The Wake

Post de facto of Saddam Hussein’s capture, I think it’s necessary to theorize his strategy during and after Operation Iraqi Freedom. And it is important to note how U.S. politics were and still are intertwined with that strategy, especially during the primaries. Hussein was certainly no match for the Coalition, so what was he thinking defying the United Nations, and what U.S. politicians indirectly helped him?

Hussein allowed the Coalition to easily take over Iraqi infrastructure and this comes as no surprise to me. In a classic territorial war, Hussein could not keep the Coalition out by force. So in the time it took the Coalition to reach Baghdad, Hussein and his subordinates took refuge across Iraq and implemented their plan to create a Vietnam-like quagmire. They would orchestrate attacks on the Coalition intermittently, so the American public would hear through the media every day that “Three solders died today” or “A U.S. helicopter was shot down in Tikrit,” and this would bring flashbacks reminiscent of the Vietnam Era. I would suspect Hussein was smart enough to learn from the Vietnam conflict that American’s do not tolerate casualties consistently for extended periods of time and this was the only way to defeat the Coalition.

I could see Hussein planning to invoke thoughts of a “purposeless” war in the American public’s minds by playing off the justification for war – being weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Given that he had several months notice prior to the invasion, it seems he planned to fully discard and destroy his WMD prior to his March 17 ultimatum, but not before U.N. resolution 1441. If the Coalition would not be able to find any WMD in a timely matter, the credibility of Bush and the overall war rational would deteriorate in the American citizens’ minds.

If Hussein could accomplish the above mentioned goals, then all he would have to do is hang low and let U.S. domestic politics run its course. If the attacks could be kept structured and heirs established in case of capture (heirs that were also terrorists), it would only be a matter of time before internal politics of the United States would cause Bush to be unseated. And with that, a more U.N.-dependent president would take office. If the United Nations would be put in charge of Iraq, the country would not become properly democratized and Hussein could regain power in the future.

Wouldn’t this prove that politicians played right into Hussein’s hand? Most of the former Democratic presidential nominees gave Hussein exactly what he wanted: nasty politics that would divide America and confuse people to who the real enemy was.

Presidential nominee John Kerry served the United States in Vietnam honorably and every American citizen owes him gratitude for his risks. But with Hussein’s strategy seeming so blatantly obvious, why would Kerry play right into it?

Kerry should not create doubt in Americans’ minds about Iraqi success when he says, “…as we discovered in Vietnam, success on a battlefield, or even in a series of battles too often can be the beginning and not the end of conflict.” This pessimism does not boost the morale of soldiers nor citizens and directly links the two conflicts as similar when they are in no way so. Statements like “…we are fighting an increasingly deadly guerrilla war in Iraq almost single-handedly,” add to the linkage. I would suspect this is the political direction the war will be taken by Kerry against Bush. Amplification and singling out U.S. deaths as only significant ones add to the quagmire mirage with statements like, “…the price is paid in the lives of young Americans forced to shoulder the burden of this mission alone.” Remember that America and 30 other nations contributed forces.

And creating a strong foundation for democracy so Hussein could never return? Kerry hints at a withdrawal a mere four months after the invasion when he says, “We promised the Iraqis democracy, but we’re sending mixed signals about really letting them run their own country.” In the words of Howard Dean, Kerry does want the “U.S. out and the U.N. in.” Apparently we need, “…a real, broader on-the-ground coalition, and that can only be achieved with a U.N. role of either overall responsibility, or at the very least, oversight,” according to Kerry. I bet he would favor overall responsibility for the United Nations – the same United Nations that allowed Hussein to defy it 17 times.

Why would Kerry play politics right into the enemy’s strategy? When he was protesting the United States during Vietnam and said, “I think it is bogus, totally artificial. There is no threat. The Communists are not about to take over our McDonald hamburger stands,” he took the seriousness of the Communist threat with lax as well. His naiveté is certainly consistent, but we cannot have this man change the course of U.S. foreign policy.