Guest columnist
It's too late to uproot Iraq's growing resistance

By Lloyd Jansen
Special to The Times

Lloyd Jansen

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most e-mailed articles

The United States cannot win the peace in Iraq. The horrors of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal will not, as many have suggested, lead to that failure. The peace was lost already, but this disgrace is illustrative of why that is so.

Comparative history is helpful here. President Bush has sometimes compared the occupation of Iraq to the occupations of post-World War II Japan and Germany. In both cases, the United States (with European allies) defeated and conquered the nations, but then won these populations over. They became strong allies.

Contrary to the suggestions of Bush, the case of Iraq is fundamentally different; the German-Japanese success stories cannot be repeated there. It comes down to issues of legitimacy.

The occupations of Germany and Japan were legitimate. These nations had been the aggressors in the war. Their populations participated significantly in the aggression. The world saw the resultant occupations as legitimate and the conquered Germans and Japanese also accepted this legitimacy. They also expected harshness from their conquerors.

Some Japanese and Germans indeed received unforgiving treatment. But to the surprise of most, the American soldiers and their government often, and, over time regularly, demonstrated kindness. Because the kindness was not expected, our conquered enemies came to admire us. They accepted our help and advice and established strong democracies allied with the United States.

In contrast, because of U.S. deceptions, unilateralist bluster and the inability of the U.S. to convince the world that Iraq was truly an imminent danger, this occupation has had little international legitimacy.

Opposition has been high worldwide and this is especially so in Arab and Muslim states. Despite our own high image of ourselves, the U.S. is seen in the Muslim world as the sponsor of sanctions against Saddam Hussein that led to the deaths of 500,000 to 1 million Iraqi Muslims, mostly children and the elderly, in the 1990s. We side overwhelmingly with the Israelis over the Palestinians and our motives vis-à-vis Arabs and Muslims are suspect. The income taken in by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company Halliburton — now at $1 billion a month — has cast further doubts on the administration's true intentions.

Saddam and his ruthless henchmen were our enemies in Iraq. But we told the Iraqi civilians that they were our friends and that we had come to liberate them. As such, they expected kindness right away. Our legitimacy depended on kindness. And our troops delivered that kindness.

But because the legitimacy of our occupation still was far from complete, more Iraqis have continued to fight, and received external support. Our troops have had no choice but to engage the battle.

As in Vietnam, however, it has been difficult to separate the insurgents from the civilians. Iraqi combatants transport weapons in rice bags. One American soldier recently told a reporter that he has to distinguish between insurgents and civilians with his "gut." Intimidating combat garb is necessary whenever in public. When a car approaches a checkpoint and doesn't stop in time, our soldiers must fire their weapons. Sometimes those cars are filled with innocent families with drivers too scared to stop.

When our troops search for the hiding enemy, they break down doors and humiliate many an innocent family. Bystanders get caught in dragnets. Our power is overwhelming. Over 10,000 civilians — men, women and children — have died in this liberation. Iraqi civilians expected compassion and have too often met intimidation, terror and even death. They also expected electricity, safety and jobs — none of which have materialized.

Well-meaning U.S. soldiers have become involuntary oppressors. A minority of our soldiers, we now see, have even taken joy in the oppression. This happens in every war and we should not be surprised. Increasingly, Iraqis who once gave us the benefit of the doubt now question our motives — and our morals.

A vicious cycle is in place and there is no good way out. Even if a majority of Iraqis should support the occupation, it is irrelevant. In Iraq, our soldiers' harshness, whether necessary or unnecessary, only creates more and more enemies and they are too many. For every insurgent and civilian killed, new combatants rise to avenge their deaths and further the chaos.

Our options now are bleak. If we stay, we continue to oppress and the cycle continues. Militant militia ranks will increase. If we leave, it will be seen as a victory for those who fought us — and their ranks will increase.

Before the war, we who protested said that the U.S. would win the war but lose the peace. It was inevitable. It was too predictable. We said that fundamentalist militants would use the occupation to successfully recruit new members. We said that this invasion would detour our efforts from fighting al-Qaida — the true enemy that actually attacked us on 9-11.

All this has come to pass. It is too late to make things right.

Lloyd Jansen holds a doctorate in political science and is chairman of the Social Science Division at Green River Community College. He also lectures at the University of Washington.