Sen. Frist’s comments about the state of play in Afghanistan (even as corrected from the press accounts) freaked out a few bloggers. And judging from the comments at those blogs, they were not the only ones livid. I do not particularly care about the comments of a lame-duck Senator on the verge of a dead-duck campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, but the reaction does interest me a bit.
I previously wrote that:
There are at least three theories (not mutually exclusive) of thinking about the enemy and the war. The first is that the enemy are Islamic fundamentalists and that the war is primarily a product of the unique aspects of fundamental Islamic religion and culture. The second is that the Islamic terrorists are the product of authoritarian, repressive and often stagnant regimes. The third school posits that terrorismâ€â€Islamic and otherwiseâ€â€is the historical result of foreign occupation.
…and that the political debate is largely premised on an avoidance, if not a rejection, of the the first theory. The Bush Administration has adopted the second theory, while its critics generally advocate disengagement, based on the third theory.
Wars of counter-insurgency, such as are being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, tend to be long and messy. Most know a bit about Vietnam (enough to be dangerous, anyway), but Malaysia, the Philippines and Algeria are examples of this also, albeit with differing results.
So I think it is too soon to conclude—as Rusty Shackleford apparently has—that the approach based on the second theory has failed.
Nevertheless, while supporters of the second approach (and even some of the critics, I suspect) would like to see it succeed, I do not think we are quite the rigid ideologues our critics suggest we are. I suspect that most of us consider that Afghanistan has a history as a failed state and that Iraq was historically created and later held together by force. I think we recognize that viable statehood is not created simply by international recognition as a state. Thus, prudence would dictate that we consider the types of scenarios that would lead us to conclude that “Plan A” has failed and what “Plan B” would be.
These are the questions I toss up for consideration and discussion: What are the conditions that would suggest to you that democratization is a policy failure, and—if those conditions occurred—which of the competing approaches would you adopt, and which strategies would further them?
At least one blogger I used to respect has taken Frist’s comments as justification for voting Democrat in November.
Panic is never a viable strategy.
The continuing development of a dependant class of professional voters by the Democrats and the resulting selfish and unsustainable fiscal policies. For a strategy I would recommend returning to the original method of state-selection of Senators and making voting contingent on your being a net contributor to the government…
oh wait… you were talking about Afghanistan?
You are asking prematurely. I heard the same thing about “you can’t force democracy on those people” when I was deployed…in Bosnia in 1997. So far, the Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks (not to mention the Macedonians) are lurching toward being part of the rest of the Mostly Free World.
Afghanistan is going to take alot longer becuase they have an awful lot more to recover from. Send the jury back out, Mr. Baliff. We’ll reconvene later.
lol, B Moe.
I would be more confident in democratization if it were called something else, like liberalization perhaps. Democracy is not the same thing as freedom. Our Founders knew that, but the lessons of Athens seem to have fallen from the American consciousness. (Oh hell, what am I saying? The existence of Athens has fallen from the American consciousness.)
Liberalization would entail both a change in government and a change in attitude that support individual freedom. At the very least, I would expect that there would not be any question of executing people for converting to a different religion.
Maj. John writes:
Please note from the original entry:
I agree that the jury is still out. Indeed, the examples of counter-insurgencies I cited all run considerably longer than either Afghanistan or Iraq.
I disagree that it is too early to ask about metrics of success or failure. I know the Major knows the Pentagon does all sorts of contingency planning (hence, the title of the entry).
Indeed, I suspect that the Major would be among those in a better position to describe the sorts of things he saw that told him things were going in the right direction, what sorts of setbacks turned out to be red herrings, etc., and invite further comment.
Ardsgaine writes:
Again, I agree. My prior entry linked above discusses the flaws in the democratization policy exposed over the past two years—flaws that flow, imho, in part from thinking of just democracy as the answer. Perhaps this is part of the answer to the questions posed here as well. Can the second approach succeed in the long run without a greater emphasis on the elements that are not “pure democracy,” e.g., the rule of law, protection of minority religious rights, protection against capture of new gov’ts by terror groups, etc?
Although I think that democratization in Iraq is possible, what I never hear discussed is the fact that unlike Iraq, America and the Western world had a 200 year (roughly) intellectual and philosophical build up before the first trully democratic state was created. We also had almost 2000 years of democratic tradition dating back to the Greeks, along with religious traditions (Judaism and Christianity) that valued law, personal value, and the sanctity of life. The Arab world does not have the same backround. It is drastically important for those in America who support democracy in Iraq (of which I consider myself a member) to understand the philosophical and religious canvas on which the New Iraq will be drawn. What does Islam say about individuality? What does Islam say about the sanctity of life and the rule of law? What can we do to use Islamic thought to support the creation of a modern Iraq? This can be done, I agree with the President when he says taht all men crave freedom. Some men, however, don’t know what to do with freedom once they have it, and old habits die hard. More than anything I think Iraq and the rest of the Arab world needs an Enlightenment, or an age of Reason, in which they can explore, question, and discover thier religion and cultural values, much like we had in the West. The raw material is there, they are as able any to adapt themselves to a new system.
We need to make sure that democracy is not used as a weapon against us. After Hamas was elected to power in the PA, one of their spokesmen stated:
I think we have turned our back on them, and I hope we continue to turn our backs on them, even if they play Fatah’s game of pretending to recognize Israel’s right to exist while trying to destroy it. We need to make it clear that elected thugs are still thugs. (See also Chavez, Hugo.) I worry about what will happen in Iraq and Afghanistan over time if we don’t make our position on this explicit.
TW: Let’s not waste the Major‘s good work.
I would quibble over the semantics. I don’t think US support of democracy must be defined by whether we give money to a government run by a terror group.
As said, democracy is more a result of building blocks in place than a system imposed. Major John’s observations in the Balkans are heartening, but I look closer to home in Latin America for examples.
Mexico has been on the verge of democracy for 100 years, and little of the Americas is solidly “free” a century after Bolivar. Demagogues are always lurking, and depend on ignorance more than ideology, so always threaten in places where ignorance rules. Just look at the Democratic Party.
And it’s hard to see democracy in the future of any place where people remember that someone insulted their tribe’s camels six generations back.
The very fact that SW Asian countries have zero experience with anything resembling a democracy/republic/something that empowers voters has troubled me from day one. On the one hand it is part of the justification of “imposed democracies” or in other words “hey, try this, you’ll like it!” A greater than 60% voter turnout suggests that even people with scant experience in representative government can be excited about being empowered.
On the other hand is the very real understanding that this kind of democracy/representative government will require a whole bunch of hand holding, advise, guidance and some occasional ass-kicking. This is where the whole “quagmire” concept becomes pre-eminant. How long and in what way do we continue to support and/or prop up these and others around the world? It’s a tough job to be sure.
The one thing that does encourage me is the idea that we are doing something that is hard now but with potential long term positives, not only for us but for the rest of “civilized” man.
I suppose our conduct toward WWII Japan could be an edifying example of a contingency plan.
The other alternative is to figure out which way toward Mecca, because you’ll be needing to know that.
I’ll bet many readers find this offensive. I’ll bet my wife’s uncle, former member of the Imperial Japanese Army, would not have hesitated one second to kill my US Army Air Corps dad had the opportunity arisen. I’m sure the opposite was likewise true.
From my perspective, the good guys won and both sides are probably better off for it. Unfortunately, a lot of people on both sides suffered until the enemy submitted.
We know what’s going to happen, and I’m glad we are doing our best to minimize the killing, but this is a war and one side is going to lose.
Amen, MarkD.
This is pretty much how these sorts of discussions tend to go. And MarkD may be entirely right.
But are MarkD’s alternatives the only options the US (or the West generally) have if the current approach is eventually judged by consensus view to be failing? They almost certainly will be if no one thinks about the subject in advance, which is why I raised the subject. It is also why it is important to try to have some metrics for measuring success and failure along the way, as noted in response to the Major.
Karl,
I meant that not so much toward your post – as toward those who have already made a final judgment. I wasn’t clear enough, as you have politely pointed out.
Rusty is a little more, uh, edgy than I am about #2. So he is willing to write off that one a bit quicker than I am.
BTW – Algeria can serve as an example not just for hher fight against France, but even moreso in her recent fight against her own homegrown Islamists. You think the killing is bad in Iraq? Algeria was lloking like it was going to turn into Rawanda North…Whole Algerian villages would be taken, the entire populace put, literally, to the sword. The Algerian Army killed a whole bunch of folks before the insurgency petered out. Brrrr.
It’s not just semantics. If we say that democracy is our goal, then it does commit us to supporting the peoples’ choice. If we don’t want to be committed to that support, then we have to point out that there are things over and above free elections that we value more, things we’re going to insist on. You’ve already mentioned some: freedom of religion, free speech, the right to peaceful assembly, the rule of law… All the building blocks of a free society. Free elections and representative government are only a small part of freedom, and by themselves they guarantee nothing.
Alexander questions whether the philosophic basis exists for such a society in the Middle East. We could have asked the same question of Japan in 1945. I don’t think that the appreciation of freedom requires centuries of cultural conditioning, but the difference has to be made up in enthusiasm.
One thing that could be said of Japan is that they wanted to be Westernized. Before the war, they thought that meant becoming an imperialist power. We gave them a better way to pursue that goal.
Does the Middle East want to become Westernized? Obviously, the Islamists do not. I don’t think they speak for everyone over there, but they are masters at channeling petty resentments into hatred of the West. In terms of material comforts, the Middle East wants what we have. I’m not sure they understand what they will have to give up in order to have it though: tribalism, superstition, religious intolerance, chattelhood for women…
They are going to have to learn to put up with dissent, behavior they deem offensive, and lack of complete control over their relationships with their wives and children. The philosophical changes they will have to make are easy compared to the psychological changes. I don’t think there’s a lot of enthusiasm among Middle Eastern men for those kinds of psychological changes.
The women, though… I think they are ready. Maybe it’s just a matter of keeping the men from suppressing their women long enough for the women to bring about the change.
TW: Wife
Ardsgaine wrote:
Obviously, I agree with most all of that. The semantic point here was not really “democracy,” though I agree that a better term should be used. Rather the semantic point was on “support.” I don’t believe that supporting democracy—or a better defined term—necessarily means that the US has a duty to give the PA money, any more than it obliges us to give the UK money.
Indeed, I would suggest that part of democracy (or democratic republicanism, or whatever) is people in the PA having to live with the consequences of their popular choice. If the new PA government does not want to honor the prior policies of the PA, it suffers certain consequences, as do the people who elected them. If you click through the link in the main entry regarding statehood, Lee Harris points out the folly of the modern international system, which treats statehood as something that is simply conferred, rather than earned. We can support structural reform while making clear that the substantive policies later pursued may have consequences.
Major John writes:
Not to mention that the Salafists are still targeting France decades after 1962. But I also look at Algeria when I consider the argument often advanced that more troops in Iraq—or a more lethal approach—would have necessarily led to a better situation now.
That’s a good point. We’re also not obliged to maintain diplomatic ties, nor trade with them, but cutting off previously given foreign aid to one particular country would indicate hostility to that country, as would those other actions. We would still have to explain why some things are more important to us than free elections.
Ignoring those parts where he attempts to squint at the problem through Marxist/Hegelian binoculars, that’s a very good article. I’m a little disappointed, though, that of all the names he drops, Locke’s never comes up. It doesn’t take a hugely novel concept of sovereignity to understand that what the Islamist states have is not sovereignity. The sovereignity of the state derives from the sovereignity of the invididual. According to Locke, it is the consent of the governed that gives legitimacy to government. Majority consent is a practical means of establishing consent, but the principle that underlies it is still individual sovereignity. One can take that idea a step forward, and insist that no government can be legitimate that denies individual sovereignity, regardless of whether it has majority consent.
I do not agree with Harris that a nation is only viable if it is capable of defending itself from all comers, but I agree that the people of the nation must be engaged with reality. Fundamentally, that means earning their own subsistence. Allowing the oil fields to be confiscated by the tyrants of the Middle East was one of the most bone-headed things we’ve done in the past 60 yrs.
One of the errors in Harris’s essay is that he claims the following as a lesson from Marx:
This is a lie when applied to Marx’s proletariat. They had numbers, but beyond that they simply appropriated what the bourgeois created. They were able to destroy the bourgeois, but they were not able to replace them with a viable alternative. The notion of a viable proletarian state was as fantastic as the notion of a viable Islamic one. Had the West not repeatedly come to the rescue of the Soviet State it would have collapsed much earlier than it did.
I mention this because in the immediate aftermath of WWII it was socialism that motivated the fantasies of the Middle East, and it was only after the failures of socialism became apparent that Islamism began to take over as the prevailing fantasy.
It’s far from clear that they had the numbers at the outset, really. “Bolshevism” was one of those Orwellian misnomers. But otherwise, yep.
How close would you say we are to having answered your question? Looking back, it seems like we’ve established that there’s a theoretical framework that we agree on, but haven’t come up with definite answers. Let’s put the question back up there:
First part of the question.
Some specific conditions that occur to me:
1) Laws that prevent the free exercise of religion by making Islam the official religion, punishing apostasy, or banning other belief systems.
2) Laws that prevent women from receiving an education, bar them from the workplace, or force them to wear the burka or jihab in public.
3) Allying the country with Islamist nations hostile to the US.
Those are the three biggies. I don’t expect a perfectly Westernized, liberal government to suddenly spring up over there, but I think the above are an absolute boundary.
Second part of the question.
I don’t accept that terrorism is the result of foreign occupation. I really don’t accept explanation number two either. I believe that Islamic terrorism is an outgrowth of Islam itself, coupled with the post-Kantian regression in Western philosophy. Islam motivates the terrorism, but without the philosophical degeneration of the West, it could not survive. We would have stamped it out before it ever took root.
Having failed of that, the only thing we can do for now is continue fighting a defensive war. Bush’s strategy is still essentially a defensive one. The strategy of ending state sponsors of terror was abandoned as not politically viable. It was the correct goal, but our prevailing ideas do not allow us to carry it out in the most effective way. Instead, our moral ideals force us to atone for the selfishness of defending ourselves by setting up new governments for the people in the countries we invade, rebuilding them at our own expense, and then defending them from the Islamists. We’ve simply moved the trench to a forward position. There’s no sign that we are prepared to pursue the Islamists wherever they go, and wipe them off the face of the Earth. There is always a hidey hole just beyond our reach where they can take shelter, regroup, and come back for more.
That strategy does nothing to enage the people of the Middle East with reality. We are shielding them from what ought to be the consequences of threatening our existence. At best, it is a half-engagement. Some may see that we have offered them a better alternative, but they haven’t fully seen where the other path must lead. The ones who refuse to relinquish the fantasy of the Islamic caliphate, can go on nursing their hatred, and looking toward the day when they can strike that fatal blow. They should have seen where that would lead on September 12, 2001.
So, yes, I’m one of those people who are waiting for the day when Afghanistan and Iraq declare themselves Islamic Republics, and then my response will be, “Okay, Mr. President, you tried the kindler, gentler method. You sacrificed the lives of our sons and daughters to save the lives of the enemy. Now do what you have to do to end this threat.”
I think the discussion has been interesting, and the three conditions you set out on the first question are sound.
As to the second question, I guess I am also curious as to whether there is any way of judging the military aspects in mid-war. Generally, escalation is one of the primary features of war, so I’m not sure we can—but if we can, I’d like input. That’s why I encouraged Maj. John to comment further.
Also, my original post setting out the three typical theories regarding terrorism noted that they are not mutually exclusive. In at least some cases you can see different elements at work (e.g., the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood was probably in part a reaction to the Egyptian gov’t at the time), though in general I would tend to rank their influence in descending order.
As far as looking at alternatives, we probably have fallen short. For example, in the case of Iraq, some of the critics (like Biden) have suggested partition. I might disagree with that for various reasons, but I do appreciate that some critics are offering an idea that is neither total surrender nor total war (in the sense of using WMDs, etc.).
I don’t know whether there are similar types of intermediate solutions if democratization is later judged a failure in Afghanistan. Back out and launch airstrikes every time a satellite or drone spots a nascent terror camp? Possibly, but are there better solutions?
I’m thinking about the issue because those of us who tend to see things in terms of the first theory would have to look at several hard realities or possibilities in the event that the second theory approach is later judged to have failed. (Conversely, there is the question as to whether those hard realities should influence the degree to which we pursue the current path, but that’s another post.)
First, as you sort of suggest, there is the issue of whether the US, let alone Europe would stand for a more aggressive war, absent some event worse than 9/11 happening.
Second, there are the possible scenarios that would follow from a more aggressive war. It’s almost a certainty that you would have seething Muslims worldwide. It’s easy to say, “so what?” until some newly-minted homegrown jihadis start acting like Hamas, blowing themselves up on buses, in restaurants and bars, etc. What is the gov’t response to that scenario? Whatever it is, you can bet the usual suspects (A-C-L-U) will oppose it in court, prehaps in front of a friendly judge in Michigan. And so on.
These are the things I think about when I’m not thinking about Scarlett Johansson.
Exactly. Militarily, the only way we can lose is by retreating. There’s no freaking way that a bunch of savages can defeat the world’s greatest military. Every time they come out of their holes, they die. Anyone who thinks that an event like we had this past summer looks like defeat is an idiot. I don’t worry about that part of it at all. What I worry about is that the governments we have chosen to empower turn out to be no better than the ones we replaced. In that case, I begin to ask myself that awful question: what did our soldiers die for? And I get pissed off at the answer. That’s when I revert to “nuke em all” mode.
I don’t think there’s a middle ground between them becoming liberal societies or being wiped off the face of the map. I really want the former to happen, rather than the latter. I think taking the latter off the table makes the former less likely though. If that’s really the choice, then they need to realize it. Instead of denying that we issued an ultimatum to Pakistan at the beginning of the war, we need to say, “Yes, that’s right, and it’s still true.”
That’s really the problem. Going back to the military criterion for failure, there is just this one. If we allow our policies to create a safe haven for terrorists, then we cannot win. So long as they have a place to regroup and rearm, the war will go on indefinitely. And if the war goes on indefinitely, eventually there will be another 9/11.
The only reason why we would declare some part of the globe off limits to our troops is because we are afraid of escalating the war to include the entire Middle East. We are afraid of being at war with 1.3 billion people. Not because we’re afraid of losing, but because we’re afraid of what we would have to do to win.
I think that if it came down to a choice between survival and wiping 1.3 billion people off the planet, Americans would choose survival. They don’t have the moral certainty, though, to make the choice based on anything less than direct perceptual evidence that there is no third way. The only evidence that can meet that standard is a mushroom cloud over a major US city. When that evidence comes, the reaction will be much worse than if we went into it coldly with nothing but the intention to eliminate any possible hiding place for terrorists.
Spot on, Ardsgaine! This brings to the forefront the challenges faced by a less than united homefront. You’ve laid out the criteria for pre-emptive war as a reflection of the unique conditions that exist in history with regards to jihadists and their desire/ability to acquire WMD’s. Because of this dynamic we cannot allow, under any circumstances, these groups to have safe harbor anywhere. The problem is that a loud minority not only refuses to acknowledge the need, they won’t even acknowledge the threat. Remember when Anony-Mouse talked about Al-Qaeda and their ilk as “criminals?” His band can’t even accept the justification of Afganistan let alone Iraq or (perhaps) Iran or Syria. They are paralyzed by the idea of what a conflict like that might mean therefore the only way to intellectually avoid it is to diminish the threat and fall back on lousy historical parallels (Vietnam, etc.) This is fear mongering at its worst and most dangerous.
Tere are a number of people in this country and in the Western World who are going to have to suck it up and grow a spine. I suspect that this war will get worse before it gets better. We all are going to have to decide whether we are going to do what it takes to win or backslide into an ineffectual diplomatic/UN template that will allow the enemy to regroup and acquire the very weapons that they need to do even worse damage than has already been done.
We are not even close to how bad it could get for us.
Except that if the governments don’t turn out well, but in the absence of another 9/11, the US may well just try to cut a face-saving deal with Iran and Syria and kick the can down the road to a much worse event.
Doubly tragic when one considers that the areas of Iraq under US protection during the 90s are generally further along the road to the type of liberalized attitudes we would consider a success. (btw, this makes the proposed integration of the Kurdih peshmerga into the IA both a risk and an opportunity).
Perhaps one hypothesis that could emerge from this discusssion is that the general public needs to hear more about the downsides to the alternatives to the current approach as part of an argument for patience. After a while a slogan like “stay the course” grows stale unless you put flesh on the bones.
I think the US public still generally agrees that retreat would be a disaster, but I think the consensus here is that there is currently not support for more aggressive war (which, as I noted, carries its own risks). So it would behoove hawks to stress the evidence from northern Iraq and—to a lesser degree—southern Iraq that the population that has had more time to become more civilized is in fact further along the road to doing so. Otherwise, the Administration may rush into a temporary, bogus solution by pretending that Iran and Syria are not a major part of the problem.
Unfortunately the drumbeat of “Bush Lied, people died” and it’s related chants by the MSM and the Left has too many people focused on “how did this happen?” as compared to “Where do we go from here and what are the consequences of failure or giving up?” This is the most frustrating aspect of the GWOT. The longer the great unwashed left continues to pooh-pooh the threat, the harder it is to focus the electorate on the consequences of “cut and run.”
Also this argument runs the risk of being twisted into a “oh, you screwed up and now you want us to support pulling your buns out of the fire?” Andrew and his ilk are going to beat us over the head with Heritage, NIE and other reports that detail the challenges and how we are creating terrorists by our very presence, thereby making us less secure. The discussion has to be targeted to the “before” situation with the focus on active, well attended terrorist training bases (Al Qaeda in Afganistan and the three major foreign training bases in Iraq) and the strategic fact that we are far “less” secure with, to paraphrase Ardsgaine, places for terrorists to rest and re-equip than we are dealing with insurgents in country, sucking up their resources and manpower.
I’m not advocating forgetting about WMD’s becuase I think that it is the height if naivete to think that sanctions would have made us safe from Saddam’s obsession with developing these weapons. Sooner or later they would have ended up in and been used by a terror cell, most likely against a European or Muslim target but realistically against our people as well. I feel much better about those training camps (and the 2-3 thousand fighters killed or captured during the blitzkreig) being out of commission than I am concerned about lack of WMD’s. (Although I still would love to be a moth in the Bekaa Valley…)
Can we win the hearts and minds of enough Americans to buttress the continued foreign pursuit of jihadists and propping of ME democracies? My heart (metaphorically, Ardsgaine, OK? Geez!) says yes but a dark, depressed part of my brain says that it will take another major attack, probably one that makes 9/11 pale in comparison. I hate having that concept in my head.
Per my prior entries here, the substance of the “making more” argument is rather thin (though I agree that Sully or others will make it, requiring it be addressed).
What I’m saying is that I didn’t mind much when Musharraf claimed that the US threatened to bomb Pakistan into the Stone Age, true or not. I’m suggesting that the US public and the rest of the world needs an occasional reminder that retreat likely leads to another 9/11, which in turn likely leads to an all-out war of annihilation based on a much lower level of proof than we had with Iraq. The message ought to be that none of the basic policy choices here is pretty, and the one being pursued is the least ugly in the long run.
Karl, this has been a great discussion with timely and thought provoking comments from many. It’s nice to know that I’m not “pissing in the wind” when I bore people with this stuff.
You should take look at the writings of Trudy Rubin from the Philadelphia Inquirer. she is the leading drumbeater for the whole Dorito/Terrorist screed. I’d be interested in your thoughts on her methodology, such as it is.
Thanks again for all of your hard work in this.
Judging from her recent columns, you’re being awfully kind to suggest she has a methodology.
As I have noted, the increase in serious terror attacks is attributable almost entirely to Iraq.
But look at how Rubin characterizes this:
First, she is conflating the jihadis and hard-line Baathists. Lefties want to count all of these attacks as terror attacks and, otoh, yell about Iraq descending into civil war. What is the basis for assuming that—when this all reaches a point of equillibrium—that hard-line Baathists (assuming there are many left) are going to be willing or able to mount serious terror attacks in the West, let alone in the US? As I noted in the prior entry, the sectarian violence is revenge killing by the victors, which should tell Rubin who is losing.
At the crassest, most selfish level, wouldn’t this serve US interests? We pull out, our enemies fight a proxy war of attrition in Iraq. Wouldn’t that be just about the best thing since the Iran and Iraq war, which kept our enemies fighting each other (instead of us) for years?
As has been documented endlessly, our military generally turned its back on counterinsurgency operations after the Vietnam War. The myth that it was all Rummy’s fault is exactly that—a myth. As is the notion that the overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar would not have been a haven for the former Baathists who saw themselves as losing everything from the toppling of Saddam.
As for those swimming jihadis, Rubin is unaware that AQ itself sees AQI as weak. Unaware that AQI’s leader is publicly begging for reinforcements because the US has killed so many jihadis. Unaware that they are now reduced to using unwitting kidnap victims as suicide bombers. Unaware that even the UN thinks that Al Qaeda “may see more losses than gains” in Iraq.
Later in the same column:
Aside from mischaracterizing the report, please note that Rubin thinks we screwed up by being heavy-handed in Anbar and are screwing up now because we aren’t being more heavy-handed in Anbar.
Elsewhere, Rubin plays a fictional Dem pol on this point:
So, we were heavy-handed, but we need more troops, don’t have more troops, need to search harder for more troops, the right kind of troops, troops with training our military avoided for decades, etc.
Rubin seems unaware that 25 of the 31 predominately Sunni tribes in Anbar Province have pledged to fight al-Qaeda and support the Shiite led government. Unaware of reports that insurgents are losing ground, and Iraqi security forces are gaining. Unaware of progress in Al-Qaim and Ramadi. Unaware that US and Iraqi forces killed or captured more than 600 suspected members of AQI in September, or that over 200 wanted suspects were arrested by the Iraqi army in a large operation against insurgents last week in Diyala province and were put oÂÂn display in Baquba.
More Rubin:
As though this is the first war to have looting in the immediate aftermath. As if there was a functioning IA to disband. As though the Shia and Kurds would have stood for a Sunni-dominated IA. And so on.
I am amazed she gets paid for that “analysis.”