The Enemy Fails

[kg_veteran]

THE ENEMY FAILS

By AMIR TAHERI

link

October 29, 2006 -- AMERICAN angst over Iraq typically misses two key points.

First: The United States has already achieved the goals it had proclaimed when it set out to liberate the country in 2003. Saddam Hussein and his war machinery are gone, with a democracy in their place, inspiring reform across the region.

Second: This success threatens countless interests - so the many enemies of the new Iraq are attempting to derail it. Yet their only real hope of victory lies with America public opinion.

Consider the events of the last month.

NEW Iraq's various enemies had designated the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan that has just ended as "The Month of Battle and Victory" (shahr al-maarakah wa al-nasr). Through their various statements, distributed on jihadist Web sites and TV channels owned by Arab despots, they had fixed a number of objectives that they had hoped to achieve with a view to demoralizing the American people and strengthening the cut-and-run party in Washington and London.

The average televiewer in the United States or Europe may well conclude that the enemies of new Iraq have achieved their Ramadan objectives. This has been the deadliest month in well over a year, with at least 600 civilians killed in several dozen insurgent operations. The Iraqi army and police lost more than 180 men, while U.S. forces suffered 98 dead.

The perception created is that of a situation in which the terrorists can strike where and when they want while U.S. and Iraqi forces are murdered without inflicting the slightest harm on the enemy.

Nevertheless, the Saddamites, the jihadists and the militias sponsored by Tehran not only achieved none of their objectives but also suffered their biggest losses since the start of the insurgency in 2004.

HERE are some of the objectives that the Jihadists, the Saddamites and other enemies of new Iraq had fixed for themselves but did not achieve:

* Seizing enough territory in and around the towns of Haditha and Aanah in the al-Anbar province to establish an "Islamic emirate" there. Despite several major attempts they failed, largely because a strong new coalition of Sunni Arab tribes in Anbar has entered the fight to flush the jihadists out of Iraq.

* To gain a foothold in Mosul, Iraq's largest Arab Sunni city, and turn it into a new base as Fallujah had been in 2004. Again, despite several attempts, the plan failed - thanks to the new Iraqi army backed by U.S. forces.

* To blow up the Shiite holy shrines in Karbala and Najaf just as was done in Samarrah last year. At least 12 suicide-bombers were sent to the two cities on the last day of Ramadan. The authorities decided to close the shrines for 48 hours, captured some of the would-be bombers and nipped the plot in the bud.

* Attacking the "Green Zone" in the heat of Baghdad, where most Iraqi government offices and the U.S. embassy are located. The insurgents made at least two attempts but failed, suffering heavy casualties.

* To paralyze the parliament by threatening to kill its members at a time they were discussing such key issues as federalism, a law for foreign investments in Iraq and the terms of an amnesty and national reconciliation. Again, despite several attempts on the lives of parliamentarians, the plot failed.

* To prevent Arab Sunni clerics from traveling to Mecca to sign a concordat with their Shiite clerics, calling for an end to sectarian killings. Again, the jihadist efforts failed, as all key figures in the Arab Sunni clerical elite of Iraq went to Mecca and signed the concordat.

* Muqtada al-Sadr and his Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) tried to seize control of the southern Shiite city of al-Amarah with a well-planned attack reportedly designed by Iranian advisers. However, the attack failed and Sadr's gunmen were flushed out of the city.

* Sadr's militia, in alliance with local gangsters, tried to seize control of part of the border with Iran through which crude oil is smuggled from Iraq to the Iranian refinery at Kermanshah. The attempt failed - thanks to the new Iraqi army, which now controls virtually the whole of the border outside the Kurdish areas.

* Despite numerous murders and abductions, the jihadist promise to force the total closure of hospitals, universities, schools, newspapers, TV stations and even barber shops was not fulfilled.

* A plot by Sadr militias to seize the Interior Ministry and reinstate the 1,300 of their members who had been purged by the new minister failed, again thanks to the new Iraqi police.

* Despite explicit murder threats, more than a dozen prominent Iraqi political figures, among them former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and former Deputy Premier Ahmad Chalabi, returned to Baghdad after months spent abroad.

* Attempts at preventing the forthcoming local government elections by destroying voter lists and killing election organizers have failed. The elections will take place on schedule with all Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish and Christian parties already in the field.

* To drive a wedge between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhamamd Sistani, the primus inter pares of the Shiite clergy. The attempt, backed by Sadr and others, failed when Maliki went to Najaf to acknowledge Sistani's position and secure his blessing for planned amnesty measures.

* To prevent the marking of the Eid al-Fitr (the end of Ramadan) by threatening people with massive suicide attacks. Again, despite several murder operations, the terrorists failed as countless Iraqis celebrated the feast with greater determination than previous years.

The various enemies of new Iraq murdered a large number of people in Ramadan, but failed to translate their crimes into any political gains for themselves. Politically, the Saddamites, the jihadists and other enemies of new Iraq have passed their worst month ever.

THE only success they have had is in the field of perceptions in the United States and the West in general. They could point to the fact that the "Iraq is a failure" chorus is at its loudest yet in the United States, while signs of a possible British loss of nerve multiply.

It is largely the hope of breaking the will of the American people and its key allies that keeps the insurgency alive.

Tomorrow: The Big Picture

Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.

[dude1394]

Nice article, thanks KG....It's so hard to get the media to take this conflict seriously as an actual struggle. The western media is only interested in the ebb and flo of how things effect dubya politically.

Getting details is impossible without blogs and thoughtful columnists. How pathethic the media has become with respect to actually informing the populace.

[FishForLunch]

It election season, once the Dems win the MSN will say how the situation in Iraq is changing with Democratic help.

[kg_veteran]

Here's Taheri's follow-up column:

IRAQ & AMERICA'S '06 VOTE

By AMIR TAHERI

link

October 30, 2006 -- AT the polls next week, many Americans will cast their ballots on the basis of what's going on in Iraq.

This is not surprising. The war was always opposed by a large and vocal segment of the U.S. political and cultural elite. With the economy doing well and the nation so far protected against a repeat of 9/11, the American opposition has few horses to run against President Bush and his party. And Iraq is an attractive horse, illustrated by gruesome TV images almost every night.

Most Americans are unfamiliar with Iraq's complex political, ethnic, religious and cultural realities. So, when television presents a charred vehicle left by a suicide bomber and experts pronouncing Iraq a failure, many decide that it is a lost cause - and the sooner the Americans extricate themselves, the better.

This is precisely why the Saddamite desperados and the jihadists keep fighting a war in Iraq that they cannot win.

Their strategy is based on a simple assumption: Americans will be so shocked and disheartened by the daily carnage that they'll force their government to "cut and run" - or, if it refuses, replace it with one that will.

In Jihadist circles, that strategy is known as "the Madrid Logic" (mantaq al-Madrid), after the deadly terrorist operation in the Spanish capital that succeeded in changing that country's government and its foreign policy.

This logic works because the Western democracies' political elites, and beyond them the electorate, seldom take the time to even ask the key questions, let alone find proper answers.

Start with three questions:

* Why did the United States and its allies intervene in Iraq?

* Was it worthwhile, especially with reference to the national interests of the U.S. and allies?

* Has it achieved its goals?

For those who claim that the United States went to Iraq out of hubris, or to steal Iraq's oil or to please Israel, the intervention was self-evidently worthless, and a failure. But the majority of Americans should judge liberation not with reference to conspiracy theories, but on the basis of their leaders' stated objectives.

These were:

* To topple Saddam Hussein's regime, which had provoked two major regional wars and defied the will of the United Nations over two decades, and to dismantle its machinery of war and repression.

* To restore power to the people of Iraq and help them set up a new political system of their choice.

* To build new Iraq as a model for all Arab countries still under archaic despotic regimes.

All three goals have been achieved, albeit in varying degrees of success:

* Saddam is in prison, with his machinery of war and repression shattered.

* Power has been restored to the people of Iraq, who have written their own Constitution, held a series of free elections and formed a coalition government of their choice.

* Despite its obvious difficulties, new Iraq has inspired democratic aspirations across the Middle East, and forced some of the despotic regimes into making concessions to their peoples.

Does all that justify intervention? Some might think not. Others, however, will assert that helping free a nation of 25 million from one of the worst regimes in recent history was a noble deed.

Did it serve the interests of America and its allies? Again, some might say: No, it angered some U.S. allies and partners, notably France and Russia, while causing anxiety among Washington's Arab protégés.

But it is also possible to argue that the United States can never be secure until the Middle East is democratized. The region's undemocratic states, obsessed by Arab chauvinism or raving pan-Islamism, operate as swamps that breed the mosquitoes of terror. An Iraq under a democratic regime, based on the will of its peoples, poses no threat to America or its allies; a Saddamite or Qaeda-ist regime would.

Was the intervention successful? Yes. The U.S.-led Coaltion achieved all its objectives in Iraq in just three years. What is at issue now is how to protect that success against enemies out to undo it.

It is on this account that the U.S.-led Coalition's policies and performance in Iraq are open to a range of criticism. Such criticism, however, should not cast doubt on the legitimacy and basic success of the intervention so far.

It is no surprise that so dramatic a success would provoke much equally dramatic hostility. The remnants of the Saddamites were never expected to shed their uniforms and go home to cry, nor the jihadists to swallow the coming of democracy to the Arab heartland.

Nor could Tehran's mullahs be expected to tolerate a Shiite majority democracy next door to the theocratic prison they have created, or Arab despots to welcome an Iraq where people can change the government through the ballot box.

Political mavericks such as Muqtada Sadr, backed by militias financed and armed by Tehran, could not be expected to ignore opportunities to win by force the power they can't get in free elections. Nor would the Mafia-type criminal gangs that thrived in Saddam's final years simply go away.

New Iraq has many vicious enemies because it is a success. It is not a failure to be jettisoned quickly, but a victory that must be defended within the timeframe needed to crush its enemies.

So far, those enemies have failed to derail the political process in Iraq or to extend their initial constituencies. Yesterday's column detailed how these forces failed to achieve any of their stated goals for the bloody Ramadan just concluded. Their only success has been in the field of perceptions in America and the West in general.

It is largely the hope of breaking the will of the American people that keeps the insurgency alive. In that context, the only policy that is both moral and realistic is to stay the course. This does not mean sticking to policies and tactics that produce few results or are manifest failures - but sticking to the strategy of defending the emergence of a democratic Iraq as a model for reform in the Middle East.

Such a strategy would achieve quicker success if it enjoyed bipartisan support in America. The biggest blow to the many enemies of new Iraq would be a clear message from the United States that, whoever controls the next Congress, Americans won't hand Iraq over to the jihadists, the Saddamites or the mullahs of Tehran.

Having won an historic victory in Iraq, the United States and its allies should have the courage to preserve it.

Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.

[MavsX]

nice article man..i love reading this kind of stuff..

i actually look forward to these kinds of articles here at work......

[Male30Dan]

Nice read!

[dude1394]

Sheesh dan...you think you could find something a little more abrasive for your sig?

[Male30Dan]

I actually think it is hilarious... I have been laughing at it for the better part of 4 hours. I will take it off when it no longer humors me!

[Usually Lurkin]

of course, there is this:

Here’s what Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nassrallah told Arab audiences on Al-Jazeera a few days ago (Oct. 31 and translation courtesy of MEMRI):

The Americans will gather their belongings and leave this region - the entire region. They have no future whatsoever in our region. They will leave the Middle East, and the Arab and Islamic worlds, like they left Vietnam. I advise all those who place their trust in the Americans to learn the lesson of Vietnam, and to learn the lesson of the South Lebanese Army with the Israelis, and to know that when the Americans lose this war—and lose it they will, Allah willing—they will abandon them to their fate, just like they did to all those who placed their trust in them throughout history.

(from a post at the corner)


Anyone else think that stepping up their efforts the month leading up to US mid-term elections helped swing things the way of the enemy?

[u2sarajevo]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

Anyone else think that stepping up their efforts the month leading up to US mid-term elections helped swing things the way of the enemy?

Without question. Just as I believe that Bin Laden's tape before the Presidential election helped out the Republicans.

That statement is kind of telling isn't it? Now that the Democrats control Congress (at the least the House anyway... most likely Senate) are they going to cut losses and bail? Will they prove Nassrallah to be right?

Democrats.... you've got your chance to prove to America that you can lead. Bush is a lame duck..... you have been given the publics trust to do the right thing. Please don't let us down.

[Mavdog]

congress doesn't set american foreign policy nor does it lead the armed services.

any change in the iraq policies will have to come from the white house.

as much as carville and others tried to paint the election results as a mandate on iraq, it wasn't. yes, the public is not happy with iraq, but it was a general dissatisfaction with the republican party- too many scandals, too much perceived arrogance- that decided this election imho.

what is clear is the center of the party reemerged last night. the far left does not control the future of the democrtat party now.

[u2sarajevo]

Hmmmmm... I thought the House appropriated funds for Defense?

[Mavdog]

do you believe that stopping funding for the armed forces, who are in a war right now, would be a good political move?

nah, I don't either.

[alexamenos]

I love this statement....

THE only success they have had is in the field of perceptions in the United States and the West in general. They could point to the fact that the "Iraq is a failure" chorus is at its loudest yet in the United States, while signs of a possible British loss of nerve multiply.

It is largely the hope of breaking the will of the American people and its key allies that keeps the insurgency alive.

It reveals either an extraordinary grasp of the obvious or an utter lack of any understanding of the strategy and tactics in insurgent warfare. My money is on the latter.

One would make a slightly more substantive a point by saying "It is largely the hope of outscoring the Mavs that will keep the LA Clippers in the game tonight."

Right, that's the whole friggin' game.

Two really important points to keep in mind when it comes to insurgent warfare....

1) Breaking the will of a militarily superior occupying power is the only hope that has ever kept any insurgency alive.

2) Lot's of insurgencies have succeeded.

So, saying that the only success the insurgents have had is in the hearts and minds of the United States and the West is a lot like saying the only success the insurgents have had is in the one thing that really matters.

IOW, they're losing all the battles but winning the war.

[kg_veteran]

You're weird.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

congress doesn't set american foreign policy nor does it lead the armed services.

Congress is responsible for declaring whether and with whom we make war.

At least it does if you believe the Constitution.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

You're weird.

I would argue that weird is pontificating on the course of an insurgent war without having the slightest understanding of insurgent warfare.

Well...that's not weird, that's foolish.

Ok, you've got a point. I'm weird, but I'm not a fool.

Cheers

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

Congress is responsible for declaring whether and with whom we make war.

At least it does if you believe the Constitution.

strangely enough we've been in "conflicts" in which congress never was asked to declare war.

and in the case of iraq, well, that was voted on and consent was given years ago.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

strangely enough we've been in "conflicts" in which congress never was asked to declare war.

Nothing strange at all about this -- governments break their own laws all the time. it would indeed be very strange if a government religiously obeyed its own laws.

at any rate, that's why I qualified my earlier statement with "at least if you believe the Constitution." I'm quite aware that few take it seriously.

Originally Posted by Mavdog

and in the case of iraq, well, that was voted on and consent was given years ago.

Yeah, and I don't quite see where this is necessarily a one way street. that is, they can give their consent and they can take it back.

Regardless, I don't believe they will withdraw consent--objectively, I think we'll be in Iraq for at least a decade hence.

Cheers