As a future policymaker I can tell you what I’ve learned from the Gulf War II and that is: Do not enter a war without a comprehensive strategy that is agreed upon by one’s staffers/cabinet, colleagues and has, at the very least, received a candid nod from other states within the international system. The fact remains that the U.S. moved in an almost unilateral direction when it invaded Iraq and, since the invasion, has done very little to ensure the safety of Iraqis (regardless of their ethnicity) and has done even less to ensure that social capital and infrastructure systems continue to function. What must be noted is that Iraq is not West Germany, one of our greatest state building success stories nor is it Nicaragua, one of our worst; Iraq is a beast of an entirely different nature and the need for it to be different than the state building attempts of the 20th century is imperative to American national security and both global and regional stability.
It was a bad move to enter Iraq, period; and, now we are stuck there. The Bush administration got us, the people, into this tangle without a plan (I believe that is called being a “Hawk’) and has bungled the operation every step of the way. Future policymakers need to remember Iraq (much like Vietnam or WW I) as war that was started over the private interests of only a handful of elites and that that is no reason to provoke a shooting war. I also think future policymakers need to acknowledge the roll of pure arrogance in this conflict; that is, America thought it was invincible and that it had a moral claim to spreading democracy to the region. I don’t believe that the Pentagon or the Bush administration thought for one second that the war would last this long or be this bloody; I believe they honestly thought American military technologies and training would allow for a swift and rather bloodless victory.
Future policymakers also need to remember that the American people are hard to mobilize for international conflict and that they don’t tolerate long drawn out wars in which no end is ever in sight. War weariness is a very real thing and it is demoralizing to our troops who, in most cases, already do not want to be in a foreign country fighting. Future policymakers need to learn how to, in addition to constantly reevaluating strategy and ground conditions, act with prudence to ensure that we are at war for the “right” reasons because, as much as we are told by the White House that the current Gulf War is over democratization and stability most Americans and service people are too jaded to believe it, that is, most everyone knows the war is about Western control of Arab oil fields and not liberating the oppressed Iraqi citizenry.
As much as it is a domestic and policy issue it is also a resource and logistics issue. American troops, prior to entering the war, were not properly equipped or trained militarily for urban, desert warfare or the ensuing cultural clash. To prove that it isn’t just rhetoric, the first American troops to Iraq in 2003 were there without body armor, armored vehicles, translators, night vision, real time intelligence, adequate ammunition, munitions protections (i.e. devices to keep sand out of their M-16s), etc… etc… etc… These are facts that the State Department and the DoD admit and our veterans share with a rather “well shucks!” attitude. Future policymakers should learn from Iraq that wars are not won with through planes and Halliburton-KBR but through control and security on the ground. You cannot send farm boys from Kansas or inner city youth from Pittsburgh to a foreign country without all of the war-making resources our nation has at its disposal, it is setting them up for failure and the American public for a long, heartbreaking conflict that divides the nation.
As an aside, I objected to war in the beginning and continue to disagree with the way it is being managed right now. Five years after the fact America’s service people on the ground in Basra or the devastated south of the country are fighting with a sporadic supply munitions, Kevlar jackets, clean water and food, and good medical care. In addition to their needs going un-met they are forced to work alongside private contractors who do not answer to anyone and have totally different ROEs. My friends who are Marines have told me it is the contractors like BlackWater and Aegis that are making their jobs tough because they kill without discretion and do not have to answer to Lieutenants or Sergeants on the ground. This war has been mismanaged and, I hope, future policymakers realize this and not repeat the mistakes of the previous generation; and that is what blows my mind, Bush and his generation are the Vietnam generation and they have made almost all of the same mistakes the Johnson administration made in Vietnam sans a draft…
