Failed “Salvador Option” Considered in Fighting Iraq Insurgency

Newsweek has reported that the Pentagon is actively debating a different approach to the fighting in Iraq. The consideration of the so-called “Salvador option” is proof positive that things aren’t developing necessarily to America’s advantage in Iraq. Military strategy changes only when existing approaches fail. That there is serious discussion of new approaches is a hopeful sign, but the Salvador option is the wrong one. It largely failed in Central America, and the conditions in El Salvador in the 1980s were much more favorable to America than Mesopotamia is today.

In a nutshell, the Salvador option would have US Special Forces train and advise Iraqi security forces on how to fight the insurgents using assassination, kidnapping and similar actions. In El Salvador, this policy resulted in right-wing death squads killing not only leftist rebels but also innocent civilians (like the 900 murdered in El Mozote, and which the Reagan administration wrongly dismissed as propaganda). The current vision would have American forces sitting in Syria while Iraqis did unto Iraqis, or more accurately, while Kurds and Shi’ite Iraqi’s did unto Sunni Iraqis.

Most notably, and where Newsweek is plain wrong, the policy did not result in success in El Salvador, despite what is claimed by current Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte – ambassador to Honduras during the El Salvador unpleasantness and in some minds, a war criminal. Peace finally came when the Soviet Union went out of business. The Berlin Wall came down before the UN sponsored negotiations began in earnest, and the August coup against Gorbachev preceded the New York City accords that ended the fighting by a month. Thus, the rebels lost their source of weapons and supplies – yet they still managed to negotiate their way to some concessions. Victorious governments needn’t negotiate. The model failed, and it is foolish to expect success from something that failed so dismally in the past. Worse, the situation in Iraq doesn’t have a great many of the advantages for American that Central America offered.

First of all, El Salvador had a military that functioned and could be used to fight the insurgency there. Iraq’s security forces are as good as non-existent. Second, the option requires an amazingly precise level of intelligence that can only be derived from human assets. The US has a large Spanish-speaking population, not only among analysts in the intelligence community, but even among low-ranking troops. Americans could infiltrate where and when necessary. America has few Arabic speakers, and all westerners are targets in Iraq. The human intelligence assets just aren’t there. Finally, the rebels in El Salvador were being propped up by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union. In Iraq, the local uprising seems not to need any outside support, meaning it is inherently stronger. Even officials are talking about a possible Iraqi Civil War, although it has been going on for over a year already.

The Mesopotamian Adventure has been a series of bungles from the moment Field Marshall Donald von Rumsfeld slashed troop levels before the fighting through the poor occupation decisions made by Pro-Consul Paul Bremer and the furtive handover of pseudo-sovereignty in June to this morning’s car bombing. Except for the actual drive to Baghdad, the Bush administration seems to have gotten every possible decision wrong. Adding the Salvador option to its arsenal would merely be par for the course -- policy on less attractive ground than where it failed two decades ago.



© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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