Democratization of the Middle East carries such obvious benefits for American national security that one can only applaud the Bush administration's efforts to make this an important goal in the war against Islamic terrorism.

It is an entirely different matter, however, to make it the sine qua non, the very definition of success in the war, so that every achievement short of it becomes only another historic failure. That comes dangerously close to converting a sensible aspiration into a millenarian obsession. Before we move the conflict to that level, perhaps we could demonstrate our capacity to produce something "simpler," such as a modicum of civil order in the Sunni Triangle. Or is democratic capitalism a precondition for that, too?

Only Iraqi's can produce civil order in the Sunni Triangle and that will only happen when the strategy of intimidation by the Bathhists and their fair weather allies the Islamo fascists fails.

It will fail because it has no broadbased and local popular support and it's goal is the reintroduction of the tyranny of the prior failed regime.

It will fail when the attacks designed to gather headlines to weaken American resolve fail to dislodge the American presence.

It will fail when elections are held and an imperfect representative government begins to build the institutions necessary to provide a stake in a different future than offered in most other parts of the middle-east.

Elections and the formation of a representative government are a necessary ingrediant of the stew that changes the culture to introduce hope for a brighter future.

Unrest in the Sunni Triangle will not stop this process if the majority of the Iraqi's believe in a different future.

Gary B. puts his finger on the single most important reason for optimism about the fate of Iraq. How can a relatively small group of murderous thugs, supported at most by less than 20% of the population, impose its will on the remaining 80% supported by a coaltion of 150,000 well-trained troops? One is almost tempted to say that if those who have the most personal and direct experience of Saddam's tyranny permit themselves to be re-enslaved they deserve the fate that awaits them.

Nevertheless, I do not expect the violence to subside after the election simply because of what might be called the Bystander's Logic. It goes like this: "Either the Americans [or the newly elected Iraqi government] will prevail, or they will not. If they do, they do not need my help, and if they do not, it would be foolish too help. Either way, the only sensible strategy is non-cooperation and neutrality." Needless to say, this puts us [and the newly elected Iraqi government] in a Catch-22 situation: We cannot suppress the insurgency without more help from individual Iraqis; and we cannot expect such help until we can provide more security by suppressing the insurrection.

Is there any way out of this circle? Well, yes. Here is one: Call it the Mongols' offer: "There are two kinds of Iraqis here, those who are cooperating, and those who are about to die." Unfortunately, the Mongols' Offer is not something that liberal democracies can extend and still remain a liberal democracy. It is particularly difficult to tout the benefits of democracy while simultaneously threatening to slaughter its supposed beneficiaries.

Still, the example of the Mongol conquest of the 13th century is instructive. They seized nearly the entire continent of Asia with only 100,000 mounted archers (50,000 fewer than the number we have unsuccessfully depolyed just against the Sunni Triangle). The Mongols left no pockets of insurgency. Why not? Because they approached their task with a degree of ruthlessness and cruelty that has no parallel in the annals of warfare. Although we cannot emulate their example, it does show that there is a degree of violence that gets the job done.

We had better start searching for the degree of violence a liberal democracy can employ, because merely gritting our teeth while American troops are used for target practice is not a winning strategy. We have elections too.

Four points: 1) Just as the Bush administration did, James fundamentally misunderstands what is going on in Iraq. This excellent article in Harpers will help dispel his illusions.

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

2) In the winter of 1993 I played James J. Na in a one-on-one basketball game in the Brown University gym for $10. I won, and then James made up some excuse about his wallet being "back in the locker-room." Which is about as pathetic as the Bush administration's excuses for a) why their intelligence on Iraq was so wrong (or distorted), b) why they excluded the State Department and most experts on the region from planning for the post-war period, and c) why they ignored senior military leaders on how many troops would be needed.

3) I would like to quote a from an article that James wrote last April:

"To be successful in Iraq...we need to instill a healthy dose of fear — that is, respect — for our power. This...does mean overwhelming military responses to insurgents even in the face of serious collateral damages, as well as collective communal punishments such as reduced electricity and water rations for harboring insurgents."

So, James. If you happen to live in a Bagdad neighborhood that may have some supporters of the insurgency...and then the US military turns off your water and electricity...or better yet drops some bombs and kills your wife and kids...this is going to make you a believer in the miracles of democracy that the US is bringing to your country?? I would be willing to wager yet another $10 that you, James J. Na, in your grief and anger under these circumstances, would join the insurgency yourself. Yours is a solution that will soon kill both the patient and the doctor.

4) You are living in a neo-conservative dream world. Please go spend some time with regular Iraqi people in their country and see what they are living through before spouting these ridiculous ideas about how we are going to re-make the very fabric of their existence using overwhelming force from your comfortable office 10,000 miles away. This is not a board game. This is blood and orphans and rage. Do you actually believe anything you're saying, or are you just gunning for a powerful job in a conservative administration?

Pierre Vladimir Stroud

First of all, my sincere thanks to Matt for the plug and for all your interest in my article.

I already responded to Tom Rekdal and the Observer on my own site:

http://gunsandbutter.blogspot.com/2005/01/how-to-define-success-in-war-on-terror.html

Now for this "Pierre Vladimir Stroud" character. Bear with me, this is going to take a while:

Four points: 1) Just as the leftists do, Pierre fundamentally misunderstands what is going on in Iraq. This excellent article in the WSJ will help dispel his illusions.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006152

Pierre, surely you can do better than the usual Marxist claptrap that we fought this war for Iraq's resources or big business.

Even if we agree that some American businesses benefitted economically from the Iraq war does not prove the causality that we fought the war for them.

Sadly, and not suprisngly, the Brown education was lost on you. You confuse causality with coincidence or correlations.

2) Basketball. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Is this what your delicate psyche has been haunted by all these years, Pierre? Good grief. I usually don't respond to ad hominem attacks (look that up Pierre, I know there wasn't a logic 101 class at Brown). I don't know what this has to do with Iraq or the War on Terror. But I will make an exception in this case since this is, I must admit, rather odd.

To be frank about it, I do not remember "the winter of 1993" or Pierre. I don't even remember much of Brown (I moved on to the real world, after having loathed the enforced "diversity" i.e. liberal orthodoxy of Brown for three years). I did play a lot of pickup basketball, and I do remember an episode like what Pierre described.

Someone did bet me $10 once. He won. I didn't have any money on me (in fact, I did not have a wallet and never did bring it to the gym as a practice). Most of my friends there did not have wallets either since, as far as I remember, Brown's rec-center or whatever it was called did not have lockers (or if it did, we did not use it).

I offered this fellow to come walk back with me to my apartment so I could pay him. He declined. I think he asked one more time subsequently, and again I asked him to, on his way back, swing by my place with me so I can pay him. He declined again. And I never heard from him again, so I forgot about it.

But a debt is a debt. So Pierre, if you could kindly establish that you are this man in question and provide me with a contact address, I'd be happy to send you $10 plus interests for the intervening years. I don't want to be haunted by this tragic episode for another 10 years and have a strange character pop up 10 years later to attack whatever national policy points I happen to be advocating.

"Which is about as pathetic as the Bush administration's excuses for a) why their intelligence on Iraq was so wrong (or distorted), b) why they excluded the State Department and most experts on the region from planning for the post-war period, and c) why they ignored senior military leaders on how many troops would be needed."

Pierre, what's pathetic is that this basketball thing is even an issue in a discussion about Iraq! I am sorry to say this, but get a life!

Personally, from reviewing the data, I do not think that the intelligence was wrong or distorted. Intelligence is always imperfect by nature (for example, we thought that the Germans were close to building the atom bomb during WWII). The question is to what degree it was accurate or inaccurate.

My review of the situation is that Saddam Hussein did possess biological and chemical weapons at some point before the OIF. He then likely dismantled and/or transferred out-ouf-country a substantial quantity of these weapons.

What he did keep, however, was the human and scientific infrastructure necessary to re-constitute the weapons programs, including nuclear programs, AFTER the sanctions ended (remember, thank to the Europeans, sanctions were failing).

He simply went "submarine" on his WMD programs for temporary political expediency. This is corroborated by the Iraq Survey Group. Read the whole report, which is widely available on the web.

As far as this canard that "State Department was excluded," no, it wasn't. If anything State drove much of the policy during the immediate post-major combat operations phase. Defense wanted to install Chalabi as the interim leader like Karzai in Afghanistan. Did it get its way? Nope. I WISH Defense had its way.

As far as ignoring the military commanders' request for more troops, to be a bit glib about it, when do they not ask for more troops? Even during the first Gulf War (remember that, that ridiculously overwhelming victory?), US commanders demanded more troops. In fact, one little known story is that one army commander lost his nerves, requested more troops and, when denied, aimlessly "maneuvered" about the desert avoiding contact instead of chasing the retreating Iraqis.

Military leaders almost always demand more resources. They were wrong in Gulf War I. They were wrong in the "major combat operations" phase of Gulf War II. I am of the thought that they are wrong now. They have all the combat power to obliterate Iraq to kingdom come many times over. Troop size and combat power are not the issue. Correct or incorrect methodology is the issue.

Parenthetically, I should point out that people like Pierre were predicting Vietnam-like "quagmire" for Gulf War I and the conventional phase of Gulf War II. They were wrong. I would argue that they are wrong now as well. Does that mean we are doing everything well or even countering the so-called insurgency well?

No it does not. But it does not mean that more American troops is the answer. I would agree, however, that more Iraqi troops would definitely help, not because of combat value, but for obvious cultural reasons.

3) Collective punishment and collateral damage. I will re-print what I wrote for the Seattle Times in response to all the nasty reader mails about why I am for nuclear-bombing all of Iraq.

April 16th, the Seattle Times:

Upon reading the emotionally charged letters to the editor of April 13, about my guest op-ed ("We must teach the insurgents to respect U.S. power," April 9) regarding pacifying Iraq, it is clear to me that at least some readers fail to understand what I actually wrote and engaged in straw-man tactics to ascribe recommendations I do not make (such as indiscriminate bombings or nuclear attacks).

When I refer to "collective communal punishments," I recommend a policy of calibrating rewards and punishments in accordance with the levels of cooperation we receive from specific Iraqi communities. Iraq is a highly tribal and clan-based society, in which communal consensus and decision-making do matter. Communal rewards and punishments are, therefore, appropriate.

Regarding "punishments," I carefully use the word "reduce" rather than "deprive" (of utilities) for a reason. Under the rules of war, the occupying power has the responsibility to make available daily essentials to maintain civilian existence. That does not mean we have to provide every Iraqi community enough resources beyond minimum needs equally, despite varying levels of cooperation.

As for disregarding collateral damage, I offer the following scenario. If the insurgents use women and children as human shields, and we respond by avoiding engaging them out of regard for civilian safety, we invite the insurgents to repeat the practice. In the long run, more civilians would be endangered and killed. If we instead disregard them and engage the insurgents anyway, those women and children may be hurt in the process. But in the long run, the insurgents would realize that the human-shield tactic does not pay, leading to fewer civilians being endangered.

That is what I meant by having the courage to be harsh now in order to be "humane in the end."

James J. Na, Seattle

"I would be willing to wager yet another $10 that you, James J. Na, in your grief and anger under these circumstances, would join the insurgency yourself."

I no longer gamble (I don't even buy a $1 lottery ticket) so I will have to turn you down on the wager. But I can tell you that were I an Iraqi, I would not blame the Americans for trying to help. I'd take up arms to fight the terrorists who are trying to impose tyranny and disturb elections.

My family members fought in the Korean War. Many Koreans died during American bombings and military operations ("collateral damage"). Did my family get angry at Americans? Nope. They got angry at the communists for starting the war and invading and killing "enemies of the proletariat" (which many members of my family as lawyers, businessmen, teachers and scholars were). Many of my family members took up arm to fight the communists. Where is South Korea today? Heck of lot better than Saddam's Iraq or Kim's North Korea. Not even a comparison.

"Yours is a solution that will soon kill both the patient and the doctor." No mate. My solution is to kill the malignant cell to save the body. Sometimes, regrettably in such a case, benign cells are killed as well - but it is in the long run better for the whole body. Such deaths are very tragic, but a fact of life. But the question remains, do you want to pay little now or pay much more later?

One additional clarification. What I advocated, by the way, no longer fully relevant, because we are now in a different phase of the war. That particular piece was regarding the initial pacification.

We are now in a transition phase where we are increasingly handing over security responsibility to the Iraqis themselves. In that regard, my earlier piece is frankly obsolete as far as this particular conflict is concerned.

4)You are living in a Marxist dream world.

Okay, I don't know if you do or not, but I thought I'd just substitute "neoconservative" for "Marxist" in your bold declaration. Do you have any substantive arguments or do you just engage in one ad hominem attack or another?

"Do you actually believe anything you're saying, or are you just gunning for a powerful job in a conservative administration?"

Yes and why, have you heard anything?

I like Mr. Na's response to Mr. Stroud's basketball diaries. Here's $10 to the Shirts or the Skins, whoever wins. Stop by my place to collect.

Elsewhere I've referred to Scheuer's book, Imperial Hubris. Mr. Na seems to support Scheuer's assertion that we face the imminent threat of being undone (William F. Buckley is now using the 'f' word, failure) because we like cheap war, just as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said too many Christians are too fond of cheap grace.

Cheap war is Gulf I, maybe Bosnia, maybe Afghanistan, wars in which great issues seemed to be resolved in a sit-com minute with few body bags to spoil the view.

Scheuer writes that our fatal error in the current real war is that we are fighting with cheap strategies, tactics, & constraints. He calls Afghanistan a failure because we fought cheap. We had on 9/12 or 9/13 2001 the motive, means, opportunity, and coordinates to use massive retaliation to avert what now looks like a new 30 Years War or 100 Years War or Third Crusade, the sequel.

We are losing Iraq. We're fighting cheap -- wartime tax cuts, just like LBJ before the contra-Keynesian misery indices kicked in -- but it's not cheap. One year ago some paleo-post-Marxist took over a slab of pavement and put boots on the ground, 500 pairs of empty combat boots. Today he'd need more pavement, maybe a parking lot ... By the way: word on the street is that the other 9/11 shoe or boot hasn't dropped, yet, because President Bush quietly spread the word that Mecca will be a parking lot if 9/11 ever happens here again. Time Magazine, meanwhile, reports that alQaeda is assembling a nuclear weapon or bio weapon in Mexico, & is almost ready to head north.

About Iraq as an incubator of free-market democracy, I hope and pray that you are right. But I fear in the soul's dark night that you are wrong. (Although Walter MacDougal writes that many of us speak of 'Wilsonianism' much too loosely, I think we don't speak of it enough. Wilson, with good intentions and democratic ideals, made the world safe for Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini. Democracy is a fugitive resource that has a short shelf life & that dribbles out of almost any container you try to carry it in. Scheuer, who is dangerously wrong about many things, is very right about Wilson & about the Wilsonian impulses of our present president.

About WMD: In the New York Review of Books review of the Hans Blix book, Blix affirms that only the imminent threat of American battalions on his border in early 2002 made Saddam play well with others. Before that, Blix says, nobody finally knew what weapons remained in Iraq after Clinton allowed Saddam to expel inspectors in 1998/1999.

James,

Thanks for your amusing post. I love that you call someone who points out the obvious flaws in your thinking a "Marxist." How very Joseph McCarthy of you, my darling. How very retro. A few other points.

1) You can keep your $10. You're going to need it when Bush gets done wrecking the economy.

2) Or you could use it to buy yourself a sense of humor. I thought it was funny that I read your post, saw your website, and recognized your picture from the hardcourt drubbing that I administered on you eleven years ago. If you're ever in NorCal and want to go double-or-nothing, drop me a line. Otherwise, put the $10 in a personal retirement account (it'll only be $9.50 once Wall Street is done with its commissions, that $9.50 will only be worth $7 if you pick the wrong stocks, and that $7 will only be worth $3 once Bush drives our deficits so high that the Chinese central bank stops buying US treasury bonds and makes 1929 seem like a soft landing).

3) This next one is just common sense...don't make a bet when you don't have the money on you. That's like taking out $2 trillion to fund your Social Security privatization scheme when you are already trillions in the hole.

4) "Weapons related program activities" don't justify an invasion. Iraq was about the 12th most dangerous threat in the world to us (after Pakistan, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russian nukes, climate change, our federal deficits, our crumbling education system, AIDS, neo-conservative simple-mindedness, and the strong Euro). Now we have radically reduced military, economic, and diplomatic resources left to deal with the first eleven problems. Whoops.

5) How classic that your response to Naomi Kline's well-researched article on the situation on the ground in Iraqi is a Wall Street Times article about the stock market. You are truly living inside a bubble. As for the substance of Kline's article, you make the ASSUMPTION that the powerful lobbying efforts of big businesses like Halliburton and their ties to senior officials has nothing to do with the way business is being conducted in Iraq. Why?? Not because this assumption is verifiable or even makes sense, but because it supports your ideology and the conclusions you want to reach. That is going through life with blinders on, pal.

6) I am not seeking to diminish your family's experiences in the Korean War, but the parallel you are drawing to the experience in Iraq is a total abstraction. It is obvious that in the context of Iraq (as opposed to Korea) -- due to specifics of history, geography, and culture -- collective punishment and collateral damage only serve to strengthen the existing widespread assumption that America is anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, colonialist, imperialist, self-interested, etc. Neo-cons have talked a lot about winning over hearts and minds, but so far their approach to occupation is creating enemies far too quickly for this enterprise to ever be successful.

7) The exclusion of the State department from the planning for the post-war period is well documented. Please reference any number of excellent New Yorker investigative pieces on this topic. As for the idea that installing Chalabi was going to work, please note that he had been indicted for a massive bank fraud in Jordan, gave the US bad intelligence, is suspected of working with the Iranians, and is widely seen as a stooge and puppet within Iraq (where he hadn't lived for thirty years). More neo-con insanity.

8) As long as your keep spitting out this by-the-book neo-con nonsense, I am sure you will be richly rewarded by some think tank funded by Pete Coors or by some administration needing lackeys. The guys in charge are always looking for some pliable quasi-intellectuals who are willing to make excuses for them.

9) Sorry for that last ad hominem, but I lose my usual politeness when people drop semi-fascist phrases like "healthy dose of fear." Have you ever enjoyed the healthy dose of fear that goes with the peaceful whisper of a falling bomb?? If you believe so much in what the administration is doing in Iraq, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and enlist? Or did you leave your wallet back at your dorm room again? If so, don't worry, some young reservist who just wanted to find a way to afford college will spend the next two years paying that bill for you, assuming he lives that long.

Pierre Vladimir Stroud

Sandalista:

There is nothing wrong with "fighting cheap." In fact, you want "cheap" as much as possible, because "cheap" means saving lives and resources. I like, no LOVE, cheap.

What I object to, however, is the notion that we ought to only do "cheap" wars. We fight wars to protect our interests and provide the nation with security.

We hope to God that such wars can be fought as cheaply as possible, both in lives and resources. But fundamentally the objectives have to drive the decision to go to war rather than costs. Surely costs (or estimated costs) must play a role in the calculation, but in the end, the exigencies of the objectives matter the most.

Should we have packed up and left the Pacific to the Japanese when the war became costly in lives and resources?

Pierre:

You clearly did not see the point. I used your own words and merely replaced terms like "neo-conservative" with "Marxist" and your URLs with my own URLs to point out your simplistic thinking as well as to demonstrate that anyone with an Internet connection can link URLs.

Do you have any original point other than what Michael Moore told you? If so, I'd like to see your op-ed in a major newspaper.

As for this basketball business, why didn't you come with me and collect the money 11 years ago? Did I yell at you and scare you? I am sorry about that. I was a young-un and immature at the time like a lot of kids. I know that you were a squirrely little guy and easily frightened, now that I recall who you are.

Still, I must point out, I think you beat me by two points, and that was the only time you ever beat me. I can see how this was one of the more significant triumphs of your life, to be remembered and treasured forever. No doubt this will be a significant part of your life narrative for your grand kids (well, I once scored on Dickey Simpkins in a pick-up game; maybe I should track him down and sass off over the Internet seeing as how he played for Providence College and, later, the Chicago Bulls).

Wow. A challenge from northern California through the 'Net? You are very brave. Something about alcohol and the Internet seems to bring out the internal fortitude in people.

Speaking of bravery, I would very much love to be an officer in the United States Army (stationed in Iraq or anywhere else). I wanted to join the OCS program, but by the time I was finally allowed to be naturalized by the BCIS (previously INS), I was too old (yes, I was a foreigner until very recently).

I envy people like you who won the genetic lottery and was born in the US, and never had to work hard to win that citizenship, other than mouth off to strangers on the Internet.

In various parts of the world, I've been shot at, stabbed and assaulted (well, attempted stabbing and assaults anyway). Last year I was in West Bank where I felt the bullet holes on buildings with my own hands. You are indeed lucky that you don't have to experience such things in the safety of your "NorCal" bubble (your word), because there are folks out there shielding you from the ugliness of the world (speaking of which, what do you think about the fact that the vast majority of the military, especially those serving in Iraq, supports the President's handling of the war?).

If you got nothing else but more ad hominem attacks, I got nothing more for you except what a wise man once told me:

Don't try to teach a pig how to sing. A pig will never be able to sing and you'll just annoy the pig.

First of all, best site ever. I am getting addicted to Rosenblog. Can people with names like Pierre Vladimir Stroud and James J. Na really exist? Rosenblog, if you made these people up and got them to fight over some basketball game from 1993, God bless you. If not, even better.

On to my points about this article:

1. Na, excellent job using the words "ad hominem"; "canard"; and "glib." It must have been your SAT Verbal score that got you into Brown. I am certain that Mr. Vladimir Stroud is quaking in his boots, knowing that you can toss your vocabulary at him like a knife from the boot whenever you need to.

2. I find it amazing that a person can actually make the argument that killing innocent people will save innocent people. Na, you must either be on crack or the spawn of that enormous computer that beat Garry Kasparov. Let's think of some extensions to your argument:
- I think the current tax cuts will ultimately wind up shortening many people's lives because they are helping to drive up the deficit, crush the dollar, decrease investment in the US, and ultimately wipe out some peoples' pension funds, somewhere, and that will lead to worse health care and extra years of hard labor. Ergo, I get to set the Capitol on fire.

- Drugs sometimes kill people. Drugs are sold on the campus of UC-Berkeley. Therefore, one good idea to stop deaths would be to put mustard gas in the campus rec center. Just say no!

- Anyone who whiles away perfectly good work hours posting to this site instead of doing his job could get fired. Then he could become homeless, and we know that being homeless, especially if the weather is bad, can be dangerous. So we must ban Rosenblog.

Na, if I had a think tank, I would certainly put you in it.

3. You seem so angry about losing at basketball. Dude, it was 11 years ago. This sort of thing is actually what the internet was invented for - never being able to escape losing a one-on-one game in 1993. Roll with it.

3a. But it is embarassing that 1) you didn't pay, and 2) that you've concocted a long and vaguely homoerotic excuse and posted it here before getting flustered and chastising Pierre for bringing it up.

4. Pierre Vladimir - Na mentions at some point that "Michael Moore told you." Did you actually get to meet Michael Moore? Because, way cool. He's famous, you know.

5. Pierre, you need to take back all that shit you said about how Na is scared of combat or whatever. He *did*, after all, go visit the West Bank and touch a bullet hole. Those motherfuckers can be dangerous. Because bees could be hiding in there. Na, when you park your car outside work, do you tell your co-workers that you almost got in a wreck on your way to work? "Dudes, this car was *right* next to me!!"

6. Keep up the good work, fellas. I'll be back tomorrow to see what new scrapes you've gotten yourselves into.

Oink.

That goes double for Pierre's special friend.

Oink? What does that mean? Does it mean I'm a pig? Why do neoconservatives always have to say such hurtful things?