This Victor Davis Hanson column, like every other VDH column, will be linked to by everyone hither and yon. He makes a convincing case that the US-Iraq war, should anyone ever manage to start it, will probably wind up as a siege/blockade of Baghdad:
[Saddam] has learned that a conventional battle with the United States amounts to a circus in which thousands of poor draftees surrender to either helicopters or Italian reporters. Therefore we should realize that Saddam accepts that on Day One of the next war, he will lose his entire air space. He concedes as well that, a few days later, what provincial conscripts do not surrender will, like the Taliban, be obliterated in the field. Some regional cities staffed by such units could fall within hours to coalition forces and popular uprisings.In short, his only real alternative is to circle his wagons in Baghdad and accept the realization that his own people loathe rather than support him. We see that popular discontent as a given and to our great advantage; he accepts the former reality, but not altogether the latter...
If Saddam can hold out for a month or two in Fortress Baghdad, use his own population of millions as veritable hostages whom he prays will be casualties to collateral bombing damage, snipe at Americans who venture Mogadishu-fashion into his redoubt, and like Chechens send out an occasional salvo or some terrorists to cause havoc — he believes he can create a war of attrition and wage it with a few thousand diehards hidden among the general population. Under such a scenario, merely his continued survival will be a rallying cry that not only might change Iraqi opinion, but could galvanize the Arab street should Americans or Jews start dying in real numbers.