After a month of relative calm, Iraqi insurgents have killed over 140 in Karbala and Baghdad in a coordinated attack. Three suicide bombers attacked a Baghdad mosque, and a fourth exploded near the Shi’a holy city of Karbala. One suicide bomber was intercepted in Baghdad, and another and his accomplices were intercepted near Karbala.
While this is certainly not good news by any stretch of the word, it isn’t cause for panic yet. The strategies employed in these attacks show the desperation the resistance is experiencing and the way in which they are destroying any chance of achieving their aims.
The point of terrorism is not mindless terror, it’s to use terror as an instrument of politics. The goal of the insurgency is to drive the Americans out of Iraq and end any chance of Iraq becoming a free and democratic state. In order to do that, the insurgency needs both weapons and popular support.
The first isn’t a problem, as Iraq is swimming in mortars, AK-47s, RPGs, and other pieces of leftover military equipment. The coalition has destroyed hundreds of metric tons of military equipment, but that’s barely a dent in Saddam’s arsenal, which has been spread across the country. Stopping the flow of weapons is a virtually impossible job.
However, it’s the second factor that is causing the insurgency the most trouble. The Zarqawi memo to al-Qaeda shows that the insurgency is having serious troubles getting enough manpower to pull off major attacks like the one earlier today. Estimates from commanders in the field indicate that there are fewer than 5,000 terrorists in Iraq, and that number is going down each day. Some of them are captured, others are killed by the coalition, and others are blowing themselves up – all of which decrease the pool of jihadis in the area.
If the insurgency could easily replace those people, we’d be seeing an increase in the number of attacks. So far we’ve seen an increase in the sophistication of attacks, but not the overall number. This is telling – it indicates that the insurgency is running out of foot soldiers and having to rely on operatives that are better trained – but when you’re sending your best men to their deaths and you can’t replace them, you’re not going to be effective for long.
The strategy was to have a war of attrition, in which thousands would rise up to kill Americans. This isn’t happened – which means that time is on our side. We are still winning, despite horrible attacks like this. We won’t see a sudden end to the conflict, but a slow drop off as the Jihadis are killed or captured.
Moreover, attacking a mosque is hardly going to make the insurgency any more popular in the eyes of the Iraqis. The insurgency has dropped all pretense of trying to win hearts and minds and started killing anyone they can in order to create civil unrest. However, terrorism tends not to work. Rather than forcing people to meet the terrorists demands, it makes them want to go out and strike back against the terrorists. Acts like this, the killing of innocents in the middle of a mosque, have shown the Iraqi people the absolute and critical importance of not surrendering to terrorism.
“The strategies employed in these attacks show the desperation the resistance is experiencing and the way in which they are destroying any chance of achieving their aims.”
Someone once remarked to a famous astronomer how stupid ancient people must have been to think that the sun was going around the earth. The astronomer replied “yeah, but I wonder what it would have looked like had the sun been going round the earth.” The point being of course the sun going around the earth would look pretty much the same as in reality. But once people were convinced that the sun went around the earth, it took centuries for them to believe the reverse was a possibility.
That said, I have two questions:
1.) At what point does this argument no longer hold? What I mean is, in November, we were told the very severity of the attacks were a result of the desperation of the resistance. Before today we were told the relatively little bloodshed in February was a result of the resistance’s/resistances’ weakness. Now the tactics again indicate desperation? At what point can we agree that this no longer a valid defense?
2.) When you say “attacking a mosque is hardly going to make the insurgency any more popular in the eyes of the Iraqis. The insurgency has dropped all pretense of trying to win hearts and minds and started killing anyone they can in order to create civil unrest,” why do you assume that this is anything less than their goal? Is it not possible that, at this point, the insurgency has figured out that Saddam ain’t coming back, and that their best chance at returning to any power rests with destabilizing the interim government that will almost certainly make it impossible for the insurgency to operate? (And, if one were to want to destabilize the government of a state with a religious majority that has had no chance at rule in the lifetimes of its population…well, I think you see my aim.)
1. If both the number and intensity of attacks were to increase, it would be clear something was going wrong. However, we’re seeing more sporadic attacks. Also, if the insurgency were actually achieving their political ends, there would be a problem – however, they have not been able to stop the progress towards the creation of a new and democratic Iraq.
2. The only way an insurgency can win is to have A:) overwhelming odds in their favor or B:) massive popular support. The insurgency has neither. So far they’re only able to act like common thugs.
Furthermore, the Shi’as know that the best chance they have is to be a part of the new order. These attacks are coming from largely Sunni Arab members of al-Qaeda, many whom were associated with the Ba’athists and are hated by the Shi’a. Ayatollah Sistani may not be a Western democrat, but he knows that the best thing for the Shi’a is to allow the transition to a democratic Iraq to go forwards or there’s a good chance that the anti-Shi’a slaughters of the 1980’s and the 1990’s will happen all over again.
“The only way an insurgency can win is to have A:) overwhelming odds in their favor or B:) massive popular support,” is an incorrect statement. You are again making the assumption that these guys are trying to seize control of Iraq. They are not. Any possibility of that happening disappeared with Saddam’s capture. You know it, I know it, and these guys know it too. They don’t want to “win,” they want to survive. If US troops are the dominant military force in Iraq instead of being visiting soldiers on isolated bases two years from now, I don’t think most Iraqis will be convinced that the “democratic” government is sustainable without occupation. Iraq needs stability to proceed with democratization.
If the transition to US-backed Iraqi rule fails to be orderly or swift, then the US is stuck in an occupation scenario, spending billions of dollars and losing hundreds more soldiers. Let’s just assume for a second that the insurgents aren’t trying to return Saddam to power–what possibly could be motivating them? What on earth could their aim be?
And when you discuss the “sporadic” nature of the attacks, you neglet to notice two things. For one, the attacks today were in two cities and were well targeted and coordinated. That could indicate the insurgents are becoming more organized, and even (God help us if this is the case) more centralized. Even if the attacks are occuring less frequently (rearming is difficult, and our troops are getting better at detecting mines and ambushes) they seem to be getting more sophisticated.
The second thing you fail to note is that if EITHER the number or the intensity of attacks can be a sign of strength. It’s effectiveness that matters, and many attacks with minor results or few attacks with devestating results can both indicate effectiveness.
Finally, I think it’s safe to say that Sistani is not really afraid of widespread anti-Shi’a massacres like happened in the 1980s and early 90s, as he controls more armed men in Iraq than any man (with the possible exception of GWBush). People have weapons, and tens of thousands of Shi’a are taking their cues from the Grand Ayatollah.