The Perils of Escalation in Iraq: A Grim History Lesson

By G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet. Posted November 27, 2006.

Editor's Note: Despite the clear reality, as demonstrated in the Nov. 7 election, that the American public is completely fed up with the occupation of Iraq, increasing our troops and commitment, not setting the stage for withdrawal, is receiving much attention in policy discussions and media coverage.

While there were other factors that influenced election results, like Republican corruption and economic fears brought on by neoliberal trade policies, exit polls showed little doubt that large majorities of voters want out of Iraq ... and soon, and surely not an escalation of the war, as John McCain is calling for.

This anti-Iraq occupation sentiment comes amid rising U.S. military casualties and extraordinarily violent daily events. Public disgust with U.S. Iraq policy comes against the backdrop of 2,876 American soldiers killed, as well as the highly professional study of Iraq civilian deaths published in the journal Lancet -- a study praised by leading epidemiologists -- which shockingly concluded that between 400,000 and 700,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict.

What will escalation do to our troops and to the people of Iraq?

The answer seems pretty clear. Escalation, as Greg Zachary points out in the following article, is often a step of military and political desperation. And as Zachary writes, when more troops get sent in, the conditions invariably get worse.

-- Don Hazen, AlterNet Executive Editor

The Perils of Escalation in Iraq: A Grim History Lesson

The perils of escalation can be found in the pages of American history. These perils demand a greater appreciation as the nation ponders the option of escalating the war in Iraq.

Escalation is always a seductive option when war aims go unmet. After taking casualties and losing ground, an occupying army can look on the prospect of reinforcements with enthusiasm. For the political overlords of a war going badly, escalation carries an immediate appeal by raising hopes of ultimate victory, as the enemy collapses in the face of increased forces and firepower. Of course, talk of escalation can be abused by political cynics. One appeal of favoring escalation is prospective: critics of a failed war can always argue later that if only their side committed more forces, defeat would have turned into victory.

In the case of the Iraq war, the appeal of escalation is linked to the widespread, if erroneous, belief that the United States never committed adequate troop levels to pacify Iraq. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the chief proponent of the escalation scenario, argues that only through an escalation of the war can Americans for the first time stand a decent chance to win. With U.S. forces facing defeat in Iraq, and with Iraqi civilians suffering even more terribly than the foreign occupiers, McCain's escalation scenario holds out the possibility of lowered American casualties (a consequence of "strength in numbers") and a safer Iraq safer for the locals.

Escalations can backfire, however. Let's consider the escalations in the two wars that most resemble the Iraq war.

The first is the Korean War, waged by the United States on the Korean peninsula from 1950 to 1953. In the first half of the 20th century, Japan conquered Korea and, with Japan's defeat at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and the U.S. -- allies during the war and now victorious -- split Korea between north and south. Under the sway of the Soviet Union, North Korea adopted communism as an ideology and in June 1950, without warning, attacked South Korea. U.S. forces intervened to save the south, evicting the North Koreans.

The United States then faced a momentous decision. Having restored the status of the two Koreas prior to the war, should the U.S. military now stand down? Or should the United States escalate the war in the hopes of forever ending any threat from the north? Under the leadership of Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. invaded North Korea with the stated aim of "liberating" it.

The escalation tragically backfired when China sided with North Korea and sent its own battle-hardened troops against U.S. forces. For a brief time when China threatened to overwhelm the Americans, and MacArthur was famously fired for his over-reach (the episode has echoes of Donald Rumsfeld's recent humiliation as secretary of defense). The war then settled into a bloody stalemate, and even today, more than 50 years later, two Koreas remain, with military tensions high.

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G. Pascal Zachary, a frequent contributor to AlterNet, is the author of Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century.

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