MANIPAL, India, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- After
World War I, the great powers imposed a peace on Germany that led to a fresh
conflagration just two decades later, one far more virulent in its scope and
effects. The coming military campaign against Iraq promises to be a duck shoot,
given that country's eviscerated war machine. However, unless equal attention
is paid to the "chemistry" of the campaign -- its "mind"
factor -- as well as its "mechanics" -- the straightforward military
aspects -- the very victory over Iraq may create the conditions for an
intensification of the terror war against secular democracies.
This would affect the strategic interests
of the democracies worldwide. To paraphrase a phrase from the 1992 Clinton
campaign," It's the Mind, Stupid!" Defeating the Iraqi armed forces
and toppling Saddam Hussein
needs to be complemented by the creation of an atmosphere within the Muslim
world that accepts such a success to be in their interests as well.
In other words, the strategy against
Saddam needs to be a fusion of mechanics and chemistry .While the first deals
with field mechanics and hardware, the second concentrates on the atmospherics
and the psychological effects of such actions.
Islamic radicals have attempted to
overcome their deficiencies in the "mechanical" with emphasis on the
"chemical" in their war against modern civilization. This strategy
has thus far been neglected by Western military planners.
In Afghanistan, it was not the
air-dropping of peanut butter but the entry of fellow-Afghans into the battle
against the Taliban that dried up support for that regime. In a similar way,
there needs to be very visible -- and voluble -- Iraqi faces in the campaign
against Saddam alongside President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
