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The second of Rumsfeld's aims--to get more non-U.S. troops into Iraq--is no simpler to achieve. A multinational force led by Poland will soon begin operations south of Baghdad, but the U.S. would also like to see contributions from Turkey, India and Pakistan, all of which have effective armed forces and two of which--Turkey and Pakistan--are Islamic states. At present, however, the U.S. and Britain are the legal occupying power in Iraq, and most nations likely to be able to send useful forces will not do so unless the U.N has more authority there. After the Baghdad bombing, the Administration started to draft a new Security Council resolution that would call on member states to do more in Iraq, but Washington remained opposed to ceding any legal authority to the U.N. "This is not the moment for another theoretical discussion over who is in charge," says a senior State Department official. Maybe not, but without such a discussion the chances of getting a new resolution are slim. The French have made it plain that without some give by the U.S. on an expanded role for the U.N., a resolution will go nowhere. Still, as a senior French official told TIME, "in the medium term, there's an interest on all sides to start considering how a broader international force might be brought into Iraq."
But even if every nation in the world sent its best troops to Iraq, the task would still be enormous. As Army Major General Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division in north and central Iraq, predicted in July, the conflict in Iraq is becoming a classic case of what military thinkers call "asymmetric warfare," the kind that weak parties wage against strong ones. "They're going after softer targets and what we consider to be more of a terrorist-type activity," said Odierno. "The next step, to my mind, would be something like car bombs and suicide bombers." In such warfare, the initiative lies with the attacker, which is why Rumsfeld has always insisted that in the war against terrorism, the U.S. must go out and hunt down its adversaries.
The problem--one that all armies have faced when confronting guerrilla forces--is that search-and-destroy missions in urban areas run the risk of losing local hearts and minds, which is the last thing the U.S. needs in Iraq. U.S. officials may say, in the words of one White House aide, "We're more than happy to have the [2004 presidential] election become a debate on whether or not it was the right decision to go to war in Iraq," but an endless drip of American casualties might knock the edge off that bluster. And such an outcome is possible. "This is asymmetric warfare all the way, and in asymmetric you can't win," says a U.S. official closely involved in Iraq policy. "There isn't a military solution, and I'm not alone in saying that."
A political solution in Iraq--which is presumably the alternative--would require the gradual but steady transfer of authority to the Governing Council; a new constitution; the establishment of honest police, legal and bureaucratic authorities; and, in time, elections. It would mean, in short, the undramatic ability to use the good offices of outsiders--the U.N., aid agencies, nongovernmental organizations--to help Iraqis weave together a new society.