Elizabeth Stanley-Mitchell, a fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard, is assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University (The New York Times, 08/04/03):
The key to winning this war, like any war, is finding someone willing to surrender. Yet so far, discourse about the war has been dominated by green-scope travelogues and precision bomb videos. Conspicuously absent has been any discussion about who will be capitulating to the United States.
This is unfortunate, because the question of which generals, exiles or other elites are willing to negotiate will directly affect — if not determine — how long this war lasts, how many people will die and what the peace will look like.
Historically, unconditional surrenders — in which the vanquished state is so defeated that it has ceased to be an independent political entity — happen only rarely. In fact, most international belligerents eventually face off across the table and negotiate the war's end. For this reason, the United States must seriously consider who will be sitting on the opposite side when it comes time to negotiate the peace.
The issue is even more important for the United States in this war, where its stated objective is regime change. The Bush administration is looking for Iraqis to take over the country. The Pentagon airlifted Ahmad Chalabi, the exiled former head of the Iraqi National Congress, into Iraq on Sunday, along with several hundred of his followers who have dubbed themselves the "Free Iraqi Forces."
But Mr. Chalabi, who has not lived in Iraq for any length of time since 1958, cannot credibly surrender. Unless Saddam Hussein surrenders — and that is highly unlikely — an Iraqi who has been in the country for much of his regime needs to be willing to sue for peace with the United States.
If the United States does not make peace with some group of elite Iraqis, then it must defeat all of them. This would require extended urban combat and the occupation of an entire nation. Moreover, the United States — or some other third party with American support or coercion — would need to run the country until it establishes a new political order. To depend entirely on exiles and American administrators would undoubtedly take years, cost billions of dollars and require the long-term deployment of thousands of occupation troops.
The difference between a conquest and a surrender is the difference between Berlin and Tokyo. To reach the German capital in May 1945, the Allies wore down the Third Reich's military and industry until it ceased to exist as an independent power. They fought until no German government remained and imposed the peace at the cost of reducing the country to rubble.
The path to Tokyo several months later was no less horrific, but it lacked the final act. Shocked by the atomic bombs, Emperor Hirohito capitulated and removed himself and the military from power. The United States was eager to take control of an adversary nation. Yet it kept Hirohito as the nominal head of state, with his cooperation, precisely because it needed someone to agree to end the war.
Unfortunately, this war's discourse has not yet focused on whom the United States will meet at its negotiations. How the United States fights this war is important in influencing which parties are willing to come to the table — at least as important as the current talks about postwar Iraq. The president's meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain about rebuilding and governing Iraq is essential. But before any interim government can be installed, the current regime, or its successor, must surrender.
The lack of a credible third party to "guarantee" the eventual peace also complicates matters. Having pushed the United Nations out of the decision-making before the war began, the United States has given up its opportunity for the United Nations to serve in this critical role.
The battlefield rarely dictates the timing and the terms of the peace, as America has learned repeatedly since World War II. In both Korea and Vietnam, it was unclear for years who was winning. The wars ended only when the governments on both sides changed hands and the new leaders negotiated peace. Even in Kosovo, where the United States was the overwhelming battlefield victor, it sat at a table with the Serbs.
Who runs postwar Iraq will depend in large part on who surrenders to the United States. The most likely leaders of postwar Iraq are in Iraq today — and the United States must encourage them to come forward. If this is a war about "regime change," then the administration must start planning for the regime that is to come.