“The most glaring oversight of the neoconservatives and other backers of the war in Iraq was not the number of boots on the ground that would be required to secure the country, but rather that the Sunnis have little motivation to support Iraqi democracy. The Sunnis see themselves as the heirs of the Ottoman Empire, and in the collective Sunni mind they have been presiding over the territory that would become Iraq for almost a millenium. Whether this is an accurate interpretation of history is beside the point. What matters is what they actually believe. Add to the mix a noxious, incipient radical Islamism and one has the recipe for years of, if not permanent rejectionism. The Sunni are unlikely to accept Shiite rule of any kind, including hardline Islamist Shiite rule. And the fact that the Sunnis have virtually no oil under their little piece of heaven makes partition an unrealistic possibility as well. As we’ve all been hearing, coalition forces are likely to attempt to break the stranglehold of insurgent control in Al Anbar province after the November election, but what makes anyone think that a Chechen-like bombing and siege of these towns and cities (with near genocidal rates of killing) will do anything but further alienate the Sunni populace?”
EMAIL OF THE DAY II: “Are you a military expert? I think you must be, as you have concluded that the way to fewer casualties is to increase the number of troops, that the way to fewer terrorist attacks is to increase construction investment, that more is less when it comes to the fighting.
I don’t play armchair general. I don’t know about such things and leave it to the experts. We have seen over and over again that those military experts in charge have NOT called for more. They have managed to keep the casualties to historic lows during the liberation of an entire nation the size of California. Moreover, the soldier’s eye view accounts we get, few as those that make it through the filtration process, almost invariably say journos are presenting an hysterical image of defeat that is at variance with their own observations. But the more the terrorists strike the more hysterical the western journalists screams become.
Maybe the answer is LESS. Less hysteria, less cries of defeat, less of the Greek chorus that hails every terrorist action, less … journalism. Or at least this kind of terrorist-amplifying journalism that covers every terrorist action as a great blow to the cause while pretending that the solution is a giant five-year-old child’s stamping foot accompanied by the word “More!” The other childish response, of course, is “No more!” (or Moore!) Either throw more of everything at it like a magical panacea, or pick up the marbles and go home. These are the positions of people who are doomed to watch from the sidelines and can’t stand the sight of blood. They are not responsible, knowledgable or particularly helpful observations.” If you want to read “less journalism” about Iraq, go check out the Weekly Standard and the National Review. They will barely mention the current situation at all, unless as a way to attack Kerry.
The Dish 