204 ISLAM AT WAR
air support. However, the overwhelming reason for their success was their
reliance on guerrilla tactics and a military tradition ideally suited for guer-
rilla warfare.
When the United States attacked Iraq in 1991, during the Gulf War, the
Iraqis abandoned the initiative to the United States when their limited
incursion into Saudi Arabia was brutally crushed. They fell back on their
strength in defensive warfare and hoped to repeat the same tactics they
had used against the Iranians. Their mistake was to play the warfare game
with a superpower that excels in conventional warfare.
In the subsequent ground battle, the Iraqis proved totally incapable of
dealing with the U.S. air-ground battle system. Their officers fled the front
and abandoned the troops to their fate. There were instances in the 1991
Gulf War where the Iraqis had shown a fair level of aggressiveness and
military capability in the Republican Guard. However, by 2003 the tech-
nological gap had greatly widened and the moral decay of the Iraqi army
was such that in barely three weeks Iraq was completely overrun. The
poor performance of the Iraqi army was as much of a shock to the entire
Arab world as was the massive superiority of the American army. This
overwhelming and crushing victory will temper the behavior of Muslim
states, but may well force them to shift to unconventional warfare.
When the War on Terrorism began in 2001 and the United States at-
tacked Afghanistan, the United States wisely chose not to introduce large
numbers of “infidel” troops into Afghanistan. The Americans carefully
exploited the cultural and internal political situation to their advantage,
kept the war in a conventional mode, and avoided a guerrilla war. The
United States played to its strength and the Taliban weakness.
Overall, the Muslim world has shown little talent for the complexities
of modern warfare. In 1948 they had every reason to expect to crush the
nascent Israeli army, but their lack of a trained officer and NCO cadre, in
addition to intra-Muslim political problems, led to a decisive failure.
In the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars they again showed themselves in-
capable of modern warfare against a capable foe, no matter how small.
When facing other Muslim states they were evenly matched, but again
showed no capability for controlling large military forces in a mobile
warfare environment. The Iranians reverted to mass infantry attacks, the
height of wasteful military incompetence.
Modern warfare develops its power from the combination of movement
and firepower. This style of warfare requires educated, trained, and so-
phisticated soldiers capable of operating and maintaining complex me-
chanical and electronic equipment. It also depends on highly trained and
educated command and control systems—officers. The Muslim world is