MOSCOW -- It is, of course, unknown how future Western and Arab writers will treat the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, and whether U.S. troops or the people of Iraq -- or perhaps neither side -- will be proclaimed an eventual winner. In any case, there is every reason to believe that the battle for Baghdad will be considered historic.
For starters, Baghdad is the biggest city to have been taken by foreign troops since World War II. Moreover, it used to be the seat of one of the most despotic regimes in the world. It is the capital of a country that is rich in oil, and hence crucial for the global economy. Finally, the battle for Baghdad was outstanding in one more respect: There were relatively few casualties, particularly among the attackers.
When only last week American troops stopped before Baghdad, uncertain about what to do next, pessimistic forecasts abounded. It was clear that the battle for the city would not be as bloody as the fall of Berlin in 1945, during which hundreds of thousands of people died. Yet it was legitimate to suspect that urban warfare would be fierce -- and U.S. military leaders kept preparing the armed forces and the American people for that.