US Touched by Disaster in Fallujah

House by house, street by street, the Marines fought Sunni insurgents in Fallujah during two particularly bloody episodes in 2004 and 2007. The ruined city, now renamed the “Verdun” or the Iraqi “Stalingrad” by exhausted GIs, was finally conquered, but the victory was a Pyrrhic one for the U.S. Army. The pill is all the more bitter now that convalescent America, freshly extracted from the Iraqi quagmire, has discovered the full extent of the disaster.

It only took three days of fighting for these same insurgents to recover, at least partially, this symbol of American sacrifice, America’s attempt to pacify the country and stabilize the Middle East in accordance with George W. Bush’s vision. The futility of this policy, the trillions of dollars spent over a decade of war in Mesopotamia, not to mention the 4,500 soldiers killed — including 1,300 in al-Anbar province alone — was made obvious to the American public by the shocking images from Fallujah delivered by Islamist militants. But it is George W. Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, who could suffer the fire of criticism for his relative mismanagement of the postwar period. Case in point: The Democratic president has demonstrated his inability to negotiate an agreement with Nouri al-Maliki on the maintenance of residual foreign troops, or even to provide the necessary weapons to fight effectively against the rebellion now in full resurgence.

A Situation “As Tragic As It Was Predictable”

The leading Republican opposition blames this fiasco on Barack Obama. In a jointly-released statement, Senators John McCain (Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) denounced the situation, calling the events “as tragic as they were predictable,” insofar as “many of us predicted that the vacuum would be filled by America’s enemies and would emerge as a threat to U.S. national security interests.” “While many Iraqis are responsible for this strategic disaster,” added the two fierce Obama rivals, “the administration cannot escape its share of the blame.”

“We are concerned by efforts of the terrorist al-Qaida/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to assert its authority in Syria as well as Iraq,” responded Marie Harf, a State Department spokesperson, on Saturday. “Their barbarism against civilians of Ramadi and Fallujah and against Iraqi Security Forces is on display for all to see.” “We are also in contact with tribal leaders from Anbar province who are showing great courage to fight to eject these terrorist groups from their cities,” she continued.

A late airlift will carry missiles, ammunition and Predator and Reaper drones to Anbar. But much misunderstanding remains between the old “big brother” and its recalcitrant ally, who supplied Iraq with F-16 fighter-bombers that are relatively inefficient to crush a stealthy urban guerrilla attack, forcing Baghdad to turn to Moscow to acquire more appropriate attack helicopters.