The Winner's Curse

Here is a letter to my brother James on April 7, 2004, about the time the first battle of Fallujah was taking place. I titled it at the time as The Winner's Curse.

Hello James:

Yes I did get your response and I thought it was very insightful. I posed the “What country best describes…” question at work to several of my colleagues at lunch and got the following response:

3 Balkans
1 Vietnam
2 Turkey

Personally, I don’t know how this is going to turn out. In my view, this is one of those events in history where the passage of time is needed to provide perspective. I hope that Turkey is the final outcome in a 3 to 5 year timeframe and I see only Vietnam as a defeat. In fact, I would consider a Balkan through to Pakistan as acceptable outcomes. Let me explain it this way.

We are experiencing the “Winner’s Curse” in Iraq—that is, the difficulties associated with being the winner. Uprisings, insurgents, and the frustrations of trying to build a stable consensual government in a region of the world that is inherently unstable are difficulties that we face. It has a cost in terms of money, lives, and diverted resources. What alternative do we have? In Iraq, we probably have none. We cannot leave because our opponents would certainly take over and kill any friends that we have made. Plus our military power would be seen as a façade in the face of weak political and social resolve.

History will someday answer a fundamental question, “Is it possible for the US to build a democracy in the Muslim or Arab world?” Right now it does not look promising. I can only hope that we are winning a great military and strategic victory in this current wave of violence and that our opponents will be too weak to mount a major campaign again. Then we can get down to the business of building a nation.

If we are not capable of building democracies in this part of the world, and this is another failed attempt like Vietnam, then what course of action should we take? How should we use our immense power to protect ourselves against the Fundamentalist until their people experience their own Enlightenment?

One possibility is to let them win so that they experience the winners curse. Consider this, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have reacted to our display of power even though they are our opponents. In a sense, the Neoconservative Bully Plan appears to be working (the bully plan is that we bully one or two nations and the others in the region fall in line). The reason the others fall into line is because their leaders appreciate their positions of luxury, power, and authority and do not wish to give it up in the face of American soldiers ransacking their palaces. Additionally, these nations do not want to be erroneously invaded because evidence from a terror attack against the West leads back to their country.

So if organized governments are fearful of American invasion and our new strategy of focusing on the political and military leaders, why don’t we us it to our advantage. Well organized, carefully planned, and direct military invasions by American armed forces work to our strengths and always leads to the destruction of our opponents’ armies and governments. We appear to have a problem after we defeat the government and armies and attempt to build a nation. Maybe we should just avoid the nation building. Maybe we should achieve the destruction of the enemy government and armed forces, and then withdraw, leaving the region to fester in its own turmoil. No doubt that any theocracy or dictatorship has its own internal enemies, and after its armies are destroyed, they will then be burdened with reasserting their power and position.

Let’s take Syria as an example. Suppose we approached the Syrians on ending the supply of insurgents into Iraq and destabilizing the region. Imagine we told them to stop or we would invade and destroy their palaces, government buildings, and army. We would arm their enemies and then we would leave. Survivors could pick up the pieces. I think Bashar al-Assad of Syria prefers his current position to hiding and running from American aircraft and AFVs. Just an armored thrust across the desert towards Damascus might be enough for him to tell his negotiators to assent to American demands. Particularly if we have made it clear to the world that we are not there to “rebuild” Syria, simply change its anti-American policies and throw terrorist out.

If indeed it is not possible for the US to build democracies in the Arab or Muslim world, then I think this is the only policy that we can take. If Vietnam is the likely outcome for Iraq, we should evacuate our friends and allies, and retreat to the Kurdish regions.

I think this current period of violence is actually an accident. I believe the bad guys were planning an offensive sometime in the summer to interrupt the elections in America, and that shutting down the paper, fingering Sadr as a criminal, and the grisly death of Americans in Fulluja was unexpected. The offensive by Sadr’s followers and the Marine invasion of Fulluja, I hope, interrupted their plans and has thrown them off guard. Hopefully we will inflict enough casualties to deter future violence and a government can be formed. The big question is “Is an attack on the US planned (like Spain), and if it is successful, how will American respond to the violence in Iraq?”

Take care,

Bill