BOY, I WISH THEY WOULDN’T SAY THAT
“The top Marine officer in Iraq declared yesterday that victory in the battle of Fallujah has “broken the back” of the Iraqi insurgency, while another commander in the war on terror said Osama bin Laden is all but cut off from his terrorist operatives.” (WA Times, 11/19)
Far be it for me to question the motivations of our commanders on the ground in Iraq, but the above statement seems to me to be a little bit too optimistic. I base that assessment on posts like this from American Soldier and this post from Kevin Sites Blog (the NBC stringer who just took the video of the Marine shooting in Fallujah).
Maybe I’m letting the “Viet Nam Syndrome” color my analysis but the quote IS eerily familiar, harkening back to a time when we could “see the light at the end of the tunnel” and “peace is just around the corner.”
Apparently, even some in the Pentagon aren’t quite sure either:
“Some Pentagon officials say privately that they do not share Gen. Sattler’s optimism.
They said this week that the countrywide insurgency has shown itself to be an adaptable band of dedicated killers that likely will be able to recruit new members and sustain some level of violence for years, not just months.”
What the Pentagon isn’t talking about is the 2000 pound elephant in the room; Iranian and Syrian assistance to the terrorists.
Sometime soon, we’re going to have to confront both of those countries about WMD and their financial and material support to people who are killing a lot of our guys over there. Syria, whose internal weaknesses could be exploited much easier than the mullah’s problems with a mini-insurgency of students and democracy activists, would seem to be a logical choice for immediate pressure by the US State Department. (Why we’ve done so little to date is a complete mystery to me.)
Iran, will be a much tougher nut to crack as the theocratic thugs continue their march towards acquiring nuclear weapons and the launch systems capable of delivering them. The fig leaf agreement that the EU Big Three (France, Germany, and Britain) have just negotiated may succeed in driving a wedge between the US and some of our allies when it becomes apparent that Iran has no intention of honoring the pact and we or the Israeli’s are forced to take military action to stop the mullahs from threatening the peace.
As I posted here, I’m not particularly optimistic about our chances in stopping Iran from fully realizing their nuclear ambitions.