In many ways the decisive factors which have lost the war in Iraq are the moral and psychological questions. How long will U.S. troops go on fighting for empty rhetoric and broken promises? How long can they continue to swear allegiance to the lies and deception of their Commander-in-Chief? How long can they keep up a fight without a meaning or cause in order to justify such suffering and death? How long can they face an enemy, who, repugnant though it may seem, harbours no doubts about the justice of his cause and commands the decisive high ground in terms of psychological morale and his sense of moral superiority. Because crazy as it appears in the political mayhem and sadistic barbarism of Baghdad, their foe knows exactly what he is fighting for and why.
When faced with an enemy's fanatical self-belief and the opposition to their presence by the majority of the population, the modern soldier’s appetite for fighting for the ideals of “freedom and democracy” can't linger very long. This is especially so when Iraqis seem to no longer care about it, and support at home has evaporated, and while one’s President appears to be in a state of clinical delusion, rather than simple denial over it.
In truth, within a very short period of time, the war's moral foundations and
potential for victory were already undone when it became clear that it was based on barefaced lies and deception. It is crucial to the morale of a fighting soldier is that they can look up to their Commander-in-Chief as a man of integrity. Instead, once the weapons of mass destruction were never found and Hussein’s links to Al Qaeda disproved, the soldiers were left fighting for a liar and a cheat. Furthermore, as it became increasingly clearer that they were unwelcome on Iraqi soil and that the vision of “freedom and democracy” withered, they began wondering just for what and for whom
they were laying down their lives. To make matters worse, support for the war at home in the U.S. was crumbling, which all added together to create a sense of meaningless and futility as far their involvement was concerned. With it, the prospect of winning became increasingly untenable, the sectarian strife unbearable and the demands on their physical commitment unsupportable.
St. Thomas Aquinas made the famous point that “For a war to be just three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive.” Clearly, the war was exposed as having none of the three, and demoralization began to reach such levels that even commanders in the field began warning publicly that the U.S. Army was at “breaking point.”
The insurgents, who on paper are no match for the world’s greatest super power, began to grow in morale partly for the very same reasons why the Americans’ were deteriorating. Moreover, they viewed their cause as being morally superior to their enemy's, be that an American or Iraqi foe. For the insurgents of whatever hue, they are fighting for their right to self-determination, to national liberation, for the defence of their religion, sect, ethnic minority or cult-like, messianic ideology. In the sphere of psychological combat this gives them a colossal advantage. And in
war Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “The moral is to the physical as four is to one.”
However, morals are always a question of the psychological angle and perspective from which one views them. It may be repugnant to suggest that terrorist, tortures and supports of dictatorship have the moral high ground, but that is the reality of the moral dynamic in this war, and this is the crucial reason why they cannot be beaten by the Americans. They are fighting for causes which are both concrete and visionary. While, if one asks the average American soldier what he is fighting for, the overwhelming reply will be just for “his buddies, his unit.” Such a situation isn't sustainable for any length of time. On the psychological timeline, the advantage lays with the insurgents.
In general, be it the Sunni insurgents, al Qaeda or the Iraqi Mehdi Army they combine military know-how, terrorist expertise and guerrilla ingenuity with determination and tenacity. They are superior fighters to the Americans because they are fuelled by blind fanaticism, hatred, feelings of injustice, revengefulness and bloodthirstiness that reach barbaric levels, and making them a fierce and formidable enemy. They are unhampered by convention and unrestricted by law or censure. Nor are they affected by international public opinion or the need to be seen to act justly. They see themselves
as the victims, with whatever rights of retribution. They are“moral-less” and yet “morally” stronger than their American opponents.
As a “movement” they are contradictory, often counterpoised and still highly
effective. As smart as a fox, dogged as bears, patient as vultures, swift as a snake and as pitiless as hyenas. They are courageous and cowardly, wild and yet disciplined, they are dynamic and quick-witted. They are paradoxical and disordered and, yet, they thrive upon chaos and complexity.
This is the reason why the current 2007 U.S. offensive to retake Baghdad was also doomed to failure from the start. In reality, it is not just that they are essentially doing the same thing with more people, and then leaving behind a logistically inferior force to maintain the peace in the form of the Iraqi Army. The essence of the problem is that they are stuck in a mode of urban combat that stems from World War II thinking and practice. They are applying the same strategy and tactics to an urban guerrilla-terrorist force as they would to a traditional army in any metropolitan setting. Yet to their amazement and annoyance the enemy refuses to fight in the same way. It won’t react, it won’t fight back, it won’t surrender in the same ways, and, worse still, unlike a traditional army following occupation, it keeps coming back! And still the US Chiefs of Staff (or at least many of them) are bewildered by the fact that they have to start again!
The Army, next to the Church, is traditionally the most conservative of institutions in society. Its conservatism is necessary for it brings consistency, discipline, reliability and loyalty. But, unfortunately, it also means an almost organic incapacity to make fundamental changes in modes of thinking, and from that ways of behaving. This is the Iraqi guerrillas real trump card - the innate, wooden thinking and cognitive rigidity of the American military command, especially when it comes to innovative strategies for effective counter-insurgency. Only by understanding this is it possible to answer the question of just why the most powerful army the world has ever seen is unable to defeat a force often less well-equipped than members of the
Russian mafia. If Napoleon observed that “in war the moral is to physical as four is to one,” then in asymmetrical war, suppleness and agility of the mind is to fanaticism and visceral belligerency as a hundred is to one. Herein lays the reason why the U.S. Army is impotent against a foe which is its logical inferior.
So what can they do? Ah! Fight fire with fire! Use the same successful tactics of the enemy against the enemy in order to defeat them? But is the U.S. Army going to set off roadside bombs, take sniper shots at an invisible enemy, put adverts in the Washington Post for suicide bombers? That the discussion becomes ludicrous so quickly speaks for itself. The fact is, militarily they cannot win. Or rather they cannot win militarily for socio-political reasons and reasons of different morals and psychology.
In military terms, a more effective attack upon the enemy would be to substitute the current approach for “scorched-earth” policy, depriving the insurgents of anything to actually fight from or come back to. If the Americans razed Baghdad to the ground (and in fact necessarily all other urban centres – villages included), then any guerrillas left would have to fight them by conventional methods in open combat.
