The United States military set the benchmark for self-delusion in Vietnam where, almost until the moment US troops began to withdraw, senior officers told anyone who would listen that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were on the verge of defeat and security was improving.
Thus Sunday’s announcement from US headquarters in Baghdad that the majority of Iraqis polled since the “surge” began, now believes themselves to be safer, deserves to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Indeed given that the results of an extensive BBC and ABC poll published yesterday flatly contradict the US claims, they should probably be dismissed out of hand as crude propaganda and pathetic wishful thinking. The concentration of US troops could not fail to have had some effect but most of it has been negative. Al-Qaeda terrorists have been driven to different areas, where they continue their vicious campaign much as before. The reconciliation among Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, much touted as a success by the Americans, is largely the result of a mature rethink among the locals themselves. They have come to recognize that the Al-Qaeda men with whom they once made common cause against the Americans are themselves also part of the problem, because they wish to destroy any political consensus and intercommunal settlement among Iraqis.
What is so significant about the BBC-ABC poll of more than 2,000 Iraqis throughout the country is that while 70 percent believe the security situation is worse since the surge, 60 percent now believe the US-led Coalition forces to be legitimate targets. It was the classic argument in Vietnam, now repeated by Bush in Iraq, that the population at large desired the continued protection of US forces. That assertion is patently untrue.
It is no doubt certain that many Iraqis fear the future when the Americans finally leave. That does not, however, mean they wish them to stay. The days are long gone when reasonable men might hope Washington could bring peace and security after the long dark years of Saddam’s dictatorship. For all its military might and technological prowess, the US has no solution for a problem which its own ignorance and lack of planning did so much to produce.
Thus when Coalition forces pull out, there will be dangerous and very probably bloody confrontations. But at least it will be left to the Iraqis, hopefully with the good will and support of all their neighbors, to arrive at a solution for themselves. There will be no Americans trying to pull strings in the background, no distorting agenda from one of the most foolish modern occupants of the White House trying desperately to salvage a scintilla of his reputation.
The evacuation of the Americans will need to be matched by the driving out of Al-Qaeda bigots whose impact on Iraq during the last four years has been bloody and baleful. Iraqis must work out their own destiny for themselves, with the support — but not the interference — of the rest of the world.
