Best way to win? Don’t quit.
Jun 16, 2006 Brainwaves, Politics, War On Terror
The naysayers have been knocking the war in Iraq almost since it began, calling it a quagmire, calling it hopeless, saying we need to get out, saying we have no exit strategy.
The problem is, setting an artificial exit strategy is a signal to your enemy that they can wait you out: “They’re leaving on this date. If we stay hidden until they leave, we’ll have the run of the country when they’re gone.” If you expect to succeed in a war, the only reasonable exit strategy is victory.
As much as the war’s critics want to hope otherwise, that is exactly what’s happening in Iraq — we’re winning.
Don’t believe me? Ask the enemy.
Among the documents and other information U.S. and Coalition troops uncovered during the three-week leadup to the strike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was an analysis of the current state of the war from their point of view, and possible future war plans.
The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military’s program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the militants’ financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks.
“Generally speaking and despite the gloomy present situation, we find that the best solution in order to get out of this crisis is to involve the U.S. forces in waging a war against another country or any hostile groups,” the document said, as quoted by al-Maliki’s office.
According to the summary, insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits. To give new impetus to the insurgency, they would have to change tactics, it added.
“We mean specifically attempting to escalate the tension between America and Iran, and American and the Shiite in Iraq,” it quoted the documents as saying, especially among moderate followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq.
“Creating disputes between America and them could hinder the U.S. cooperation with them, and subsequently weaken this kind of alliance between Shiites and the Americans,” it said, adding that “the best solution is to get America involved in a war against another country and this would bring benefits.”
And, as I was researching this, I came across another report from Strategy Page (Hat tip: Power Line), with another interesting tidbit — one of their tactics is to “start rumors of American atrocities (second paragraph).” (Anyone else smell something fishy? Haditha, perhaps? There are already hints that the victims there were not killed by American rifles.)
The same Strategy Page article also points out how taking out Zarqawi has resulted in the killing or capture of a number of other terrorists in Iraq:
Al Qaeda in Iraq has been virtually wiped out by the loss of an address book. The death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was not as important as the capture of his address book and other planning documents in the wake of the June 7th bombing. U.S. troops are trained to quickly search for names and addresses when they stage a raid, pass that data on to a special intelligence cell, which then quickly sorts out which of the addresses should be raided immediately, before the enemy there can be warned that their identity has been compromised.
The terrorist organization has basically been taken over [by] anti-government Sunni Arabs. That made the capture of Zarqawi even more valuable, as his address book contained a who’s who of the anti-government Sunni Arab forces. This group has been hurt badly by last week’s raids.
The tactics and techniques we are using in Iraq are working, which is totally unsurprising: barring interference from politicians and the like back home, the US military does not lose. Setting any artificial timetable for departure that doesn’t consist of “we’ve completed all our tasks and won” is tantamount to surrender.
