Thursday, February 03, 2005
Newsweek and the insurgency
I missed it on account of preoccupation with my actual job, but two days ago Wretchard deconstructed this article from the current issue of Newsweek. Since a great many of my readers go to The Belmont Club regularly, I'm probably the last person on my block to have seen Wretchard's post. Since it is the best blog post on the war that I've seen in weeks, I'm recommending it anyway. Here's a taste:
Read the whole thing, on the off chance that you haven't.
But I think the main problem with the Newsweek analysis is that first, it doesn't fully recognize the significance of the economy of force operation against the Sunnis in April, 2004 as the US dealt with Sadr first in mid-year before returning to crush the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah by year-end. It was a classic example of using a small force to defeat a numerically superior foe by attacking them in detail. I hope future historians give it its due. Secondly, Newsweek almost ignores American political warfare. The establishment of the Interim Governing Council and the Elections had huge military implications from the start, something which is only being belatedly recognized. The strategic center of gravity of the American thrust into the Middle East was not Iraq the geographical entity, as so many have I believe, mistakenly put it, but the Iraqis. The war aim was access to an alliance with an unlimited pool of Arabic speakers, not a puddle of oil in the ground. The return of Iraqi security and intelligence forces will be a nightmare for regional dictators in the short term; but the advent of even a quasi-democratic Iraqi state will, without exaggeration, be their death-knell.
Read the whole thing, on the off chance that you haven't.
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Sat Feb 12, 02:22:00 PM:
