Understanding US strategy against al Qaeda

Carolyn Glick:

The Battle of Iraq is nearly over. And the Americans have nearly won. Their enemies are on the run. Al-Qaida forces have lost or are losing their bases of operations. Its fighters are being killed and captured in ever increasing numbers. Iraq's Sunni citizens, who, until recently, refused to take any part in the post-Saddam regime, are joining the army and citizens' watch groups by the thousands.

Local sheikhs in Baghdad, following the example set earlier by Sunni sheikhs in Anbar province, are ordering their people to fight with the Americans against al-Qaida. For their part, the Shi'ite militias know that they are next in line for defeat. As a result, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Shi'ite militiamen to cease their attacks.

The numbers speak for themselves. Over the past month, some 46,000 Iraqi refugees returned home. Since May, the number of civilian casualties has decreased by 75 percent. US military casualties have also dropped precipitously after the death rate rose in recent months of hard fighting. Neighborhoods in Baghdad that had ceased to function under al-Qaida's reign of terror have come back to life.

Businesses are reopening. People are rebuilding their homes. Even churches are reopening their doors. This is what victory looks like.

Yet the promise of Baghdad is a lone ray of light in an otherwise darkened field of failed US policies. As President George W. Bush prepares to enter his last year in office, America's international standing is at a low point. The forces of jihad, while being defeated in Iraq, are rising everywhere else. The price of oil races toward the once inconceivable price of $100 a barrel. New jihadist mosques open daily throughout the world. Pakistan is a disaster. Iran is closing in on the bomb.

TO UNDERSTAND America's manifold failures, it makes sense to begin with a look at why Iraq is different. For the new, successful American strategy in Iraq is not only different from what preceded it there. It is also different from the US strategy that is failing everywhere else.

The new American strategy in Iraq is based on a fairly simple assumption: The US goal in Iraq is to defeat its enemies, and to defeat its enemies the US must target them with the aim of defeating them. This is a strategy based on common sense.

Unfortunately, common sense seems to be the rarest of commodities in US foreign policy circles today. Outside of Iraq, and until recently in Iraq as well, the US has based its policies on the notion that it can bend its adversaries to its will by on the one hand signaling them in a threatening way, and on the other hand by trying to appease them where possible. And this is the heart of the failure.

...

She actually misstates US strategy in Iraq. She puts it in terms of the old strategy. The new and successful strategy was to protect the people of Iraq. By doing that they helped us destroy the enemy. Before, when we were merely focused on destroying the enemy it became a game of whack a mole as we chased him from one area to the other. By adding a greater force to space ratio we were able to take and hold areas and protect the people in those areas. When the people saw that they would be protected they turned on al Qaeda in great numbers.

The reason this policy has not been adapted in Pakistan is that until recently the Pakistani government did not appreciate the threat the Islamist posed. However, the Pakistani government has agreed to a counterinsurgency strategy which will be aided by US special forces troops to train and work with the Pakistani forces which have until now been ineffective. Musharraf's second in command has agreed to the new strategy and there have been positive signs that the recent "state of emergency" would not impede the new strategy. Apparently the "real" emergency in Pakistan is that the courts and the lawyers did not agree with Musharraf holding the army position and the presidency. He is going to have to back down on that issue.

Her premise that the US policy against al Qaeda is failing elsewhere is also flawed. The al Qaeda brand is in deep trouble everywhere. Its plans have been thwarted in several recent attacks. right now its best hope for survival is with the Democrats in Washington who champion terrorist privacy rights and persist in the desperation for defeat in Iraq.