With US military strategy failing in Iraq, a more covert -- and likely more murderous -- counter-insurgency strategy seems in preparation, writes Stuart Reigeluth All signs now proclaim the emergence of a new US strategy in Iraq. The current strategies of "search-and-destroy" and "clear-and-hold" have clearly failed to eliminate the resistance, but a rapid military withdrawal of Coalition forces would be perceived as a symbolic victory for the "Salafi Sunni insurgency". Not only highly against US interests, some argue this could lead to full-blown civil war. The immediate short-term objective of the new strategy, at least as formulated, is to protect the Iraqi people, rather than chase the resistance. The long-term goals are to refocus military efforts towards providing security in key areas, like Baghdad and Mosul, which would then expand gradually -- like ink on paper or oil on water -- until all of Iraq is secured. This new US initiative was coined "Counter-insurgency Strategy" (COIN) by the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in an analysis paper entitled "A Switch in Time: A New Strategy for America in Iraq" published February 2006. This is the first in a series for the Iraq Strategy Project, which was summarised by director of research, Kenneth Pollack, in an article that appeared simultaneously in The Atlantic Monthly entitled, "The Right Way: Seven Steps Towards a Last Chance in Iraq." Pollack claims that if the US wants to salvage its reputation in the Middle East, and thus rehabilitate its prestige in the world, it must reorient its foreign policy immediately in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the new COIN strategy is based on experiences of counter-insurgency activities in Vietnam. Across the US political spectrum, from far right to left, American political analysts have continuously used the Vietnam example to support their arguments for or against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Now, in self- affirmation of world hegemony, US policy pundits are including references to previous European imperial tactics in the Arab world. But in the end, for lack of better comparisons to other prolonged experiences of US occupation abroad, the insights of US policy-makers repeatedly refer to the protracted debacle in Vietnam. In "A Switch in Time", Pollack quotes a passage from Lost Victory by William Colby and James McCargar in which they hail Marshal Hubert Lyauntey -- considered the greatest French colonial administrator -- for his "ink spot" policy in Morocco. Accordingly, the French consolidated urban centres and gradually spread out from there, much like a blot of ink on paper, securing territory along the way. A version of the "ink spot" theory was rehashed by Andrew Krepinevich in "How to Win in Iraq" published in the September/October 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs, in which he refers to the policies of British Lieutenant General Sir Gerald Templer as exemplary in quelling the Malayan insurgency in the 1950s. "While the US military operations take the form of the oil- spot campaign," Krepinevich describes, "political efforts should aim to strike a grand bargain with the Iraqi people." Reapplied conveniently to Iraq, the "ink spot" is translated into the "oil-spot", and the "grand bargain" for the US is now to convince the Iraqi people that the occupation is for their own good. For the record, Andrew Krepinevich is the author of The Army and Vietnam, with William Colby former director of the CIA during the infamous Operation Phoenix in Vietnam. The "new" strategy of US counter-insurgency in Iraq is therefore not novel and indeed is rather worrisome. US policy pundits now favour creating "a unified structure that combines military and civilian pacification efforts," according to an article published in The Washington Post at the end of December 2005. Previously in Vietnam this civil- military organisation was dubbed "Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support" (CORDS), which entailed the "pacification" of the population and the "neutralisation" of the insurgency. Under the benign banner of CORDS, the CIA launched Operation Phoenix (Phuong Hoang) in 1967, supposedly to eradicate the communist Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI). In 1969, a US State Department report, "Vietnam Information Notes", claimed that 1800 VCI members were to be "neutralised" every month. William Colby testified in May 1971 that to fulfill the monthly quota over 20,000 Vietnamese had been killed. Other sources claim up to 30,000 -- even 40,000 -- were victims of torture, undefined detention and indiscriminate assassinations. The CIA built hundreds of "Province Interrogation Centres" across South Vietnam and regularly "pacified" enemy prisoners by "transferring" them to Con Son Island. The Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prison scandals, as well as the detention site in Bagram, Afghanistan, secretly operating since 2002, do not foretell a pleasant future. One can only hope that the currently proposed COIN strategy in Iraq will not entail further variations of Operation Phoenix. Along the lines of the new policy proposed in "A Switch in Time", "Iraq will need a level of public safety roughly equivalent to that of Israel, where acts of political violence are infrequent enough that they do not prevent the functioning of society." Euphemistic Israeli references to "targeted political assassinations" echo the morbid "pacification" and "neutralisation" policies US conducted in Vietnam, ie the killing of anyone presumed guilty of supporting or being the enemy. Current common knowledge reveals that Israel is not only the strongest US ally in the Middle East but also that both countries continually work in tandem, even if they spy on each other. Thus the system of "biometric ID cards" suggested by "A Switch in Time" recalls a civil-military policy synergy with Israel, which is well known for the colour-coordinated ID cards issued to Palestinians residing inside or outside of Jerusalem. The ID card policy was already put into place during the siege of Fallujah in 2004, during which the US also used chemical weapons to remove "insurgent" elements. The US also disregards the detention of Lebanese and Palestinians in such highly secret prisons as "Facility 1391", as brought to light in 2003 by The Guardian. The sudden shift to a Vietnam-like "tactical defence in a strategic offensive" would not prevent the US from using phosphorus bombs, but would decrease risks faced by US troops. The US Army and Marines Corps would therefore be deployed to protect the Iraqi population, while "neutralising" the enemy on Special Forces missions elsewhere. At first glance, an attractive facet is the gradual reduction of US troops in Iraq, whereby the goal is to "embed" US soldiers in the Iraqi Army and police so that with time, less and less US troops are needed, until none remain. The flipside reveals the creation of Army Special Forces, as revealed by Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review Report of 6 February 2006. As articulated by Robert Kaplan, "Special Operations Command" is acquiring a Marine Corps detachment for the first time; and there is high probability that such Special Forces will be "embedding small numbers" within foreign troop contingents to carry out "select combat missions." This, Kaplan claims -- in his article "Send in the State Department" in The New York Times, published 21 February 2006 -- is already occurring across the Horn of Africa. The US has a long chain of covert military operations to destabilise regimes in South America in particular, but the embedding of US troops in Special Forces appears to be a new phenomenon. The recent resurge of violence between the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) against the Islamic court militia in Somalia may very well be the most blatant example of new US covert military action. The purpose, in theory, is to pre-empt and thus prevent conflicts from spreading, rather than creating new wars. However, in the broader US foreign policy propounded by the Quadrennial Defense Review envisioned not only new wars, but also, and predictably, a prolongation of the "global war on terror". Thus "integrating new technologies, procuring new aircraft" allowed for the approval of including F- 22 and F-35 fighter jets, which could counter the rapidly improving Chinese military in the case of conflict with Taiwan, for example. The post-Cold War US Defense Reviews therefore maintain a continuity of total deterrence to any possible foe. But in Iraq and the Middle East, the inability to rout the enemy with conventional warfare is altering policy tactics. The proposed reorientation would supposedly allow for a gradual decrease of US troops in Iraq. But this does not mean a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. On the contrary, the most tantalising parallel to Vietnam is the suspected decade that will be needed by "a nation engaged in what will be a long war" to successfully implement its counter-insurgency strategy. Against the 16 years of the Vietnam War, the US military occupation is only entering its fourth year in Iraq, and in its fifth in Afghanistan. The oil-spot strategy could work for a while, but will undoubtedly leave pernicious marks.
