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Five ways to win back Iraq - -

By Kenneth M. Pollack

Op-Ed Contributor

Five Ways to Win Back Iraq

Published: July 1, 2005

Washington

IRAQ is not another Afghanistan. Notwithstanding what President Bush said in his speech on Tuesday, our primary problem in Iraq is not terrorism, and the administration's single-minded focus on terrorism may help explain why we have not yet adopted a true counterinsurgency strategy or properly tackled so many of the country's other problems.

Nevertheless, critics of the president who make parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are equally wrong. Iraq is far more important. Because of its oil wealth, its location in the most politically fragile region of the world, and its importance in the eyes of Arab nations that wonder if democracy is possible for them too, Iraq is critical to American interests in a way that Vietnam never was.

There is one way, however, in which Iraq is like Vietnam: how the United States is handling it. We lost in Vietnam for a complicated set of reasons. But the most important was that we refused to use an effective counterinsurgency strategy. We focused more on hunting down Vietcong guerrillas than on protecting the Vietnamese people, which in turn prevented the South Vietnamese economy from growing and giving the people an economic incentive to support our side of the war. We also tolerated a series of corrupt, unstable South Vietnamese leaders who made little effort to connect with the people and spent their time squabbling over power and graft.

Iraq, however, may not be doomed to the same fate. For one thing, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his government are far more popular and better-intentioned than President Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam and his kleptocratic colleagues ever were. And, because the Iraqi insurgents are as happy to blow up Iraqi civilians as American convoys, they do not enjoy the broad appeal of the Vietcong (let alone the firepower of the North Vietnamese Army).

So it is unfortunate that we are squandering these advantages by repeating many of our own mistakes from 40 years ago, and in doing so alienating the Iraqi people and raising the risk of chaos and civil war. So how do we save the reconstruction of Iraq? Again, Vietnam - as well as Northern Ireland and other guerrilla wars - has much to teach. There are at least five specific lessons that must be adapted to today's cause:

Think safety first A main point of counterinsurgency operations is that ensuring the safety of the people and giving them an economic and political incentive to oppose the insurgency is more important than fighting the insurgents themselves. Insurgencies wither on the vine without popular support. Thus the first big change would be to de-emphasize chasing insurgents around the Sunni Triangle, and to instead put a higher priority on protecting Iraqis as they go about their daily lives.

Many Iraqis will tell you that they are less concerned about terrorist attacks than about street crime and the burgeoning organized crime syndicates, which scare them into staying home and hinder the distribution of goods, paralyzing Iraq's economic and social life.

Meanwhile, most of our operations against insurgents have done little but further antagonize the Sunni tribes of western Iraq. We should instead be building safe zones in cities and rural areas, and guarding communications and transportation sites, to allow Iraq's political and economic life to revive. We need to shift the bulk of our troops from trying to pacify insurgent hotspots that may never support reconstruction and toward keeping the peace in areas dominated by Shiites and urban Sunnis, who for the most part want nothing to do with the insurgency but long to live normal lives. (Fortunately, Kurdish security forces are more than adequate to police their own streets without our help.)

Provide enough manpower for the job What is going to make or break Iraqi popular support for reconstruction is safe streets, jobs, clean water, reliable electricity, ample gasoline and the provision of other bas



    
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