On the night of All Saints, 1954, a young honeymooning couple of French school teachers, dedicated to their work among underprivileged children, were dragged off a bus in the Aurès Mountains of Algeria and shot down. Their murder by the newly created FLN (National Liberation Front) marked the beginning of organised revolt against the French colonial ‘occupiers’. The eight-year-long Algerian war was to bring down six French prime ministers, open the door to de Gaulle — and come close to destroying him too.
The war was the last of the grand-style colonial struggles, but, perhaps more to the point, it was also the first campaign in which poorly equipped Muslim mujahedin licked one of the top Western armies. The echoes of la guerre d’Algérie still reverberate across the Islamic world, especially in Iraq.
As in Iraq today, the struggle in Algeria was hydra-headed. In fact, there were several wars going on at the same time: the counter-insurgency; a civil war between Algerians; the external battle fought for public opinion in metropolitan France, and on the platforms of the UN; the struggle between the pieds noirs and Paris, culminating in army revolt, followed by open, white terrorism under the aegis of the brutal killers of the OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète).
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There is a lot to this is seems to me. Certainly the violence in Iraq is reminiscent of both the liberation struggle in Algeria and the more recent fighting by the GIA and FIS. If you have a terrorist insrugency that seeks to inspire fear and powerlessness in the general population then it is very hard to combat by regular means and irregular means are generally considered inappropriate by civilized society (and me).
However it seems to me that there is no need to be utterly pessimistic about Iraq. The insurgents have numerous advantages such as easy access to weapons and apparently lots of money, but they also face significant disadvantages. The most important of these is that they clearly have limited support in much of the country and thus in the Kurdish north and Shia south there are very few incidents. The trick therefore is to remove the support in the Sunni triangle. Despite the bad news (such as the execution of those poor Iraqi recruits) this seems to be occuring as the Sunnis are able to compare their less successful redevelopment with the better progress elsewhere and draw the appropriate lessons.
There is a theory that without a secure base any terrorist force is limted to about 100 people. More than that and your command and control is stretched too much to prevent infiltration or eavesdropping. As I said a month or so ago I believe that on Wednesday the main Iraqi base of insurgency - Fallujah - will be attacked and thus the insurgency will lose its base in Iraq and hence I expect any subsequent insurgency be to much smaller.
Another advantage is the advantage of surveillance. Unlike the French in Algeria, the Americans have excellent electronic surveillance methods and almost as good visual surveillance which means that once they identify a possible suspect they can track him for a while. They can also use a precision guided missile or bomb to kill him without causing massive collateral damage. This is very similar to Israel's war in the occupied territories but with one difference, the Americans have local allies who are motivated to actively help rather than just provide intelligence.
Unfortunately as all other wars have shown, defeat of the Iraqi insurgency is likely to be a long process. It may be reduced significantly by (say) attacking Fallujah but it is unlikely to be ended until the vast amjority of Sunnis agree that it is against their interests.