Israel’s Van Creveld weighs in on Iraq

One of the world’s foremost military historians came right out and called the Iraq war “the most foolish war” in over 2000 years. Despite his criticism of the Sharon government, this guy is not some wildeyed left-winger as some on the right would love to paint him as; in fact he wrote a book in which he supports the construction of a permanant security wall at the 1967 border between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

And this guy is not too optimistic about the endgame…

Noting that some two-thirds of Americans believe the war was a mistake, van Creveld says in his article that the US should forget about saving face and pull its troops out: “What had to come, has come. The question is no longer if American forces will be withdrawn, but how soon – and at what cost.”

Welcome as a pullout might be to many Americans, it would be a hugely complex operation. Van Creveld says it would probably take several months and result in sizeable casualties. More significantly, though, it would not end the conflict.

“As the pullout proceeds,” he warns, “Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge – if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not.”