Comparison of the Iraq War to the Algerian War

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There have been comparisons in public debate comparing the Wikipedia:Iraq War to the Wikipedia:Algerian War (1954–1962). Henry Kissinger (WP) advised President George W. Bush (WP) to read A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 (Viking, 1977) by Wikipedia:Alistair Horne about the Algerian War for advice on how to handle the war in Iraq.

In a CNN interview aired January 15, 2007 Horne agreed to the comparison that "a major power is faced with an Arab insurgency that has targeted police, public servants, innocent civilians. All of that has preoccupied the Americans as it did the French."

Pentagon screening of The Battle of Algiers

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Pentagon officials viewed on August 27, 2003 Wikipedia:Gillo Pontecorvo 1966 film, The Battle of Algiers. In 2003, the film again made the news after the US Wikipedia:Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict at The Pentagon offered a screening of the film on August 27, regarding it as a useful illustration of the problems faced in Iraq. A flyer for the screening read:

"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film."

According to the Wikipedia:Defense Department official in charge of the screening, "Showing the film offers historical insight into the conduct of French operations in Algeria, and was intended to prompt informative discussion of the challenges faced by the French."

The 2003 screening lent new currency to the film, coming only months after U.S. President George W. Bush's May 1, 2003 "Wikipedia:Mission Accomplished" speech proclaiming the end of "major hostilities" in Iraq. Opponents of President Bush cited the Pentagon screening as proof of a growing concern within the Defense Department about the growth of an Wikipedia:Iraqi insurgency belying Bush's triumphalism. One year later, the media's revelations regarding the Wikipedia:Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse Wikipedia:scandal led critics of the war to compare French torture in the film and "aggressive interrogation" of prisoners in Wikipedia:Abu Ghraib prison

It should be pointed out, however, that there are some significant difference between the conflicts. While the Iraqi insurgency is fighting against an army that only recently conquered their country, the Algerians were rioting against French colonial rule which date back to the 1830s. Furthermore, the role of religion is central to insurgent ideology in Iraq while its role in Algeria was significantly limited in comparison. Also, Algeria was actually considered a part of metropolitan France and was governed as such; Iraq, on the other hand, is an autonomous country, with massive US military presence certainly, but with no American colonialization taking place or even being contemplated.

Despite these differences, however, the very great similarities between the two conflicts cannot be overlooked.

Insurgency tactics

The tactics used by the FLN in the opening rounds of the Algerian insurgency closely mirrored those used in Iraq. The primary assault on civil infrastructure and representatives of the perceived "enemy army" were common to both. This is most clearly manifested in the targeting of the police forces: the targeting of police - a tactic also employed by the Viet Cong during the American Wikipedia:Vietnam War (the Second Indo China war) - stimulates reprisals from the occupying army. The initial French response to FLN violence was extreme and inevitably included civilian casualties. This had the effect - just as it did in Iraq, as well as in Vietnam - of boosting the level of recruitment to the insurgent cause. There were further tactical reasons. As Alistair Horne says in his "A Savage War of Peace":

"Once the FLN realised it was not was not strong enough to take on the powerful French Army, it concentrated its efforts on the native police force loyal to France. Result: a deadly loss of morale amongst the police, with defections to the FLN, and the French army reduced to defensively defending the police, instead of concentrating on active search-and-destroy missions. The insurgents in Iraq have learned from this with deadly effect."

Porous borders

Also like Iraq, the Algerian borders were porous, which allowed a free flow of insurgents into and out of the country, most notably from Bourguiba's Tunisia. The French-constructed Wikipedia:Morice Line, a fortified line intended to block the cross border flow, though it stopped the movement of troops, did not make Tunisia any less welcoming to Algerian insurgents. In fact, the closure of the border had the effect of cutting off this swelling rebel army from French view. This was to prove greatly to the advantage of the FLN.

There is also a parallel with the Vietnam War, where Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army regulars were able to find sanctuary in neighbouring Cambodia and Laos. The French debacle at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, is yet another parallel. The forward base at Dien Bien Phu, it should be remembered, was originally intended as a method of confronting Viet Minh forces operating out of Laos - another porous border.

Iraq's insurgents have been similarly sustained by safe havens in neighbouring countries, most notably in Iran and Syria. The interaction of Iraqi insurgents with Iranian elements and the safe haven offered by the land border between those two countries provides another similarity between the Iraq war and the Algerian revolt.

Destruction of political centre

The inability of the United States successfully to put down the Iraqi insurgency has hitherto been regarded as a military problem. Just as in Vietnam, the idea held fast that the harder the enemy is hit, the more of them that are killed and subjugated, the closer the insurgency is to being crushed.

The reason for this is that in Iraq, the political settlement has largely been eschewed as, just as in Algeria, there is no coherent "opposite side" with which to negotiate. The initial attack on Iraq was conducted with such vast military force and the immediate aftermath marked with indiscriminate hostility on the part of US forces and hired security companies, that the moderate Iraqi centre was driven into the arms of the insurgents.

Herein lies yet another parallel with the Algerian conflict, during which the French used extreme brutality to quell the nascent uprising, but in doing so only succeeded in destroying the Algerian political moderate centre, most notably the efforts of the liberal Ferhat Abbas. This is no better demonstrated than by the 1945 massacre at Setif, where, in response to the killing by Algerian militants of some 120 Europeans, the French massacred between twenty and forty-five thousand Algerians.

Though the killing in Iraq has been more discriminate than Setif, the excesses of the US military have also precipitated the collapse of anything like a politically moderate Iraqi centrist movement. The resulting vacuum left the way clear for much more radical, militant groups. This was also the case in Algeria, although the Iraqi militants are Islamist in nature, the FLN's stated aims - though couched in Muslim language and aspiration - were, by comparison, more secular.

The enemy without

The prolonged period of apparent military failure by the US in Iraq infuriated the US high command, just as it did the French high command in Algeria. The assumption on the part of the French was that the FLN must have been receiving external military assistance in order to effect such a successful struggle.

Suspicion would naturally fall upon Tunisia. However, although Bourguiba allowed FLN irregulars onto Tunisian soil, he was extremely loath to agitate France. Throughout the Algerian war the Tunisian army was extremely weak - weaker even than the FLN's. The French army presence in Algeria, however was very great indeed. To goad the French into an invasion of Tunisia would be inevitably to reverse the freedom won by Tunisia in 1956 - of this, Bourguiba was well aware.

France's attention turned away from Tunisia, however, and towards Nasser's Egypt. Nasser was a forthright proponent of pan-Arab nationalism, and the radio stations of Cairo broadcast propaganda thick with anti-colonialist sentiment across north Africa and into the Mahgreb.

The French became convinced - incorrectly - that it was Nasser who was behind the FLN. Antipathy was high towards the Nasser regime following the failed French and British 1956 incursion into Suez. In this way, an external culprit was identified for what was, essentially, an internal Algerian problem.

In the same way, the United States became increasingly convinced that Iran was behind the insurgents fighting in Iraq - that just as Nasser was the external agitator in Algeria, so Ahmadinejad is the external agitator in Iraq. Though Iran is certainly no friend of the United States, and there have been clear indications of an Iranian presence in Iraq, whether the Iranian involvement is on the level that is suspected by the United States remains to be seen.

The trap

The result for both the French in Algeria and the United States in Iraq is the same politico-military trap - that which is militarily advantageous is politically unsustainable, while that which is politically desirable is militarily damaging.

Bibliography

• Major Wikipedia:Gregory D. Peterson, The French Experience in Algeria, 1954-62: Blueprint for U.S. Operations in Iraq, Ft Leavenworth, Kansas: Wikipedia:School of Advanced Military Studies

See also

• Wikipedia:Torture during the Algerian War