Centerfield

I don't know--it seems to me that if Iraqis are saying resistence to American troops is a right, that can't be good. Supposedly, our troops are there at the behest,or at least for the benefit, of the Iraqis. If you have groups saying they have a right to resist (ie, kill) American troops, I can't see how that is good news.

Marc,

You're crossing two points into one. They are not saying resistance to American troops specifically is a right. They are saying resistance is right as a general principle. They take no stance positive or negative on resistance to the American Occupation because that was outside the scope of their debate.

Remember they're purpose is defining terrorism, and their definition does not include attacks on American and Iraqi troops, only attacks on civilians.

Terrorism is a crime. Warfare is not. They are establishing the criteria for what constitutes which in order to formulate an appropriate response. The stance towards resistance is neutral. The stance towards terrorism is condemnation.

As Rick pointed out. A terrorist goes to jail or gets executed. An insurgent gets put into a POW Camp where they wait out the conflict with the hope of being reintegrated into society at its conclusion... In theory at least. America has traditionally taken a higher-ground in respect to our treatment of POWs.

If you look at the history of the Middle Ages--and I think the Middle East still has a lot of that mentality--you see shifting alliances where people who fought against each other, and killed each other's troops, can switch sides. It is possible to strike deals with people you are fighting against.

Americans are used to fighting until unconditional victory, but World War II is really an exception that has a great hold on our imagination. We must avoid an unconditional defeat, as in Vietnam, but if our withdrawal is accompanied by integration of non-Al Qaeda Iraqi Sunni insurgents into the constitutional Iraqi regime, and the Iraqi Sunnis agree to expel Al Qaeda, I think that is an acceptable result.

I had heard elsewhere that the calls for withdrawal were supposedly based on goals/benchmarks, not a calendar.

I don't like the notion of a timetable or calendar schedule, which means that the priority is based on when you want things to happen, as opposed to when they really can happen.

That doesn't mean you can't focus work around ideas like "a 10 to 20% reduction within the next 12-18 months, etc, etc." But everyone knows that if you worship your production schedule because marketing is in charge, you may well end up shippy crappy product.

In a sense, it's a small point, because time is important, and we are on the meter in trying to get Iraq ready to stand without our propping BEFORE the people just tire of our presence. If we don;'t do this quickly enough, we become the focus of blame for most popular dissatisfaction. That's inevitable.

But still, I say benchmarks over timetables.

...when the Iraqis decide for themselves that they are ready to move forward without our troops, that will be fine with me.

I think that is the essential point at which we will have indisputably "won." A legitimate Iraqi government asking us politely to go play elsewhere would be a complete affirmation of victory in the country. Kinda like your kid moving out of the house and into a decent job and apartment is a vindication for a parent.

I think that is the essential point at which we will have indisputably "won."

Rick, the point in your comment is certainly correct, but I think you underestimate how well at least the Bush administration understands it. We had great success in Afghanistan in part because we recognized that some warlords who were enemies one day could be friends the next as the tides shifted. We accepted and encouraged such defections, and we have followed that policy of coopting the former enemy to the exent where the administration has taken some criticism for leaving some of the nastier warlords in power. But we have wisely used our power and presence to condition such grants of power on some adherence to the new national government there and other basic points.

In Iraq, the U.S. was very supportive (if not the instigator) of the delays in adopting the constitution and elections and other benchmarks in order to obtain greater participation by the Sunnis. We have used our influence to make sure that the final governmental structure for Iraq balance the competing interests of the 3 main population groups, the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shiites.

This is not to say that all this has been done perfectly, but simply that the overall policy of the government reflects and indeed embraces the concept you describe.

PatHMV,

Agree, and would also like to point out that many of those nasty warlords whose positions of power were such a blight on the Administration's efforts in Afghanistan have since been marginalized and/or co-opted into the legitimate political process. Ishmael Khan no longer controls the western jewel (Herat); warlord Fahim Khan was dropped from the ticket as Vice President-- his ally (former Education Minister) Yunus Qanooni ran against Karzai as Fahim's proxy-- and was soundly defeated in the polls; likewise for former Planning Minister (and Hazara warlord) Mohaeqq. Abdul Rashid Dostam has left his militia in Mazar-e-Sharif to join the government (although, in his case, I will acknowledge that he remains a potential spoiler).

The point being that in Afghanistan we made a deliberate effort to work with the warlords (initially), while slowly but steadily eroding their authority until they were in a position where we could neutralize them completely. It's an ongoing process, to be sure, but we've definitely made progress. And, as I'm always pointing out, the good news is that the man who ran this strategy in Afghanistan (Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad) now holds that position in Iraq.