[lit-ideas] Re: Arthur Herman on Iraq

 From: Brian
Arthur Herman, author of the excellent piece "Getting Serious About Iran: A Military Option," has a new article called "How To Win In Iraq, And How To Lose" in the April issue of Commentary. It has been posted to OpinionJournal and is well worth reading. He argues that
(Herman) goes on to liken our present experience with the one the French had in in Algeria, where a mobile insurgency caused chaos and loss of face over and over until the French changed their tactics and put the insurgents on the defensive. He cites David Galula with the tactics that eventually broke the back of the insurgents and notes that while Galula's book Counterinsurgency Warfare was virtually unknown two years ago, it is now "the bible of American counterinsurgency thinkers like Gen. Petraeus, whose field manual it largely informs."
Brian's note compare the US in Iraq to France in Algeria and says the USA can win, just like France won in Algeria. 

But that's not what happened in Algeria.
Anyone with just a bit of knowledge about France in Algeria knows what happened there: France was a colonialist occupier of Algeria; the Algerians rebelled and a vicious urban guerilla war occurred. France tortured and murdered thousands of Algerians. The French government collapsed. Prime minister de Gaulle created a new government and installed himself with near-dictatorial powers. In the end, France was forced out of Algeria.
The parrallels of Iraq with Algeria are uncanny. France lost Algeria and France also lost herself; the internal politics caused massive political problems for France.
Here's a summary of the Algerian War. Read it and you can't help but compare it with Iraq. The US invasion of Iraq is the greatest disaster the USA has ever done and it may take two generations to undo the damage. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War_of_Independence

yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com



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