Two sophisticated, but inferior, enemies in Iraq
One was the Ba’athists, who have been executing their version of War Plan Orange since the invasion of Iraq, their version of the retreat into Bataan in WWII. The US provided Iraq with the opportunity to run an insurgency operation in Iraq when George Bush heeded the counsel of Colin Powell and Congress, and gave Sadaam over six months to hide his WMD and position ordnance and personnel for his Viet Cong operation. Unfortunately for the Saddamites, their luck ran out on Sunday. Insurgencies must have a claim on popular support to retain the air of legitimacy, and the Iraqis took care of that in a serious way with their votes Sunday, and with a deft political touch by the Shi’ites in the aftermath of the election.
The Wretchard is one of the blogosphere’s most sophisticated analysts of the strategy and tactics of Iraq, and he had the situation pegged months ago, which we are reminded of since Newsweek seems to be copying his work of last year as current! news! And therein lies the second tale of defeat. The War Plan Orange strategy of the Iraqi insurgents depended upon the gullible and lazily leftist Old Media in the United States to carry their water. Every day they’d set off a car bomb on the fringe of the Green Zone, conveniently located for western media cameras, and ever so timely for the network evening news EST or EDT. The enemy, quite reasonably, thought they could pull a second Vietnam on America, with aid and comfort provided by Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and their Baghdad reporters, who spent most of their time in the Marriott bar.
The Old Media enemy has been grievously wounded as well by the Iraqi elections. Some of them, like Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun-Times, have now dared to ask in print: What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along? Never fear, dear reader. Such bouts of sanity cannot last long in the poisoned cultures of the Old Media’s editorial boards.
Such is the nature of guerrilla war.