Category: Iraq

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War For Oil

Don’t you wish the Iraq war REALLY was for oil as the conspiracy nuts told us?  Then we would have that $79 billion dollar surplus Iraq now enjoys.  The country earns around $90 billion a year in oil revenues and Iraqi officials face the unusual dilemma of not being able to spend money as fast as it comes it.  I wrote re this in an earlier post.

Meanwhile, we Americans are paying for development projects.   This is not how the textbooks describe empires.  When the Romans took over Carthage, Egypt or Gaul, they MADE money.  “To the victor belong the spoils”, is what the Romans always said.  That was the way it was throughout history.  We Americans broke the mold.

The American method is more enlightened.   We started doing this big time with the Marshal Plan after World War II.  American generosity made possible the reconstruction of war-torn Europe.  Allies and former enemies alike benefited.  But it was actually enlightened self interest.  It helped us avoid the threats of chaos in Europe and still another rise of an angry and irredentist Germany.  Our leaders back then understood that American prosperity would be enhanced by prosperous partners and that prosperity would hold back the evils of Communism.   The often overlooked truth of a free market is that everybody is better off when everybody else is better off. 

The Romans could profit from the spoils of war because their world was different.  The ancient world was much closer to a zero sum game, where one person could gain wealth only at the expense of another.  Our world, with its market economy, is a positive sum game, where we can all get richer through trade and better production methods. 

We did both the right thing and the smart thing when we choose to help Iraqis to their feet rather than exploit the riches under them.   We could not have enjoyed success in Iraq had we not taken the more holistic and enlightened approach.  And American success in Iraq in establishing order is what made possible Iraq’s prodigious oil earnings.

We are on the way to a prosperous and stable Iraq that will be a partner of the U.S. rather than a menace to the world.  Nevertheless, each part of the journey has different challenges and opportunities.   A couple of years ago it looked like Iraq was spinning out of control and was greatly in need of proactive American generosity.   As Iraq piles up money from oil revenues, some of the variables of the equation change.  Iraq can pay for its own reconstruction and probably help more with the costs of maintaining its own security.

Since the day I arrived in Iraq, we have been working to help them spend their own money.  This is NOT a new policy.  But the sheer size of the cash mountain has added a new urgency to the efforts and created many new opportunities.   

Iraq is a rich country and until the 1970s was one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East, but in recent generations hydrocarbon wealth has been more a curse than a benefit as the oceans of oil fueled wars, facilitated tyranny and permitted mismanagement on a monumental scale.  No country w/o such wealth could have afforded to sink so low but still allow the rulers to be so threatening.  Iraq’s conflicts were not FOR oil, but they certainly were ABOUT oil.  W/o the power oil could by, Saddam would have been someone on the order of Robert Mugabe – a horrible man and a local menace, but not a world concern.   Oil wealth boosts the opportunity to do good or evil. 

The money accumulating in Iraqi coffers must be used to produce good outcomes, to build infrastructure, to educate the Iraqi people and restore Iraq’s rightful place in the world.   If it sits around too long, somebody will figure out how to steal it or employ it in some nefarious fashion.  There are lots of projects that need doing in Iraq.  In the recent past, the U.S. would have paid for them, but we are weaning them off American largess.  Iraq is unique among war-torn states and developing ones in that it has the resources to pay for its own development. It is time they did.

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So Hot It Hurts

You usually think of breezes as cool and refreshing.   This is not always true.  I recently returned via Kuwait, where at the camp we experienced a steady hot wind that was actually painful. It felt like being in the stream of a hair dryer. The wind also sun backed hot dust.  It is really unpleasant.

I just think it is odd that you feel cooler when you protected from the breeze. It is a new and unwelcome experience.  I figured I would cool off with a shower.  The water tanks are outside, so the “cold” water was uncomfortably hot.  On the plus side, there is no need for a towel. You just put on your clothes and walk out.  You feel cool for a few precious minutes; then you are dry and a little dusty.

A guy from Nevada once explained to me that up in the north you don’t go out in the cold winter.  It is same in the hot desert, just reversed.  Painfully hot and painfully cold are both dangerous.  In fact, a Minnesota winter will kill you faster. 

I took the good advice and hunkered down in my tent.  Unfortunately, the tent is a little on the depressing side, as you can see from the pictures.

Being in Iraq is better than being in Kuwait.  I have my own quarters and my own stuff and- odd as it sounds – Al Asad is just better than Ali Al Salem.   We even enjoy cooler temperatures.  The high reaches only around 110-115 degrees and it is nice in the early mornings.  I know 110 sounds horrible, but it really isn’t.  As they say, it is a dry heat and there is a big drop in temperature at night.   It just is not very pretty.  Below is some of the nice parts.

BTW – it is even nicer in Rutbah and Al Qaim, where you have something closer

A good routine is to be active early in the morning and hunker down inside during the extreme heat of the day.   I went running at dawn, which was around 0500.    The thermometer said it was 86 degrees, so it was a lot like a warm afternoon back home.  Not bad.  Taking advantage of the 0430-0730 time frame changes the impression of Iraq as hell.  This is also the cleanest part of the day.  The dust tends to rise a little after dawn.  It must have something to do with the hot sun warming the ground and changing the wind patterns, but I don’t know.

Of course, following this happy routine is not always possible.  Sometimes you have to be out and travelling during hot part of the day.  It is then that you earn that hardship pay.  Most uncomfortable is flying in helicopters.  You get the unpleasant combination of hot air, hot exhaust, sun beating down on metal surfaces and the requirement to wear helmets and body armor.  Humvees and MRAPs have air-conditioning that works reasonably well.  It is still uncomfortably hot, but not so dire.  I pity the Marines who have to stand post during the day. 

A veteran Marine told me that Al Anbar was relatively green back in 2003.  Relatively is the operative word, but it was wetter in 2003.  A little bit of green would also create a different impression.  The general rule is 5-7 dry years and one wet one.  The locals call the wet year “normal” and complain re the drought during the other ones.

I guess the bottom line is that timing is important.   In the summer, you have to be out and active before 0730.  Forget about it after that.   On the other hand, winters have pleasant cool weather, and it is nearly perfect in Novembe-December & February-March, expect for the occasional duster.

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Anbar Sheep Culture

Below is from a report by our Ag-Advisor Dennis Neffendorf.  It is more interesting than anything I have going on today, so I am posting it.  Our overall goal is to make the sheep herds healthier, more productive and smaller.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, we estimate that there are at least 1/3 more sheep on the range than the land’s sustainable carrying capacity.

Ironically, low productivity, poverty and inefficiency tend to create a lot more destruction than prosperity.   Poor people tend to be bad stewards of the land because they need to take more desperate measures, like grazing too many low quality sheep, so we think that improving productivity and bringing shepherds more into the market economy is a win for the people, for the counter insurgency and for the environment.

QRF finds an Excellent Process to Train and Assist Sheep Herders in Western Anbar for Wool and Herd Management

Awassi sheep are the economic soul of Western Al Anbar.  There are three sub-breeds in the Al Asad area.  All produce productive lamb and are superbly adapted to the harsh conditions of Iraq’s western desert.  Their fat tail is a key to their survival.  It functions as a reservoir of fat and moisture.  Other breeds have been tried and expensive research was done to try to find a better breed of sheep for the Jazira Desert of Iraq; all have failed.The Awassi has an open face that permits efficient grazing the thorny plants of prickly dry grass.  Beyond that, the sheep can maintain excellent vision for grazing, but the absence of wool in the face allows the animal to maintain a cooler body temperature and adapt to temperatures well above 120 to even 135 degree F in the desert.  They also lack wool on their legs and under stomach, which in addition to keeping the animals cooler also contributes to its tremendous ability to move across the desert.  The tremendous fat tail provides a source of energy for the animal that allows it go for days without eating.  This tails allows the animal to drink water during the day.  Other breeds across the world can not handle the hot desert water.  This unique ability to drink this very warm water the secret is in the tail.

So when a Sheik offers you a piece of prime tail at his home he is offering you one of the finest secrets of the desert to survival of this harsh climate. 

Shearing an art that has been done for many generations, here in Anbar much to everyone’s surprise is still done with swords. Yes indeed swords! These swords are laid along side the belly of the animal and cutting of wool is done in a well designed pattern along the length of the body of the animal.  This process has worked for many years and it sure allows the herder to harvest his wool in parts of Iraq that do not have electricity.  This technique will take the shearer from 30 to 40 minutes to shear an animal and the only maintenance is the sharpening of the swords.  It is a laborious process and wool is mainly used within the confines of the community and not currently taken to textile mills or international buyers and marketers of wool.  The absence of commercial shearing in Western Anbar has created a negative effect on herd condition, health and has impacted the economic potential of the typical sheepherders in Western Anbar.  Without the use of current technology and techniques in wool management, shearing, tagging, grading and marketing of wool has severely degraded not only the economy of the sheepherders family but has further degraded the land resource base of the Jazira Desert.

Quick Response Funds set up by the Department of State provided an avenue for training, providing updated equipment and grading of wool.  Programs like this directly enhance the capacity of the Iraq sheep herders but provide a relationship with local wool producers that produce a friendship that will last for years to come.

The training program will provide hands on experience of shearing and proper use of lister equipment.  Once the wool is shorn, training will also be provided on body condition and fertility of producing ewes.  The wool will be graded out to International Standards to provide a competitive marketable product to textile mills.    Wool has many secondary uses not only the use of lanolin for oil but can also be used as an insulation material for homes and business.  This of course has to be properly processed. 

Sheep are one the few agricultural animals that provide two economic sources of income to the producer.  First the wool and then second a very desirable meat.  Bringing in animals for shearing and tagging allows the opportunity to check for parasites both externally and internally.  The consumption of healthier lambs is also a direct link to the healthier people that consume these meat products.

Other nice positive benefits of overall sheep and wool management is that wool can be shorn and corded to make their own thread, high dollar rugs and clothing material around the home.  It can provide additional household income and many of the handmade products lead to a more comfortable life style and economic growth.

Shearing is an art that takes patience, skill, keeping the lister sharp and not cutting the merchandise to avoid infection and other potential problems.

After the wool is graded and sorted then it goes in the wool bag for marketing.  

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Vanishing Iraq Coverage

I wrote the following letter to the editor of American Journalism Review.  Please follow the links for the original story and this link for the original letter to the editor.

I read your story “Whatever Happened to Iraq?” (June/July) because I am trying to figure out the same thing. Why did the news from Iraq disappear about the time the situation here started to change? I think the problem might be that the American success in Iraq doesn’t fit the earlier defeat-and-destruction narrative that you mention in your story.

I don’t think it is a conspiracy, but it is a syndrome. Journalists like stories that fit their narratives. Once they have found a narrative that other journalists consent to, they are loath to seek disconfirming evidence. My complaint is that the lack of news now has frozen American perceptions in the bad old days of 2006. So much has changed since then. I have seen it in my 10 months here; Marines who were here in 2005 and 2006 tell me that the change is simply unbelievable, which may be why journalists don’t believe it.

The fantastic story, which will probably be told by historians and not current journalists, is that we faced down an insurgency in the center of the Middle East, in a place (Anbar) that al Qaeda had declared the center of its new caliphate. We have driven them to virtual extinction in the course of about a year and did what the pundits and many American politicians said could not be done. Why is that not a story?

Instead, it is big news when the odd bomber gets lucky and kills a bunch of civilians. It is a case of journalists truly missing the forest for the trees.

John A. Matel
U.S. Department of State
Western Anbar, Iraq

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Doing Nothing All Day

Below is part of my bike/running trail.  It follows the old W&OD rail line.  I like to run on that gray gravel.  It is very pleasing to hear the sound of your footsteps and it makes a good base.  The bike trail is a great because it is essentially a very long park.

I spent my second last day at home doing prosaic things.  In the morning, I went running.  It was warm and very humid.  That kind of weather used to bother me, but no more, perhaps because I can always retreat into the air conditioned comfort in the evening.  I enjoy being out in the humidity.  I like the smell of Virginia at this time.  The humidity holds down and accents the various vegetation smells.  The sycamores are especially pungent and I can easily tell the difference between a loblolly and a white pine by smell alone.  I run up the trail and then walk back, so I have time to look at things and think about them. 

At the end of the run is Navy Federal CU headquarters.  They have nice grounds and an old fashioned exercise area.  I like to do chin-ups, but I don’t use the other things, which are kinda lame. 

My neighborhood is being “in-filled”.   When Fairfax County suburbs grew initially, development jumped over my area.  I think it was because there was some light industry and a noisy highway interchange.   Even when they built the subway stop, development lagged.  Now they are making up for lost time.  The picture above is along the running trail.  It used to be a bunch of little dumpy houses.   Now they will be “luxury homes.”  Below is another site for luxury homes not far from the Metro.  IMO they are too big for the average family and they charge too much for them around here.  In a place like Lacrosse or Southside Va these same house would be around 1/4 the cost. They got the land here ready last year, but the lots are not selling as well as they thought.

When we bought our house in 1997, the development was just starting.  Fairfax County has plans to build a town center and allow denser development near the Metro.  That is all to the good, as far as I am concerned. If you have transit, you should have transit oriented development.  Below is a teardown.   There was an old apartment building it will be new condos.

Below is across the street from the demo.  I suppose the new buildings will look like these built a couple years ago.  Progress.

After my run/walk, the boys and I went to Olive Garden for lunch. We talked about things like Victor the Bear.  When I was a kid, they used to bring around a bear called Victor, who would wrestle all comers.  Big guys would try their luck, but Victor always won.  The boys don’t believe me, but it is true.  Espen asked me to cut his hair.  Alex thought he was insane and made reference to my own hair, but Espen persevered.  You see the result, not bad.  Cheaper than a barber and we did it right there on the back deck. I only have three attachments.  It will grow back. 

When Chrissy came home we went to Fudruckers.   As you can see, no great deeds and no great thoughts today, just a nice normal day.  As I prepare to return to Iraq, the normal and uneventful times at home are precious.

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The Worst Hard Time

I just finished The Worst Hard Time about the dust bowl of the 1930s.   Some of what the author describes applies to Iraq.  We get the various different colors of dust and it is almost impossible to get away from it.

Below is the American dust bowl.

The dust bowl was a man-made disaster caused by the plowing up of prairie grass as farmers tried to produce crops which were not suited by nature to the area.   This process was exacerbated by “good luck”.  There was a boom in grain prices caused by WWI and the collapse of grain production in Russia (which had been a big exporter) after the revolution there.   This coincided with some unusually wet weather on the American high plains and during the 1920s times were good, with bumper harvests and high prices.  But later as grain prices dropped (i.e. returned to long term normal), farmers had to put more and more land in production merely to make the same money.  It became a viscous (BTW the original idiom is indeed a viscous not vicious) circle with farmers breaking up the sod to grow more grain and growing more lower the prices and encouraging more sod-busting.   Then the rains stopped.  Subsequent investigation showed that the drought of the dust bowl was not abnormal, but w/o the grass to hold the soil, it blew away.

There is a good PBS series on the Dust Bowl, BTW with a good webpage.

We learned a lot from this experience.   We now have methods that can build or at least maintain soils.  The most important lesson is that you have to work within the bounds of nature and there are some things you just cannot do, no matter how attractive or how much you want it.  The Great Plains have recovered (mostly) from the dust bowl.  Farming there is dry land or irrigated, usually with water from the Ogallala Aquifer, but much has reverted to grassland and many rural counties have never recovered their populations. 

Iraq has a climate like the Texas Panhandle, only hotter.   Anbar gets 4-7 inches of rain in a usual year.  Most of that rain falls in winter.  I saw a couple of good storms and once it rained all day, but the place is a desert.  I wonder, however, how much of desolation is man-made.   The dunes in Anbar are dust and dirt, not sand.   Plants can grow on dirt, if they have a chance.  Unfortunately, people and goats have been working on this place for 4000 years.  It would never be verdant, but how much could be restored?   We have planned and funded some small scale restoration projects.  I don’t know if they will last very long.  Local shepherds have incentives to let their animals devour what they can get, even if it means destruction in coming years.

I had some grandiose dreams when I came to Anbar.   I envisioned a small version of the CCC, an ink blot version.  We have had lots of contacts with local farmers but I don’t know if we have done any lasting good.   The desert will probably swallow up all we do.  Ozymandias leaps to mind.

Above is the Al Asad dust bowl with the duster blowing in

Probably the best thing I did for environment of the desolate region was negative.  We declined to fund “emergency feeding” for the local sheep and goats.   It seemed cruel, but it really would not have helped even in the short run and it would have caused must more destruction and despair even in the medium term.   There are just too many of them for the carrying capacity of the land.  They destroy everything green.  My Ag-Advisor Dennis, who did a lot of his work and growing up in Texas near the old dust bowl, understood the futility – even perniciousness – of the subsidies.  It needed NOT be done. I agreed with him 100%.  We took the hard decision and I am proud of it, although I told him that if they ever make a movie about this, we will certainly be the villains. Sheep and goats are desert making machines, but they are cute.

Anyway, I recommend the book.  About the same time you should also read The Forgotten Man, also about the Great Depression but with a broader perspective.

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Lt.Col Jeffrey Chessani

Please see below.  I have no personal knowledge of this, but I do know Haditha and the Marines.  The Marines I know are honorable.  It was a difficult and confusing situation.  I have never come close to experiencing what they did, but I saw some of what was left.   I side with the Marines on the ground, which is why I am posting what I got in email today.  I am contributing.   I leave it up to you to make up your own minds.

Continue reading “Lt.Col Jeffrey Chessani”
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Wrapping Up

I will go back to Iraq at the end of this week for my last two months there.  I have been thinking about how I can continue to add value up until the very end.  The two hardest parts of any posting are the first month and the last.   In first month you are overwhelmed trying to learn the new place, the new job and how to work with new colleagues; in the last you are trying to stay relevant, not check-out mentally before you leave physically and continue to plant those seeds you know you will never see germinate. 

Much of my energy will be absorbed by the transition to a new team leader.  It helps that my successor, Robert Kerr, is an experienced diplomat who has already served in Iraq.  We will overlap for at least a week – long enough to pass along my knowledge, but not my bad habits. Beyond that, my team works autonomously.  We all like to think we are indispensible, but I know from experience that soon after we leave a posting we gone like the snows of past winters.   We do our part in our time and when our time is done we do something else.   That does not detract from the importance of our duty.  Each of us is a link in the chain and as the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  I am gratful that I had the opportunity to do my part.

We need to build on the success given to us by the surge.  We can be grateful that we didn’t listen to the advice of the surge opponents a year ago, but maybe some of their current advice isn’t so bad.   A detailed timeline independent of developing condition in Iraq is just plain stupid, but an aspirational timeline, one that reiterates the U.S. desire to leave, may be a good idea.  

In my corner of Iraq, we have begun already.   The Marines are gradually drawing down.  They are responible for the peace we now enjoy, so leaving is tricky for all sorts of big reasons.  For us, their drawdown has the practical effect of giving us fewer travel assets, i.e. helicopters and convoys.   We also see our Iraqi friends are willing and able to take on more of the responsibility for their own development.  The transition is tricky.  Some of the locals have come to see us as a font of resources.  They think it is easier and better to get us to do something than to ask their own government or do it themselves.  We have to change this attitude and I have been trying to wean them off our largess, at least as pertains to our ePRT.  We don’t do anything w/o a local contribution.  The days of us doing for them are over.  We are currently in the partnership mode and I look forward to the day coming soon when they will do for themselves.  I hope with some U.S. investment and participation, but that will be private.

If we don’t succeed, I worry about the moral hazard.  When people get used to unearned entitlements it leads to dependency and indolence.  Beyond that, they come to despise those giving them the benefit.  Generosity is harder than it seems.  I think it has something to do with reciprocity.   W/o self respect, people cannot respect others and they cannot build self respect if they feel that they are not making a contribution.   Giving w/o expecting anything in return can take away the recipients’ self respect.  Their contribution need not be directly proportional.  It may consist of only the promise to do something for others in the future, but the donor has to insist of something, a contribution – reciprocity.  Otherwise there is a moral hazard that leads to pain for both donor and recipient. 

The old saying that it is more blessed to give than receive is incomplete.   The best for all around is generous reciprocity.

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A Fish Story

Fishermen near Hadithah are pulling bigger fish out of the Euphrates than anybody can remember.   The fish got a chance to be so big because locals had been unable to fish during the late insurgency.  Coalition forces had limited or banned river traffic to prevent terrorists from using the river as transportation and a way to get away.  With the more stable situation, the ban was been lifted, but fishing did not return to its previous levels, despite the size of the fish population.  Why not?

We thought of the obvious reasons, maybe the boats were not in good repair or that people were still afraid to take to the water, but this didn’t seem to be true.  People were fishing, but not so much.  They were fishing for their own or for very local consumption, but not for market.   Then we identified to missing link.  It was not the boats, river, fish, fish markets or fishermen.  The missing link was ice.

Fish are very perishable.  You can catch that big fish, but it is probably not a good idea to buy it or eat it after it has been sitting around in 110 degree heat in the sun all day.  W/o ice, fish mongering is limited to places very near the river where live fish can be maintained.

There was an ice factory nearby, but it was not in operation.  CF helped get it up and running and now fishing is returning.  All this makes our plans to help with fish hatcheries in Anah and Hadithah more urgent, but the hatcheries would have been ineffective and maybe even harmful if the ice problem had not been solved.

The lesson for me was a reminder of bottlenecks and how well the free market works if it is allowed to do so.    We (in this case essentially bureaucratic planners) didn’t think through the whole system.  No planners really can.  That is why the market works so well.  Individuals or groups identify a need and they fill it – IF they can.  The authorities’ role is not to do, but to enable. I think we did the right thing in enabling rather than providing.  Independently, CF are contracting with local firms for ice, rather than making it ourselves, which we are more than capable of doing.   This is helping build an ice infrastructure, which will be in place after we leave.  Ice is a big deal in this hot climate. 

I am glad that we caught on in time.   You accomplish big goals by a combination of applying pushing energy and removing obstacles.  It is tempting just to push harder because you have more ostensible control, but often the obstacle removal is the way to go.  Buying boats & nets, training fishermen etc would have looked good on our reports, but removing the obstacle and letting them do it themselves was the true key to success.

As the old Taoist wisdom advises, the best way to accomplish a task is when the people say, “we did it all by ourselves.”

FYI – In case anybody notices, I am still in the U.S. and this post is out of sequence.  I wrote it a couple weeks ago.  I just forgot to post.  The pictures are old ones too. The top one is fishermen on Lake Qadissya and the one above is Lake Thar-Thar.

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Victory in Iraq Creates Options

The opposite is also true.  Below is the Griffon roller-coaster at Busch Gardens.  It reminds me of our perceptions of Iraq over the last years.

Iraq is getting play in the news again, but the narrative is wrong.   Some commentators – covering for their earlier dumb statements – disingenuously say that we don’t  know what would have happened if we had followed the defeatist advice in 2006 and pulled out instead of surged.   Anybody who has been to Iraq knows that we would be in a big mess today.   The proper answer for the erstwhile surge opponents is to say that they were seriously wrong last year, but that they see the error in light of events and will work with conditions to take advantage of the success brought about by policies they opposed.  I certrainly would not hold their earlier mistakes against them, but I don’t think I will hold my breath waiting for the truth.

The media correctly points out that w/o the Sunni Awakening and the decline of the Shiite militias we would not enjoy the success we do today.  Lots of thing contributed to success.  W/o the surge, however, Al Qaeda would have cut the head off Sunni leaders, as they did in 2005, and the Shiite militias would never have gone into decline.   When you win, you get some of the things you want.  That is what winning means. 

Some people just cannot understand joint causality and that some conditions are indeed necessary but not by themselves sufficient.   I have lived in Anbar for awhile now and met people involved in the Awakening.   They hate Al Qaeda with considerable passion and we certainly could not have defeated the bad guys w/o their help.   But w/o our help, THEY could not have defeated the bad guys either.  Our friends would have been isolated and killed individually or in small groups, along with their families, and others would have been intimidated into silence.   I don’t have to speculate about this.  We saw that such things happened in 2005 and we still could see them happening on a smaller scale even in the time I have been in Iraq.

Let me be as blunt as I can.  The surge worked.   Those who opposed the surge were wrong.  I feel justified in being so nasty because of all the defeatism and negativity we had just a year ago – about the time I was deciding to go to Iraq myself.   I will not accept that those who told people like me that we were stupid for thinking we could win in Iraq – and chumps for volunteering – can now pretend that the success in Iraq would have happened anyway.   

I believe in looking to the future and I don’t dwell on this to justify the past.  Historians can sort out the details in the fullness of time.  But we are still in the midst of this project and we have to keep our eyes on the ball.  AQI and the bad guys are on the run, but they are not defeated.  They are like an infection that has been weakened by penicillin.   We are feeling good now and it is tempting to declare that all is well, but if we stop before the job is done, the disease will return, stronger and more deadly.

The success of the surge is giving us the options of bringing home troops – in victory – and of getting the Iraqis to share more of the burden.   But it is important to remember HOW we got to this point and don’t pretend that it was just luck.

Re Afghanistan –Foreign fighters that until recently headed to Iraq now are on their way to Afghanistan.  Why?  Because they know they are defeated in Iraq.   If WE had been defeated in Iraq in 2006, they would still be going to Afghanistan, but with greater confidence & resolve and in greater numbers.  Iraq and Afghanistan are not the same war, but they are linked.  Al Qaeda & other terror organizations send fighters and bombers to both places.  Foreign terrorists fight us where they think they can hurt us.  That WAS Iraq when we were weaker there.  It may be Afghanistan now because our success in Iraq has made it too hard for the bad guys there.   It could also, BTW, be New York or Washington.   We control them by opposing them.  That is just true.  If we keep the imitative, we have more choices about WHERE we fight them, but we do not have a choice about IF we will fight them.

People who support extremists respond to the same sorts of pressures and incentives as other people.  When being a jihadist is easy and it looks like success is at hand, lots of people want to volunteer or at least be on the winning side.   As it gets harder or more dangerous, this support dries up.   Fighting terrorists does not create more IF it is done properly.  Please see my note from yesterday.  

Extremist ideologies decline only AFTER they have been defeated or discredited.  Nazism didn’t decline by itself.   It went into terminal decline after it was defeated by force of arms.  Until then it looked like the wave of the future.  In 1941 things looked different than they did in 1945.  A similar dustbin of history fate befell Soviet Marxism.  Although in their case it was primarily an economic and political defeat, these forces were backed by forty years of resolve and strength on the part of the U.S. and our allies, without which Soviet communism would have blotted out the sun of freedom over a much wider area for a much longer time.   Why does anybody think extremist jihadists would go away without a fight?  They are standing on the edge of the precipice.  Let’s make sure they fall off.

BTW – when we do succeed in this endeavor, let’s not think it is the end of history.  We went down that path in the 1990s and it didn’t work out.