The assault on Falluja has begun. Twenty thousand US marines, along with Iraqi and British troops are leading it, backed up by the latest military technology available to them. They are pitched against several thousand resistance fighters sheltering among at least 100,000 civilian inhabitants of the city. Depending on the length of the fighting in its narrow streets, there could be many thousands of military and civilian casualties. The key question is whether this operation will be successful or self-defeating, whether it will be the key to bring security or order to Iraq - or will alienate its citizens even further from the occupation forces and the interim government.
The military and political assumptions behind the assault on Falluja are simple and well-defined and run as follows. The city is under the control of former Ba'athist loyalists, Sunni triumphalists and foreign terrorists who have been leading the violent resistance which has prevented the pacification and normalisation of Iraq. Falluja must be recaptured from them and these cadres destroyed. That will undermine the nation-wide movement which has prevented the restoration of security for ordinary Iraqis and allow them to vote in January's constituent assembly elections. It is unfortunate that civilians are killed in the battle for Falluja, says the interim Prime Minister Mr Iyad Allawi, but they have been advised to leave and every effort will be made to minimise such casualties. A rapid victory will enable the state of emergency imposed at the weekend to be lifted so that democracy is given an opportunity to grow there next year.
In pursuit of these objectives the largest US-led land assault force since the Vietnam war has been assembled, prominently backed up by selected Iraqi forces, an elite British regiment and devastating air strikes. All the elemental political and military rhetoric of war is being used to motivate and support them now that the US elections have given President Bush a mandate to proceed with his Iraq policy. A prolonged battle will antagonise Iraqi and international opinion, while a relatively brief one may materialise simply because the insurgents have already scattered elsewhere and will regroup to fight again. There are in fact few historical precedents for such a decisive blow against an insurgency driven and created in large part by the very occupation it resists.
The pity is that such a disastrously simple-minded approach could also undermine the efforts to resolve Iraqi conflicts and instability by democratic means. The Sunni minority have held power in Iraq for hundreds of years and are now having to accept it will be passed to, or shared with, Shia groups, including radical ones, who want to participate in next year's elections. Politically they must be allowed the freedom to organise, while the Sunni population must feel they too have a stake in the outcome if they are to cease supporting the resistance. Above all, Iraqis need to feel they are closer to self-rule. The assault on Falluja does not guarantee that they do.