Pointed Metaphor

Mark Steyn on
what we really need to do in Iraq.

He starts with a fascinating, anachronistic - and very appropriate - story:

Here's a story no American news organization thought worth covering last week, so you'll just have to take it from me. In the southern Iraqi town of Amara, 20 men from Scotland's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders came under attack from 100 or so of Muqtada al-Sadr's ''insurgents.'' So they fixed bayonets and charged.

It was the first British bayonet charge since the Falklands War 20 years ago. And at the end of it some 35 of the enemy were dead in return for three minor wounds on the Argylls' side.

So what does that tell us about modern war and the future of Iraq?

Steyn continues:

If you're used to smart bombs, unmanned drones and doing it all by computer back at HQ, you're probably wondering why a modern Western army is still running around with bayonets at the end of their rifles. The answer is that it's a very basic form of psychological warfare.

''If you're defending a position and you see someone advancing with a bayonet, you may be more inclined to surrender,'' Col. Ed Brown told the British newspaper the Guardian. ''I've never been bayoneted, but I can imagine it's pretty gruesome.'' Or as Cpl. Jones, veteran of the Sudan, used to say every week on the ancient BBC sitcom ''Dad's Army'': ''They don't like it up 'em.''

By comparison, a Cruise missile, an unmanned drone, even a bullet are all antiseptic forms of warfare. When a chap's charging at you with a bayonet, he's telling you he's personally willing to run you through with cold steel. The bullet may get you first, but, if it doesn't, he'll do it himself. To the average British squaddie in the 21st century, the bayonet's main practical purpose is for opening tinned food. But when you need it on the battlefield, it's still a powerful signal of your resolve, your will.

When coalition forces engage the foe in Amara, in Najaf or Fallujah, that's always going to be the rough ratio: three light wounds to 10 times as many enemy dead. It's in the broader political engagement in Iraq that the coalition needs to metaphorically fix bayonets and go hand-to-hand with its opponents. The Sunni big shots and Sadr militias, the Baathist dead-enders and foreign terrorists, the freaks and losers have made a bet: that the infidels could handle the long-range antiseptic bombing but don't have the stomach for the messy mano-a-mano stuff that follows.

And they have a point. From Baghdad press conferences to Colin Powell, too much of the tone is half-hearted and implicitly apologetic: On bad days, the president himself is beginning to sound like an unmanned drone. The coalition needs to regain the offensive, to demonstrate not just weary stoicism but fierce will -- the same will those Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders showed. Bush has to be bold and imaginative, and to end the impression that he, his administration and America itself are mere hostages to events.

How do you do it? Many commentators are now calling for faster elections in Iraq. I'd prefer to go for ''asymmetrical federalism,'' which is a Canadian term, but don't let that put you off. What it means is that the province of Quebec has certain powers -- its own immigration policy, for example -- that the province of Ontario doesn't.

Obviously, any self-respecting American would regard it as an abomination if the state of Vermont had a completely different level of sovereignty from the state of New Hampshire. But not all nations are as harmoniously constituted as the USA. I'm not just talking your average banana-republic basket case. Take America's closest ally: the four parts of the United Kingdom -- England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales -- are governed completely differently, three of the four having ''national'' parliaments with widely varying degrees of power, and the fourth (England) having no parliament at all. Scotland has revenue-raising powers, Wales doesn't. There's no constitutional logic to it: It's merely the central government's utilitarian response to different local conditions.

I've often wondered why Iraq - essentially an artificial creation of the League of Nations rather than an organic nation in its own right - has to be treated like something it's not?

Fact is, the Kurdish north was probably ready to govern itself the moment the last of Saddam's troops and secret police left.

The Shi'ite south will no doubt suffer from their decades of subjugation - it's hard to go from slave to master of one's destiny overnight. It must be just as hard for the Sunni to go from Master of their nation to mere masters of their destiny, too.

So why should all three get the same approach?

I'm curious.

Posted by Mitch at May 24, 2004 05:51 AM