As in Vietnam forty years ago, we've got them right where they want us

In one corner we have Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and in the other cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. It really shouldn't even be much of a match-up. Al-Sadr has only a rag tag collection of Iraqi insurgents while Allawi has the full force and might of the U.S. military. But, paradoxically, as with Ho Chi Min's Viet Cong insurgents four decades ago, the involvement of the U.S. military is turning into al-Sadr's greatest strength.



When Allawi was installed by the U.S. occupation force, the self-styled strongman lost little time before declaring that his government wouldn't tolerate the insurgency that's swept the country. Here's the way that plays out day-by-day: U.S. gunships and fighter jets pound Shiite Muslim insurgents and then back off so that Allawi's forces can move in and claim victory for Iraq. However, when al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia on the ground overrun neighborhoods from Baghdad to Basra, the Iraqi police force and National Guard fight for a little while, and then run.



And so, in order to defend his country, Allawi and the interim government must increasingly turn to the American military ground forces, who were already reviled by many Iraqis as an army of occupation, to fight against what are now becoming widely viewed as Iraqi freedom fighters willing to sacrifice their own lives defending their homeland against foreign invaders.



After six weeks of this, Allawi's Cabinet approved an emergency resolution declaring a state of emergency which will empower Allawi to impose martial law on Iraq. That announcement is expected this week. Whether such measures are necessary or not, it's clear that Allawi's forces have neither the training nor the equipment to enforce order outside Baghdad, a capital that's looking increasingly besieged.



So, guess who will wind up enforcing martial law on the people of Iraq.



On Friday al-Sadr blamed all the violence in Iraq on the United States, which he called "our enemy and the enemy of the people," in a sermon read on his behalf at the Kufa Mosque near Najaf.



But there is a difference between Ho Chi Min and Muqtada al-Sadr. Inevitably the Iraqi insurgents find that they have no alternative but to take their fight for freedom to the heart of their enemy. But unlike Ho Chi Min all those years ago, this time they will have the means to take the fight directly into this country.



And when they do so we will wonder why they've attacked us when we're the ones who liberated their country for them. No doubt we'll blame it on "terrorists who hate freedom." What we ought to do instead is remember that none of this was necessary, that this is a war of choice sold to the American people by George W. Bush and crew.



Duluth News Tribune: Iraqi leader faces dilemma