THE WEAK SHALL WIN THE IRAQ WAR

I sincerely write about this topic not in hope nor anticipation of my country, the United States loosing the Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and on Terror. As a Democracy it is the duty of American citizens to entertain such a discussion to assure our victory over Terror.

In addition to the following excerpts from the essay How the Weak Win Wars , because of the situation we find ourselves in under the leadership of President George W. Bush , America must also discuss the following:
1) The Motives for Going to War
2) Justifications of the Iraq War
3) Information provided to the American People and International Governing Bodies in regards to the War
4) The legalities of any charges and subsequent conviction of ousted Iraq President Saddam Hussein. Common sense leads me to question the validity of these charges of incidents occurring in 1982. This being the 2nd time the U.S has waged War based on these charges. Secondly, allegations that Iraq possessed WMD which was used to justify the 2nd Iraq War was found to be false, therefore one would induce charges being brought against Saddam Hussein are at the least questionable. How can any of these charges be justified unless ALL the citizens of Iraq can participate in a stable Democratic Government in order to justly prosecute Saddam. How can these charges be justified when the American government is guided by faulty intelligence. And how can these charges be justified when the American President’s motives, ethics and credibility are in question. And if you are an American and you tell me Justice does not matter in War then I will call you a traitor to our Constitution.
5) The War on Terror. This War is against our true enemy, however the War in Iraq has diverted our focus, money, military, intelligence, capital, and diplomatic resources from the true War on Terror. Now our closet ally Great Britain has recently experienced multiple terrorist attacks. And frankly, paraphrasing the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair “an attack against Great Britain is an attack against America“.

Below is a summary and excerpts from an essay entitled:
How the Weak Win Wars
“With the U.S. military engaged in armed conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, Ivan Arreguin-Toft’s How the Weak Win Wars is a timely contribution to the ongoing debate over U.S. defense strategy in the post-September 11 security environment. First, Arreguin- Toft provides a well structured discussion of existing theories in the literature on how weaker actors have won wars against substantially more powerful states and articulates his own hypothesis to explain this phenomenon, which he calls “strategic interaction theory.”

He postulates that intuition would tell us “power matters most,” but notes that history tells us otherwise. In fact, not only have weak actors had sporadic successes in asymmetric conflicts, but the trend of their successes is increasing.

His argument is constructed on the premise that there are four competing explanations for weak victory in asymmetric wars, each of which has weaknesses in predicting outcomes or explaining the trend of increasing weak actor victories. The first of these hypotheses focuses on the nature of the actors. In this theory, authoritarian strong actors are said to have a greater probability of success in asymmetric conflict because they tend to lack the political vulnerability of a democracy. The second theory states that the diffusion of arms, particularly since the Second World War, has closed the aggregate power gap between weak and strong. In other words, even a weak power has a chance of success when equipped with modern weaponry. The third theory is that of interest asymmetry, which asserts that asymmetric wars tend to be fought with limited means for limited ends by the strong actor, but with unlimited means for the unlimited ends by the weak. Theoretically this interest asymmetry is more important to the outcome than relative power.

The final competing explanation is Arreguin- Toft’s own theory of strategic interaction. He postulates that the interaction of the strategies employed by the actors in an asymmetric conflict is the most likely predictor of outcome. His method of proof begins by dividing military strategy into two general categories. These categories are direct, such as conventional attack or defense, and indirect, such as counter-insurgency or guerilla warfare. His thesis is that when asymmetric actors employ similar strategies, as in the cases of direct versus direct or indirect versus indirect, the conflict favors the strong. On the contrary, when the strategies are of dissimilar types, the conflict favors the weak. The bulk of How the Weak Win Wars is dedicated to five case studies chosen from the statistical sampling. They include the Russo- Murid War of 1830- 1859, the Boer War, the Italo- Ethiopian War of 1935 - 1940, the Vietnam War, and the Afghan Civil War of the 1980’s.

Finally, he refers to the current conflict in Iraq as a “costly quagmire.” Arreguin- Toft means to convince the reader that when the very strong meet the weak in asymmetric armed conflict, strategy matters more than power. His work is extremely relevant in the current geopolitical context and serves as a warning to US policy makers to get military strategy right, regardless of relative power. Arreguin- Toft’s argument makes perfectly clear the perilous consequences of neglecting the importance of strategic interaction. ( Excerpts taking from a Review Essay found in the Harvard International Review Vol. 27 # 2, pg. 78 ) ”

My Opinion: In brief, we must give the Iraq People control of their nation immediately. This move would exemplify true Democracy, furthermore our Homeland is in jeopardy of being attacked. All resources must be kept here. America is a Democracy, and the People of our great nation bound by our very citizenry are not simply obligated to choose but we are called as Americans to higher standards in War, in Peace, in Justice, in our Democracy, and in the Respect of All Life. When we abandon these our very core beliefs we become weak and adhering to an ideology of terrorism ourselves. In this end we may very well loose the War in Iraq when its citizens smell a whiff of true Democracy and gain strength in the real hope of the sovereignty of their country.

-Anthony Brooks, Checks & Balances