HNN Poll: Predictions About Iraq
RONALD DALE KARR
Mr. Karr is the Reference Librarian, O'Leary Library, University of Massachusetts in Lowell.
I predict that the Bush administration will conduct the war against Iraq and its aftermath at least as well as it has handled its diplomatic initiative at the U.N. this past month.JOE BALKOSKI
Mr. Balkoski is the author of Beyond the Beachhead.
The American military will move into Iraq swiftly and with enormous force,
probably with a ferocity not seen since WWII. The ground forces will move in
simultaneously with the initial air offensive. Tens of thousands of Iraqis will
capitulate within a matter of days, and some will offer to turn against Saddam.
The advance to Baghdad will be swift. Saddam will not use chemical or biological
weapons because his strongest card is a resolute defense of Baghdad and international
opinion against the US.
There will be chaos and civil strife within the areas overrun by the US Army.
We will not attack Baghdad directly by land (aside from the insertion of special
forces), but encircle it and commence a protracted period of surgical air strikes
within the city to destroy completely its infrastructure. We will endeavor at
this point to submit the encircled population to tremendous psychological warfare:
turn against Saddam and his henchmen or face a protracted (and horrible) siege.
It won't work. Saddam will remain hidden, and Baghdad will descend into chaos.
There will be starvation and illness at an alarming level, which the media will
focus on primarily.
Meanwhile, thousands of Iraqis will leave Baghdad and enter American lines.
There will be suicide attacks. After two or three months of this, the Americans
will enter the city against only sporadic resistance. Saddam will have disappeared.
The Americans will attempt to create a new government, and many Iraqis will
respond favorably. However, there will be constant partisan warfare and civil
strife throughout the city. By this point, the international community will
be condemning the US continually -- and offering little or no help.
The American military will eventually leave only a token force within the city, and allow the Iraqis to sort out the chaos by themselves. Saddam will reappear and be disposed of at this point by his own people as the Italians disposed of Mussolini. The Americans will locate some (but not all) Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and will hunt down the chief members of Saddam's government.
We eventually will install an Iraqi government composed of the current exiles -- and it won't work. But hopefully by that time, the US military will have withdrawn and most if not all of the potential threat from weapons of mass destruction at the hands of a dictator of Saddam's kind will be eliminated.
For the most part the Iraqis will view the Americans with benevolance, but
a small band of partisans will recruit and carry on the war, possibly in areas
outside of Iraq. The international community will play no role except for humanitarian
relief. Casualties will be high, but limited to a few months. The American public
will be severely and emotionally torn asunder by the war. However, after pointing
out how the military campaign ultimately worked -- and how it destroyed the
weapons the inspectors could not find and Saddam had denied he owned -- Mr.
Bush will be reelected by a strong majority in 2004. Terrorism fears will continue
unabated.
DAVID R. APPLEBAUM
Mr. Applebaum is Professor of History, Rowan University, in Glassboro, New Jersey. .
The United States of America will invade Iraq (a no brainer). Turkey will move into Kurdistan and secure the area. Following the"liberation" of Baghdad, a treasure trove of documents will"discover" the sinister plans of the axis of evil. Both North Korea and Al-Quaeda will be implicated in a global plan to destroy"freedom." Willing witnesses will appear in media spectaculars and testify to the accuracy of the new knowledge.Halliburton will become the central corporate agent in the reconstructon and rebuilding of a federated Iraq. Balkanization of world will accelerate as corporate global forces, buttressed by national militaries, and the Davos designers accelerate the neo-liberal social and economic agenda. The refashioning of the new world order will require additional corporate-military actions in Latin America, Indonesia and Norway. The profits of power will sustain leaders who combine resources with a spectacular campaign unlike any imagined by Guy Debord.
The burdens and costs of policies will intensify and accelerate environmental destruction and planetary suicide. Efforts to develop an alternative, to question the accuracy of the manufactured history, will be quashed. Critics will be called traitors. Dissent will become treason. New controls on the"mode of information" will bring an end to the capacity to resist. New"discipline" rooted in"surveilliance" will establish the ultimate Disneyfication of the planet. And the fabrication of new truth will fulfill the shift from Orwellian fantasy to Bushian reality.
JONATHAN DRESNER
Mr. Dresner is an assistant professor in the Department of History, University of Hawai'i at Hilo. His research is on modern Japanese social history.
I think it highly likely that the actual war will go rather badly, unless it is made very clear to Iraqi forces what the terms of surrender are. The Potsdam Declaration failed to alleviate Japanese fears of the consequences of unconditional surrender, but succeeded brilliantly as a guiding document for post-surrender Japan. Though our intentions may be good, there is no clear guiding principle behind the post-war planning.
Without a clear statement of principles, which would allow the creation of a strongly legitimized government, I suspect that the ethnic and religious divisions will be stronger than our resolve to have an "undivided" post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
And without strong international support for the war, there will not be strong international support for the peace. There will, however, be a mad scramble for the economic prizes represented by Iraqi oil and the reconstruction process.
MICHAEL J.C. TAYLOR
Mr. Taylor is assistant professor of American History at Dickinson State University in Dickinson, Dakota.
George Harrison wrote in one of his final compositions: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." As an American historian, nothing I have observed within the United States since the 9/11 tragedy has dissuaded me from the conviction that our government and culture has neither the vaguest clue as to what it is doing to itself, to the rest of the world, nor the consequences of such actions.
Americans threaten the rest of the world with violent force to refrain from a nuclear weapons program, but thus far which nation has been the only one to use them? We are generous to the rest of the world with our abundant natural and social resources, yet we allow millions to go without food, medical care, and education in this country in the name of personal choice and freedom? We champion freedom of expression and of faith, but seek to punish those who voice their own opinions or hold beliefs different than the majority. How can such a culturally inconsistent nation boast its superiority?
Rather than waving the flag on command, perhaps each and every American should question in a critical manner their national goals and aspirations. Maybe, we should see that our arrogance and pride will be at the heart of a crash landing of biblical proportions, and the other nations of the world will rejoice. Perhaps, we should all redefine our sense of nationalism in one that understands the goals set forward by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, actively hold our leaders to the perpetuation of those goals, and yell at the top of our lungs when they are disregarding and trampling on those principals.
Finally, I resent the fact that out of 200,000+ troops that have been called to service, 36,000 of them are from North Dakota -- nearly 20% of the whole. At least four of them are my students. I rue the day when I shall have to, out of respect for them as people, attend their funerals due to the Bush administration's stampede toward war. Because there is a difference between dying for something and dying for nothing -- and should they be killed in the Persian Gulf because of the narrowmindedness of an idiot savant commander-in-chief, then these young, intelligent people would have been little more than cannon fodder. That should be highly offensive to any satient human being.
JOSEPH PUDER
Mr. Puder is American Jewish Congress Director in Philadelphia.
Sometime in March of 2003, U.S. forces would have forced Saddam out by defeating his Praetorian guards-the Republican army. The day after the war, however, would be somewhat more complicated. Americans who expect a repeat of the Gulf war are in for a surprise. The U.S. will be in a position comparable to Israel's - having to administer territories it won in battle. Still, the U.S. actions to remove Saddam from Iraq would prove to be critical in the war against International Islamic terrorism and in safeguarding the world from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.Unlike the U.S. experience in Afghanistan, it is clear that an air war will not be enough in Iraq. Ground forces will have to be deployed, and perhaps stay in Iraq for a lengthy period. The consequences will be considered below.
An immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces will lead to a bloodbath. Iraq's society is fractured and embittered as a result of its demography, history and 35 years of Saddam's brutal rule. Close to 60% of Iraqis are Shiites, 20% are Sunni Arab (concentrated around Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace and where his clan-the Tikritis, have a stronghold North of Baghdad), and the remaining 20% are Sunni non-Arab Kurds.
To prevent suffering Kurds and Shiites from taking revenge on their Sunni Arab tormentors, the U.S. military would have to remain in Iraq in force, and for a prolonged period. In addition to repairing the war-damaged infrastructure, the Bush administration will have a historic opportunity to build the foundation of the first Arab democracy.
To facilitate democratic institutions in Iraq, the U.S. must begin with a military government similar to post-war Germany and Japan. It will then have to form a representative Iraqi government that will reflect all segments of Iraqi society and incorporate the exiled opposition groups (those who opposed Saddam Hussein) with the local anti-Saddam forces.
Trials of Iraqi war criminals might satisfy the local population that suffered from the brutality of the regime, especially the Kurds in the north and Shiites in the South of the country. In the Arab world however, the trials and US presence are bound to cause a great deal of anti-Americanism.
U.S. forces staying in Iraq as a conquering force in the former capital of the famed Arab Abbasid Caliphate will not engender any love for the U.S. and its forces. But, America will earn the respect of the Arab masses who admire military victors. Bin Laden's Al Queda and other Islamic terrorist groups will attempt to exploit the U.S. presence and the untried new institution in Iraq.