"Terrorism Alert: 'Waste Deep in the Big Muddy' of Iraq". Under the subtitle, "A Guerilla War in Iraq", Professor Marvin Zonis writes:
"Before the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein, I predicted that the outcome would, eventually, resemble the fate that befell the Israelis after their invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. The Israelis had liberated Lebanon from its near-total control by the PLO, which had fled to Lebanon after losing its war against King Hussein in Jordan in 1970. After a rapid and total Israeli military victory in the summer of 1982, Yasser Arafat and his PLO fighters were put on freighters in Beirut and exiled to Tunisia. But in 1983, hundreds of U.S. and French Marines were killed in separate terrorist bombings in Beirut and the U.S. pulled out.
"By 1986, the Israelis had fled from Lebanon, unwilling to sustain the low level of casualties that were constantly inflicted on their armed forces. Before the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein, I suggested that the Iraqis would turn against the U.S., as the Lebanese had turned against the Israelis, seeing them as occupiers rather than liberators and that a turn against the U.S. would come to be one way the Iraqis could generate a national identity and create a unified Iraq. The turn against the U.S. has already occurred. (Like all other processes in our age, the transformation of the U.S. from liberators to occupiers occurred more quickly than was conceivable two decades ago for the Israelis in Lebanon.)
"The most dangerous part of this story, however, is not in Baghdad, but in Washington. The Bush administration appears to be in a state of denial about the seriousness of the U.S. position in Iraq. What has become increasingly obvious is that the deaths of American soldiers and the looting in Baghdad and Basra are the product of organized opposition to the U.S. occupation. The U.S. is now in a guerilla war - a low-intensity conflict - in Iraq. The killings of Americans are not the product of disgruntled, lone, Saddam loyalists. They are the product of determined opposition to the U.S.."
"Before the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein, I predicted that the outcome would, eventually, resemble the fate that befell the Israelis after their invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. The Israelis had liberated Lebanon from its near-total control by the PLO, which had fled to Lebanon after losing its war against King Hussein in Jordan in 1970. After a rapid and total Israeli military victory in the summer of 1982, Yasser Arafat and his PLO fighters were put on freighters in Beirut and exiled to Tunisia. But in 1983, hundreds of U.S. and French Marines were killed in separate terrorist bombings in Beirut and the U.S. pulled out.
"By 1986, the Israelis had fled from Lebanon, unwilling to sustain the low level of casualties that were constantly inflicted on their armed forces. Before the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein, I suggested that the Iraqis would turn against the U.S., as the Lebanese had turned against the Israelis, seeing them as occupiers rather than liberators and that a turn against the U.S. would come to be one way the Iraqis could generate a national identity and create a unified Iraq. The turn against the U.S. has already occurred. (Like all other processes in our age, the transformation of the U.S. from liberators to occupiers occurred more quickly than was conceivable two decades ago for the Israelis in Lebanon.)
"The most dangerous part of this story, however, is not in Baghdad, but in Washington. The Bush administration appears to be in a state of denial about the seriousness of the U.S. position in Iraq. What has become increasingly obvious is that the deaths of American soldiers and the looting in Baghdad and Basra are the product of organized opposition to the U.S. occupation. The U.S. is now in a guerilla war - a low-intensity conflict - in Iraq. The killings of Americans are not the product of disgruntled, lone, Saddam loyalists. They are the product of determined opposition to the U.S.."
