USS Clueless: Strategic Overview

The purpose of this document is to provide a high level strategic

view of the cause of the war, the reason that the United States

became involved in it, the fundamental goals the US has to achieve to

win it, and the strategies the US is following, as well as an

evaluation of the situation as of July, 2003. Most of what is here

has been explored in far greater detail in numerous posts made on

USS Clueless (http://denbeste.nu).

The original version of this outline can be found at

http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml. I have copied the whole document for future reference below. See Blogdex,Technocrati

for commentary. Steven de Beste responds to his critics.

1. What is the root cause of the war?
1. Collective failure of the nations and people in a large area which is

   predominately Arab and/or Islamic.

1. Economically the only contribution they make is by selling

   natural resources which are available to them solely through luck.

2. They

   make no significant contribution to international science or engineering.

3. They

   make little or no cultural contribution to the world. Few seek out their

   poetry, their writing, their movies or music. The most famous Muslim

   writer of fiction in the world is under a fatwa death sentence now and

   lives in exile in Europe.

4. Their only diplomatic relevance is due

   to their oil.

5. They are not respected by the world, or by

   themselves.

2. Since this is a "face" culture, shame about this this has led to rising but unfocused discontent, anger and resentment.
3. Some governments in the region have tried to focus it elsewhere so as to

   deflect it away from themselves. (The "Zionist Entity" is a

   favorite target.)

4. Ambitious leaders of various kinds of tried to use it for their own

   purposes.

1. Khomeinei and the Taliban used it to support revolutions

   respectively in Iran and Afghanistan.

2. Saddam used it to gain support for creation of a united pan-Arab

   empire ruled from Baghdad.

2. Why is the US fighting the war? Why were we attacked?
1. American success casts Arab/Islamic failure in sharp contrast.

   Politically, economically, militarily, technologically and culturally we set

   the standard and our accomplishments make their failure look particularly bad.

2. America is the largest and most important supporter of Israel. Arab

   leaders have used Israel as a scapegoat for their own failure, and part of

   that is to blame us since we refuse to abandon Israel. They have provided

   enough support to the Palestinians to keep the struggle going, so that their

   own people have someone outside to hate, which is why Israel is top of their

   shitlist. But that also causes them to hate us for our support of Israel.

3. America is secular. Islamic religious zealots have been preaching that

   much of Arab/Islamic failure happens because Muslims have not been

   sufficiently devout. Allah has not been fighting on their side because they

   were sinners who have turned away from the teachings of the Prophet and a true

   virtuous life. The zealots claimed that only by embracing extreme forms of

   Islam could they again gain Allah’s favor and begin to succeed. But the US

   government and the American people do not follow those teachings, and

   America is a success. At the same time, in the nations where the extremists took

   power things got even worse. American success is heresy. In religious

   terms the only explanation for that is that America is in

   league with Satan, and Khomeinei said as much.

4. American culture and American ideas are very popular with many of the

   people who live in the Arab/Islamic belt in question, particularly among their

   young people. This is viewed with alarm by traditionalists of all kinds. Their

   own people were being seduced away from their traditional culture and extreme

   religious practices.

5. America has earned a reputation in much of the world as being rich, well-armed, but also cowardly; full of bluster but having no

   guts. Such events as our defeat in Viet Nam, our experiences in Beirut and

   Somalia, our half-hearted and largely ineffectual responses to the attacks

   against us in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and many other episodes contributed to

   the impression that we would not fight back if attacked, and that there was

   little risk in in attacking us, whether rhetorically or even violently.

6. America is the "top dog" in the world right now, and there was

   prestige associated with attempting to take down the "top dog".

3. Possible responses, small and large
1. Some advocated appeasement: reduce our military spending, massively

   increase foreign aid, stop supporting Israel and throw it to the wolves, and

   apologize, apologize, apologize.

1. Historically, appeasement doesn’t work.
2. Those proposing this generally hold strongly leftist, post-nationalist

   political positions and assumed that since the terrorists evidently hated

   the US as much as the leftists do, that they must hate the US for the same

   grounds. But there’s no reason to assume that al Qaeda or the other terrorist

   organizations that imperil us have any sympathy with what Fonte calls transnational

   progressivism, or that they would cease making plans for attacks

   against us if the US ratified the Kyoto accord or the ICC treaty.

3. This approach claimed that poverty and American foreign policy

   missteps in particular were the proximate cause of Arab/Islamic anger directed

   at the US. But there’s no reason to

   believe that this is true.

1. al Qaeda’s original political statement regarding the US did not include

   any such claims. (Later statements sometimes did at least touch on such

   things because al Qaeda was trying to gain support from leftists in

   Europe.)

2. Most of the terrorists who carried out the attack

   on 9/11 came from prosperous families. None of them came from impoverished

   backgrounds.

3. There doesn’t seem

   to be any difference in the degree of hostility expressed towards the West

   in Arab nations which are relatively prosperous (e.g. Saudi Arabia) and those which are less well off (e.g. Syria).

4. Arab and Islamic hostility towards the US even in nations relatively

   unaffected by American foreign policy is far greater than in nations which have

   suffered far more at our hands, such as Viet Nam (which has been trying

   for years to reestablish normal diplomatic and commercial relations).

4. If the true root cause was anger and resentment caused by Arab shame

   at lack of Arab accomplishment, massively increased aid would not help. You

   do not make a man proud by giving him charity.

5. Irrespective of any other arguments against this approach, it wasn’t

   politically possible in the US. The vast majority of Americans (especially

   America’s Jacksonians) were in no

   mood to accept such a solution. The domestic reaction to those who advocated

   this solution was nearly uniformly hostile.

2. The microscopic solution was to respond "proportionally" with

   a token counter-attack, and then deal with the situation as one of

   international law

   enforcement, by attempting to find and arrest those who were implicated in the

   plot so as to put them on trial for it after extradition.

1. That’s what we tried to do in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and it failed. bin Laden

   was already under indictment for previous attacks against us, and all

   diplomatic efforts to gain control of his person for trial over a period of

   several years had failed.

2. This policy in the 1980’s and 1990’s was part of what established our

   reputation in the Arab world as being cowardly.

3. Doing this after an attack as devastating as the one on 9/11 would have further reinforced our reputation

   for cowardice. It would have raised the reputation of all terrorist groups by

   showing that terrorism was a valid (and successful!) way of striking back.

4. Such a response would have encouraged further attacks against us which

   potentially might have been far more devastating, if the terrorists had

   managed to gain access to some sort of extreme weapon.

3. The small solution was to assume that al Qaeda was the entire problem,

   and to eradicate al Qaeda and all others who could be shown to be directly

   involved in the attack in September of 2001.

1. If we had concentrated exclusively on al Qaeda it would have left

   intact other similar movements, equally dangerous but not directly

   implicated in the attack against us. al Qaeda launched the attack against us

   but were not the only ones who had the ability or will to do so, and other

   groups had been and had every intention of continuing to launch such attacks

   against other targets (e.g. Bali, Israel, the Philippines, Kashmir).

2. This would have been a case of treating the symptom, not the disease.

   It would have left the deep discontent and frustration of the "Arab

   Street" intact, as fertile ground for the next demagogue to come along

   wishing the plant the seeds of jihad against the West.

4. The large solution is to reform the Arab/Muslim world. This is the path

   we have chosen.

1. The true root cause of the war is their failure and their resentment

   and frustration and shame caused by that failure.

2. They fail because they are crippled by political, cultural and

   religious chains which their extremists refuse to give up. The real causes of their failure is well described by Ralph

   Peters. Most of the Arab nations suffer from all seven of his critical

   handicaps, and the goal of reform is to correct all seven, as far as

   possible.

3. If their governments can be reformed, and their people freed of the

   chains which bind them and cripple them, they will begin to achieve, and to

   become proud of their accomplishments. This will reduce and eventually

   eliminate their resentment.

4. Their governments would then cease needing scapegoats.
5. Their extremists would no longer have fertile ground for recruitment.
6. This is a huge undertaking; it will require decades because it won’t really be complete until there’s a generational turnover.

   But ultimately it is the only way to really eliminate the danger to us

   without using the "foot-and-mouth" solution (which is to say, nuclear

   genocide).

7. The primary purpose of reform is to liberate individual Arabs. This is a

   humanist reform, but it isn’t a Christian reform. There will be no

   attempt to eradicate Islam as a religion. Rather, Islamism as a political

   movement, and as a body of law, and as a form of government must be

   eliminated, leaving Islam as a religion largely untouched except to the

   extent that it will be forced to be tolerant. The conceptual

   model for this is what

   we did in Japan after WWII, where only those cultural elements which

   were dangerous to us were eliminated, leaving behind a nation which was less

   aggressive, but still Japanese. No attempt was made to make Japan a clone of

   the US, and no such attempt will be made with the Arabs.

4. Short term strategy in response to the 9/11 attacks
1. al Qaeda had to be eliminated, or at least drastically crippled.
2. In order to reduce the immediate hazard, we had to change the

   perception that we were cowards who could be attacked with impunity. In the

   short term, it was not possible for us to make the "Arab Street" love us, but we could convert its contempt into fear.

   Though not

   ideal, that had the dual merit of being feasible and effective. (Respect and

   friendship ideally would come later.)

3. The international web of finance which supported the terrorist groups was

   vulnerable; their resources needed to be trimmed as much as possible to reduce

   their ability to operate against us.

4. The purpose of all of this was to give us breathing room, to stabilize

   the situation for a few years so that we could carry out longer-term and more

   effective strategies. It was not, however, sufficient on its own.

5. Stage 1: Afghanistan
1. al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan, politically protected by the Taliban. It had

   operated there with impunity for years. The majority of its membership was

   organized into relatively normal military formations which had been fighting

   on behalf of the Taliban in the ongoing Afghan civil war. It also had training bases for terrorists, and most

   of the leadership of al Qaeda was located there, beyond the reach of

   international law enforcement.

2. Even after the 9/11 attack, the Taliban refused to cooperate, and

   continued to protect al Qaeda. We now know that this is because al Qaeda

   controlled the Taliban. Omar was the nominal head of government but bin Laden

   pulled the strings.

3. Thus the Afghan war, fought by us mainly with air strikes, special

   forces and bribery.

4. The goal was to drastically reduce al Qaeda’s ability to use Afghanistan

   as a base of operations and eliminate the government that had been protecting

   it.

5. Elimination of the Taliban would be an object lesson for other governments who had

   been protecting terrorist organizations.

6. "Nation building" in Afghanistan was not an essential part of the

   operation there, except to the extent needed to make sure that Afghanistan did not

   again become a large al Qaeda stronghold in the short run (3-5 years). Anything beyond

   that was inspired by humanitarian impulses, but did not further any strategic goals.

6. Stage 2: Iraq
1. Goal of Stage 2: we had to conquer one of the big antagonistic Arab nations and take

   control of it.

1. To directly reduce support for terrorist groups by eliminating one

   government which had been providing such support.

2. To place us in a physical and logistical position to be able to apply

   substantial pressure on the rest of the major governments of the region.

   1. To force them to stop protecting and supporting terrorist groups
   2. To force them to begin implementing political and social reforms
3. To convince the governments and other leaders of the region that it

   was no longer fashionable to blame us for their failure, so that they would

   stop using us as scapegoats.

4. To make clear to everyone in the world that reform is coming, whether

   they like it or not, and that the old policy of

   stability-for-the-sake-of-stability is dead. To make clear to local leaders

   that they may only choose between reforming voluntarily or having reform

   forced on them.

5. To make a significant long term change in the psychology of the

   "Arab Street"

1. To prove to the "Arab Street" that we were willing to fight,

   and that our reputation for cowardice was undeserved.

2. To prove

   that we are extraordinarily dangerous when we did fight, and that it is

   extremely unwise to provoke us.

3. To defeat the spirit of the "Arab Street". To force them to

   face their own failure, so that they would willing to consider the idea that reform

   could lead them to success. No one can solve a problem until they

   acknowledge that they have a problem, and until now the "Arab

   Street" has been hiding from theirs, in part aided by government

   propaganda eager to blame others elsewhere (especially the Jews).

6. To "nation build". After making the "Arab Street"

   truly face its own failure, to show the "Arab

   Street" a better way by creating a secularized, liberated,

   cosmopolitan society in a core Arab nation. To create a place where Arabs

   were free, safe, unafraid,  happy and successful. To show that

   this could be done without dictators or monarchs. (I’ve been referring to this as being the pilot project for "Arab

   Civilization 2.0".)

7. Not confirmed: It may have been hoped that the conquered nation would

   serve as a honey-pot to attract militants from the region, causing them to

   fight against our troops instead of planning attacks against civilians.

   (It seems to have worked out that way, but it’s not known if this was a

   deliberate part of the plan. Many of the defenders who died in the war

   were not actually Iraqis.)

2. Neither Afghanistan nor Iran would serve the political goals. The

   conquered nation had to be one generally thought of as being Arab.

1. The human and cultural material we needed for reform did not

   exist in Afghanistan.

2. The "Arab Street" would not have

   been impressed by successful reform in Afghanistan or in Persian

   Iran.

3. Why Iraq?
1. Already a problem
1. The existing sanctions process against Iraq (including patrols over

   the "no fly" zones) was a failure and was unsustainable. One way

   or another the status quo was going to end soon. Lifting the sanctions and ceasing

   to enforce the "no fly" zones without removing Saddam from power

   was too risky.

2. Saddam represented a substantial long-term threat. He had demonstrated

   utter ruthlessness and viciousness in two external wars and uncountable

   internal repressions. He showed no sign of abandoning his ambition to

   develop nuclear weapons irrespective of how long it might take or how much

   it might cost or what political sacrifice might be required.

3. Saddam had been providing immense support for terrorist groups, both

   monetarily and in other ways. There were known terrorist training bases in

   Iraq and he had been providing money and arms. It appears that little of that support went to al

   Qaeda. Most of it went to various Palestinian groups such as Hizbollah.

4. Saddam had placed a bounty on Israelis by stating that he’d pay a lot of

   money to the families of any successful suicide bomber, no matter what

   group the bomber came from.

5. Saddam had developed and used chemical weapons against Iranian troops

   and on Iraqi civilians. Left to himself there was a non-trivial chance of

   his giving such weapons to terrorists. After the war in 1991 and 12 years of

   Anglo-American enforcement of sanctions, Saddam had a grudge against the US,

   and the chance of him surreptitiously aiding terrorist attacks against us

   simply out of spite was too great to ignore. It’s a matter of record that he attempted to have

   the senior George Bush assassinated. (George Bush Sr. had been President

   during the 1991 Gulf War.)

2. Military feasibility
1. The leaders of Kuwait feared Saddam and owed us a big favor from

   1991, so Kuwait could be used as a base from which to launch an invasion of

   Iraq.

2. NATO ally Turkey shared a northern border with Iraq and it was expected

   that a second invasion force could be massed there. (As it turned out, this

   didn’t happen.)

3. Iraqi terrain between Baghdad and the Kuwaiti border was well suited for mass armored assault.
4. Because of ongoing low-level combat in enforcement of the southern

   "no fly" zone, it was possible to do most of the essential air

   preparation slowly over a period of months before combat began.

5. Though the Iraqi military was large and had a reputation with the

   "Arab Street", in fact it was deeply crippled and likely to be

   much less formidable than many expected.

3. Political feasibility
1. A casus belli existed that could be leveraged to justify

   conquest in certain international fora.

1. This related to Saddam’s failure to abide by the truce

   terms signed in the aftermath of the war in 1991, particularly in

   cooperating with international inspections to eliminate Iraqi chemical,

   biological and nuclear weapons and development programs.

2. Saddam’s

   possession or intent to acquire such weapons represented an indirect and

   long term threat, but were not the primary real justification for the

   war.

2. There had been substantial support by American voters since 1991 for

   military operations to remove Saddam from power. There was far less support

   for invasion of Iran and no support at all for conquest of any other nation

   in the region.

4. Strategic suitability
1. Iraq is centrally located with borders on Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia

   and Jordan. It has major ports through which supplies and troops can move.

   Thus if we occupied Iraq, it would be ideal as a potential base of military

   operations against any of those other nations later, should that become

   necessary.

2. The governments in the region know it. Having American troops on their

   borders, or even the threat to move troops there, was guaranteed to get

   their attention.

3. If the military victory over Iraqi forces was overwhelming, that

   would make the threat even more impressive. The military forces of the

   other nations in the region were even less formidable than that of

   Saddam’s Iraq.

4. This

   would make diplomatic threats against them far more effective and inspire

   much more cooperation from them than had been forthcoming to that point.

5. Potential for Reform
1. Among the major nations of the region, Iraq before Saddam had been relatively

   mercantile, relatively secular, and had originally had a relatively

   well-educated and cosmopolitan population.

2. Iraq had a history of democratic government, albeit not very

   successfully.

3. The Kurds had already established a government similar to what we needed

   to create.

4. Iraq’s oil wealth could be used to offset much of the cost of

   rebuilding after the war, as well as making the nation economically viable

   and prosperous and helping to finance diversification of its economy.

6. Symbolism and propaganda value
1. Saddam had become a hero to the "Arab Street". He was

   thought of as a strong Arab leader who was standing up to the West. Though

   Iraq’s military had been decisively defeated in 1991, Saddam survived

   politically and

   this actually enhanced his reputation. He hadn’t won against us, but at

   least he’d tried, which was better than anyone else seemed to be doing. The

   "Arab Street" was proud of him for making the attempt. (This

   involves a lot of revisionism, such as ignoring Saddam’s earlier invasion

   of Kuwait, or the participation of large Arab military forces in the

   coalition army which fought against Iraq.)

2. Iraq’s military had the reputation of being the largest, best armed

   and most dangerous of any in the region. If it could be decisively crushed it

   would be psychologically devastating.

3. Baghdad historically was one of the great capitols of classic Arab

   civilization. Having it fall to outsiders would be symbolically important.

7. Other factors
1. We owed the southern Shiites a moral debt for not supporting their

   attempted revolution in 1991, and for our failure to make any attempt to

   prevent the retaliatory slaughter inflicted on them by Saddam afterwards. (I

   consider this the most important and most shameful lapse by the US since the

   end of the Cold War.)

2. The Kurds had prospered under the umbrella of the northern "no

   fly" zone. If the sanctions against Iraq had ended and we had stopped

   enforcing the northern "no fly" zone, the Kurds would

   then have been crushed, in a repeat of the 1991 slaughter inflicted on the

   southern Shiites.

3. Without invasion, reform in Iraq was impossible. The sanctions had

   failed, and after the debacle of the 1991 Shiite uprising, there was no

   further possibility of revolution. Removal of

   Saddam and beginnings of reform in Iraq could only be imposed

   from outside by military force. Thus invasion of Iraq would be necessary

   eventually even if it wasn’t the first target.

8. Potential problems
1. Saddam might use nerve gas or biological agents against the invading force.

   The possibility existed that the cost of the war in casualties could be

   extremely high.

2. Iraq isn’t really a single nation; it is at least three, depending on how

   you count. Creating a unified nation out of it faced problems due to ethnic

   divisions.

3. It also included both Sunnis and Shiites, who generally felt about each

   other the way that the Catholics and Protestants feel in Northern Ireland.

4. It could be expected that neighboring nations would try to support

   factions inside Iraq to work to prevent creation of a democracy there. Iran,

   in particular, was certain to try to inspire the majority Shiites to

   establish Iraq as another Khomeinite Islamic Republic.

4. Preparing for war
1. Development of a "coalition of the willing".
   1. NATO was a

      hopeless waste of time, especially since some NATO members sided with Saddam

      and tried to use the mechanisms of NATO to prevent our attack.

   2. The

      British and Australians openly sided with us. The British in particular

      could offer substantial military and diplomatic assistance. Australian

      assistance was smaller but no less welcome.

   3. Canadian opposition was a major unpleasant surprise.
   4. Other nations were willing to help,

      though in some cases they didn’t want to admit it publicly until the last minute.

2. It was necessary for Congress to pass an authorization for war.
   1. The one

      passed in September of 2001 (under which we had fought in Afghanistan) could not plausibly be interpreted as

      authorizing war in Iraq unless the Bush administration claimed that

      Saddam’s government was directly implicated in the 9/11 attack, and no such

      evidence existed. There’s no reason to believe that Saddam was directly

      involved.

   2. An attempt to try to use the one passed in 1991, or to go into combat

      without one using the 60-day clause in the ‘War Powers Act’, would have caused a constitutional crisis. 

   3. It would have been wrong to try to bypass Congress.
   4. It was vital that the Congressional authorization for war in Iraq not include any provision

      that would give hostile foreign nations (e.g. France) the ability to veto the war.

      Thus it was vital that it not require UNSC authorization or NATO approval

      or participation.

3. We had to attempt to deal with the UN.
1. Tony Blair required UN approval (or an "unreasonable

   veto") for domestic political reasons. In the British system, a

   decision for war is made by the cabinet, but if Blair had done that

   without any attempt to gain UN approval it would have led to a party

   revolt.

2. It was clear that the UNSC would never actually grant permission for

   armed invasion. By going to the UN in September, it had become abundantly clear by

   October that the UN wasn’t going to cooperate, so Congress defeated all

   attempts to include a requirement for UNSC approval in its authorization.

3. Wrangling with the UN ended up covering the primary period of troop

   deployment in Kuwait and restraining Saddam from a preemptive attack

   against us before we were ready. (Not yet known if this was deliberate or

   fortunate side effect.)

4. Dealing with the UN required arguing the case on the basis of Iraqi

   failure to comply with previous UNSC resolutions, and to concentrate on

   the issue of inspections and WMD disarmament. This was not the real issue

   for anyone involved.

5. All negotiations at the UN happened on two levels. Speeches and

   announcements all talked about Iraq. The real issue was the fact that

   the French feared the US more than Iraq. It was a keystone of French

   foreign policy to use all possible means to restrain US military power and

   diplomatic influence.

6. After Congress passed an authorization for war without requiring UNSC

   approval, and after the Republicans won the November election and gained

   a majority in the Senate while keeping control of the House, European

   opponents of war were chastened and permitted Res 1441 to pass. It started one "last chance"

   opportunity for Saddam to cooperate with inspections, and was ambiguous

   as to whether war would automatically be authorized if the inspections

   failed. The US claimed it did; the French that it did not.

7. To no one’s surprise, the new inspections were a joke.
8. After Saddam yet again failed to really cooperate with inspections,

   the US and UK introduced one final resolution in the UNSC that

   effectively would have authorized war. Those opposing the US, in

   particular the French, continued to oppose this. The debate became

   surreal because the true French position was to oppose the US

   irrespective of the merits of the situation.

9. Chirac ultimately overplayed his hand and gave the US and UK the

   diplomatic opportunity to

   walk away. Tony Blair had as a practical matter gotten his "unreasonable veto".

5. Despite the setback of Turkish

   non-cooperation (due to another French political maneuver) logistical

   buildup was complete and CENTCOM told Bush that it had sufficient force in

   place and was ready to go. The attack was launched, and we won.

7. Results. No battle or war is ever 100% effective in accomplishing the

   goals set for it, but this one was very good. To review:

1. The military operation was rapid, efficient and overwhelming.
1. American losses were very light.
2. Iraqi civilian

   losses were also very light, confounding predictions before the war.

3. As

   a result of a very successful psyops campaign before the war, large

   parts of the Iraqi military deserted. Many of those who remained refused outright to fight.

   Most of the paper strength of the Iraq military never had to be engaged,

   and the remnants of the Iraq air force never made a single sortie.

4. Iraq’s military was not seen by

   other Arabs as even having put up a good fight.

2. We now control the territory of Iraq, and have been applying

   substantial pressure to Syria, Saudi Arabia and indirectly to Iran. Syria

   and Saudi Arabia appear to grudgingly accept the new situation. The

   situation in Iran is very fluid and difficult to predict.

3. Headlines notwithstanding, in most of Iraq the rebuilding process is

   actually going moderately well. There have been mistakes and progress has

   not been as fast as many would like, but most of the resistance has been in

   a small region of Iraq which is dominated by those groups and tribes who

   were the top-dogs under Saddam. The armed resistance remains a concern and

   will continue to be a problem for months, but in the nation as a whole

   progress has been satisfactory. Most of the people of the nation are glad

   we’re there, and their main fear is that we’ll leave too soon, or that the

   Baathists will somehow regain power and reinstitute their reign of terror.

4. After the war, the true degree of brutality and barbarism of the

   Baathist regime there began to be revealed. This helped shift the

   political discussion internationally, since it became increasingly

   difficult for anyone to argue retroactively in favor of any policy which

   would have left Saddam in power and thus let the horror continue.

5. When Baghdad fell in just a couple of days, with very few American

   casualties, Arabs elsewhere were totally disillusioned and deflated.

1. The news reports fed to them during the war had been lies,

   and had told them that the Americans were being badly hurt and that the

   Iraqi army was putting up a good fight.

2. As a result, the rapid

   fall of Baghdad was like a bucket of ice water in the face; totally

   unexpected and an even more massive shock.

3. They are now asking

   themselves what other lies they’ve been fed by their governments.

4. And

   some are asking themselves "why we Arabs always seem to fail? What

   is wrong with us?"

5. Some

   Arabs are now openly debating the merits of reform.

6. Anti-American rhetoric is rapidly going out of style in the region.

   It’s no longer fashionable to advocate picking a fight with us.

7. Irrespective of whether Saddam actually had physical possession of any

   kind of WMD, it remains the case that he had not abandoned his ambitions to

   develop such things. Now that he has been deposed, that is no longer really

   possible, even if he is still alive. He may still have that ambition but he

   no longer has the means. It would be nice if he were captured or

   killed, but removing him from power was the primary goal. (Qusay and Uday

   were found and

   killed; Saddam may also die very soon.)

8. With Saddam’s defeat, substantial support for Palestinian terrorist groups has

   been cut off, and it’s already beginning to have effects on them.

8. Stage 3 and beyond: the future
1. Pacification and nation building in Iraq must continue. This is a

   gradual process which will go on for at least the next year and probably for

   several years at a reduced level. I expect us to have at least some military

   presence in Iraq for the next 30 years.

2. A new Iraqi army, modest in size but far higher quality compared to the

   old one, will be trained over the next year and will eventually take

   responsibility for most internal security.

3. The process of creating Iraqi self-government got off to the wrong start

   with the wrong concept (top-down) but is now moving in the right direction

   (bottom up). Most of the cities and towns in Iraq now have ruling councils,

   and local elections will become the norm. A national council is in place but

   has little real power, but in perhaps a year there will be the beginnings of a

   process to write a new constitution and to hold real elections, after which

   most power will be turned over to the new government. Then, for a period of a few years, there

   will be "democracy on training wheels" where some of our troops

   remain but largely don’t interfere unless there is a threat of the

   government being taken over by radicals.

4. Iraqi liberal democracy will represent a threat to the autocratic regimes

   in the region merely by existing, and the US will have to militarily guarantee Iraqi security

   against threats in particular from Syria and Iran, and to a lesser extent

   from Saudi Arabia. We’ll also have to guarantee Kurdish security against

   threats from Turkey. This is another reason why there will need to be a

   significant American military presence in Iraq for years.

5. There’s going to be low level armed resistance in Iraq for years, and

   that means a ongoing trickle of casualties. This isn’t a problem which can be solved

   in weeks.

6. Diplomatic pressure will continue on other nations in the region to cut

   support for terrorist groups and to implement domestic reforms, and that will

   be far more effective. Also, as Iraq gets back on its feet, the new-found

   freedom there will serve as both a challenge and an inspiration for others in

   the region. The "Arab

   Street" will begin asking their governments why they can’t have

   the same thing.

7. There is no way to predict whether any more significant military operations will be

   needed in this multi-decade war to bring about fundamental reform in the

   Arab/Muslim region. We will plan no new major wars there in the immediate future (the next three years), but invasions of Iran or

   Syria or even Saudi Arabia are conceivable sometime in the next 20 years if

   their leaders refuse to cooperate in reforming, or if hostile and activist

   regimes take power.

8. Punitive or preventive

   bombing, especially of Iran’s nuclear facilities, are entirely possible.

9. The shadow war against terrorist group finances and against the cells of

   those groups will continue, occasionally popping into the public view when

   there’s a high-profile success ? or a high-profile failure.

10. The chance of new and devastating attacks against the US and UK now

    appears to be substantially reduced. The risk of attacks against us is not

    zero; there will be more attempts and some may succeed. However, the terrorists now seem to be operating

    inside the Arab world itself (except for ongoing Palestinian operations

    against Israel). That’s

    doubly good, because it’s motivating the governments there to help us more

    than they have been.

9. We can still lose this war.
1. If nation building in Iraq fails, we won’t succeed in demonstrating that

   reform can work for Arabs and make them happier and more successful. We will

   fail to show them that reform is a better choice for them than jihad.

2. If we permit low level resistance in Iraq to drive us out, the Arab street will

   once again conclude that we are ultimately cowardly, and will again feel

   contempt for us. And no nation or group in the region will ever again take

   the risk of helping us in any future operation there.

3. If other nations in the region don’t implement reforms, their people will

   continue to be angry and will continue to support terrorism and extremism.

4. If the other nations in the region don’t cut off support for terrorist

   groups, those groups will continue to have the wherewithal to operate, and

   may eventually target us.

5. If we do not bring about general reform before one or another nation in

   the region successfully develops nuclear weapons, the political situation

   will become vastly more complicated and we will be in extreme peril. It will

   become extremely difficult for us to continue to foster reform in the

   region, and there will be an unacceptably high likelihood that one of our

   cities will eventually be nuked.

6. It is therefore critical that we continue to be engaged in the region and

   continue to work for reform there, doing whatever we must to prevent

   development of nukes by hostile nations in the region and continuing to work to weaken

   existing terrorist organizations. We are winning the war but we have not won

   it. It will take decades to win, just as the Cold War took decades to win.

   The greatest danger facing us now is that we’ll lose heart and give up

   before we do win.