Making Iraq safe for the enemy

Ralph Peters:

WHETHER the issue is domestic law and order or fighting foreign wars, the great fallacy of the left is the belief that protecting the "human rights" of killers is more important than the elementary human right of the vast majority - the innocent - to live unmolested by murderers and fanatics.

Whether the cry is "Free Mumia!" or "Close Guantanamo!" or "Bring the Troops Home Now!" the consistent purpose is to rescue killers from justice - no matter the cost to law-abiding citizens here or to the millions of Iraqis who truly desire peace.

This situation was bad enough when save-the-cop-killers/pity-the-terrorists ideology only infected the left. But political correctness has insinuated itself so deeply into our collective thinking that even the chest-thumping Bush administration refused to take on Iraq's fanatical killers - with the result that Iraq is now frankly ungovernable.

The administration ignored an ironclad rule of conflict in failed societies: A fraction of 1 percent of the population, armed and determined, can destroy a fragile state. If you are not willing to kill that fraction of a percent, the remaining 99-plus percent will suffer terror, massacre and chaos.

Our weakness of will and wishful thinking made Iraq safe for our enemies. They can walk the streets unarmed. We can't.

We did the right and virtuous thing by deposing Saddam Hussein. There's no reason even now to regret that act. But history will condemn us - justly - for the moral cowardice we revealed after the fall of Baghdad: We would not kill the handful of men who needed killing. Now they've converted tens of thousands to their cult of violence.

Imagine how different the situation would be had our forces been allowed to plan for a military occupation with rational rules of engagement, if looters had been shot and if we had taken on the militias as they were forming. Had we occupied the Sunni Triangle with sufficient numbers of troops and had we killed the Shia provocateur Muqtada al-Sadr as he began assassinating peaceful rivals in mid-2003, Iraq would've had a chance.

Now it's too late. Too late for more troops. Too late for the massive crackdown that would be required. Too late to restore the rule of law after we enabled the spread of lawlessness. Too late for the average Iraqi to live in peace.

It's up to the Iraqis now. And they appear to be their own worst enemies.

...

The decision not to impose marshall law when looting occurred was a serious mistake. In our zeal to be seen as liberators we fostered a sense that there would be no consequence for looting and mayhem. Our new counter insurgency plan, which was written by generals who did nothing to resist the looters, similarly fosters an attitude that there will be no consequence to opposing the US. We will just be nicer and not shoot this time. In a society that had been held together by coersion for decades, the enemy took advantage of our unwillingenss to impose our will on the looters and built an insurgency. While some have said we created the insurgency, that is not true, but our kindness let them think they could get away with it.