A very succinct piece. I only wish and wonder whether or not Bush and friends will get this right before it is too late. The window of opportunity on this thing is closing. If they fail, Bush is gone in Nov. '04. He will be replaced by an invertebrate Democrat. This is the ultimate nightmare scenario. And will lead to a "national malaise" as quipped by another jellyfish, James Earl Carter. Let me clarify my point, I am a HUGE supporter of Bush. However, his team has seriously underestimated Iraq. They need to be absolutely merciless on the enemy and any Arab press that wants to foment hatred by way of misinformation

"The Americans' mistake was to assume they had won it and to turn their attention to creating the civilian administration."

Well, not exactly. As Pres. Bush said, "major conflict" - i.e., war with insignia'd troops/mobile armor/aircraft/warships etc. - is over, but the war itself is far from complete and flattening Falluja or other selected parts of the so-called 'Sunni Triangle' is no longer an acceptable response. Until the Iraqi armed forces and police are more numerous, trained, and well-led (the police in many areas are doing a great job, but last I heard only 40K of them back in service nationwide - while Baghdad alone needs 20K) the option of house-to-house cleanup is on hold except when information is fairly specific.

This is coming. When the Iraqi army can secure the borders to some effect (it will never be 100%) and exposed infrastructure (electric lines, pipelines, waterways...) and the police are more in evidence expect a major effort.

See also http://volokh.com/2003_11_02_volokh_archive.html#106790085830740226
- ...there also has to be a way to distinguish between activity that may be terroristic but that is not terrorism. As awful, as maddening, as rage inspiring as it may be when people target American troops in this way, I still believe there is critical value in keeping a bright line around the concept of terrorism -- it is the intentional targeting of non-combatants, it is the killing of the UN's deminers, the Red Cross's water treatment specialists, hotel guests, September 11th.

Your posts are enlightening. I believe that the world should understand that while we realize that they are jealous of U.S. power, they (our "allies") are quick to whine like little ninnies when they have a problem. Couple this with the fact that we are continually picking up the slack for many countries (read: Europe), and then they have the nerve to try to dictate policy when they have marginalized themselves to irrelevance. With the aforementioned backgrounder, we have let ourselves be tacitly forced into conducting operations in a politically correct manner-idiotic. I think that a more effective approach would be to limit deceitful Arabic press coverage in a variety of creative ways, and to conduct operations against any and all enemies with a ferocity and ruthlessness that they could never hope to match. The pc approach was tried before (in SE Asia) with disasterous results. Bush and friends had better wake up.

I'm sorry, but we're not on a war footing, we're on an occupation footing. Iraq will prove to be our West Bank or Northern Ireland.

I suspect that events will follow the same inevitable logic that I've seen before:

1. A warm or at least tolerant welcome for the occupation.

2. Then disillusionment on both sides as our occupation get embroiled in local rivalries and end up alienating everyone.

3. Disillusionment sets in because peace does not come fast enough, in part because extremists are still out there fighting.

4. Armed resistance grows, claiming more occupation soldiers.

5. In countering guerilla or terrorist resistance, the occupation army necessarily ends up arresting, interrogating, injuring, and even killing civilians among whom the terrorists may be hiding. If they leave civilians totally alone, they give the terrorists a free hand, but to rout guerrilla fighters, you have to step on plenty of toes.

6. This will in turn the civilian population against the occupation army, as they see casualties among family, friends, and neighbors add up at the hands of that army.

7. The occupation army ends up in a trap. The more it defends itself, the more casualties it will claim. The more casualties it claims, the more the civilian population will mourn those casualties--including dead terrorists, since they have families, too. The more the civilians mourn, the more they'll support terrorist violence, which will increase army anti-terrorist activity, which will mean more casualties, then more hatred by civilians of the army, etc., etc., etc.

When the British first entered Northern Ireland, they were welcomed by both sides as neutral peacemakers, if I remember correctly. Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was considered relatively gentle at first. It's when the armed resistance starts that these armies find themselves in a no-win situation.

Exactly, That is why I have prescribed the aforementioned remedy. It has to be done differently here or Joannes's post will more or less become the reality. What we must do is learn from history. Foggy Bottom's Bremer, while a good man, is simply ill equipped to succeed without ruthless elimination of the "evil doers". The military is solely equipped to do this. Joanne, you are obviously a good student of history and you lay out the EXACT reason we should NOT FOLLOW the examples as you have described them.

Well, Israel's occupation is still relatively gentle considering what they are dealing with.

It is true that the rationale of terrorism is to put a society - whether liberal, or under an occupation and trying to become liberal - into an untenable position of having to respond with draconian measures to keep from being overwhelmed.

Scott and Joanne - do you have any suggestions?

Yehudit, The problem that the fine people of Israel face is that the court of public opinion, outside of the U.S., is arrayed against you. As long as the invertebrates at the U.N. and in France, Germany, Belgium and other "allies", are able to express their feeble minds and poison their respective publics, there will be no change until after (hopefully) Bush wins in Nov. '04. In my opinion, the Israeli settlements on occupied territories need to be addressed. However, with the aforementioned amoeba's continuing to support the murderer in Ramallah, it is the U.S. and Israel versus the terrorists alone. The Israeli policy of pinpointed erasure of Hamas leaders has been quite effective. After all they came to you and declared a truce and willingness to negotiate after losing several leaders. One thing to understand: President Bush has staked his presidency on two things; Wiping out terrorism and tax cuts that spur the American Economic engine. Syria, the Iranian mullahs, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Saudis, had better keep a watchful eye on their radar screen. They have had their best days.