The Six-Day War

Historians won't call this The Six Days' War; that name belongs to another Middle Eastern military rout with far-reaching consequences.

But by last Wednesday, the outcome of George Bush's invasion of Iraq was decided. The only remaining unknowns are how many months or years it will take America and Britain to figure out that they have already lost, and how many people will die in the interim.

From the beginning, Bush Administration rationales for this invasion have been based on the premise that Americans (and their faithful canine companions, the Brits) would be welcomed with open arms by both Iraqi civilians and soldiers. Once the prospect of life without Saddam appeared truly at hand, the Iraqi tyrant's brutal house of cards would collapse. Whole divisions, whole cities, would surrender without a shot. The war would last not much longer than it would take to drive to Baghdad (albeit on lousy roads), and the victory parade in Baghdad would make Paris on V-Day look tame. Some Bushites took the notion even farther; as with post-war Europe, all the Middle East would come to adore America, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity for all.

As Gilda Radner might once have said:

Never mind.

It was evident by the middle of last week, and has become increasingly evident each day since -- even through the muddle of U.S. media coverage and frantic spinning in Washington and London -- that Iraqis do not want the Americans in their country. Period. We are not welcome. Even if it means keeping Saddam. Even if it means guerilla war against a military using overwhelming force. Iraqis will not simply give up; nor will they spontaneously rise and do America's work for it by toppling Saddam Hussein. It seems to have never occurred to Bush and his advisors that people who hate Saddam wouldn't automatically welcome America -- that not everyone casts their loyalties in black and white, "with us or against us," enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend thinking.

This represents more than a military inconvenience to the American forces. It means more than a loss of the war's purported rationale. What it means is that even with all the firepower in the world -- especially with all the firepower in the world -- the United States cannot win this war. The Pax Americana that Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, and their ilk envisioned for Iraq -- and eventually the whole region -- simply cannot be achieved through brute force alone. That's what we're starting to see already.

Amazingly, Pentagon planners seemed to be caught flat-footed by the guerrilla tactics employed by the Iraqis -- tactics which are the only conceivable means of opposition for a resistance with no air power, with few resources, and that knows it cannot possibly compete with the Americans' firepower -- but knows the land like the back of its hand and has been thinking about, and practicing, how to defend it in wartime for over 20 years. Donald Rumsfeld's bellowing about Iraq's unfair tactics evokes the British, 225 years ago, complaining that the Yanks didn't stand in a row and fight the way the Redcoats did.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld -- and Bush -- deserve to lose their jobs based on the military planning alone. Forget, for a moment, the complete evaporation of all of the other original rationales for this war. Forget that no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and the purported threat of further terrorist attack against the U.S. has yet to materialize.

Because Iraqis don't want to be "liberated" by the U.S., in only a week, the 30-70,000 troops on the ground inside Iraq have been shown to be a much, much smaller force than is necessary to seize Iraq's cities. Even that size force, in only a week, was in many places running out of food, water, gas, and/or bullets -- a completely avoidable logistical nightmare.