Ralph Peters’ view of the reality on the ground:

Hamas won because its fighters are religious fanatics ready to die for their cause. Fatah runs an armed employment agency under the banner of Palestinian nationalism. Most of the latter’s security men are on the payroll because relatives or ward pols got them jobs. And they want to stay alive to collect their wages…

Iraq is more complex than Gaza. But once you pierce the surface turbulence and look deep, the similarities are chilling: Iraq’s security forces do include true patriots – but most of the troops and cops just want a job, or were ordered to join up by a sheik or a mullah, or are gathering guns until their faction calls.

The al-Qaeda-in-Iraq terrorists, the core members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the hard-line Sunni ghazis are willing to die for the victory of their faction and their faith. They believe they’re doing Allah’s will. It gives them a strength we rush to explain away.

The raw numbers suggest that Iraq’s fanatics don’t stand a chance. The government has a far greater numerical advantage than did Fatah. But numbers often mislead analysts during insurgencies: Iraq’s government wouldn’t last a week without U.S. troops.

The lesson from Gaza is that such wars are neither waged nor won by the majority of the population. A tiny fraction of the populace, armed and determined, can destroy a fragile government and seize power.

Polls showing that most Iraqis “want peace” and don’t support the extremists only deceive us (because we want to be deceived). It wouldn’t matter if 99 percent of the Iraqis loved us like free falafel, if we’re unwilling to annihilate the fraction of 1 percent of the population with the weapons and will to dictate the future to the rest.

At the height of last week’s fighting in Gaza, one Palestinian in 300 carried a weapon in support of Hamas – a third of one percent of the population. Now Hamas rules 1.5 million people.

As we said the other day, if you are unwilling to wipe out the enemy, doing whatever it takes, you can’t render impotent their suicide ideology. A lesson from the Russians mght be pertinent.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 2:01 pm and is filed under General, idiots!, Religion, Republicans, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.