MORAL INFLECTION POINTS

The attack on the Palestine hotel in Iraq was more than just an example of how fear management can improve the effects of a terrorist bombing. It was also a very important example of how the open-source insurgency has surmounted the limitations of decentralized management to mount large attacks.

The main thrust of the attack on the Palestine hotel used three suicide vehicle bombs. The third vehicle, a cement mixer, didn't reach its goal. Fortuitously, the axle of the truck became entangled in concertina wire which prevented forward movement. If it had managed to get 20 feet closer to the hotel, there is a good likelihood that it would have killed hundreds and structurally damaged the building.

The truck's entanglement also saved us from the next phase of the attack. There were guerrilla assault teams waiting in the wings to storm the hotel. These teams would have quickly overrun the hotel and taken dozens of hostages (mostly journalists and employees of private military companies). Given our experience with similar overruns in Saudi Arabia, this might have evolved into a 12-24 hour hostage drama in the heart of Iraq's global press operation. We were literally "saved by the wire" from this potential debacle (which would have been broadcast live to the entire globe). It could have become the moral equivalent of the Tet offensive or the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.

A Milestone
This is the first time that several groups have combined to mount a major attack (we routinely see this with Caucasian guerrillas in Russia). Combinations have occurred in the past, but these operations have been mostly ad hoc and smaller in scope. This operation -- accomplished through a combination of al Qaeda in Iraq, Jaysh al-Mohammed (Baathist), and the Lions of Bara’a bin Malik (an al Qaeda affiliated group) -- demonstrates that Iraq's open source insurgency can now combine in ways to overcome the limitations of its decentralized structure. They were also able to demonstrate that they are capable of maintaining operational security on a large operation.

Moral Inflection Points
Here's what this means. Iraq's open-source insurgency can now mount operations with strategic implications (the attack on the Palestine, if it had succeeded, might have changed the course of the war). We can expect more efforts like this in the future, including an assault on a US military forward operating base. A successful attack on this scale (one that kills or holds hostage hundreds of US citizens) could turn public sentiment decisively against the war. The situation in Iraq has reached an inflection point and things are rapidly spinning out of control.

Comments

[Richard1]

What swarm? Do you have evidence of a swarm waiting outside the hotel?

[Boghie]

A true swarm attack would have required multiple attacks at multiple site.

Using multiple groups on a single target is not a swarm. The point of impact was a single point. Apparently it was defensible...

It was also an odd target... Why??? They got some pub, but not much.

[Adam]

Richard,

John estimates insurgent numbers at 160k. The British military polling shows support for attacks running at 45% of the population, with 65% support in British run areas. The same poll says that 82% of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the coalition.

In the last election I've noted that over 70% of people voted for Islamic parties. I was wrong simply because I didn't realise until yesterday that the Muslim Brotherhood (the original Islamic terrorist group that killed Sadat, worked with Qutb, and had Zawahiri as a spokesman. Its most famous offshoot is Hamas) was also running under another name (the Iraqi Islamic party in the Sunni area). That puts the number voting directly for Islamic parties towards the 75% mark.

According to Reuters their message is: "get out of Iraq or set a timetable for withdrawal or the resistance will keep slaughtering your soldiers until Judgment Day." In another typically loopy comment Fox News said that this was: "another step forward in Iraq's democratic reforms".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173499,00.html

Thats a lot of people and, because they're Iraqis, they're pretty much all outside the hotel.

Swarming is a term that is used to indicate small teams of near-autonomous military or para-military units. An example would be small teams of anti-tank specialists. Its not a particularly Western tactic, which tends to go for top-down orders, but I suppose that snipers would fall into this area. This tactic was used extensively by the Chechens in the first Russian invasion (1994). Most of the insurgents would seem to fall into that category, simply because there appears to be no higher organisation.

What Johns saying is that this is a strategy. There's a lot more groups involved than John lists. I've seen suggestions that more than 50 are working in Iraq at the moment. There's no central organisation so its hard to see that they've agreed on anything but its clear that the Iraqi insurgents are drawing on the lessons of Palastine (effective use of Suicide bombers), Afghanistan (Roadside IEDs) and Chechenya (Urban swarming) and doing them all at once. I suspect that each group is doing the tactic that they are most comfortable with rather than being ordered to.

So maybe its a strategy, maybe its not, but John's right - its working.

[Adam]

"A true swarm attack would have required multiple attacks at multiple site. Using multiple groups on a single target is not a swarm. The point of impact was a single point. Apparently it was defensible..."

Not as I understand the definition. Swarms can congregate in one location (for example the massive ambush of a Russian armour brigade during the 1994 Chechenya invasion). Military Review July-August 2001 (no page number, sorry) has a piece on the over-running of a Soviet airborne company (with a platoon of Spetsnatz in support) by very small Chechen swarming units.

"It was also an odd target... Why??? They got some pub, but not much."

Its the centre of the US symbolism of the occupation. Its where the statue of Sadaam was removed by the US. I geuninely can't think of a place that US triumphalism was clearer. Perhaps the Green Zone, but for now thats just a mortar and car-bomb targets. Throw in foreign journalists (lets face it - Rory Carroll got more coverage for being kidnapped than every Iraqi combined ever did) and you've got an ideal location.

[Brad]

Right.
This is just the logical reductio of fighting a war through the media (the whole point of the FVM sophistry, yes?). The battle plan went from fighting the Coalition to starting a civil war with the Shia, and now to fighting the Iraqi government forces. They fight openly against the military forces, they die. They pursue murder against civilians, they lose adherents. Either way, they lose. So what happens when you lose, when you spin dangerously off-message.

That's right, you shoot the messenger. Please, oh please, let them stage a direct war against the camera, not just for the camera, but against it. I feel like Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek after Pearl Harbor, singing 'Ave Maria.' It is the 'most dumbest' idea in the history of warfare; can the insurgents stop opening up battlefronts? They're fighting against Russia, America, all of the Coalition, plus India, even some of the misc Arab governments, the Iraqis and, by and large the Shia confession. And this 'open-source guerrilla' model effectively guarantees that somebody, one of these groups, or lots of them together, will go ahead and run with a bad idea.

Because nobody's in control. That's NOT a strategy, that's chaos, by definition...not-a-strategy.

[Adam]

Brad,

The thing you're missing is that different people in Iraq are doing the things that you've listed:
The coalition (well, OK, thats everyone),
Civil War with the Shia is Al Quaedas thing,
Civil war with the Sunni is arguably the SCIRI and the Kurds,
as for fighing 'Iraqi government forces' (hard to say... Almost everyone except SCIRI - who control the Iraqi government forces - would be a guess).

"They fight openly against the military forces, they die."

Not really. US bodycounts are, shall we say, a little dubious. If we believed the US bodycount the entire insurgency would be dead three times over by now. Certainly guerillas don't fight regular professionals openly through because that would be stupid. Around half the US dead are from IEDs at this stage. Demanding that the enemy fight your preferred way is optimistic beyond belief.

"They pursue murder against civilians, they lose adherents."

Except for that pesky civil war thing. The Iraqi constitution sets that up for an absolute humdinger.

"Please, oh please, let them stage a direct war against the camera, not just for the camera, but against it."

At least 60 journalists are dead in Iraq already. The recent kidnapping and release of pro-Arab journalists implies that some of these killings are deliberately targetted at pro-US journalists (lets put it this way, the life expectancy of a Fox News journalist would be measured in minutes). If it comes to a point during the invasion it was alleged that CNN had gunmen who took an active pro-US part in the fighting. This doesn't make them neutral, it makes them 'in play'.

"I feel like Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek after Pearl Harbor, singing 'Ave Maria.'"

How nice... Chiang Kai-Shek went down to a massive defeat to Mao's guerillas 6 years later, to the point that he had to flee to Formosa and rename it Taiwan. Churchill lost the British Empire to the Americans. Just to check - do you think that this is a good history for an empire against guerillas to copy from?

On the other hand the Islamic guerillas can (and do) argue that all of those battlefronts you list came to them. Russia and America invaded, India has had some fairly savage Hindu risings against Muslims (due to the Pakistan/Kashmir thing), the Arab governments are a) dictators b) foreign backed and c) un-islamic.

"Because nobody's in control. That's NOT a strategy, that's chaos, by definition... not-a-strategy."

And I'd largely agree with that point, but communicated or not its what they are doing. But the controlled chaos exit solution (or as I put it the 30 year's war bloodbath) does appear to be the current US plan.

[Robert Stevens]

Sorry John, it wasn't the first time that Zarqawi's monsters and Baathist goons combined in a major attack.

Samarra, July, 2004

http://alphabetcity.blogspot.com/2004/07/samarra-evan-kohlmann-has-made.html

[John Robb]

Robert, there were lots of these generalized swarms last fall. However, the result was more of the same slow burn of decentralized warfare (higher tempo but still diffuse). The Palestine was different. It was a tight, highly orchestrated assault on a hard target. The stakes were huge. It was just the luck of the draw that it didn't work.

[Boghie]

Honestly John,

A NYT headline:

'20 Journalists Overcome by Minutemen'

would not have set the world on edge...

These bozos (the 'insurgents') picked the wrong target - as they often do. They do not understand our culture. Regardless of how this sounds it is true - most Americans wouldn't have given a damn about some French and Italian 'journalists' getting caught up on the wrong side of their stated causes.

As far as the attack being a swarm I still contend it was not. The site was attacked at a single point. They did not bring significant assets to other points in the defense. They did not draw the defense away from their point attack. That focus, and the fact that they did not have the resources to attack cohesively at other parts of the compound, demonstrate that the 'militia' are not as strong or organized as they once were. Their attacks are simplifying...

They used to do far better.

[Adam]

"These bozos (the 'insurgents') picked the wrong target - as they often do. They do not understand our culture."

I got wide eyed reading this. An American complaining that other people don't understand their culture... Its like watching a giraffe announce that the Starlight Express cast don't understand rollerskate dancing. Its surprising and at the same time we can't wait to watch the giraffe to show us how its done.

Sadly for the American fantasy world of 'they hate us because they don't understand us' a large number Iraqis have a fair understanding of American culture. As a group they've seen exactly the same movies as Americans (Julia Roberts movies were quite popular under Sadaam) and watched the same TV programmes. Most of these were, under Sadaam, bootlegged from the US so occasionally the picture would freeze and demand payment to a New York number. Naturally these broadcasts were in English and unsubtitled.

Quite a number of Iraqis spent significant periods in America (or Britain) sometimes being educated, sometimes just living here. It is a matter of fact that without British universities the Iraqi chemical weapons programme could not have got off the ground.

The bad news is that its a victims eye view of US culture. The US is the thumb and the Iraqis are under it. This doesn't make them dewy-eyed "we love America" Stockholm Syndrome suffers that Americans want them to be. Rather too much blood has been spilt for that. They've also had sanctions aimed at them for 12 years, which according to UNESCO saw the deaths of a half million people, mainly in the age range of the under 5s and over 50s. Plus things like bombings, US support for terrorist groups and separatists and the small matter of an invasion.

"Regardless of how this sounds it is true - most Americans wouldn't have given a damn about some French and Italian 'journalists' getting caught up on the wrong side of their stated causes."

Well yes. Thats because most Americans (to be fair, most people) are minimally educated, selfish, and uncaring. I'd include Bush in that statement. Throw in a good deal of casual racism and random brutality and you get the Iraqi uprisings. Its the Zapata theory of rebellions that I point out regularly. Theres nothing the Iraqis can do about these particular aspects of America (well, other than kill more Americans) but they do understand them.

On the other hand everyone else on the planet (possibly including some people in the US government) realises that if the US cannot protect a keystone group in their strategy then basically its time for the US to give up on that plan completely.

If thats the case then the knock on effect is for China, India and Europe to look at finding deals with the next rulers of Iraq - and half of Iraqs oil goes direct to the US. Kicking that prop for the US economy out is going to have a few ramifications for the long-term prosperity of the US. Not a bad deal from one attack at all.

From that viewpoint the comments right after the attacks from the President of Iran were interesting. He wants to see who breaks ranks with the US at this stage on the assumption that Iranian proxies will soon control Iraqs oil. So far its India who said nothing and thats significant. Want to bet that India and Iran start talking about oil soon? Wonder if they will say whose oil?

[John Robb]

First, thanks for all of the push back. I don't claim to have the ultimate solutions/analysis for this conflict (to do so would be arrogant and foolish), however I do have analytical frameworks for thinking about it that radically increase the quality of the debate.

I do believe it was a swarm, but it is on the edge of the definition (there was an suicide attack across the square and small arms fire from another direction that soaked off security forces). I also believe that a large hostage drama in combination with the destruction of the building would have been a major media event that would have hit at the core of US moral support for the war.

[john s]

3 does not a swarm make, by all acounts these actions were COORDINATED.

[John Robb]

Hmm. Here's my previous posts on swarms:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/05/global_guerrill.html

I guess you guys are going to hold me to it.

[Adam]

Interesting definition. Poole (2004) uses a different one in his discussion of Chechen tactics.

[Alex]

Strange - I can think of four of these big, company sized raids this year. All of them (well, if you don't count the Interior Ministry, where they didn't try to breach the walls and which may have been more of a reconnaissance in force) narrowly failed when a suicide vehicle didn't quite penetrate fixed defences.

What is going on there? I blogged it, but I'm not allowed to add a link so you can't read it. (Note - I use the abbreviation NOIA, New-Old Iraqi Army, for the emerging integration of ex-IA/RG Sunnis and jihadi bombers.)

[SteveL]

Adam,

China and India have agreed to large (multi-billion) and long term energy contracts with Iran in oil and natural gas.

Iran info:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EE22Df01.html

http://www.american.edu/TED/iranpipeline.htm

China info:
http://www.iran-daily.com/1383/2142/html/economy.htm

It goes without saying that this is one part of Iran's strategy to keep the Israeli's and the US in check.

[SteveL]

All,

Want to touch on a few points brought up in the preceding discussion.

As alluded to by Adam, H. John Poole's book Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods ISBN 0963869574 has some very thoughtful comments concerning swarming and it's an excellent read.

Counterinsurgency theory (COIN) addresses the importance of creating a 'chaotic' state where there is no security in order to discredit the existing government. The opposition is doing a good job of this in Iraq, however they might need to read our friend Machiavelli a bit more closely, it's important to split the opposition rather than have unite them against you. Iran’s honest but diplomatically costly statement on Israel, Syria’s probable involvement in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, and the Coalition’s failure to gather Muslim support for the war in Iraq (Turkey’s refusal to play should have been the tip-off for some of the more obtuse) are all excellent examples of what not to do.
http://www.the-prince-by-machiavelli.com/outline-of-the-prince.html

Pointing fingers doesn’t get the war won however. The stakes for the US, if no one else, are high. Limited and realistic goals are key. The diplomats and soldiers at the point of the spear have a hell of fight on their hands, but I have faith in those privileged enough to enter the sands of the arena that struggle to ‘get it done’.
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5078399

As always it is important for us not be fooled by slight of hand but instead to keep focused upon the key issue ‘The Fight for Limited Resources’ which always drives conflicts. Our era’s Limited Resource is Energy:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/GJ25Cb01.html
‘Network Warfare’ is but a tactic to wrest control of it from others

[John Robb]

Alex, I read your post. How much intra-group cooperation was used on those earlier combinatorial attacks?

This is a work in progress (hence the name and content changes). I am still trying to nail this brief down (it refuses to comply).

[Alex]

This was the original post:

http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2005/06/it-just-keeps-iraqing-in-here.html

I analyse it as significant. There is a real philosophical gap between a suicide car bomb and an infantry raid that ends in a controlled break-contact and withdrawal; I think it's unlikely the suicide drivers were supplied by the same group as the riflemen/RPG gunners, and certainly not the command element.

Further, this involved quite a large force: the assault involved "120-150" insurgents, i.e. a company, but there were diversionary attacks and stop-groups placed as far as several miles away, which argues at the very least another platoon or two, so the operation could have been as large as a half battalion.