A Choice of Targets
One of the main questions of international politics after the American army’s blitzkrieg in Iraq was “Who’s next?” We decided to analyze the most likely scenarios of events for countries where the United States might conduct military operations in the near future.
Iraq
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| Photo: AP |
| The Americans managed to capture the main card in the Iraqi deck, the ace of spades. This ace may turn out to be the ace of trumps for George Bush in the 2004 presidential elections |
Baghdad fell on April 9. US President George Bush declared the end of the active phase of operations on May 1; and on December 13, American special forces captured former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after a lengthy hunt. Nevertheless, Iraq has still not submitted, and the Americans themselves are to blame for this. In May, Paul Bremer, the head of the provisional civilian administration in Iraq, decided to disband the Iraqi army without paying either former military personnel or members of the numerous Iraqi special services, thus giving a powerful impetus to the resistance movement.
Thousands of professionals disillusioned with the new government began organizing acts of sabotage and attacks on coalition forces. Leaders of the former regime who had gone underground merely had to sponsor anti-occupation actions from previously prepared sources. American special services admitted that Islamic extremists from Afghanistan, Chechnya, Yemen, and other regions had starting arriving en masse in Iraq by summer. The de facto merger of the Islamists with members of the Iraqi resistance took place at the same time, with the former clearly running the show. As a result, even Saddam Hussein’s capture did not have a demoralizing effect on the Iraqi resistance, since the Islamic radicals had never regarded the Iraqi president as a friend or leader.
Up to this point, the Pentagon had no coherent tactic for confronting the partisan movement. The American military confined itself to increasing the military presence. Meanwhile, discontent within the US as a result of large losses among American forces in Iraq prevented Washington from solving the problem by using its own reserves. Therefore, the United States was forced to start bowing to the demands of the international community and speeding up the transfer of power in Iraq to a national government, as well as broadening the UN’s authority in the settlement process in the country. Washington assumed that these concessions were sufficient to get the international community more actively involved in Iraq, primarily by sending military contingents. However, Russia, France, and Germany, which to a considerable extent determined the level of international participation in the settlement process, observed that the US had not fulfilled the main condition, i.e., turning over command of the peacekeeping forces to the UN. Washington had no intentions of doing so and reserved the right to itself.
Under these conditions, the US and its few allies have been effectively forced to go it alone with the resistance in Iraq. There is no counting on any real help from a national government formed from Iraqi political forces. The division of Iraqis into Sunnis and Shiites, Kurds and Arabs, and local residents and migrants has created so many problems and conflicts that this government cannot possibly work fully and cohesively. Owing to its small size and inadequate training, the new Iraqi army is also unable to support the coalition forces in the struggle against the resistance movement. Thus, the inevitable increase in losses among American soldiers and the unjustified hopes pinned on Iraqi oil, whose production has been paralyzed by these same partisans, threatens the US administration with very serious trouble. If worst comes to worst, George Bush will lose the presidential elections in November 2004, and Saddam’s conqueror will have to leave the White House.
Iran
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| Photo: AP |
| The Americans managed to deal swiftly with bronze Saddams, but it took a long time to catch the real leader of Iraq |
After the occupation of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iran filled the place of enemy number one on the American list. The Islamic Republic of Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, are members of George Bush’s “axis of evil” proclaimed in January 2002. The US accuses Teheran of long-term support of international terrorism and has sharply criticized the Iranian government’s attempts to acquire its own weapons of mass destruction. Iran also has large oil reserves, allowing it to play one of the key roles in OPEC. Add to this list Washington’s inveterate wish to get even with Iran for the humiliation of 1979, when a mob of fanatics seized the American Embassy in Teheran and held its employees hostage for several months. The American operation undertaken to free them ended in total failure, resulting in new victims.
The United States began preparations for a future repartition of Iran after the fall of Baghdad. In September, the US delivered an ultimatum to Teheran through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that in effect demanded that Iran abandon its nuclear program. It was further stipulated that if the conditions laid down in the ultimatum were not fulfilled, the IAEA would turn the matter over to the UN Security Council, which had the right to impose international sanctions on Iran. This situation, as in the case of Iraq, would give the US a semblance of legitimacy in invading Iran “in order to fulfill the demands of the international community.”
The main obstacle to implementing this plan is the Iranian army. Iran has used the increase in oil prices to carry out a partial modernization of its armed forces. Supplies from Russia have strengthened the armed forces and land forces, which are capable of dealing a much more serious rebuff to an aggressor than Iraq. Iran possesses ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads as far as Israel, the United States’ main ally in the region. However, according to the Israeli and US secret services, Iran would need at least a year to build atomic bombs; and we can assume that the West will not give Teheran that year and will try to close the “Iranian file” before it acquires a nuclear bludgeon.
Syria
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| Photo: AP |
| Unlike Saddam, the North Korean authorities have never denied the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the country. This may be why the US began its struggle against evil with Iraq |
Although Syria is not a member of the American “axis of evil” and, unlike Iraq and Iran, does not have reserves of oil or other strategic raw materials, it is considered the most likely candidate for the role of the next fall guy. The list of accusations brought against Syria called up to justify the next possible operation, “Shock and Awe-2”, is a standard one. The main accusation, as expected in the global war against terrorism, concerns Syria’s relations with a number of radical Islamic groups, primarily the Palestinian organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have their headquarters in Damascus, and Hezbollah, which operates in southern Lebanon. The White House maintains that Syria is also in contact with Al-Qaeda through them.
Washington regularly accuses Damascus of allowing hundreds of Islamic fighters opposing the Western coalition forces to enter occupied Iraq from Syrian territory. Damascus just as regularly denies these accusations, but its arguments are not taken into consideration. But then neither are the observations of American soldiers stationed along the Syrian–Iraqi border. They claim that the only way to enter Iraq from Syria is through existing official checkpoints; and both the Americans and the Syrians control them equally strictly on their respective sides.
The US special services also assume that Damascus is working to produce its own biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, the American secret service is insinuating, without any hard evidence, that just before the war, Saddam Hussein sent military specialists to Syria along with stocks of chemical and biological weapons, and that now after the fall of Baghdad, Damascus considers all this to be its property. Washington fears that Damascus will misuse this “Iraqi inheritance” thrown at it and that banned weapons will end up in the hands of terrorists.
The US administration has still not determined its position on methods of democratizing Syria. The presence of a nearly 140 000-strong American military contingent in neighboring Iraq is a strong argument in support of those advocating the use of force. The more so because, despite the Syrian army’s attempts at rearming in recent years, it has only obsolete Soviet tanks and planes in need of major repairs to pit against its powerful adversary. Modern weapons, including antitank weapons, have been purchased in Russia on only a very limited scale and will not have a serious impact on the course of military operations, if they start. Weakness of the prey only excites the predator.
North Korea
North Korea is the only non-Islamic country in the American “axis of evil”. Pyongyang was awarded this dubious honor for developing weapons of mass destruction, supporting international terrorism (in this case, the Japanese Red Army extremist group that took cover in North Korea), genocide against its own people, and drug trafficking. At the same time, North Korea is the only country in the “axis of evil” that continually eggs on the US. Pyongyang’s regular attempts at blackmail by threatening to unfreeze its nuclear and missile programs are literally provoking war.
The aggressive tone of the North Korean government is probably due to Pyongyang’s confidence in its own impunity. The more than one-million-strong North Korean army is indeed a formidable force. Backed by nearly 4000 tanks, more than 11 000 guns, and about 1000 airplanes, the North Koreans are counting on crushing the smaller South Korean army and throwing the 37 000-man American contingent into the sea. North Korea also has Taepodong-2 ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets in Alaska, not to mention Japan. All of this together with rumors that they possess nuclear weapons gives the North Koreans reason to believe that the US will not risk declaring war on them.
However, the Pentagon’s existing plans for a military operation against North Korea make no provision at all for a direct invasion. Pyongyang’s unpredictability is so irksome to Washington that the White House prefers not to enter into a direct military confrontation with it. The US is proposing a very simple solution to the North Korean nuclear problem. Massive air strikes using aircraft and cruise missiles are supposed to utterly destroy North Korea’s nuclear missile capability and throw the country’s research programs back many years. The main strike is planned on the research complex in Yonben, and the meters-thick rock that according to American secret service data surrounds the laboratories and nuclear material storehouses that have been hollowed out of it will not save the secret weapon of Juche (self-reliance). In order to achieve its objective, the US has not ruled out the use of sub-strategic nuclear shells in North Korea.
The list of American enemies that have grounds to worry about their future is not restricted to the above-mentioned countries. US foreign policy doctrine presumes that the zone of American interests spans the entire globe; therefore, any regime that does not adhere to a policy of at least neutrality towards Washington may feel the might of the American war machine. The richer the country, the greater the risk of an American attack; thus, Venezuela, Libya, or, for example, Saudi Arabia are much closer to D-day than Cuba, Sudan, or Lebanon.
The best known wars of 2003. Top 10
| Rank in the rating |
Country (region) |
% of references* |
| 1 |
Iraq |
79.5 |
| 2 |
Chechnya |
17.5 |
| 3 |
Afghanistan |
1.9 |
| 4 |
Israel, Palestine |
0.7 |
| 5-10 |
Algeria |
less than 0.1 |
| 5-10 |
Columbia |
less than 0.1 |
| 5-10 |
Democratic Republic of Congo |
less than 0.1 |
| 5-10 |
Nepal |
less than 0.1 |
| 5-10 |
Somalia |
less than 0.1 |
| 5-10 |
Sudan |
less than 0.1 |
* The total number of reports on armed conflicts, including civil wars, is taken as 100%. Compiled from the results of monitoring 154 Russian national and regional media.
Aleksandr Reutov
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 12, 2004
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