A halfhearted commitment
When a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with Russian-made explosives into the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters last week, he permanently changed the nature of the geo-political game being played out in the Mideast. Investigators have so far not been able to determine whether the culprit was a Ba'ath party loyalist or an Islamist fanatic - and it doesn't really matter. What has become apparent is that the violence in Iraq has reached a dangerous new level.
Poland's response to this new phase of Mideast history was as predictable as it was rapid: Within a few days of the attack, the Ministry of National Defense announced that, under a rapidly negotiated agreement with the U.S. government, its role in the Iraq stabilization force would be significantly scaled back. The most volatile part of the Polish-controlled zone - a part of the Babel province that serves as a traffic conduit into and out of Baghdad - will remain under American control when Polish soldiers begin operating in Iraq on September 1. Poland's 2,500 ground troops in Iraq will now be limited to the more southern parts of the country, where Saddam loyalists, and incidents of violence, are less common.
The local media have been quick to stress that the area where Polish troops will be operating is among the safest parts of Iraq. Perhaps they are trying to reassure an increasingly nervous public that their sons and daughters will not perish in a war that Poles - let's face it - do not really believe in. Recent polls indicate that only a third of the country actively supports Polish intervention in Iraq, down from nearly half just a few months ago. Those statistics, though, are deceptive: Poles never fully supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq. While the SLD-led government came out in favor of America's position prior to the war, the conversations at kitchen tables across the country were mostly about the strategic and economic benefits of siding with America, rather than the security- and morality-based arguments in favor of ridding the world of Saddam Hussein.
Since the start of the conflict, Poland's commitment to the war has grown increasingly tenuous. Leszek Miller's cabinet did not expect the current situation when it signed on to the war effort, and it is no secret that the major reason for participation was economic. Presently, some 1,200 Polish companies are vying for subcontracts to rebuild Iraq. But as anti-coalition forces successfully disrupt infrastructure reconstruction and murder those who would rebuild the country, the economic benefits are beginning to seem ever more distant, while the tangible reality of Polish lives in danger draws closer. With public opinion ready to turn against the war at the first report of Polish casualties, and the post-war payoff becoming increasingly unpredictable, the impetus to pull out of Iraq grows stronger.
Yet this country can ill afford to alienate the United States. It already put a strain on relations with some European countries by taking a pro-U.S. stance on the war earlier this year, and by choosing U.S.-based Lockheed Martin over France's Dassault and Swedish-British Gripen for a major military fighter jet contract. If public opinion forces the Polish military out of Iraq, Poland's new-found position as an "emerging world power" will be jeopardized, and the country could find that it has the trust neither of its closest ally, the United States, nor of its closest neighbors and largest trading partners in Europe.
Fighting a healfhearted war is much like being "a little bit pregnant" - it's an impossible proposition. For Poland, the decision whether to stay or go could be the most important move it makes on the world scene this year, and, whichever way it chooses, it will have to account for its actions and deal with the tremendous consequences. The oddest aspect of this quagmire is that Leszek Miller and his cabinet cronies didn't see it coming. Given Poland's history, it is truly ironic that they considered war to be a political and economic opportunity rather than a tragedy.
