domestic opponents of the Iraq war.
They're going to be ignored.
They're being ignored now. Virtually no media source or Democratic
politician (and not a few Republicans, led by Richard "I can always
backtrack" Lugar) is willing to admit that the situation on the ground has
changed dramatically over the past three months. Coalition efforts have
undergone a remarkable reversal of fortune, a near-textbook example as to
how an effective strategy can overcome what appear to be overwhelming
drawbacks.
Anbar is close to being secured, thanks to the long-ridiculed strategy of
recruiting local sheiks. A capsule history of war coverage could be put
together from stories on this topic alone - beginning with sneers, moving on
to "evidence" that it would never work, to the puzzled pieces of the past
few months admitting that something was happening, and finally the recent
stories expressing concern that the central government might be "offended"
by the attention being paid former Sunni rebels. (Try to find another story
in the legacy media worrying about the feelings of the Iraqi government.)
What you will not find is any mention of the easily-grasped fact that Anbar
acts as a blueprint for the rest of the country. If the process works there,
it will work elsewhere. If it works in other areas, that means the
destruction of the Jihadis in detail.
Nor is that all. Diyala province, promoted in media as the "new Al-Queda
stronghold" appears to have become a death-trap. The Jihadis can neither
defend it nor abandon it. The Coalition understood that Diyala was where the
Jihadis would flee when the heat came down in Baghdad, and they were ready
for them. A major element of surge strategy - and one reason why the extra
infantry brigades were needed - is to pressure Jihadis constantly in all
their sanctuaries, allowing them no time to rest or regroup.
A blizzard of operations is occurring throughout central Iraq under the
overall code-name Phantom Thunder, the largest operation since the original
invasion. It is open-ended, and will continue as long as necessary. Current
ancillary operations include Arrowhead Ripper, which is securing the city of
Baqubah in Diyala province. Operation Alljah is methodically clearing out
every last neighborhood in Fallujah. In Babil province, southeast of
Baghdad, operations Marne Torch and Commando Eagle are underway. (As this
was being written, yet another spinoff operation, Marne Avalanche, began in
Northern Babil.)
The Coalition has left the treadmill in which one step of progress seemed to
unavoidably lead to two steps back. It requires some time to discover the
proper strategy in any war. A cursory glance at 1943 would have given the
impression of disaster. Kasserine, in which the German Wehrmacht nearly
split Allied forces in Tunisia and sent American GIs running. Tarawa, where
over 1,600 U.S. Marines died on a sunny afternoon thanks to U.S. Navy
overconfidence. Salerno, where the Allied landing force was very nearly
pushed back into the sea. But all these incidents, as bitter as they may
have been, were necessary to develop the proper techniques that led to the
triumphs of 1944 and 1945.
Someday, 2006 may be seen as Iraq's 1943. It appears that Gen. David
Petreaus has discovered the correct strategy for Iraq: engaging the Jihadis
all over the map as close to simultaneously as possible. Keeping them on the
run constantly, giving them no place to stand, rest or refit. Increasing
operational tempo to an extent that they cannot match ("Getting inside their
decision cycle", as the 4th generation warfare school would call it),
leaving them harried, uncertain, and apt to make mistakes.
The surge is more of a refinement than a novelty. Earlier Coalition efforts
were not in error as much as they were incomplete. American troops would
clean out an area, turn it over to an Iraqi unit, and depart. The Jihadis
would then push out the unseasoned Iraqis and return to business. This
occurred in Fallujah, Tall Afar, and endless times in Ramadi.
Now U.S. troops are remaining on site, which reassures the locals and
encourages cooperation. The Jihadis broke (and more than likely never knew)
the cardinal rule of insurgency warfare, that of being a good guest. As Mao
put it, "The revolutionary must be as a fish among the water of the
peasantry." The Jihadis have been lampreys to the Iraqi people.
Proselytizing, forcing adaptation of their reactionary creed, engaging in
torture, kidnapping, and looting. Arabic culture is one in which open
dealings, personal loyalty, and honor are at a premium. Violate any of them,
and there is no way back. The Jihadis violated them all. The towns and
cities of Iraq are no longer sanctuaries.
The results have begun to come in. On July 4, Khaled al-Mashhadani, the most
senior Iraqi in Al-Queda, was captured in Mosul. On July 14, Abu Jurah, a
senior Al-Queda leader in the area south of Baghdad, was killed in a
coordinated strike by artillery, helicopters, and fighter-bombers. These
blows to the leadership are the direct outgrowth of Jihadi brutality and the
new confidence among the Iraqis in what they have begun to call the
"al-Ameriki tribe".
We will see more of this in the weeks ahead. The Jihadis have come up with
no effective counterstrategy, and the old methods have begun to lose mana.
The last massive truck-bomb attack occurred not in Baghdad, but in a small
Diyala village that defied Al-Queda. An insurgency in the position of using
its major weapons to punish noncombatants is not in a winning situation.
You will look long and hard to find any of this in the legacy media. Apart
from a handful of exceptions (such as John F. Burns of the New York Times),
it's simply not being covered. Those operational names would come across as
bizarre to the average reader, the gains they have made impossible to fit
into the worldview that has been peddled unceasingly by the dead tree
fraternity. What the media is concentrating on - and will to continue to
concentrate on, in defiance of sense, protest, and logic, to the bitter
end - is peripheral stories such as the Democrat's Senate pajama party,
reassertions of the claim that the war has "helped" Al-Queda, and the latest
proclamation from the world's greatest fence-sitter.
The situation as it stands is very close to that of the final phase of
Vietnam. Having for several years confused that country's triple-layer
jungle with the rolling plains of northwest Europe, William Westmoreland in
1968 turned over command to Creighton Abrams. Though also a veteran of the
advance against Germany (he had been Patton's favorite armored commander),
Abrams lacked his predecessor's taste for vast (not to mention futile)
multi-unit sweeps. After carrying out a careful analysis, Abrams reworked
Allied strategy to embody the counterinsurgency program advocated by Marine
general Victor Krulak and civilian advisor John Paul Vann.
Abram's war was one of small units moving deep into enemy territory, running
down enemy forces and then calling in massive American firepower in the form
of artillery or fighter-bombers for the final kill.(Anyone wishing for a
detailed portrayal of this style of operations should pick up David
Hackworth's Steel My Soldiers' Hearts. It will surprise no one to learn that
Hackworth claims that the strategy was his idea and that he had to fight the
entire U.S. military establishment to see it through, but it's a good read
all the same.) This was a strategy that played to American strengths, one
that went after the enemy where he lived. By 1970, Abrams had chased the
bulk of the Vietnamese communists across the border into Cambodia and Laos.
But Vietnam also had its ruling narrative, one that had no room for
successful combat operations. That narrative had been born in 1968, at the
time of the Tet offensive. Tet was a nationwide operation intended by North
Vietnamese commander Nguyen Vo Giap to encourage the Vietnamese people to
join with the Viet Cong and PAVN in overthrowing the government. It was an
utter rout, with the communists losing something in the order of 60,000 men.
The Viet Cong were crippled as a military force, and never did recover.
But panicky reporters, many of whom had never set foot on a battlefield (not
to mention figures at ease with manipulating the facts, such as Peter
Arnett), were badly shaken by the opening moves of the offensive, among them
an abortive attack on the U.S. embassy grounds at Saigon. Their reportage,
broadcast and printed nationwide, portrayed a miserable defeat for the U.S.
and its allies, with the Viet Cong and PAVN striking where they pleased and
making off at their leisure. The media portrait of a beleaguered American
war effort was never corrected, and became the consensus view. (This process
was analyzed in detail in Peter Braestrup's Big Story, one of the most
crucial -- and overlooked -- media studies ever to see print.) After Tet,
there could be no victories.
The success of the Abrams strategy was buried for twenty years and more, as
the myth of utter U.S. defeat was put in concrete by "experts" such as
Stanley Karnow, Frances FitzGerald, and Neil Sheehan. Only with the
appearance of revisionist works such as Lewis Sorley's A Better War and Mark
Moyar's Triumph Forsaken has the record begun to be set straight.
That was how it was played at the close of the Vietnam War. That's how it's
being played today.
And what do they want, exactly? What is the purpose of playing so fast and
loose with the public safety, national security, and human lives both
American and foreign?
Generally, when someone repeats a formula, it's because they want to repeat
a result. And that's what the American left wants in this case. During the
mid-70s, American liberals held political control
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