A little history and analysis
as late as 2006…It was assumed that purely political means could be used to win a military conflict (an illusion that still holds sway among many members of Congress). It is only now that General Petraeus is attempting to implement a unified political and military strategy against the insurgency.
Fighting this kind of counter-insurgency war is unavoidable because an insurgency is the strategy our enemies have chosen–and they chose it because it hits us directly at two of our crucial weak spots. America’s two crucial weak spots in war are the pragmatism and moral timidity of the right — and the active Western self-loathing of the left.
The first weak spot, for example, causes such strategic errors as the belief that we could fight a war narrowly within Iraq, without fighting a larger regional conflict against Iran and Syria. That decision allowed those two dictatorships to create and support the insurgency with impunity. The second weak spot furnishes the left with a moral fifth column, a wide cultural movement within the West that will seek to exploit any errors and setbacks in the war as proof that we are morally unfit to fight it and must surrender…
A terrorist insurgency is perfectly aimed at these two weak spots. The right’s timidity will prevent it from taking decisive action against the sponsors and supporters of the insurgency, causing the war to drag on longer than it needs to — and the longer the war lasts, the more the culturally influential left will chip away at public support for it.
Our enemies know that these are our weaknesses, because we have proved them again and again, in Somalia, in Beirut — and particularly in Vietnam. These are the examples they look to in pursuing this strategy.
Insurgency war is not only aimed at our weak spots; it is also well suited to our enemies’ capabilities. It is an inexpensive war to maintain in terms of manpower, weapons, and technology. It requires, not massive armies and fearsome warships, but a few thousands car bombs and a few hundred suicide bombers. This is a war our enemies know they can sustain. They are short on military and economic power–but long on ideological indoctrination and religious fanaticism, precisely the resources called for by an insurgency.
But there is one final, broader reason why an insurgency war is a strategy peculiarly suited to the advocates of modern Islamic totalitarianism…a terror bombing campaign writ large…For all their talk of an Islamic “caliphate,” today’s Islamists do not really have such an organized vision. Their ideology…is a charter, not for a modern state, but for tribal gang warfare, and the rule of the Islamists has been dominated by the capricious whim of holy warriors, usually without much pretense of scientific organization or the rule of law.
This can be seen in many of the societies where Islamists have risen to power: their model of the ideal society has been on display in Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, and Waziristan. It is best described as anarcho-totalitarianism: total control over the individual, not by an organized state, but by roving criminal gangs of religious zealots…
Winning in Iraq would have a unique power to discredit the view that the terrorists are the strong horse. The terrorists already know that they can’t win in a conventional, stand-up fight. A victory in Iraq would tell them that they can’t win an insurgency, either. The Islamists would come across, to their supporters and sympathizers in the Arab and Muslim world, as just another group of posturing failures who promised greatness and delivered humiliation.
Tracinski’s analysis is interesting. However, Iraq is but a small part of the worldwide nervous breakdown of the Islamic literalists. The Modern World stands as a gross affront to those who crazily insist on the sufficiency and literal accuracy of a 7th century book — the turmoil in so many Islamic countries is eloquent testimony of this existential crisis. In so many ways, the real issue is not their fundamentalism — it will change or the believers will most likely be increasingly isolated and irrelevant (but after what blood and treasure have been wasted?). The greater issue is the loss of history in the EU and the West, who increasingly do not know the ideological underpinnings of how they got so wealthy and free.
It would be a much better world if the intellectuals of the West joined in the struggle, as it would lessen the overall pain of Islam’s reformation if they actively stood up for the great principles of the West, such as the rights of the individual, the Rule of Reason, and freedom of speech. In our view, it is likely to be sufficient to a victory of sorts if and when the regular people of the West emulate the words of John Smeaton: “Coom ta Glasgie an’ we’ll set aboot ye!” — but the results of such a victory without overarching ideas could well be an intellectually impoverished West, and a weakening of civil society.