Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

Stromata Blog points out that Iraq is a strategic nightmare for Al Qaeda:

It’s useful now and then to look at the war through the enemy’s eyes. The elite media are currently doing all they can to portray Iraq as a “quagmire” for America, a message echoed by the anti-war Left, the isolationist Right and the Chick Hagel Muddle-of-the-Road. The basis for their pessimism is the inability so far of American and Iraqi forces to suppress urban terrorism, a condition that they assume (in some cases, hope) will persist indefinitely.

But what about the other side? A military “quagmire” is, properly speaking, a conflict in which one expends forces without rational hope of success. From the perspective of al-Qa’eda and the Ba’athist remnants in Iraq, that is a fair description of the current state of affairs.The only realm in which they can fight without being slaughtered is the murder of civilians, which brings them no closer to political power. … Meanwhile, foot soldiers die, leaders are killed or captured, hard-to-replenish funds are spent, and resources are tied up in what is, from the Islamofascist grand strategic point of view, a sideshow.

An American withdrawal, though it would certainly be a defeat for us, would not be a victory for them. In an open civil war, the al-Qa’eda-Ba’athist alliance would be heavily outnumbered….

In short, al-Qa’eda cannot win in Iraq, and it cannot withdraw. I wonder how long it will be before its well-wishers in the West see this bleak fact and start calling on the U.S. to “negotiate” with the terrorists, i. e., grant them the power that they can’t attain in any other fashion.

I think I’d just withdraw most of the American forces and let the Kurds and Shiites clean out the terrorists crudely but effectively,but we’re not doing too badly as it is– we’re just tying up forces and spending lots of money and some lives.

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