Paran Balakrishnan: Caught in a desert storm

MY WORD

Let's get the basics clear.

The Americans have gone a long way to achieving everything they could have hoped to in Iraq. They've established a major presence in Iraq in the heart of West Asia, just a stone's throw from the bubbling black gold that keeps the industrial world in motion.

Turn in another direction and they've secured the high ground for Israel. The Syrians don't dare peep over the Golan Heights with the Americans gesturing belligerently on one side of their country. Nor for that matter, do the Iranians who've suddenly turned meekly cooperative on nuclear proliferation.

That said, the Americans have acted with extraordinary ham-handedness in the last few days. They've dropped a 500-pound bomb on a mosque full of worshippers and bombed other areas with civilian populations.

They've even managed the unlikely feat of bringing together the Sunni and Shia militias in a loose coalition. The result: for the time being they've lost control of several cities and are now fighting their way back into them.

What has triggered this astonishing American behaviour? Could it be the influence of the neo-conservative right-wingers who have been egging on President George Bush from the very beginning. Certainly, they've been screaming themselves hoarse arguing for retaliation against the mobs of Falluja and elsewhere.

Take a look at what William Kristol, the fiercely right-wing editor of Washington's Weekly Standard had to say about the killing of four Americans in Falluja last week and what should have been done in retaliation: "The US could have sent many tanks, along with air support, to disperse the mob, kill those who didn't disperse, intimidate onlookers and recover the bodies of the dead Americans. And the US could immediately have put a price on the head of the killers and those who desecrated the bodies."

It now looks almost as if the words of Kristol and the other neo-conservatives hit home and caused the Government to react. If so, did Kristol really want America to simultaneously fight the Sunnis of Falluja and the Shia supporters of Ayatollah Moqtada al-Sadr? Because that's the unenviable corner the Americans are now boxed into.

Shouldn't the Americans have ignored the neo-con tough talk and instead, soft-footed their way back into Falluja. That's what the British Army, more used to urban hit-and-run fights, has done to regain key buildings in Basra. The Brits talked to their enemies and calmed a volatile situation.

But Kristol and his neo-conservative brethren would call that weak-kneed diplomacy. They are determined that the United States should wipe the stain of Vietnam from its copybook. It must, according to their logic, show that it is both able to take casualties and inflict them on anyone who opposes its imperial will. The neo-cons believe this bloodstained method is the only way the US can convince the world it means business.

As US columnist Maureen Dowd, a strong critic of the war puts it: "Mr. Rumsfeld thought invading Iraq would exorcise America's Vietnam syndrome, its squeamishness about using force. Instead, it has raised the specter of another Vietnam, where our courageous troops don't understand the culture, can't recognize the enemy and don't have an exit strategy."

But the neo-cons wanted blood to be spilt. Because, it must be said that the events of the last few days have been entirely predictable.

Even as the US Army raced into Iraq it was a safe prediction that one day a sniper or a street mob would target American soldiers. Then, the Americans would be faced with the tough choice of whether to retaliate with tough love (i.e. force) or turn the other cheek.

What next? As Dowd asked last week: "And how can we rescue Iraq from chaos? Now we're told the military is preparing an 'overwhelming' retaliation to the carnage in Falluja. You can hear the clammy blast from the past: We're going to destroy that village to save it."

Already hundreds have died in Falluja. If the "village-burning" mentality takes hold, these could be the first of thousands of casualties as the United States fights the very people it said it wanted to save.