It’s useful now and then to look at the war through the enemy’s eyes. The elite media are currently doing all they can to portray Iraq as a “quagmire” for America, a message echoed by the anti-war Left, the isolationist Right and the Chick Hagel Muddle-of-the-Road. The basis for their pessimism is the inability so far of American and Iraqi forces to suppress urban terrorism, a condition that they assume (in some cases, hope) will persist indefinitely.
But what about the other side? A military “quagmire” is, properly speaking, a conflict in which one expends forces without rational hope of success. From the perspective of al-Qa’eda and the Ba’athist remnants in Iraq, that is a fair description of the current state of affairs. The only realm in which they can fight without being slaughtered is the murder of civilians, which brings them no closer to political power. Stand-up combat against American or, to an increasing extent, Iraqi soldiers is a form of suicide. Terrorism may attract publicity, but it shows no sign of breaking the government’s morale and leading to an invitation to take over. Meanwhile, foot soldiers die, leaders are killed or captured, hard-to-replenish funds are spent, and resources are tied up in what is, from the Islamofascist grand strategic point of view, a sideshow.
An American withdrawal, though it would certainly be a defeat for us, would not be a victory for them. In an open civil war, the al-Qa’eda-Ba’athist alliance would be heavily outnumbered. It could “win” only through Syrian or Iranian intervention, which would leave it as the very junior partner in a foreign puppet regime. So civil war is a losing proposition, yet failure to launch one would be just as bad, for it would be seen as evidence of weakness. If al-Qa’eda can’t topple an unsupported Iraqi government, why should anybody fear them? Since fear is their chief weapon, they won’t dare to accept such meekly such tarnish on their fearsome image.
In short, al-Qa’eda cannot win in Iraq, and it cannot withdraw. I wonder how long it will be before its well-wishers in the West see this bleak fact and start calling on the U.S. to “negotiate” with the terrorists,
If our media were reporting on the war with any sense of balance or history, they would recognize that the Iraqi campaign is not a stalemate or an American quagmire. It is a battle of attrition, in which our side is suffering far less than the enemy. At some point, admittedly not readily predictable, the terrorists will feel that their losses are intolerable. Then they will have to choose among unpalatable options: surrendering outright, slinking away, or plunging desperately into conventional warfare in the hope of attracting foreign assistance. Just as Germany held on and held on in 1918, then suddenly broke, the end of this campaign may come with unexpected swiftness. Or it may be delayed another few years. But come it will, so long as we don’t impatiently fling victory away.
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