The war in Iraq rages on, and I still hear people (though they are dwindling) saying that we can win this war.  First of all, I am not sure that I would classify the conflict in Iraq as a war in the first place.  Usually a war has two clear cut sides, two opposing forces.  If you transfer this view to what is occurring in Iraq, who are we fighting?  There are a few organized groups that are consistently orchestrating attacks on our troops, but overall, we can’t clearly define who we are fighting over there.  Are they Al Quaedi, remnants of the former Iraqi army, Sunnis, Shias, foreign fighters, or just ordinary citizens who don’t like our presence there?  If I had to muster a guess, I would say it’s a combination of all of those.  So how do you fight an enemy you can’t clearly define?  Let’s look at history. 

Vietnam:  The first and most obvious example of guerrilla warfare is Vietnam.  The enemy would ambush in thick jungles, open fields, and in supposedly friendly or neutral villages.  Many of their soldiers did not wear uniforms.  Obviously, our soldiers did not know the terrain and had difficulty communicating with the civilians.  I think we all know the result of this conflict.

The Revolutionary War:  While we had the Continental Army fighting against the British, we only began winning major battles towards the middle and end of the war.  By that point, the British forces had been significantly weakened by the hit and run tactics of minutemen in the countryside, as well as ambushes on caravans travelling through the rural landscape.  While the British had a poor supply line (the Atlantic Ocean) , the attacks would have continued.  There really isn’t any way to prevent them. 

USSR in Afghanistan:  The USSR invaded Afghanistan in order to gain a mountain buffer between itself and its Islamic neighbors.  After their mistreatment of the Afghans, a loose coalition of mountain fighters took arms against the Soviets.  While the CIA supplied the weapons and ammunition, the mountain fighters crushed the soviets using their knowledge of the mountain passes and other skills. 

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:  If you haven’t heard of it, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest attempt made by Jews during the Holocaust to fight back.  The Warsaw Ghetto was an area of the city that was entirely fenced in and guarded by the Nazis.  It originally housed 380,000 Jews but that number was down to 80,000 when they began to fight.  The uprising consisted of a group of Jews making guerrilla attacks on Nazi soldiers who patrolled the ghetto.  These few Jews in a confined space were able to hold out for four months agaisnt the powerful German Army.  The only solution for the Nazis was to sweep through the city burning each building one at a time.  By that time, most of the fighters had escaped through the network of sewers under the city.

History is a great guide if you are looking for answers as to whether you should follow a course of action.  Even things that happened a thousand years ago can be applied to today’s world.  We should have had the foresight to see that our push into Iraq would turn into what it has.  You can fight against certain defined factions of fighters, but you can never stop the outraged citizen who decides to wake up one morning, strap himself with explosives, and suicide bomb a patrolling convoy.  The urban environment of Baghdad just complicates things more than ever before, since you need to avoid killing civilians at all costs.  This war could go on for years, but there would still be roadside bombs, suicide bombs, and ambushes as long as we are there.  If you need more convincing evidence, just look at the conflict in Israel that has been ongoing for more than a decade now.

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