William Sturgiss Lind,
Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism
at the Free Congress Foundation, is a native
of Cleveland, Ohio, born July 9, 1947. He
graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
from Dartmouth College in 1969 and received
a Master's Degree in History from Princeton
University in 1971. He worked as a legislative
aide for armed services for Senator Robert
Taft, Jr., of Ohio from 1973 through 1976
and held a similar position with Senator Gary
Hart of Colorado from 1977 through 1986. He
joined Free Congress Foundation in 1987.
Mr.
Lind is author of the Maneuver Warfare Handbook
(Westview Press, 1985); co-author, with Gary
Hart, of America Can Win: The Case for Military
Reform (Adler & Adler, 1986); and co-author,
with William H. Marshner, of Cultural Conservatism:
Toward a New National Agenda (Free Congress
Foundation, 1987). He has written extensively
for both popular media, including The Washington
Post, The New York Times, and Harper's, and
professional military journals, including
The Marine Corps Gazette, U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings and Military Review.
Mr. Lind
co-authored the prescient article, "The Changing
Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,"
which was published in The Marine Corps Gazette
in October, 1989 and which first propounded
the concept of "Fourth Generation War." Mr.
Lind and his co-authors predicted that states
would increasingly face threats not from other
states, but from non-state forces whose primary
allegiance was to their religion, ethnic group
or ideology. Following the events of September
11, 2001, the article has been credited for
its foresight by The New York Times Magazine
and The Atlantic Monthly.
Mr. Lind is co-author
with Paul M. Weyrich of the monograph: "Why
Islam is a Threat to America and The West."
He is the author of "George W. Bush's `War
on Terrorism': Faulty Strategy and Bad Tactics?"
Both were published in 2002 by the Free Congress
Foundation.
[Have an opinion on a William Lind column? Sound off in the Discussion Boards.]
Observers continue to ask, "Will Iraq descend into civil war?" The answer
is that civil war is already underway in Iraq. Most people do not see it,
because it is not following the Sunni/Shiite/Kurd fault lines on which we
have been lead to focus. As is usually the case in war, we are the victims
not of deception but of self-deception.
In Iraq's civil war, the most prominent faction is what America calls Iraq's
"government." It is, of course, not a government, because there is no
state. The "government's" goal is to recreate an Iraqi state and become a
real government. What are its chances of success?
At the physical level, the "government" is undoubtedly the most powerful
faction in Iraq's civil war. It has more money and more troops than any
competitor. It also has the U.S. military behind it, as we have seen
recently in Fallujah, where the Iraqi "government": has approved and even
provided intelligence for recent American air strikes.
But at the moral level, the Iraqi "government" is probably the weakest
faction, weaker even than the elements still fighting for Saddam. The
reason is that it is an American creation and puppet - a Quisling regime,
formed and propped up by a now-hated invader. If it is to have any hope of
legitimacy, it must cut the strings to the American puppeteer. So far, it
shows no ability to do that. Its one serious effort to date has been to
hint at some sort of amnesty for anti-American resistance fighters, a move
that could help split its opposition. But that move was stopped cold by the
United States, in a way that demonstrates to Iraqis and the world who is
really in charge. According to the July 18 Cleveland Plain Dealer:
"The new U.S. ambassador, John Negroponte, disputed
suggestions that a proposed amnesty for Iraqis who have opposed the U.S.
occupation could include those who have killed U.S. soldiers...'There may
have been at one point some language that was ambiguous and led to the
interpretation that somehow people would be given amnesty who assaulted U.S.
troops,' he said. 'My understanding is that ambiguity is no longer there.'"
Not only does that let the puppet strings show like chemlights, it also
renders any amnesty meaningless, since it does not apply to the people who
are doing the fighting.
Fourth Generation war theory suggests that the Iraqi "government's" strength
at the physical level and weakness at the moral level means it has already
peaked. Physical strength plays its greatest role early, while the moral
level works most powerfully over time. As has been true ever since Saddam
fell, time is on the side of America's enemies, and time is a powerful ally.
What are the other factions in Iraq? Both the Sunnis and the Shiites appear
to be splitting into smaller, mutually hostile elements. There are
indications that among the Sunnis, the secularists, who are mostly
Baathists, and the Islamists are starting to go at it. Several secularist
militias recently made a public announcement that they want the head
(severed or otherwise) of al Qaeda's local rep, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr's recent war with the Americans had less to do
with resisting the occupation than with positioning himself within the
Shiite community. Fourth Generation theory says that once the fractioning
begins in a post-state region, it continues.
The resulting civil war may still have Sunni vs. Shiite aspects; in fact, it
is almost certain to include that fault line. But there will be many other
fault lines as well, some within the Shiite and Sunni communities, some
cutting across them. At the physical level, this works to the
"government's" advantage, in that its relative power increases. But at the
moral level, virtually all the other factions have greater legitimacy than
the "government." And just as the strategic level trumps the tactical, so
the moral level trumps the physical. That is one of John Boyd's more
important insights into the nature of war.
Not all King George's bombers nor all of his men can put Mesopotamia's
Humpty together again. Since Sen. Kerry's policy on Iraq differs from
President Bush's by only the finest of nuances, it is safe to predict that a
future King John would fare no better.
