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With the “surge” in Iraq an apparent success, opponents of the war in Iraq have paradoxically been given more justification for their demands for an immediate troop withdrawal. Republican presidential candidate John McCain argues that we must stay in Iraq until victory is achieved, while his Democratic counterpart, Barack Obama, claims that it is time for the Iraqis themselves to take responsibility for prosecuting the “war.” Neither of these positions, however, provides a basis for a viable strategy.

All of this ignores the fact that, as a military contest, Iraq was won years ago. When President Bush made his much derided “Mission Accomplished” carrier landing, the nation of Iraq, ruled by the dictator Saddam Hussein, had been defeated, its military crushed and forced to surrender, and America, with its Coalition partners, was in control of the entire country. Presently, American forces remain in control there, and a democratically elected government is functioning—albeit poorly at times. That said, there is no denying that a great deal of sectarian violence, crime, corruption, and a low level insurgency are at work in Iraq. And despite recent successes by U.S. forces in stabilizing the country, a great deal remains to be done. Intelligent discussion as to how to proceed would be welcome, but our politicians and presidential candidates offer no substantive discussion beyond remaining in place until some unspecified level of “stability” is reached, or alternatively withdrawing our forces immediately because we cannot “win.”

The Administration’s most grievous error has been in continually referring to the situation in Iraq as a “war.” This has created a no-win scenario. If what our soldiers and marines achieved in the spring of 2003 was not victory, then what is? Moreover, if we haven’t won yet, what is victory going to look like? As a result of our having labeled the current situation a war, the only way we can “win” is to leave an Iraq that is free from all violence, crime, and corruption. By that definition, we have yet to win World War II, since we still have thousands of troops stationed all across Europe and the Pacific, and the states of Europe and Asia are not free of political corruption, terrorism, and other ills.

A different type of war

The central problem is that this war is an entirely new type of conflict. During World War II, we fought an enemy that wore uniforms, held allegiance to a nation-state, and (in the European theater) generally obeyed the rules of war. Today, we fight an enemy that recognizes no national government, an enemy with the nebulous goal of establishing a new Muslim caliphate to dominate the world, and whose soldiers often prefer death to life—even in victory. When faced with such an adversary, our definitions of victory and defeat need to be carefully considered and refined.

The name the Bush administration gave to this war is itself problematic. “Global War on Terrorism” is a misnomer, since terrorism is a tactic and not an identifiable enemy. The enemy is Islamic fascism, or if you prefer, Islamic extremism or jihadism. Whatever you call it, the enemy is a far-flung movement intent upon destroying Western civilization, subsuming the population of the world into the Muslim umma, or community, and killing all who refuse to submit. Their Islamic paradise would be a theocratic dictatorship, governed by the tenets of uncompromising shari’a law, in which offenses such as listening to music, shaving your face, or being a homosexual are punishable by death, and where women who are victims of rape are murdered by their own families to erase the woman’s shame.

This war does not look like other wars. Victory will not come with a surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship or a passing of the armies. This war is a savage conflict against implacable ideological enemies. Their “army” is not made up of soldiers, at least not as we understand that term. “Winning” a war that is a monumental clash of two differing civilizations is fundamentally different from liberating Europe from its Nazi occupiers. The Islamic fascists will not surrender; victory comes with each passing week that they are unable to carry out strikes against American citizens or interests. Insofar as Iraq is a component of the larger war on terror, we lose that fight only if we leave on terms other than our own. But we have to clearly establish what those terms are.

The Bush administration has been criticized for committing our military to an open-ended mission in Iraq and for lacking an exit strategy. While most of the criticism has been politically motivated, the President can correctly be faulted for failing to properly articulate the goals of the Iraq operation. Leaving a democratic Iraq capable of “sustaining, governing and defending itself” is clear enough, but it lacks specificity and an emphasis on the responsibility of the Iraqis for achieving such an end. By using the word “war” to describe both our military efforts against Saddam’s armed forces and our continued presence in that country to suppress insurrection, they have hopelessly confused the issue. As for an exit strategy, it is worth noting that today, more than 60 years after the end of “major combat operations” in World War II, more than 140,000 American troops remain stationed in Germany, Japan, and Korea; still without any “exit strategy” for these deployments.

Toward a new definition of victory

America’s stated goal upon entering World War I was to “make the world safe for democracy.” America and its allies “won” that war, yet less than two decades later Hitler and Tojo were preparing to start World War II. Our stated goal in that conflict, according to the Atlantic Charter signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was to allow all peoples the right to choose their own form of government. While we soundly defeated the Nazis, President Roosevelt’s poor handling of the Soviet menace condemned Eastern Europe to its darkest days since medieval times, languishing for more than four decades under communist dictatorships. America spent those years fighting the bitter and costly Cold War against communist expansionism. We won World War II, but failed to achieve the policy goal of bringing freedom to all of Europe. Despite this, no one has tried seriously to make the case, then or now, that we lost either of those wars.

The Iraq operation’s critics are correct on one key point; ultimately, it is the Iraqis who will determine the future course of their nation-state’s experiment in democracy. The notion that we are losing a “war” in Iraq is preposterous. Ancient sectarian and ethnic hatreds were unleashed with the fall of Saddam Hussein—not unlike what occurred in Yugoslavia after the fall of communism. Winning a war and successfully building a viable democracy are two very different endeavors, and it is the Bush administration’s failure to differentiate between the two that allows critics to make the public believe we are losing a war we have already won. If building and maintaining a peaceful democracy is considered a war, then all the enemy has to do to win is maintain enough sporadic violence to get on the evening news.

The opponents of the Iraq operation have become fond of cynically comparing the situation to the Vietnam War. While all American deaths are tragic, only three thousand soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq. At the current rate of soldier deaths, the Iraq conflict would have to continue for another seventy-one years to reach the death toll of Vietnam. Other comparisons are apt, however; in both conflicts, our military dominated the battlefield but was unnecessarily hampered by political considerations. In Vietnam, our troops would move into a region, rout the enemy, and then withdraw. Up until the start of the “surge” last year, we had been using the same tactics in Iraq. The key difference is that, in Vietnam, we were fighting against a nation-state that was controlling and directing both regular forces and civilian insurgents; a government that could have been forced to surrender. In Iraq, we’ve already won a military victory, but continue to fight a faceless and disorganized enemy, with few identifiable leaders who could offer capitulation even if they wanted to. The operation’s opponents tell us that far too many lives have been lost, and speak darkly about the “spilling of American blood.” Meanwhile, during the same time period here at home, more than 65,000 Americans have been murdered in violent crimes, according to official FBI statistics. Yet no one is claiming that the situation in America is “out of control,” or calling for the police to pull out of our major cities because the situation is hopeless.

In order to have a productive debate about the future of our military operations in Iraq, our definition of “victory” needs to be clearly articulated and explained to the American people. Our presidential candidates need to offer real ideas about how to determine the proper method to proceed, and the metrics by which to measure success. Most importantly, they need to stop discussing the current situation in terms of a war. The military victory has already been won in Iraq—and it has been won in spectacular fashion. But it is vital that we differentiate between military success and foreign-policy achievement. Victory on the battlefield is not the same as the success of a policy. If we ultimately leave Iraq, and the government falls or the country degenerates into chaos, it is not a lost war but a failure of policy; a policy that failed because of the lack of commitment by the Iraqis themselves.

Even should Iraq subsequently fail as a viable nation-state and civil war erupt, it would not represent a lost war for America. Iraqis slaughtering one another by the thousands is not a military defeat for the United States. It is rather a tragic and unintended consequence of toppling the Hussein regime. As long as Iraq is not under the control of a hostile government trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, and is not a safe haven for terrorists to train and equip themselves with impunity, America is winning.

Achieving the policy goal in Iraq

The Administration’s belief that Iraqis would welcome American forces after years of suffering under a cruel dictatorship failed to take into consideration two important points. The first was the presence of militant factions intent upon resisting American occupation. The second was the fact that most people are not particularly interested in right and wrong; they simply want to be safe. As history has repeatedly demonstrated, a population will turn to anyone, from Mussolini to the Taliban, to provide protection from chaos and to have the trains run on time. While Americans have always believed in the universal desire for liberty, President Bush may well have erred when he embraced the belief that all men yearn to be free. As the Roman historian Sallust once said, “Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.”

Building legitimacy for the new government and avoiding the killing of innocents is a key element of the Defense Department’s counterinsurgency method. What is missing from the strategy, however, is the ruthlessness required to neutralize the enemy. The counterinsurgent can win the hearts and minds of the population, but when the terrorists come to your door in the dark of night, you’ll swear allegiance to them on the spot in order to stay alive.

America was not always so concerned about civilian casualties. During World War II, the United States and its allies indiscriminately bombed civilian population centers, killing hundreds of thousands of non-combatants in an effort to demoralize the enemy nations. Today, however, we severely restrict this sort of bombing, and instead send our soldiers into urban street-fighting against non-uniformed civilian terrorist fighters, and then arrest them for murder if they kill the wrong civilians. No less a military genius than Karl von Clausewitz, in his seminal work On War, observed the folly of this weak posture and the need for ruthless tactics against such enemies:

Let us accept the risk of repaying cruelty with cruelty, of answering violence with more violence. It will then be easy for us to overtake the enemy and to draw him back within the limits of moderation and humanity.

The counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq should include significant expenditures for building infrastructure, creating jobs, distributing aid, and all reasonable measures to avoid civilian casualties. Simultaneously, however, counterterrorist operations must ruthlessly pursue the enemy and not be hampered in any way by concerns about offending public sensibilities. At present, our soldiers are being placed in deadly combat and denied air and armor support because of concerns about civilian casualties. The unfortunate reality however, is that our enemy is made up of civilians. Collateral damage should always be avoided where possible, but only when consistent with maintaining the best level of protection for our troops and ensuring a successful conclusion to the mission. If it becomes apparent to the population that innocent civilians are dying because of the terrorists living among them, the Iraqi public will be more likely to call 911 when they see terrorists moving in next door or setting up a roadside bomb. Concerns about “inflaming” the population must be balanced with the need to impose the rule of law and providing our troops with the support they deserve. After decisive and violent destruction of the enemy, hearts and minds that are more compliant can be won over through such things as infrastructure building and provision of goods and services to the public.

America must declare victory in Iraq, and make clear that its mission there is not simply to prop up its government but to ensure that our interests are served by preventing the nation from reverting to a haven for terrorists or a hostile dictatorship. Making a clear distinction between waging war and implementing policy is critical to maintaining public support and for providing a workable framework for decision-making.

Iraq and the wider war

In order to effectively prosecute operations in Iraq and in other theaters of this conflict, it is vital that our political leaders and presidential candidates understand the nature of this conflict and our enemy, and that Iraq is merely a part of the larger struggle against Islamic fascism, and not a “war” in any traditional sense of the word. Americans are a righteous and generous people, and so cannot understand the blind, nihilistic hatred that confronts us. Difficult as it may be, we must not be afraid to turn our faces toward this enemy and its millions of sympathizers that seek to annihilate us. Then, perhaps, we will be able to marshal the courage to do what we must for the survival of our civilization.

Without the will to confront and defeat the enemy and its sympathizers wherever they are found, winning hearts and minds is a losing proposition. Distasteful as it may be, in order to prevail we must take the fight to the enemy where he lives. We should take heed of Clausewitz’s warning:

The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.

Or our heads.

 

Todd Keister, a former U.S. Navy Intelligence Specialist, is a 17-year veteran of the New York State Police, currently serving in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation as a Lieutenant. From 2000 to 2005, he served as a U.S. Navy Reserve Intelligence Specialist for the Defense Intelligence Agency.