IN THE NEWS
The Bush Administration continues to describe the diverse Iraqi guerrilla and terrorist groups as if they were one, monolithic, faceless enemy. The distinctions among these factions—from remnants of the Ba'ath Party to revolutionary Islamists, from zealous suicide bombers to cynical kidnappers-for-profit—are significant, yet the Administration portrays them as if they were all the same. That's more than a semantic problem: we're actively contributing to the mystique that grants real terrorists power and leverage.
True, there is some cooperation among different groups. Sometimes, these represent common outlooks and interests, such as the collaboration between Sunnah al-Islam and Al Qaeda in Iraq. Other times, these groups have alliances of convenience, such as between the Ba'athists and Islamists who happen to share common Sunni backgrounds, but completely different political aims. There is also a substantial amount of enmity among some groups that often boils over into armed clashes, as occasionally mentioned as "red on red violence."
Even worse, the Administration continues to blur distinctions between the Iraqi insurgents and foreign guerrilla and terrorist groups. Top civilian leaders may blur these distinctions to build rhetorical (but spurious) links between the Iraq invasion and the 9/11 attacks, but military leaders have no such compulsion. In public statements, Abizaid, Myers, and other senior commanders do make the line between Iraqi and other insurgents clear, but they still talk about the Iraqi groups themselves as if they were a single organization.
Using broad strokes to portray the enemy groups when more detailed ones are needed, the heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and Central Command (CENTCOM) are ultimately doing themselves a disservice. The US and Iraqi governments will make progress against some groups quickly, and others more slowly (or, for the time being, not at all). Sealing the borders with Iran and Syria decreases the number of "foreign fighters" who can join Al Qaeda in Iraq, but has virtually no effect on the indigenous partisan groups who are more interested in getting rid of the Americans than installing a Taliban-like regime.
During the 1980s, when the Reagan Administration dedicated itself to the defeat of the FMLN in El Salvador, US officials (with a couple of notable exceptions) described the FMLN guerrilla organization in rather matter-of-fact terms. The FMLN had a political wing, the FDR, that worked with the FMLN's military commanders but were distinct from the guerrillas. The FMLN was an alliance of five different guerrilla groups, all founded independently and often at odds with one another. For example, the RN and ERP never fully agreed on methods, and there were personal rivalries among guerrilla commanders. The Reagan Administration exaggerated many aspects of whatever threat the FMLN posed to American interests, but it described the insurgents themselves in terms that made them almost seem pedestrian.
This rhetorical approach was no accident. People in the Defense Department, State Department, CIA, and other agencies involved in Central America didn't want to add to the "guerrilla mystique." In the 1980s, memories of Latin American conflict in the 1950s and 1960s were fresher than they are now. In the middle of the last century, nearly every country south of the Rio Grande had some urban- or rural-based guerrilla group. Nearly all of them failed, but while the insurgencies lasted, the insurgents themselves cut a dashing, heroic figure. Corrupt, brutal, dictatorial regimes twirled their moustaches and laughed villainously at their citizens' suffering. Meanwhile, Clever, Zorro-like guerrillas struck back—rarely toppling the regime, but usually escaping to fight another day. While this mythology overlooked many of the faults of the guerrillas—sometimes prone to corruption, brutality, and stupidity themselves—the revolutionary mystique was often as powerful as the guerrillas themselves.
In a new century, we face a new type of revolutionary mystique. The region and culture may be different, as are the revolutionaries. But the mystique is the same. If we're puzzled why anyone would think that jihadists cut a romantic figure, just look at the icon that Ernesto "Ché" Guevara became. Twenty years after the fall of Batista, only one among many revolutionary Marxist groups—the Nicaraguan FSLN, a.k.a. the Sandinistas—seized power anywhere in Latin America. Despite that track record of failure, the revolutionary mystique persisted—a testament to its ability to capture the popular imagination. Similarly, militant Islamists merely need to continue their acts and statements of defiance to sustain their mystique.
Obviously, the United States cannot extinguish that perception among Arabs and Muslims in dozens of countries world-wide. US leaders can keep this mystique from bleeding into American society. The mythic version of the guerrilla is inspiring to some, and terrifying to others. When we sweep aside any cloud of ignorance about the Iraqi insurgent groups, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda, we find the reality behind it far less frightening. These groups are not invincible, though they're capable of adapting quickly to whatever methods we use against them. (That's nothing worse than the usual cycle of measure and counter-measure in warfare.) They often squabble among themselves, make serious errors, and prove obnoxious to people who once supported them. In Fallujah and Sadr City, for example, many Iraqis who once applauded the Army of the Mahdi soured on the rebels once they actually got to know them first-hand.
Americans certainly understand the power of the unseen. Horror movies that keep the menace off-screen usually frighten audiences far more effectively than when the monster is shambling in full view. Some of the best horror movies—The Cat People (original, not the remake), The Haunting, The Legend of Hell House, Alien—worked because you never, or hardly ever, saw The Big Bad. When the creature shambled into full view of the camera, you immediately saw it for what it was—often just a stuntman in a rubber suit.
The more Americans know about the groups fighting us, the less frightening they appear. The less our collective judgment is clouded by fear, the more likely, as a nation, we are to make the right decisions. We might discover that the Iraqi insurgents are tough opponents, but US and Iraqi forces might be able to make more progress against them than we expect. We might also discover, of course, that many of them are only a threat to Americans as long as Americans are in Iraq. Whatever conclusions we draw, they're likely to be better than charging at or fleeing from a faceless enemy.
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