iranians]. |
| Posted by: Angeatle Pheart7790 2006-07-30 13:34 |
| #3 SS: The situations are not that different. I think infrastructure is only one of the answers. The other answer is money - Saddam had more ammo (bullets, artillery and mortar rounds) stockpiled and hidden than the entire US military. He is suspected to have billions stashed away. That's probably enough to cover his payroll for the rest of the decade. At an average of $5000 per person per year, it costs him $50m a year to pay 10,000 guerrillas every year. The standard AK rifle costs $500 tops. Ammo is dirt cheap - $0.10 per round. Say the average guerrilla uses $10000 worth of ammo a year. That's 100,000 rounds of ammo, or about 300 rounds per day. For about $150m a year, Saddam can field a full-time army of 10,000, with each guerrilla shooting off 300 rounds of 7.62mm ammo daily. If he has $5b in cash lying around, he can put the money in CD's and fund a guerrilla movement for the rest of eternity. The only question is whether he can get enough recruits. For that kind of money, I bet you can get any number of recruits from Muslim countries. The only problem they face is getting there, and the rough treatment they get from Iraqis. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-07-30 13:03 |
| #2 one has to wonder why we bother remaining in that rat hole. Either we stay, or we have to go back again to root out Al Qaeda a second time after the next 9/11. That's why Oldspook is running ragged doing mysterious support thingies for his lads, and why we have Special Forces and Marines and such all over the trouble spots in Africa. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-07-30 10:44 |
| #1 The situations are not that different. There are Sunni-Shiite divides in both entities. I believe that the difference with Iraq, is that weaponry and explosives were already close to front lines that were later established after the liberation. Wababi - Taliban is a Wahabi sect - terrorists in Afghanistan aren't as well stocked. However this is changing, with rising sympathy - at least in Pashto areas - for the return of Taliban. Now that Karzai is bringing back the Taliban version of the Muttawa, while allowing clerics to declare jihad in Kandahar mosques, one has to wonder why we bother remaining in that rat hole. |
| Posted by: Snease Shaiting3550 2006-07-30 09:34 |