Yet More Stray Iraqi Thoughts
The anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan didn’t start gaining military traction until it got its hands on Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, which it could use to shoot down Soviet Hind helicopters. It also eventually got serviceable TOW antitank weapons too, and could directly attack Soviet armor. It got those things, of course, from us.
Happily for us, the Iraqi resistances (foreign, Sunni, Sadrist) so far lack good anti-helicopter and anti-armor weapons. (RPGs don’t cut it.) This either means they are NOT getting significant foreign support, or the foreign support figures that provisioning such things would tip its hand in a way it dare not currently do. So long as that situation continues, American casualties will remain manageable and we’ll be able to sieze (if not hold) any patch of ground we take a fancy to. If that situation changes, the balance of power changes concomitantly.
(I take it for granted that if Iraqi resistance groups had such weapons they would use them. They’ve used everything else they can get their hands on.)
Two other things seem likely: 1. The Sunni-region insurgents seem to have had access to substantial Saddam-era weapons stores. That suggests that the terrifying “threat to the whole region” that was Baathist Iraq was itself essentially bereft of working man-portable antitank and anti-aircraft weapons by the time Gulf War Phase III rolled around in March 2003. 2. If anti-American forces in Iraq do suddenly come into possession of man-portable anti-vehicle weapons, it will suggest that Someone outside Iraq has decided it’s worth a major effort to take the Americans down or at least bleed the hell out of them. It would be a major risk for any non-nuclear power to take.
