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Iraq = Vietnam . . . for al-Qaida!
Rich Lowry, National ReviewLately, the Iraq war has looked more and more like another Vietnam not for us, but for al-Qaeda. CIA Director Michael Hayden says the terror group has suffered near-strategic defeat in Iraq. It has been routed from Anbar, Diyala, and Baghdad provinces, and now is getting a beating in its last stronghold of Mosul, in the north. It is reviled by the Iraqi populace, and its downward trajectory began with indigenous uprisings at its expense. When the United States lost Vietnam, it lost credibility and saw an emboldened Marxist-Leninist offensive around the third world. Al-Qaeda is a global insurgency and not a nation-state and thus its circumstances are radically different from ours 40 years ago but it has suffered a similar reputational loss. The Iraq war had been a powerful recruiting tool for al-Qaeda when it was winning. No more. Osama bin Laden rendered what is called the bandwagon effect in international relations the tendency of states to go along with the dominant power in his homespun Arabic analogy of people liking the strong horse over the weak horse. In Iraq, al-Qaedas proverbial horse is a broken-down nag. . . . A group devoted to overthrowing secular Arab rulers and fighting America has overwhelmingly identified itself with the mass slaughter of Muslim innocents. Its methods might not have produced revulsion in the broader Muslim world if they were succeeding. Instead, in Iraq, its been wanton murder in a losing cause. Like we did in Vietnam, al-Qaeda in Iraq has run afoul of nationalism and local culture, although in spectacular fashion. It has trampled on the prerogatives of tribal sheiks and issued lunatic decrees, like its banning of the local bread in Mosul sammoun because it did not exist at the time of the Prophet. Like we did in Vietnam, it overrelied on favored tactics even after they proved ineffective or counterproductive; with us, it was ever more bombing runs in the North and search-and-destroy missions in the South, while in al-Qaedas it has been mass-casualty suicide bombings. . . . Posted by: Mike 2008-06-17 |
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