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Iraq Could Become U.S.'s West Bank and Gaza
James P. Pinkerton
August 26, 2003

George W. Bush is on to something when he argues that the United States and Israel face a common enemy in the Middle East. However, insight is not the same as good news; if Bush is correct, then the United States can look ahead to years, if not decades, of conflict in the area.

In his Saturday radio address, the president linked the two suicide bombings, in Baghdad and Jerusalem, taking scores of lives on Aug. 19.

Both acts were committed, he said, by terrorists animated by a "malicious view of the world."

Bush's words are hard to argue with, but it's also clear that the bombers see the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel as their chief enemy; those are, after all, the three nations that are occupying territory they inhabit. But wait a second, one might say, the terrorists blew up the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. Yes, but that's the brutal logic of insurgency: Insurgents aim to make occupation impossible, by any means necessary. And so humanitarian workers are often "collateral damage."

That was also the case on Sept. 17, 1948, when a Swedish diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte, on assignment from the UN as a Middle East mediator, was murdered in Jerusalem by Israeli militants. Back then, the British were the colonizing power; independence-minded Jews viewed the British and other foreigners as enemies to be expelled. Their strategy worked.

Today, Anglo-Americans find themselves similarly targeted in Iraq. The coalition once blamed the Iraqi resistance on "Saddam loyalists." But the problem with that argument was that Saddam Hussein never commanded much loyalty. Iraqi army units mostly broke and ran in the 1991 war; they melted away again in 2003. By contrast, the resistance English speakers are facing today in Iraq is oftentimes suicidally brazen....

... Bush says that America will "persevere" in Iraq, population 24 million. But the Israelis have been "persevering" in an area that's a fraction of the size and population for 36 years now - and we see the violent and tragic results of their perseverance every few days.

In other words, if we are as persevering as the Israelis, and if the Iraqis are as persevering as the Palestinians, then the Anglo-Americans could be fighting in Iraq for 36 years themselves. Are Yanks and Brits ready for a military commitment to 2039 and beyond?...