CAIRO: US-led forces may achieve military victory in Iraq within a week or two, but winning the war politically is more uncertain and will take far longer.

As Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote: “Even the ultimate outcome of war is not always to be regarded as final. The defeated state often considers the outcome merely as a transitory evil, for which a remedy may still be found in political conditions at some later date.”

Overwhelming US air power, high-tech weaponry, sweeping ground manoeuvres and surprise have taken US forces close to the heart of Baghdad in less than three weeks, even as Iraqi fighters, most lightly armed, continue sporadic resistance.

Many analysts believe the outcome of the Iraq war will only be decisive if and when a stable, self-sufficient successor government to President Saddam Hussein is installed and able to run the country without a US military presence.

Even optimistic opposition leaders such as Pentagon favourite Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress say that will take at least two years.

Many pitfalls await US and British forces once they have secured military control over the sprawling country, including the risk of guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings.

Monday’s dramatic US tank thrust into central Baghdad, raiding two presidential palaces, brought closer the moment when the US and Britain seize the heart of the Iraqi government and put it out of action.

Most experts say the real definition of whether victory has been achieved will come long after the fighting is over.

“There will be a military victory in a few days. But the kind of political stabilization that is the real victory will take a couple of years,” said Professor Joachim Krause, head of the Security Policy Institute at Germany’s Kiel University.—Reuters