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| Iraq |
| Strategy : The Iraq showdown as a matter of chess |
| 2003-03-18 |
| "The analogy produces an interesting scenario: The two sides here are playing for different objectives." Chess is a mind game, the objective of which is to checkmate or kill the opposing king. Ultimately that is the only way to win, unless an opponent, staring inevitable defeat in the face, voluntarily opts to resign. It is no surprise that throughout the ages chess has attracted both political and military leaders, including Queen Elizabeth I, her father, Henry VIII, the Russian czars Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, and Napoleon. The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin regularly congratulated his chess champions on their latest victories, while in our own times, the British prime minister and George W. Bush's staunchest ally, Tony Blair, wrote the foreword to the official account of the 2000 World Chess Championship held in London. During the Cold War, the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union often was depicted as a chess battle, and the showdown today between Bush and Saddam Hussein might be viewed the same way. So, what light can the strategy and tactics of chess throw on the Iraq crisis? First, let us examine how the opposing cultures shape up as chess players. Although the USSR was committed to state support of chess and most of the 14 world champions have been Soviet citizens, the most highly publicized international chess clashes in living memory were both won by America -- the match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972 and the match 25 years later between IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue and the reigning Russian world champion, Garry Kasparov. Iraq's chess roots go back much farther; indeed 1,000 years ago Baghdad was a world capital of science and mathematics as well as being the birthplace of organized competitive chess. However, the Islamic attitude toward chess periodically has grown hostile. Though the game is not specifically proscribed in the Quran, some Muslim lawyers in about A.D. 800 extended its condemnation of dice and images to chess and chess players. Ash-Shafii, a 9th-century Arab jurist, put forward counter arguments, claiming that the game could be played not just for a stake or pure recreation but as a mental exercise for the solution of military tactics. This view has tended to prevail, though when the ayatollahs seized power, chess was banned in Iran. As every chess strategist knows, achieving checkmate, and thus ultimate victory, depends in the first instance on accumulating a prior set of advantageous conditions. These include gain of material, superior mobility, control of terrain and the ability to make the opponent react to your tempo of operations. Of these, material advantage is nearly always the prime factor. "God is on the side of the big battalions" was a Napoleonic maxim that holds good today. In the current situation, America enjoys an overwhelming set of advantages, not least in sheer material force, which, in the normal course of events, would lead to a quick and annihilating victory. However, the analogy with chess produces an interesting scenario: The two sides here are playing for different objectives. The United States is looking for a rapid checkmate that directly takes out the enemy king, Saddam Hussein. Iraq is merely trying to survive on the board, to delay matters indefinitely until, for example, a fresh U.S. presidential election produces a less belligerent executive, as occurred after the Gulf War of 1991 or until the weight of pacifist public opinion in the West renders warlike action impossible. In that context, Saddam's decision to destroy a handful of his longer range missiles exerts a useful delaying effect. In chess terms, Hussein's goal is to have only his king left, with no possible moves but not checkmated. Sometimes you sacrifice all your mobile pieces to be left only with the immobile king, hence a draw. Bush's huge buildup of troops in the Persian Gulf is a clear parallel with massing forces around the enemy king prior to delivering the checkmating blow. Usually this succeeds, but I have seen inexperienced players with a huge material advantage but unskilled in king-hunting chase a sole enemy king around the board only to blunder into stalemate. Another chess term of assistance in this situation is the "consultation game" popular in the 1930s and '40s, in which each side included amateur enthusiasts delighted to participate alongside the grandmaster in decision-making. Naturally the helpers, often wealthy aficionados whose support could further the champions' careers, rarely would come up with any move of value in comparison with the grandmasters' own choices. However, for excellent pecuniary and social reasons, it was vital to avoid alienating or insulting them. A similar dilemma faces Bush in his efforts to enlist the backing of the United Nations. Saddam, on the other hand, enjoys the undisputed advantage of being able to decide all his moves for himself. The ancient Asian cultures have produced parallel games to chess. They also have produced one of the supreme military thinkers of all time, Sun Tzu, who wrote, "The supreme act of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." If America can remove Saddam in this fashion, pressuring him to resign, for example, by the massing of troops in overwhelming numbers on his borders, it will have prevented stalemate, satisfied the consultation partners and won the game in one fell swoop. It seems more likely to me, however, that Saddam's insistence on playing out the endgame in his hope of a stalemate that leaves him in power will unleash an attack that exploits every facet of American material, territorial, mobility and initiative-based advantages. The author of this opinion is Raymond Keene he is a chess grandmaster. Based on my observations, It's my guess that Saddam has not only never played chess, but hes never played stratego, chinese checkers, go!, poker, old maid or any other primary game of strategy. |
| Posted by:Frank Martin |
| #6 But there's the more-valid saying that "Russians play chess, while Americans play poker." If it's poker, the Iraq runup reminds me of a game in which the player holding the four-ace+king hand keeps running up the pot until he's ready to clean out his opponent. See also Playing Poker with Korea. (Preview shows a screwed-up anchor with included HTML, and I couldn't figure out how to make the "Link" button work. (Sigh!) The URL for the referended article is: "http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=5367") |
| Posted by: Old Grouch 2003-03-18 21:55:49 |
| #5 on second thought...I guess I do too :-) |
| Posted by: becky 2003-03-18 18:23:13 |
| #4 Give me a break. This is like a game of chess where we have an endless supply of queens on steroids with extra super powers, an endless supply of kings sitting safely off the board and pawns that can move like bishops and are unlikely to be removed from the board even if attacked. Sadaam is playing with mostly pawns, the majority of which will change color in the opening move, a couple of rooks that also can unexpectedly change color, a queen that might decide to bump off her own king and couple of killer bishops with WMD's....pieces we have but don't use. While he may be able to run around the board for awhile hiding behind his pawns ..in the hopes that his opponent gets tired and goes home...it's highly unlikely it will happen. This game is much more like Risk. The article is interesting, but Raymond, Raymond...you need to get out more. |
| Posted by: becky 2003-03-18 18:20:26 |
| #3 I'd like that hobby...where do I sign up? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-03-18 17:39:59 |
| #2 Something involving heavy drinking and women of easy virtue I would hope. |
| Posted by: frank martin 2003-03-18 16:28:32 |
| #1 Mr. Keene could use another hobby... |
| Posted by: El Id 2003-03-18 16:08:38 |