Saturday, March 06, 2004
The significance of declining American casualties in Iraq
In the midst of rising violence against the Shiites in Iraq, the rate of American casualties has declined dramatically. February saw the lowest number of American KIA of any month since the start of the war, only 20. In the sixteen days since February 19, we have lost only one soldier in combat, even though the dangerous peak of the troop rotation is well underway. As I have written before, the mainstream media has been virtually silent, so people have missed this good news.
There are several possible explanations for this, each with different implications. Excluding mere good luck as the reason only because it is boring to talk about, here are the questions that occur to me early on a Saturday morning:
Are American casualties down because we have substantially degraded the ability of the guerrillas to make war against real soldiers? If this is the case, have we accomplished this by playing better defense -- putting armor on the Humvees, detecting roadside bombs before they go off, and so forth -- or by killing more of the insurgency's fighters and capturing more of their weapons than they have been able to replace? I imagine we have done both, but it is obviously harder to prove the latter to the satisfaction of reporters.
Are American casualties down because the insurgents are turning to softer targets, e.g., Shiites at worship? Perhaps, but I don't think so. Masses of civilians are so vulnerable to suicide bombers that I find it hard to believe that slaughtering a lot of gathered innocents is such a drain on the insurgency's capacity that it is distracted from killing Americans. I believe that cause and effect are reversed: the insurgency is attacking soft civilian targets because it is no longer effective against American soldiers.
Perhaps, however, it is foolish to think that there is just one "insurgency." Both the Administration and the anti-war camps have claimed (or acknowledged) that Islamists and their fellow travellors have joined Baathist die hards in the fight. For a time it might have made sense for the two groups to collaborate, or at least go after the same objective, which was the ejection of the United States from Iraq. The Baathists would want this as an end in itself, but the Islamists would desire it for its long-term consequences to U.S. prestige and power.
Perhaps the capture of Saddam, the resulting improved intelligence, and the changes in American tactics during the last three months have shattered the remaining Baathist resistance. If the Baathists hold-outs have lost their ability to inflict American casualties, they and the Islamists may have concluded that the Americans will not be driven out of Iraq. There is some evidence that this is the case. The al-Zarqawi CD all but says as much.
So the average Baathist fighter, unwilling to strap on a bomb belt and go for the virgins, is probably going to do his best to fade away, either by slipping back into society and hoping that nobody rats him out, or by going into hiding. It is save your skin time for the ancien regime never-ender who is unwilling to commit suicide.
The Islamists, however, do not have to expel us from Iraq in order to win. They can win, in their terms, by pinning us down. We cannot fight the next stage of the war -- which may well be in Pakistan or Africa -- if we are still cleaning up Iraq. American prestige will suffer -- at least in the eye of considered world opinion -- and we may not have the ability to chase Al-Qaeda and its ilk to their next refuge. Misery in Iraq will breed Islamist resentment, just as a robust economy and a legitimate government would diminish it.
We therefore must stop the Islamists from killing the innocents, even if we are happy that our soldiers are at much less risk than just a few months ago. Pursuing the Islamists will take skill and guile, and -- like any engagement of the enemy -- may result in a resurgence of American casualties. But we have to do it.
Comments are, of course, welcome. I am but an amateur in these matters.
There are several possible explanations for this, each with different implications. Excluding mere good luck as the reason only because it is boring to talk about, here are the questions that occur to me early on a Saturday morning:
Are American casualties down because we have substantially degraded the ability of the guerrillas to make war against real soldiers? If this is the case, have we accomplished this by playing better defense -- putting armor on the Humvees, detecting roadside bombs before they go off, and so forth -- or by killing more of the insurgency's fighters and capturing more of their weapons than they have been able to replace? I imagine we have done both, but it is obviously harder to prove the latter to the satisfaction of reporters.
Are American casualties down because the insurgents are turning to softer targets, e.g., Shiites at worship? Perhaps, but I don't think so. Masses of civilians are so vulnerable to suicide bombers that I find it hard to believe that slaughtering a lot of gathered innocents is such a drain on the insurgency's capacity that it is distracted from killing Americans. I believe that cause and effect are reversed: the insurgency is attacking soft civilian targets because it is no longer effective against American soldiers.
Perhaps, however, it is foolish to think that there is just one "insurgency." Both the Administration and the anti-war camps have claimed (or acknowledged) that Islamists and their fellow travellors have joined Baathist die hards in the fight. For a time it might have made sense for the two groups to collaborate, or at least go after the same objective, which was the ejection of the United States from Iraq. The Baathists would want this as an end in itself, but the Islamists would desire it for its long-term consequences to U.S. prestige and power.
Perhaps the capture of Saddam, the resulting improved intelligence, and the changes in American tactics during the last three months have shattered the remaining Baathist resistance. If the Baathists hold-outs have lost their ability to inflict American casualties, they and the Islamists may have concluded that the Americans will not be driven out of Iraq. There is some evidence that this is the case. The al-Zarqawi CD all but says as much.
So the average Baathist fighter, unwilling to strap on a bomb belt and go for the virgins, is probably going to do his best to fade away, either by slipping back into society and hoping that nobody rats him out, or by going into hiding. It is save your skin time for the ancien regime never-ender who is unwilling to commit suicide.
The Islamists, however, do not have to expel us from Iraq in order to win. They can win, in their terms, by pinning us down. We cannot fight the next stage of the war -- which may well be in Pakistan or Africa -- if we are still cleaning up Iraq. American prestige will suffer -- at least in the eye of considered world opinion -- and we may not have the ability to chase Al-Qaeda and its ilk to their next refuge. Misery in Iraq will breed Islamist resentment, just as a robust economy and a legitimate government would diminish it.
We therefore must stop the Islamists from killing the innocents, even if we are happy that our soldiers are at much less risk than just a few months ago. Pursuing the Islamists will take skill and guile, and -- like any engagement of the enemy -- may result in a resurgence of American casualties. But we have to do it.
Comments are, of course, welcome. I am but an amateur in these matters.
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