The Tides Of War

I'll begin with an update on a couple of stories I've been meaning to link to about the progress of the war in Iraq.

Embedded military blogger Michael Totten has been providing some excellent, in-depth reporting on the tribal revolt against al-Qaeda in Anbar Province and on the US military's exploitation of this shift in loyalties. His latest is an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman of the 3rd Infantry Division, and I would draw your attention to two passages in particular.

Some Objectivists have complained that the new counter-insurgency strategy, which emphasizes providing security for the civilian population, is an example of placing the philosophy of altruism above the requirements of victory. But in doing so, they often ignore the real source of this strategy: the actual military science of counter-insurgency war. (And they do so while declaring that specific military decisions should be left to the generals to decide.)

I've linked to some good articles (particularly this one from Petraeus advisor David Kilcullen) explaining the military science of this issue, but Lt. Col. Silverman gives us the bottom line in an exchange with Totten:

"What's the most important thing you have learned in your time here?" I said.

He wasn't sure how to answer and had to think for a while.

"Well," he finally said thoughtfully. "I learned something here that I had heard but never believed. I expected a huge kinetic fight, and that's what we got. I was told that you win that kind of fight not by focusing on the enemy, but by focusing on the civilians. But I didn't believe it. It's true, though. I know because I have seen it."

Lt. Col Silverman also confirms the picture I've been getting: that the Anbar campaign has been a crushing defeat for al-Qaeda—and not just for al-Qaeda in Iraq, but for al-Qaeda as a whole.
"What's the most important thing Americans need to know about Iraq that they don't currently know?" I said.

"That we're fighting Al Qaeda," he said without hesitation. "[Abu Musab al] Zarqawi invented Al Qaeda in Iraq. The top leadership outside Iraq squawked and thought it was a bad idea. Then he blew up the Samarra mosque, triggered a civil war, and got the whole world's attention. Then the Al Qaeda leadership outside dumped huge amounts of money and people and arms into Anbar Province. They poured everything they had into this place. The battle against Americans in Anbar became their most important fight in the world. And they lost."

Meanwhile, other news confirms the new pattern of the war with al-Qaeda in Iraq. Omar at Iraq the Model describes al-Qaeda's "war of villages," which consists of attacks by al-Qaeda on Iraqi civilians in undefended villages because those villages are increasingly allying themselves with the US and the Iraqi government against al-Qaeda. Similarly, the New York Times reports that al-Qaeda's latest campaign is a series of assassinations of Iraqi government officials and tribal leaders. Iraq is engulfed in a kind of civil war—but it is a civil war in which al-Qaeda has pitted itself against the population of Iraq.

With al-Qaeda losing in Iraq, we can turn our attention more fully to the threat from Iran. There are two big stories recently regarding Iran.

The first is the collapse of the strategy of "diplomatic containment"—i.e., the use of UN Security Council resolutions and European economic sanctions to induce Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his appearance at the UN yesterday to categorically reject the authority of the UN Security Council, declaring "that he considered the dispute over his country's nuclear program 'closed' and that Iran would disregard the resolutions of the Security Council, which he said was dominated by 'arrogant powers.'"

Even the Washington Post editorial board is beginning to admit that diplomacy with Iran has hit an "impasse."

But the Democrats in Congress can't managed to bring themselves to condemn Iran. The Politico reports that the Democrats' anti-Iraq-war stance has caused them to act more and more openly as the protectors of Iran.

Republicans on Tuesday rallied support for a resolution that would label Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "foreign terrorist organization." But while most Democrats say they support the resolution in concept, the level of mistrust between the parties has elevated a nonbinding resolution to a larger discussion about whether Republicans are pushing for military action against Iran….

"I'm being very, very cautious on this," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Reid's reticence led to a significant amount of rewriting and softening of the resolution—a process that took so long that efforts to reach agreement Tuesday stalled. A vote on the measure could come Wednesday.

Anti-war groups, already consumed by Iraq, tried to mobilize an effort against the Iran resolution, sending out e-mail alerts calling on their members to bombard Senate offices with phone calls opposing the Iran resolution.

The resolution "opens the door for U.S. military operations within Iran, would put our nation on a dangerous and deadly course, and sets conditions for war with Iran," said Tom Andrews, a former congressman from Maine who is now director of Win Without War, a coalition of anti-war groups.

The Democrats in Congress are merely reflecting the views of the anti-war far left. The left has never met a tyrant they didn't like, and they are now beginning to openly embrace and defend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with one small group of anti-war protesters complaining that the press is "demonizing the president"—the president of Iran, that is.

Other leftist bloggers, whom Tony Blankely dubs the "suicidal left," have begun writing mash notes to Ahmadinejad, prompting a somewhat creepy cartoon from Cox & Forkum.

Mainstream Democrats caught trying to appease these loons are not managing it well. Hillary Clinton, for example, just got around to condemning the MoveOn.org ad attacking General Petraeus. An author at Slate points out that this comes exactly two weeks too late, making Hillary look like she is cynically trying to "triangulate" between the mainstream and the far left. "Her late expression of outrage touches on one of her big weaknesses—that she's unprincipled and calculating."

Finally, here are a few other articles of note. Mark Steyn refutes the myth that we have a problem because 45 million Americans supposedly don't have health insurance. He points out that millions of these people are immigrants who have health coverage in their native countries, while others are eligible for existing government insurance programs but have not signed up, while many more are either young and healthy enough or old and wealthy enough that they don't feel the need for insurance. Here is how he tallies up the numbers:

[O]ut of 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million aren't American, 9 million are insured, 18 million are young and healthy. And the rest of these poor helpless waifs trapped in Uninsured Hell waiting for Hillary to rescue them are, in fact, wealthier than the general population. According to the Census Bureau's August 2006 report on "Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage," 37 percent of those without health insurance—that's 17 million people—come from households earning more than $50,000. Nineteen percent—8.7 million people—of those downtrodden paupers crushed by the brutal inequities of capitalism come from households earning more than $75,000. Jeff Jacoby has a good column (prompted by a recent news item) on the pathetic fraud of Modern Art: "Either you are sophisticated or cynical enough to gush over the emperor's wonderfully postmodern and transgressive new duds, or you are one of those reactionary rubes who get all hung up on the fact that the emperor actually happens to be naked."

Veteran Arkansas newspaperman Paul Greenberg has a moving interview with his recollections of the battle over integration of schools in Little Rock 50 years ago today. While he is unsparing in condemning cynical politicians and the howling "mob mentality" of racism, he also offers recollections like this one:

Let me tell you about the man in khaki who came into the Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial to put his daughter's engagement announcement in the paper the day after we—inadvertently—had run a black bride's engagement announcement alongside all the white brides. It was the talk of the town. Those were the days of Colored News, when the Society section was reserved for whites. "I came in to put my daughter's announcement in the paper," he said. "If y'all want to run it next to a Negro girl's, that's all right with us." He plunked down the envelope and left, having taken his stand. Every time you tell yourself people are no damned good, they'll up and surprise you.

He then adds that the black bride from this story "is now a justice of the Arkansas Court of Appeals. I know we've got a long way to go, but we've come a long way, too."