Iraq: Why one should think before acting

There are many comments and opinions about the War in Iraq and whether we should have invaded or not. I do not wish to revisit these. I feel it is important to raise the some basic questions that are not being asked. For example, did anyone think about the impact on world opinion, particularly that of Muslims, of sending U.S. troops to overthrow the government and occupy the capital of a Middle Eastern country. Everyone knows the U.S. is not popular among Arab countries and not looked favorably upon by many Muslims. It is obvious that emotions have been very sensitive between Muslims and non-Muslims. Thus, our military and political leaders should have been more prepared to wage a war for world public opinion after we decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It seems our military leaders were sleeping during their military history courses at West Point or they would have remembered a key element creating military strategy:

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Sun Tzu(6th-5th century B.C.), The Art of War.

Three observations about the War illustrate this quote. Apparently no one thought it odd that we met so little resistance in overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime when we knew he was militarily prepared for an invasion. If you any military leader thought of the abovementioned quote from a classic military strategy book or knew military history, they would have realized that any enemy fighting against a numerically and technologically superior force would likely resort to guerilla/terrorist warfare rather than be annihilated in a direct military confrontation. Obviously our military leaders forgot about guerilla wars we fought in Central American and Vietnam.

The second observation is that Arabs are not fond of the U.S., partially due to our long term support for the State of Israel. Thus, Muslims in an Arab country are unlikely to be happy about American troops being in their cities and capital for any extended period of time. Iraqis did not like Saddam Hussein but he was one of their people.

The third is that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups need to constantly use propaganda against the U.S. to maintain the support of Muslims. Nothing supports the terrorist's claim that the U.S. is out to get the Muslim world then U.S. military action. This allows Al-Jazeera and other Arab news sources to have a constant stream of words and images showing the U.S. as an enemy of ALL Muslims.