VICTORIA, British Columbia, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Following the killing of 49 unarmed recruits in Iraq -- the deadliest attack against post-Saddam Iraqi armed forces -- it is hard not to draw parallels with the situation in Lebanon 21 years ago when the U.S. Marines suffered their deadliest losses. Then, as now, it was a result of failure of U.S. foreign policy to fully grasp the complexity of the situation.
Sunday was a grim day in Iraq as insurgents ambushed the recruits, shooting them "execution style," as they were headed for home leave from their base in Baquba. This latest attack seriously undermines efforts by the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Iyad Alawi to control the violence and fight the insurgency, which appears to be getting bolder by the day.
Sunday also happened to be the grim anniversary of one of the United States Marine Corps' darkest hours. On October 23, 1983, a truck laden with enough explosives to create what was reportedly one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history, rammed into a building housing the Marine Battalion Landing Team at Beirut International Airport. The attack killed 241 American service personnel, constituting the greatest loss of life the Marine Corps had suffered since the battle on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, in World War II.
At the same time a second suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden truck into the headquarters housing the French contingent, only a few miles from the Marine compound. Twenty-seven French soldiers died in that explosion.
The Marines and the French, however, were not the only casualties of the horrendous October attack. The other victim of the Beirut bombing was U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, which suffered a severe setback. Its repercussions are still felt throughout the region today.
Following the devastating blow in Lebanon, U.S. President Ronald Reagan could not get the Marines out of Beirut fast enough. Although no helicopters were pushed off the decks of aircraft carriers to make room for evacuating troops and fleeing refugees, as in the closing days of the Vietnam War, the United States decided to cut its losses.
The Marines, along with the other members of the multinational force -- British, French and Italian forces -- withdrew a few months after the attacks. Their hasty departure gave the wrong signal to those responsible for the attacks and to the powers (believed by Western intelligence sources to be Iran and Syria) behind the attacks. In essence, the multinational withdrawal from Lebanon strengthened the belief that terror tactics, as a means to influence U.S. foreign policy, work.
In an article published in the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick wrote that the attack on the Marine barracks was "one of the egregious failures in U.S. military history."
Indeed, 21 years after that fateful Sunday morning Marines -- and Iraqis -- are still dying in the Middle East as the result of deficient foresight and planning, lack of understanding of the mindset and culture of the Middle East, and continued failure of U.S. foreign policy in the region. Most disturbing is the United States' inability to adopt a long-term view of the region's problems and complexities, and adapt accordingly.
In Beirut then, much as in Baghdad now, the Marines came in harm's way largely as a result of inadequate planning on the part of politicians in Washington.
Again, Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post: "The failure of U.S. forces in Lebanon was based on a number of incorrect assumptions of policymakers in Washington ... " Substitute the words "Lebanon" for "Iraq," and you have today's headline news.
And then, as now, Washington refused to admit its mistakes. Probably the biggest misconception in Beirut was that the Marines were "peacekeepers," and therefore would somehow be immune to the multi-layered, multi-ethnic, multi-religious violence that engulfed Lebanon at the time. Washington may have thought of the multinational force as peacekeepers, but the view from the region was a very different perspective. To many of the actors in the Lebanese civil war, the multinational force had become another faction -- another of the multitude of militias -- in the long-running conflict.
Indeed, the multinational force had stopped being perceived as unbiased peacekeepers by the Muslim and Druze communities in Lebanon, who did not appreciate the unfaltering support accorded to President Amin Gemayel's government, nor the training and logistic support given to the Christian-led Lebanese armed forces by the United Stated and France.
The Marine guards standing sentry duty outside the ill-fated barracks were under orders to keep their ammunition clips removed from their guns. The October attack did not come as a complete surprise. The Marines in Beirut had been coming under continued harassment from Lebanese militias, perched in the hills surrounding their positions near Beirut Airport. In her article Glick stated that, "intelligence reports went on to explain that without an increase in military capabilities, Beirut would be lost."
While the ill-fated Iraqi recruits were unarmed, there is no doubt that the Marines serving in Baghdad today carry loaded weapons, however, there are far too few of "the Few" to impose the security needed to make the country safe. While the invasion stage of the war was brilliantly planned from a U.S. perspective, the post-invasion policing strategy fell short. As did the number of troops needed.
Then, as now, regional powers and their proxy forces were not sufficiently taken into account. In Lebanon, the United States believed it could sideline Syria -- a major stakeholder in the Lebanese imbroglio -- and Iran, whose mullahs in Tehran pulled the strings of more than one Lebanese militia, whose members were only too willing to blow themselves up to kill Americans.
Similarly, in Baghdad today, the United States rushed into a conflict without taking into consideration the regional hegemonic powers and the damage their proxy forces in Iraq are capable of. In Baghdad, as in Beirut, policy makers inside the Washington Beltway believed American forces would be welcomed in the Middle East with open arms. In both instances the United States miscalculated.
In both instances the Machiavellian politics of the regional powers were grossly underestimated. In 1983 Iran and Syria were able to call on their client militias in Lebanon to fight their wars and attack the multinational force. And in 2004, some 21 years later, Iran and, some in Washington and Jerusalem believe, Syria, (though the reality is far more likely to be al-Qaida sympathizers such as the ruthless and fanatically radical Abu Musaq al-Zarqawi), continue to combat America's presence in the region.
To quote Glick one last time: "The U.S. had little cultural understanding of the forces at play in Lebanon ... " The U.S. today continues to suffer from the same lack of misunderstanding of the Iraqi mindset. Who ever said that history does not repeat itself?
Amid this November election frenzy, one of the biggest shortcomings of U.S. foreign policy is that Washington thinks in four-year increments, whereas Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran, as well as Zarqawi and bin Laden, wherever they may be hiding, do not.
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