What Do They Mean By Plan B? The Mystery in the President's Escalation Plan

There is a Great Mystery in President Bush's new plan for Iraq. If he intends to send the Army to fight Moktada al-Sadr in the slums of Sadr City, what will happen to Prime Minister al-Maliki who depends on Sadr's bloc of 40 in parliament? Bush then would have to dump al-Maliki for a ruling clique blessed by SCIRI and Kurdish hardliners, but is that possible and how?

Buried in the final lines of the NY Times story of Jan. 11 there is reference to a "Plan B", and a statement by a White House aide that "there are other ways to achieve our objective."

Hopefully, Plan B can become the subject of Congressional and media questioning before it becomes reality.

Clearly the new US plan has no support in Iraq, where 61 percent of the population endorses armed attacks on US troops. Disregarding this reality, the military plan is as follows:

• to go on the offensive in al-Anbar with 4,000 more US troops and unknown levels of aerial bombardment. This is the province where the American forces have suffered the most casualties in the war. It is owned by Sunni tribes, and holds thousands of hardcore fighters, including the Iraqi-based al-Qaeda.


• to go on the urban offensive with 17,500 more American troops, borrowing from counter-insurgency doctrines in Malaysia, Algeria and Vietnam, forcibly building "gated communities" to separate the people from the insurgents while they are hunted down and killed.

No one really can predict the chances for an American military "success" in these operations. The rule-of-thumb in counterinsurgency manuals is that the occupier must hold a 10-1 force advantage over the insurgent. For example, in Britain's successful Malay campaign the ratio was 300,000 colonial troops to 9,000 guerrillas. There is no such advantage in the present situation. In any event, nothing is to prevent new insurgents from replacing those killed in action, and new resistance to follow temporary pacification.

The choice of Baghdad and al-Anbar [containing Fallouja] guarantees that the world will be watching over the media, a huge problem for the US' information war.

As to Bush's aggressive language against Iran and Syria, including two raids on Iranians in Iraq, they could be provocations leading to a larger conflict, or merely a masquerade of toughness before the Administration sits down somewhere to engage in diplomacy as advocated by the Iraq Study Group. The fact that the armed forces are stretched "to the breaking point" [Baker-Hamilton], suggests that may be risky bluffing.

The reaction from Congress, public opinion and the media must be stunning for activists and observers who dismissed a "Congressional strategy" for the anti-war movement as meaningless. After nearly seven years of one-party rule, the beginning of hearings, questions, and debate are a welcome jolt to a moribund and stifling system. The fact that so many politicians are planning presidential campaigns, requiring that they engage in politics outside the Beltway, will only lead to louder criticism of the president from all directions.

The immediate question is whether either House can block the authorization and funding for the 21,500 troops, effectively stopping the escalation and sending the government into a constitutional struggle over the powers of Congress. Rep. Sam Farr, who represents the anti-war stronghold of Santa Cruz, has introduced just such a legislative vehicle, and Sen. Kennedy's staff is mulling similar options in the Senate.

Despite the welcome return of the two-party system to Congress, neither party can be counted on to end the war on its own, for the traditional Machiavellian reason that great powers never admit defeat. But they can be forced to a point where the costs so outweigh the benefits that an exit strategy is quietly sought. The anti-war movement has to increase the costs by pressuring on the pillars that support the policy.

One of those pillars is military capacity. It is important to support dissenting voices in the military, in the counter-recruitment campaigns, and demand that Congress resist Bush's effort to force National Guard units into further rotations.

Another pillar is the budgetary cost. The Democrats say at this point that the will not challenge funding for the war, though they may oppose funding for the proposed escalation. The anti-war Democrats and the peace movement could expand the opposition by concentrating on inner-city, labor and senior constituencies. As of yesterday, the budgetary cost of this war was $357.5 billion, which could pay instead for 17 million free four-year college scholarships. Yet not a single Democratic spokesperson answered the president's speech by hammering home the domestic costs.

The anti-war movement can weigh in by local congressional district actions, emailing, and the national march on January 27th. If Bush pursues his present course, he has the power to ignite an anti-war, pro-democracy resistance not seen since the 1960s.