The grim realities of war were brought home to the coalition forces in Iraq yesterday, as casualties began to mount, stiff resistance was encountered from Iraqi troops in two southern battle zones, and it was confirmed that friendly fire from the US side had killed British troops.
Military and political leaders warned against expectations of a short war. With no signs as yet that the Saddam Hussein regime is about to collapse, it seems the battle for Baghdad will determine the outcome of the war. This news contrasts sharply with the first days of the fighting, when precision bombing, rapid advances and apparently minimal civilian casualties were publicised in Washington and London.
The war is an extraordinary media spectacle, especially on television. Despite the huge efforts made to restrict and channel reporting, news of coalition advances and setbacks has an immediacy which makes it difficult to manage the political messages involved - or to judge the real course of the fighting. A prolonged conflict lasting weeks or months would certainly compound these difficulties, despite the surge of public support flowing to President Bush and Mr Blair.
While the outcome of the war can be in little technological doubt, given the huge asymmetry of military capabilities, these alone are not the only determining factors. We do not know how ready core military personnel in the Iraqi regime are to fight to the end. Nationalist resistance to an invasion force must be set against relief that the regime is probably in its final days. How the war proceeds and ends will have a definite effect on the succeeding regime. The highly contentious international setting in which the war is being fought will also feed into Iraqi willingness to resist. Many Iraqis have good reason to mistrust both sides in the conflict. Some of them are ready to pursue their own political objectives irrespective of the existing regime or its successor.
A critical issue is the conflicting objectives of Turkey, the coalition leaders and the Kurdish peoples of northern Iraq. Turkish concern about the possibility that the Kurds would seize major oilfields and historic cities in northern Iraq as a prelude to proclaiming an independent state outweighed Turkey's willingness to provide full military co-operation for US forces. It is a crucial political objective for the US-British coalition to prevent such a war within a war developing before the major conflict is resolved.
All these uncertainties demonstrate that the political arguments leading up to the war have a continuing relevance during and after it. The Anglo-American decision to use force despite the UN Security Council majority against it means they alone cannot be allowed to set the terms of a subsequent political settlement. The UN must have a central and continuing role to play in providing humanitarian aid, organising reconstruction, endorsing a new governing regime and ensuring Iraq's oil resources are available for the benefit of its own people.