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A Deeply Mysterious War

1 o'clock, April 3, 2003

John Keegan, possibly the world’s foremost military historian, professes to be mystified by the tactics that Iraq is using, or rather not using, in the current war, or rather non-war.

What is Saddam up to? Does he believe he can inflict such casualties on the Americans outside Baghdad that they will lose heart and go home? Does he believe he can fight and win a battle of Baghdad? Did he so much underestimate his enemies that he made no proper preparations? Did he so much overestimate the importance of Franco-German protest against this war that he was persuaded he did not need to? Or is it simply that Saddam is disabled or dead and that no one of his megalomaniac determination is running the Iraqi war effort?

What I’m eerily reminded of is Cheradinine Zakalwe’s tactics in Use of Weapons. I don’t think Saddam Hussein is the general Zakalwe was, though, and I don’t think he has the Culture behind him. If he does, the Minds are playing a very deep game.

But then, they always do.

Comments

If you're going to make an analogy to Banks' universe, I'd say we're a heck of a lot closer to the Culture than Iraq. And they're probably a lot closer to the Empire of Azad.

But though I've enjoyed his books in the past, I have to admit being not too impressed with his recent silly, empty gesture of ripping up his passport in protest.

—— Derek James, 4:08 PM, Thursday, April 3, 2003

Nobody’s much like the Empire of Azad. I’d say Iraq is more like the Humanist Faction from Use of Weapons, or one of the regimes from Against a Dark Background. (Voted “Most In Need Of A Visit From A GSV” by their high school class.)

I suspect that from the Culture’s point of view there’s about as much difference between the US and Iraq as there is between, say, butter and margarine. But, as we know from The State of the Art, we’ve been designated a control group.

On the passport question, keep in mind that Banks is Scottish, and that in a certain sense, Britain is not actually his own country. It’s no more empty than any other political gesture.

—— David Moles, 4:27 PM, Thursday, April 3, 2003