The Last Magnolias by the Euphrates

The comparisons between the Iraq campaign and the Civil War occasioned by Magnolia by the Euphrates provoked a storm of email whose quality shows what is possible when people write without rancor in a considered, thoughtful way. Unfortunately, it came in quantities that threatened to lock out my Hotmail account. For that reason I must ask readers not to send any more Civil War related email. The mailbox won't hold it.

MM wrote on May 18. His parallels encompass not simply the Civil War, but the War of Independence.

There is a parallel to Hood's invasion of Tennesse in Nathanial Greene's southern campaign in the Revolutionary War. After Guildford Courthouse Greene moved south, hoping to draw Cornwallis (his British counterpart) after him. Cornwallis, in turn, moved north into Virginia hoping to draw Greene after him. But, Cornwallis moved into enemy territory, whereas Greene campaigned in largely Patriot lands. Patriot thanks to a series of uprisings engineered by people Greene had left behind for just that purpose. Where Cornwallis was effectively without support, Greene had that and to spare.

Hood's situation in Tennesee more closely resembled Cornwallis' in Virginia than Sherman's situation in Georgia resembled Greene's in the Carolinas. However, support for the Conferderate cause was not universal even in South Carolina, and in some areas resistance was active. So while Sherman did not get the support Greene did, he still got more than either Hood or Cornwallis. Most importantly, neither Greene or Sherman faced anything like the resistance Hood and Cornwallis faced in their respective campaigns. Greene succeeded because he had local support. Sherman succeeded because the locals did not support his opponent, and he had the resources needed to achieve his goals. Neither Cornwallis or Hood could gain the suport they needed, nor did they have the resources needed to carry out operations without that support. Plus, both food themselves facing strong resistance. Strong enough to trap them in situations they could not escape.

In Iraq we have the same situation, on a smaller scale, multiplied many times, but essentially the same situation. The terrorists and insurgents are trying to make us react to their movements, and failing. In addition the rebels are losing support as the Iraqi people start to see the Coalition as an ally instead of an occupier. Iraqi and Coalition forces have the inititive, and there is no sign they will be losing it anytime soon. Why? Because we have the resources, plus the local support needed to maintain the initiative in the face of enemy actions. And those resources and the accompanying support are growing on a daily basis.

On May 17, reader LS reflected on the guerilla war that never followed the war between North and South.

I agree with Michael McCanles' reply on the strategy by Grant and Sherman. Indeed, I have argued that Lee was a fool for invading the North, ever: these were political, not military invasions. Had the South had the brilliant leadership its always credited with having, the Confederacy would have ceded much of Virginia and Texas, sucked in its defensive perimeter, and tightened its supply lines rather than expand them. The reason Lee couldn't, of course, was that Jeff Davis refused to give up one inch of Confederate territory, even if it meant winning the war. Thus, Lee had no chance to effect a political solution in the North by bleeding northern armies. Nor did he have the "high ground" that inevitably would have come when the South never invaded the North, but the North constantly invaded the South. Whether that could have translated into British. or French help is dubious, but possible. More likely, it would have extended the war and, without southern invasions, led to even more carping and complaining in the North.

For those who think that political terrorism and car bombings at the entrance to the Green Zone are a new thing, reader MM had some historical observations on May 17.

The period between 1865 and 1876, generally called 'reconstruction', has many parallels with our current 'rebuilding' effort in Iraq

1. The northern army could only effect policies which were supported by a 'media informed' northern electorate. This electorate was fundamentally convinced the south should follow northern election practices. All efforts in the South were gauged in terms of media reports on elections and resulting political harmony. 2. Southern elections increasingly featured the effective use of murder and torture to win elections. The key to effective use of this tactic was keeping the violence out of the northern media. The media policies that emerged were so effective that academic literature on the period still uses the pejorative terms popularized by Southern terrorists (such as the Ku Klux Klan): CarpetBagger: Any white Republican born in the north. Scalowag: Any white Republican born in the south. . 3. Village level violence often included the public torture of victims. 4. Defeated Southern general officers rose to political prestige by mastering (or inventing) election terror techniques. In 1876, General Wade Hampton's revised command staff blended terror and newspaper propaganda to take the South Carolina governorship from a Unionist incumbent. The incumbent had been an officer of Colored Troops in 1865. 5. Southern allies of the invading federal army (colored troops) took leading rolls in occupation police duties, but found themselves increasingly isolated as the occupation continued. Individuals exhibiting leadership or the possibility of leadership were systematically murdered. 6. Unlike the 'media' guided electorate of the north, the south was guided by very pragmatic issues, primarily property rights. At other times in history, members of the defeated army would loose all their property. Victor and allies would divide up the spoil. Thus, the primary focus of defeated Southern soldiers and its officer class was protection of pre-war property rights, including chattel slavery. In general, the southern officer corp was entirely successful in this endeavor, skillfully using the general fear of federal property redistribution to unify a stable electoral majority. Any 'white' voting against the former Confederate political leadership could be branded as 'federal thief', threatening to 'spoil' the south. Yeoman farmers, a group one might expect to enjoy the breakup of large plantations, were neutralized by fears that their property would be 'redistributed' in some '40 acres and a mule' federal program.

Based on this analogy, one can draw the following conclusions

1. Voter intimidation is an inescapable part of post war elections. No occupying army can keep neighborhood gangs from murdering selected neighbors. 2. Threats to local property rights motivate neighborhood gangs. 3. Leaders of the neighborhood gangs are the only agents available for political accomodation. 4. 'Peace' is proclaimed when the 'media' guided electorate accepts a local leadership. The local leadership must master the art of feeding that media interests.

A more complete process than post Civil War American South is the 'modernization' of Highland Scot culture after 1680. Highlanders provide a good example of 'terrorist' for the 18th century. The term 'black mail' comes directly from their protection rackets. The English solution was to convert 'clan leaders' into English aristocrats. This was done by giving them property rights over 'clan' territory'. This effectively made them landlords who would act in predictably civilized manners. They started maximizing rents and production. This in turn forced idle men (former military resources) and their families off the land. Additionally, the new aristocrats found it useful to hang out in London. The political alliances were critical to maintenance of their new wealth. Finally, they started sending their kids to English schools. The tombstone for Highland ethos was constructed by Sir Walter Scott.

With the Highlander modernization program in mind, one can suggest the following principles 1. Focus on tribal leaders and their children. 2. Make tribal leaders the winners of the 'property rights' game currently in play. 3. Adjudicate tribal leader disputes in Washington, expecting their presence at hearings. 4. Mercilessly hound anachronistic ethics.

KG has additional observations on the Civil War that never was.

I've enjoyed the civil war posts.  The notion that civil war "should have" devolved into a full-on guerrilla war after March 1865 but miraculously did not has received some play lately.  In the popular (non-academic) historian Jay Winik recent book "April 1865" he made a big deal out of Lee's refusal to flee to hills and continue the fight with his remaining forces.  "Go home" Lee told his men--Joe Johnston followed Lee's lead and threw in the towel in North Carolina a few weeks later. Makes for interesting "what if" games.  Add Lincoln's assasination into the mix, and things get interesting.  Joe Johnston surrended to Sherman after Lincoln's death.   A fiestier Lee and less gracious Grant at Appomattox, then Lincoln's assassination, and you have the necessary ingredients for a drawn out civil war.  It's unlikely that it would have changed the eventual outcome, but it would have had far-reaching effects, none of them good. How's this related to Iraq?  I don't know.  Perhaps the extreme losses of extended total war left Lee ready to capitulate while our Iraqi foe has not (yet) experienced this. Oh yeah, I'm not a civil war historian so I can't tell you where Winik came up with his thesis.  It's probably an old idea.

David Scribner at Target Blank thinks comparisons between Iraq and the Civil War are inappropriate because among other things, the South was never a repressive tyranny. His argument is elegant and impassioned, but too long to reproduce here. Read the whole thing.

Finally reader MM objected early on to the characterization of the South as having the monopoly of general officer talent. He said on May 14:

I know you didn't touch on it but I think Grant is the most under rated general of that war. He understood hold them by the nose and kick them in the rear. He was the holder. Sherman was the kicker. He was the only Union General to ever pin Lee. He never let lost battles keep him from advancing. And he was in charge of the whole show while being in practical command of the Eastern Armies confronting Lee. Every thing Sherman did was coordinated and agreed to by Grant. B.H.L. Hart writes him off as a pounder, sound though limited tactically, and poor in strategy. I disagree.

I have omitted other letters, including some which argue that comparisons between the Indian Wars and Iraq are more exact -- only from lack of space -- and not for want of merit. Mark Steyn once countered Niall Ferguson's assertion that Americans were so ignorant that not a single US general could possibly know the history of the 1920 Shi'ite uprising against the British by betting ten thousand dollars that he could find a sergeant that did. Steyn named his sergeant. Anyone who has read mail from Belmont Club readers would know he could have named many more.

News Coverage as a Weapon

Historian John Terraine notes that unit casualty rates during the Civil War were close to those experienced by the British Army on the Somme. The 1/Newfoundland Regiment lost 84 % of its men on that fatal July 1, 1916. But the 1st Texas Regiment lost 82.3% in Antietam and the 1st Minnesota lost 82% at Gettysburg. Nor were these exceptional. "In the course of the Civil War 115 regiments (63 Union and 52 Confederate) sustained losses of more than 50 percent in a single engagement". Losses during World War 2 were just as brutal. Although the average loss per individual mission was often under 5% for the pilots who flew in the British Bomber Command, the fact that they flew 30 missions per tour meant a crew had less than a 1 in 4 chance of completing it. Once you signed on, there was a 75% statistical chance you wouldn't survive. Nor were these estimates far from the truth. Almost sixty percent of Bomber Command, a total of 55,000 men, were killed. They had an easy time compared to German U-boat crewmen, who lost 630 men out of every thousand. Nations required a huge pool of manpower and high birthrates to sustain losses on this scale. Russia alone suffered twenty million deaths during World War 2. Even Yugoslavia, a country whose role in the conflict is hardly remembered as central, lost 1.6 million killed. Defeat in that conflict came to those whose armies were driven from the field, whose cities were reduced to rubble and whose manpower resources could no longer continue the struggle.

Viewed in this context, the American "defeat" in Iraq projected by the press must be understood as being something wholly different from anything that has gone before. The 800 odd US military deaths suffered since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom a year ago are less than the number who died in the Slapton Sands D-Day training exercise in 1944. The campaign in Iraq has hardly scratched American strength, which has in fact grown more potent in operational terms over the intervening period. Nor has it materially affected the US manpower pool or slowed the American economy, which is actually growing several times faster than France, which is not militarily engaged. The defeat being advertised by the press is a wholly new phenomenon: one which leaves the vanquished army untouched and the victor devastated; the economy of the vanquished burgeoning and that of the victor in destitution; the territory of the loser unoccupied and that of the winner garrisoned. It is an inversion of all the traditional metrics of victory and defeat. That the assertion is not instantly ludicrous is an indication of the arrival of a new and potentially revolutionary form of political wafare.

It was during the Vietnam War that the Left first discovered the potential war-winning ability of media coverage. The concept itself is merely an extension of the blitzkrieg notion that the enemy command structure, not his troop masses, are the true center of gravity on the battlefield. During the campaign of 1940, Heinz Guderian's panzers bypassed many French formations, leaving them unfought, knowing that if their command structure were severed, the whole musclebound mass would fall to the ground headless. What the Left gradually discovered during the course of the Vietnam war was that Guderian had not been bold enough. Guderian still felt it necessary to win on the battlefield. He had not realized that it was possible to ignore the battlefield altogether because it was the enemy political structure, not his military capability, that was the true center of gravity of an entire campaign. It was General Giap during the Vietnam War who first planned a military operation entirely around its possible media effect. The Tet offensive was a last desperate attempt to gain the upper hand in a war he was losing.

The Communist forces had taken a series of military defeats. the US/ARVN forces had pacified much of the south by the end of 1967 (222 out of 242 provinces). Operation Junction City (February-March 1967) and other sweeps had seriously disrupted NLF activity in the south and forced the COSVN into Cambodia.

At a July 1967 meeting the Communist Party leadership recognized their failures and decided to re-orientate their operations to target two key political weaknesses. Firstly, the deep gulf between the US public and the US government over support for the war and its actual progress. Secondly, the tensions existing between the US military and their Vietnamese allies.

The leadership decided to concentrate on a few high profile operations, that would take place in the public (and the US media) eye rather than fighting the conflict away from major urban centres. This would bolster Northern moral, possibly inspire uprisings in the South and provide the impression, and hopefully the reality, that the US/ARVN were not winning the war and it was likely to be a long time before they did. The new policy also marked a victory for the 'hawks' over the 'doves' in the Communist Party leadership, in late 1967 around 200 senior officials were purged.

Although Giap failed in every military respect, he succeeded in providing the press with the raw material necessary to alter the dynamics of American domestic politics. While he could not alter reality, the Giap could alter the perception of reality enough to give anti-war politicians a winning hand which they played it to the hilt.

The NLF and the NVA lost around 35,000 men killed, 60,000 wounded and 6,000 POWs for no military success. The US and ARVN dead totalled around 3,900 (1,100 US). But this was not the conflict as the US public saw it. Without there being an active conspiracy the US media reports were extremely damaging and shocked the American public and politicians. Apparently the depth of the US reaction even surprised the North Vietnamese leadership, as well as delighting them.

The emergence of the press and media as decisive implements of warfare arose from changes in the nature of late twentieth century war itself. If battlefield reality was paramount in earlier wars it was because literally everyone was there. During the Civil War 15 percent of the total white population took the field, a staggering 75% of military age white males. During the Great War the major combatants put even higher proportions of their men on the line. Even after World War 2 it was still natural for children to ask, 'Daddy what did you do in the War?' and expect an answer. Reality affected everybody. But beginning with the Vietnam War and continuing into the current Iraqi campaign, the numbers of those actually engaged on the battlefield as a proportion of the population became increasingly small. Just how small is illustrated by comparing a major battle in the Civil War, Gettysburg, which inflicted over 50,000 casualties on a nation of 31.5 million to a "major" battle in Iraq, Fallujah, in which 10 Marines died in the fighting itself, on a population of 300 million. A war in which the watchers vastly outnumbered the fighters was bound to be different from when the reverse was true. A reality experienced by the few could be overridden by a fantasy sold to the many. This exchange of proportions ensured that the political and media dimensions of the late twentieth century American wars dwarfed their military aspects.

But whereas General Giap was forced to rely on the Western media to carry his message home, modern day Jihadis have decided to create their own media outlets like Al Jazeera to shape public opinion. Moreover, they have extended proven methods of intimidating the Western media, described by CNN's Eason Jordan in his article in the New York Times to a standard operation of war. This set up a clash between two forces, one enjoying a preponderance in every area of military capability and skill but failing to recognize news coverage as a strategic weapon; and another whose military strategy was literally made for television.

The US discovered how expensive it was to be wholly outmatched in this key combat system. Just how expensive was underscored by the media coverage of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse incident in which newspapers in the United States and Britain published fake abuse photographs on top of the genuine ones without a rapid rebuttal. This blindness sprang not only from the tradition of keeping the military apart from civilian activities, but also from a reluctance to venture into areas protected by the First Amendment. It was nearly a year after OIF before the US began halting steps to redress the balance by establishing the Arabic Al Hurrah media outlet and creating a series of local television stations under the Spirit of America initiative.

Yet the extension of warfare into the area of media coverage is fraught with great danger, in no small part because it subtly alters the definition of where the battlefield lies and who an enemy combatant is. One of the enduring strengths of Western democracy and of the US Constitution in particular is the delineation between legitimate dissent and enemy activity, a boundary which enables a democracy to continue functioning, albeit in an impaired state, even in wartime. But the changing balance between the political and military aspects of war means that this line will begin to blur as military activities cross over into the political. Already, the Pentagon is beginning to offer direct news from Iraq. It has also reorganized its command structure in Iraq to explicitly recognize the role of political warfare.

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2004 – Two new military commands will stand up in Iraq May 15, replacing the current coalition military organization.

Multinational Corps Iraq and Multinational Force Iraq will replace Combined Joint Task Force 7.

Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, at a Baghdad news conference today, said the change addresses a concern that a combined joint task force headquarters was not sufficient to handle the military workload in Iraq efficiently.

"It's certainly more than a formality," he said. "It is trying to get the proper command structure for the days, weeks and months ahead."

Kimmitt explained that Multinational Corps Iraq will focus on the tactical fight -- the day-to-day military operations and the maneuvering of the six multinational divisions on the ground. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz will command the corps. Meanwhile, Multinational Force Iraq will focus on more strategic aspects of the military presence in Iraq, such as talking with sheiks and political leaders, and on training, equipping and fielding Iraqi security forces.

The Left's very success at using the media as an arm in hyper-blitzkrieg inevitably invited, indeed necessitated, a riposte, with far reaching and probably regettable effects. One day Al Jazeera may be remembered in the same manner as the Dreadnought: the first in a series of ugly fusions between newly available technology and age-old malevolence; the vanguard in a flotilla of lies.

Addendum:

Reader BU writes to say you can access the Eason Jordan article referred to above for free at the following address:

Eason Jordan's "The News We Kept To Ourselves" April 11, 2003, is available as "The awful news CNN had to keep to itself:  Iraqis' torment" by Eason Jordan (IHT) Saturday, April 12, 2003

Magnolias by the Euphrates 2

I am reproducing reader Michael McCanles reply to Magnolias by the Euphrates, which compared some aspects of the Civil War to the campaign in Iraq, without comment, except to say that events that took place nearly 150 years ago still exercise the imagination. He tackles issues which may be of more than passing interest to those with an interest in Civil War history.

Your citation of a blogged comparison via the 3rd vol. of Bruce Catton's history of the American Civil War between that war and the situation in Iraq deserves, I think, some qualification. Pathetic Earthlings can't have read Catton very closely.

(1) >Once the war actually began, it was perhaps inevitable that the North (with gigantic advantages in everything, save perhaps talent)

A very old canard, this of the talent-laden Confederate army. In a match-up between the two eartern armies, doubtless true up through Gettysburg, but not after. D. S. Freeman's _Lee's Lieutenants_ is a study of precisely just that: the remarkably high rate of loss of brigade and division commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia, by comparison with the remarkable growth by way of hard experience of their counterparts in the Army of the Potomac by the time Grant took over in spring, 1864.

In the west, there was no contest. The quality of southern leadership in the Army of Tennessee is notorious in studies today for its crankiness, petulence, and self-willfulness. It was continually racked by political in-fighting, as was its criss-cross parallel, the Army of the Potomac in the east under McClellan and his epigones. The Confederate of Tennessee never had a winning commander--the citation of Johnston in that regard as in any other--is simply not factual. By comparison, at the brigade and division levels the quality of leadership particularly in the Union Army of the Tennessee, commanded first by Grant, then Sherman, then finally in a very interesting twist, by an Army of the Potomac cast-off, O. O. Howard, was extraordinarily high from the time Halleck left command in the west to Grant in 1862, through the very difficult Carolinas campaign under Sherman in winter and spring, 1865. In addition both Grant and Sherman were quick, deft, and successful in quashing political grandstanding, as witnessed by Grant's timing in letting the Lincoln-appointed political general McClernand hang himself by his own incompetence, leaving the War Dept. no choice but to send him back to politicking in Illinois. Sherman was if anything even more wily in dealing with several potential firecrackers, including another Potomac cast-off, "Fighting Joe" Hooker by maneuvering him into resigning.

I won't even go into the comparison between the massive development of a war government under Lincoln, and the pathetic "gang-who-couldn't-shoot-straight" devolution of the Richmond regime. A single comparison will do: while Sec'y of War Stanton (Rumsfeld's counterpart for being obnoxious, arrogant, and brilliant) developed what is historically the beginnings of America's modern cabinet-level military institution, the Confederate War Department turned into the increasingly sad comedy of posturing generals, incompetent bureaucrats, and ceaseless office infighting chronicled with running unconscious comedy by a war clerk, John B. Jones. His surviving diary stands today as a singular monument to the truism that stupid governments seldom survive.

(2) >Lee quickly recognized (particularly after the failure at Gettysburg) that the Confederacy’s best chance of victory was to drag the conflict out into a painful stalemate that would sap the North’s will to fight. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fell back into guerrilla mode: stick to known terrain, harass the supply lines, attack where the opportunity arises, and never let the enemy engage in strength. Farther south, Joe Johnston had a like strategy.

This statement is a non-starter re: both Lee's and Johnston's armies. As a matter of fact, Grant foresaw just such a guerilla maneuver as a possible, and had Sherman's army-group in the Atlanta campaign do the same thing Grant did when he went into the field with the Army of the Potomac, still commanded to the end of the war by the winner at Gettysburg, Meade: Grant insisted that both armies do something what was relatively new in maneuvering between large armies at the time--engage the two southern armies intimately 24/7. There was literally no time between May of 1864, and the conclusion of the war in April, 1865 when a major part of of both Union armies were not engaged with their southern counterparts. And as a matter of fact, the initiative was held by the Union armies in both cases, with the result that the maneuverability associated with hit-and-run guerilla warfare was out of the question. Both Lee and Johnston were forced continually to be reactive to counter the superior maneuverability of the two larger forces. The only exception to this generalization is Hood's notoriously failed attempt to do a "Stonewall Jackson in the Valley" move around Sherman after the capture of Atlanta. Hood's invasion of middle Tennessee while Sherman's Amy of the Tennessee marched in a mirror-image move in the opposite direction (a maneuver that would have the faint-hearted types of today in terminal apoplexy) was quashed most miserably at Franklin and Nashville by the other half of Sherman's army group, the Army of the Cumberland under Thomas.

On the subject of "supply lines," a tender subject for both Grant and Sherman on the basis of bitter experience, it is true that Lee attempted the "valley" strategy one more time in 1864, stinging Grant into laying the Shenandoah valley waste so that it could never again be a source of both left-hooks toward Washington and a provider of subsistence. Johnston tried, with the inept Wheeler, to disrupt Sherman's supply line during the Atlanta campaign, but to little effect. When it came to the next move, the Savannah campaign (better known as "the march to the sea"), Sherman indulged one of his favorite fantasies, and it worked. That fantasy was to operate without any base of supply whatsoever. He learned this from watching second-rate Pemberton constantly probing for Grant's "rear" during the crucial maneuvers south and east of Vicksburg, only to be frustrated because there was no rear. Grant then, and Sherman later, lived off the land.

I don't see, on this basis, much comparison with Iraq.

Stadium vs Prison

Reader JB writes to say:

The Iraqi Soccer Team just qualified for the Olypmics for the first time since 1988. It is a HUGE deal in Iraq. They are celebrating in the streets. What do you think about promoting the idea of bringing the Iraqi team to the US to train for the Olympics? We could even have a "friendly" game between them and the US team.

It certainly represents a huge opportunity to offset the negative publicity of Abu Ghraib. A variation on the theme JB suggests is creating a raffle for tickets that Iraqis can win to actually attend the games in Athens. Most Iraqis are too poor to attend the games themselves and their cheering squad, unless filled out by Americans, will be thin at best. Maybe they should have a chance to cheer on the home team themselves.

The Rumsfeld-Myers Mission

Reader DB asks: "Does this explain the  Rumsfeld/Myers pow-wow on the E-4B?" referred to in End of the Beginning? That post, the readers may recall, rhetorically asked what the substantive purpose of Secdef Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Iraq might have been and the significance of both Myers and Rumsfeld traveling together on the sophisticated flying command post. The link, which is a DOD press release provided by DB, describes a major reorganization within the theater. It explicitly recognizes two channels of warfare: political and military.

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2004 – Two new military commands will stand up in Iraq May 15, replacing the current coalition military organization.

Multinational Corps Iraq and Multinational Force Iraq will replace Combined Joint Task Force 7.

Coalition military spokesman Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, at a Baghdad news conference today, said the change addresses a concern that a combined joint task force headquarters was not sufficient to handle the military workload in Iraq efficiently.

"It's certainly more than a formality," he said. "It is trying to get the proper command structure for the days, weeks and months ahead."

Kimmitt explained that Multinational Corps Iraq will focus on the tactical fight -- the day-to-day military operations and the maneuvering of the six multinational divisions on the ground. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz will command the corps. Meanwhile, Multinational Force Iraq will focus on more strategic aspects of the military presence in Iraq, such as talking with sheiks and political leaders, and on training, equipping and fielding Iraqi security forces.

Multinational Force Iraq "will certainly be involved in the tactical operations, but only to the extent that they have somewhat of an operational and strategic impact on this country," Kimmitt said. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, current CJTF 7 commander who will head MNF Iraq, already has been working the strategic issues, and the new command structure will enable him to focus more of his time and energy in that direction, Kimmitt said.

The most striking thing about this new command arrangement is that appears to be an end run around the Coalition Provisional Authority, a shifting of at least some political functions away from a State Department structure directly into one directly under the DOD. For those who saw the events in April as a defeat for Rummy and a discredit to the DOD policy, this evidence suggests that the President may see things the other way. At first glance it is a high level endorsement of the kinds of negotiations which have transpired at Fallujah at Najaf rather than their condemnation. This reading may not be borne out by subsequent clarifications. But it certainly looks that way.

Magnolias by the Euphrates

There's a great post at Pathetic Earthlings which describes what happens when societies clash in their entirety.

One of Catton’s themes is how complex the North’s motivations and objectives in the Civil War really were. According to the standard narrative, while Southerners were getting increasingly exercised about Federal power intruding on their states’ sovereignty (particularly regarding slavery), Northerners (including both small farmers and a growing mercantilist middle class) were becoming increasingly impatient with the South’s land-based aristocracy and bound labor. This is basically true, but the mix also included radical abolitionists, hard-core Unionists, those with secessionist sympathies, Copperheads of various degree, and lots of folks willing to back any cause for short-term political gain. In more than a few states, it was unclear which side of the battle lines they’d end up on.

Once the war actually began, it was perhaps inevitable that the North (with gigantic advantages in everything, save perhaps talent) would prevail in a head-to-head military campaign. But it was far from inevitable that the Union forces would get that definitive clash. Lee quickly recognized (particularly after the failure at Gettysburg) that the Confederacy’s best chance of victory was to drag the conflict out into a painful stalemate that would sap the North’s will to fight. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fell back into guerrilla mode: stick to known terrain, harass the supply lines, attack where the opportunity arises, and never let the enemy engage in strength. Farther south, Joe Johnston had a like strategy.

... But on one point at least, the comparison is sobering: the long, slow aftermath. Lots of commentators have pointed to the post-WWII occupations of Germany and Japan as examples of the commitment of time and money necessary to rebuild a defeated enemy, and these are apt comparisons. But in the former Confederacy, it was a full century before the region’s institutions (at least with regard to civil rights) were even close to the standards of the civilized world.

Comparisons are never exact and they are sometimes odious. Yet they can be informative in the same way that past personal experience guides future decisions. One of the tragedies of modern celebrity media coverage is that it neither learned, nor wise, nor informed. But it is never shy.

The End of the Beginning

The imposition of US sanctions on Syria is both an acknowledgement of its role in attacking US forces in Iraq and an admission that the US is not willing to confront Damascus militarily -- yet. The Executive Order, whose full text has not been prominently carried by many newspapers, is extraordinarily accusatory.

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, hereby determine that the actions of the Government of Syria in supporting terrorism, continuing its occupation of Lebanon, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining United States and international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

The effects of the sanctions, as observers have pointed out, are mostly symbolic and are of a piece with other holding actions on the Sunni front. In the Sunni triangle, the hesitance of traditional leaders to completely throw in their lot with America seems obvious. Mohammed Latif, a former intelligence officer who now heads the Falluja Brigade, appears to be resisting US demands to disarm the insurgents still holed up in town perhaps sensing that he can safely straddle the fence until the US deals with Sadr and Iranian threat. 

But U.S. commanders are losing patience and have said they will renew their offensive if their conditions are not met. Under the truce, some 2,000 Marines backed by tanks and armored vehicles pulled to Falluja's outskirts to allow Iraqi forces to hunt down weapons and crush the estimated 100 foreign fighters believed to be holed up inside the Sunni stronghold. Many residents in Falluja, a heavily tribal and clannish society still largely loyal to toppled leader Saddam Hussein, consider the partial withdrawal of the world's only superpower as a victory.

In contrast,  the US appears to have forged at least a tactical alliance with Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to reduce Moqtada al-Sadr. Recently, one of Sistani's virtually accused Sadr of being a tool of the predominantly Sunni Al-Qaeda. According to AFP press:

Sistani follower and influential moderate cleric Sadreddin al-Kubbanji convened a meeting of Najaf's tribal elders and repeated his earlier calls for the militia of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr to leave the city. Speaking to an emotional crowd of Sistani supporters, Kubbanji called for a demonstration on Friday, the Muslim holy day, to protest "chaos, lies and occupation" and warned of a "treacherous plot being hatched in the name of fighting the US-led occupation."

In a veiled criticism of Sadr's Mehdi Army militia, which has taken over the area around the city's holiest shrine, Kubbanji accused "outside elements" of stoking the insurgency in order to drag the Americans into the heart of the sensitive Shiite city. ... Kubbanji said loyalists of jailed former president Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and Wahabis, radical Sunni Muslims such as followers of Al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), were behind the conspiracy.

Sisatani has stood idly by as US troops have rounded up Sadr's forces in the environs of the Najaf. The US forces, taking care to avoid the holy places proper, have recently chased the Madhi Army through the necropolis surrounding the town.

A series of loud explosions rocked the southern edge of the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf from about 11:00 am (0700 GMT) on Friday, hours after fighting broke out between US troops and militiamen in the city's vast cemetery. ... The newly appointed governor Adnan al-Zorfi told AFP late Thursday that a "US entry into the centre of Najaf may be imminent," saying that a lot of those around Sadr were "simple men who did not fathom the military might of the United States." "Nobody can set conditions on the Americans," he said, urging Sadr to disband his militia "immediately" and promising that the matter of legal proceedings against him in connection with the murder of a rival cleric last year "could be resolved in Baghdad."

Whether the alliance with Sistani survives Sadr's downfall remains to be seen. But the developments on the two fronts are related. The man coordinating the twin threats by Teheran and Damascus may be Abu Musab Zarqawi. An article by the New York Post suggests he is acting the role of their field coordinator. Zarqawi was reputed to be hiding in Falluja at around the time of the attack on the four Blackwater contractors, and the Shi'ite Kubbanji's accusation that Sadr was treated with Al Qaeda may be more than rhetorical.

May 13, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - Jordanian terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi has eluded a massive U.S. military campaign to bring him to justice with help of extensive network of Middle East connections, including rogue elements of the Syrian and Iranian governments, The Post has learned. U.S. military and intelligence officials said last night that Zarqawi, the man who decapitated American contractor Nick Berg and had the horrifying act videotaped earlier this week, has managed to dodge several secret operations by the CIA and U.S. Special Forces over the past year.

Intelligence reports indicate that Zarqawi has also spent time in Iran and Syria since the fall of Saddam as part of a secret arrangement with rogue elements of security services in both of those countries. "Iran and Syria are giving him cover," said a U.S. official with access to sensitive intelligence reports on the situation. "He is taking advantage of the infrastructure that is allowing the movement of money, arms and fighters into Iraq from those countries."

Some of the critical decisions in this two front war and their relation to the technical handover of sovereignty to the Iraqis in June may be part of the reason for the recent Rumsfeld visit (my speculation) to Iraq. Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad on May 13 with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers and met with Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez and Ambassador Paul Bremer. The full purpose of their visit was kept under wraps. "For security reasons, officials are releasing no further details of the visit." Tea leaf readers will have noted two things about the Rumsfeld visit. He did not meet with CENTCOM CINC General Abizaid and both Rumsfeld and Myers traveled together on an E-4B flying command post.

Rumsfeld and Myers departed for the highly secret mission to Iraq aboard a U.S. Strategic Command E-4B National Airborne Operations Center immediately following their joint testimony to a Senate committee on Capitol Hill May 12.

This was the first time Rumsfeld and Myers had flown together, officials said. The two generally fly aboard separate planes due to security concerns. This was also the first time Rumsfeld has flown aboard the National Airborne Command Center, a modified Boeing 747 jet designed to serve as a survivable mobile command center in a national emergency.

(Speculation alert) It may be that Rumsfeld and Myers were considering an important decision specifically relating to Iraq, one already put forward by Abizaid but requiring an independent assessment, one that required them to stay in touch with the President jointly through the E-4B. The political storm over prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and, to a lesser extent the decapitation of Nick Berg, has effaced the really important story in the Iraqi campaign: the US has just beaten back a major counteroffensive by Syria and Iran. Regionally, anticoalition forces mounted major attacks on the Jordanian secret service (using gas) and against targets in Saudi Arabia (a car bomb attack against the Saudi security apparatus). Within Iraq, simultaneous attacks were launched in April from both the Sunni and Shi'ite lines of departure. While both inflicted some damage, neither stroke has come close to seriously hurting the US position. It would be natural and not in the least surprising, if Rumsfeld and Myers were not considering what the American riposte should be.

Whether the Syrian sanctions and operations against Fallujah and Najaf are battle-shaping activities for the next phase of the Global War on Terror or simply temporizing, as Ralph Peters seems to feel, is the real strategic mystery. It is one whose answer we desperately need to know, and probably will in due time.

The Search For Greenmantle

Building a functioning Iraqi society means creating working pockets and combining them into a greater whole. This letter from Hugh Hewitt's site describes the preparation for the first joint Marine-Iraqi patrols in Fallujah. (Hat tip: reader TC)

We are approaching a very significant phase in Fallujah. Very soon, we will execute the first "joint patrol" into the city. The concept is that Marines and elements of the new Iraqi force will enter the town together. To suggest that the cessation of hostilities is fragile is an understatement. The environment is very fluid and one day things look better but the next we gather intelligence that suggests we are making a mistake. The leadership has gone way out on a limb here making a tremendous gamble that the course of action decided on will bring some degree of stability to this area.

Of course, in order to allow the Fallujans a chance to stabilize themselves, we must eat a little crow. We know that people are running around the city proclaiming that the Marines were defeated and the insurgents stopped us. To our dismay, this has even been picked up by our own media. Again, I can barely stand to read it. However, we fully realize that the only way the Iraqis will take control of their own destiny is to regain some of their long lost self image/national pride.

It is a step along the road described by Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor (hat tip: reader RA).

"It is beginning to change," says Emad Abbas Qassem, a lieutenant in the Facility Protection Service (FPS), at his post outside a central Baghdad education ministry office. "It's not only the people, but my wife, my family and brothers tell me: 'Go to work and do your duty.' They used to be so afraid."

Indeed, the number of targeted attacks and casualties against security forces has dropped in recent weeks, relative to previous months. At least 350 Iraqi police were killed in the first year of occupation; that rate dropped dramatically to roughly a dozen killed during April. Lieutenant Qassem estimates a 50 percent drop in the past month alone. "Because we were trained by the Americans, [Iraqis] dealt with us like we were Americans," he says.

If General Conway's goal in Fallujah was to drive a wedge between foreign fighters and locals, there are indications he may be succeeding. And the success is not limited to the Sunni triangle. Among the Shi'ites, the combination of political and military warfare is also yielding results. This widely publicized letter from Lt. Steven Oliver of the 16th Engineering Battalion summarizes the interplay eloquently.

"The fighting we are engaged in against the uprising of Muqtada Al-Sadr is one that is extremely sensitive and risks catastrophe. Had we entered this previously, it would not have been possible for us to win. Over the months, we have been involved in preparations and much planning. Thus, today we are scoring amazing successes against this would-be tyrant. I ask that the American people be brave. Don't fall for the spin by the weak and timid amongst you that are portraying this battle as a disaster. Such people are always looking for our failure to justify and rescue their constant pessimism. They are raising false flags of defeat in the press and media. It just isn't true."

"...today are in a climactic battle against him and his militia. When the remnants of Saddam's regime were in full uprising in Fallujah, Sadr thought his time had come to make his bid for total power and to oust the US from Baghdad. He was very wrong. It has been subtle and very well done by our leaders. You should be proud. It would have seemed impossible to have achieved our four main goals against Sadr even just a few months ago. Now today, despite the message of the pessimists who are misleading you into despair, we are have scored all the victories needed to bring this battle to a close. First goal was to isolate Sadr. Second was to exile him from his power-base in Baghdad. Third was to contain his uprising from spreading beyond his militias. And the last goal was to get both his hard-line supporters to abandon him, and to do encourage moderates to break from him. This has been done brilliantly, and now we are on the march in a way that just months ago seemed impossible to do. Sadr is losing everything."

"...Shia leaders are breaking from him now in large numbers. The overall Shia leader of Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has left Sadr's call for jihad and uprising to flounder on deaf ears. Bremmer and Gen. Abizaid stunned the overall Shia community by negotiating a calm in Fallujah. That has tail-spinned Sadr and his efforts to intimidate Iraq's Shia leaders. They see the US hand is strong, and that therefore they are making a mistake in kowtowing to Sadr's terror and violence."

Those who might regard Lieutenant Oliver's letter as optimistic will find it corroborated by these developments reported by the New York Times. It describes operations against Moqtada Al-Sadr, following an extensive period in which he was progressively isolated from the Shi'ite clergy and community. Not surprisingly, the spearhead against Sadr's forces were Iraqis themselves.

The fighting at the Mukhaiyam Mosque and the warrens of the surrounding neighborhood brought hundreds of American soldiers within a quarter mile of two of the most sacred places in Shiite Islam, the golden-domed shrines of Hussein and Abbas. Though the Americans say they are determined to destroy Mr. Sadr's forces, they have been cautious about bringing the war to the holy areas here and in Najaf. Invading the city centers of either place, they fear, could stir the wrath of Shiite Muslims around the world, even those who dislike Mr. Sadr.

Tuesday night, the Americans made a high-risk gamble by trying to breach the Mukhaiyam Mosque, situated just west of the Shrine of Hussein. The attack was one of the largest operations carried out in the past year by the First Armored Division, which until now was responsible for controlling Baghdad. Fighting raged on all sides of the mosque, with soldiers scrambling through rubble-strewn streets and ducking sniper shots and rocket-propelled grenades. ...

The two dozen or so Iraqi commandos who helped the Americans in the battle were part of the Iraqi Counter Terrorist Force, trained in Jordan to combat insurgents. They acted under the supervision of Special Forces, who instructed them on clearing munitions from the Mukhaiyam Mosque and shrine and from the high school. Special Forces soldiers guided much of the battle on the ground, storming the mosque and setting up a base there to direct troops.

This was not supposed to happen. April was supposed to mark the death rattle of the American occupation in Iraq. It was never meant to lead to joint Marine-Iraqi patrols in Fallujah or Iraqi commandos hunting down Moqtada Al-Sadr in Najaf. Yet the change did not proceed from "more American boots on the ground" nor from the provision of additional guards for the Baghdadi antiquities or an influx of NGOs. Still less was it the consequence of a grant of legitimacy from the United Nations or the messianic arrival of French troops. In fact it coincided with the departure of the Spanish contingent from Iraq. The change sprang from the correct application of the original strategy: building a democratic and free Iraq by recognizing the leadership which arose from the circumstances. It arose not from an imposed set of politically correct commissars in Baghdad but in complementing indigenous efforts with American strengths.

Nearly a hundred years ago, T. E. Lawrence, surveying the ruins of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, shrewdly judged that it lacked, not money, enthusiasm or a base of support but simply the right men, armed prophets who could send forth the message of freedom among the tribes. He did not seek for them in the cocktail party set of Cairo nor even in Mecca, in what might be the equivalent of the Green Zone. But he found them in the desert. In the Seven Pillars of Wisdom he relates his encounter with the man who was to be his chosen instrument against the Last Caliph -- the man who would bring a prophecy, yet not quite the expected prophecy, to a waiting world.

"I felt at first glance that this was the man I had come to Arabia to seek -- the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory. Feisal looked very tall and pillar-like, very slender, in his long white robes and his brown headcloth bound with a brilliant scarlet and gold cord. His eyelids were dropped; and his black beard and colorless face were like a mask against the strange, still watchfulness of his body. His hands were crossed in front of him on his dagger."

"And do you like our place here in Wadi Safra?" Feisal asked.

"Well," replied Lawrence, "but it is far from Damascus."

"Praise be to God there are Turks nearer us than that".

There are Americans in Washington, but praise be to God, there are some nearer to the ground than that.

N. B.

Those curious about the title of this post may want to buy John Buchan's Greenmantle, a favorite of my youth, from Amazon Books or read it for free at Project Gutenberg.

'I did not know that anything could be so light,' he said.

Reductio ad Absurdum

Andrew Sullivan suggests that the mainstream media publish pictures of an American hostage's severed head in order to balance, among other things, the slide show presentations depicting the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Let's start an internet campaign to insist that the major media - including the New Yorker, the networks, the major newsweeklies, and every major paper - run a picture of Zarqawi holding up Nick Berg's severed head. It's time to release the Pearl video and stills too. Enough with the double standards. The media were absolutely right to show the abuse photos. But they are only part of the story. It's about time the media gave us all of it, however harrowing it is.

And yeah, why not. If Michael Getler, the ombudsman of the Washington Post can assert that "the reality of war in all its aspects needs to be reported and photographed. That is the patriotic, and necessary, thing to do in a democracy" there is no logical reason why the video showing the Al Qaeda decapitating a screaming Nick Berg shouldn't be given the same treatment. That is, unless the Getler's premise was false in the first place.

The reductio ad absurdum "is a type of logical argument where we assume a claim for the sake of argument, arrive at an absurd result, and then conclude the original assumption must have been wrong, since it gave us this absurd result." The fallacy in Getler's premise was the claim that the Abu Ghraib photographs were simply a factual documentation of an abuse which the public had the right to know about. The existence of the abuses had been known from January, from CENTCOM itself.

January 16, 2004

Release Number: 04-01-43

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DETAINEE TREATMENT INVESTIGATION

BAGHDAD, Iraq – An investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility. The release of specific information concerning the incidents could hinder the investigation, which is in its early stages. The investigation will be conducted in a thorough and professional manner. The Coalition is committed to treating all persons under its control with dignity, respect and humanity. Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the Commanding General, has reiterated this requirement to all members of CJTF-7.

What was new about the May coverage was that the press had pictures of the Abu Ghraib abuses and was in a position to project, not a new set of facts, but a new set of powerful emotions upon the public. Getler's claim is really an assertion of the right to invoke outrage, disgust and hatred at a specific act and its perpetrators, and those who may have been indirectly responsible for it. By taking this logic to its limit, Sullivan claims the same right: to unleash a symmetrical set of set emotions at another group -- and demonstrates the absurdity. For it must either be correct to publish both the Abu Ghraib and Berg photos or admit partisanship. Surely, if it is acceptable to run the risk of tainting the entire US military with the brush of Abu Ghraib then there can be no harm in coloring all Muslims with the hues of Al Qaeda. But this is madness.

The Belmont Club predicted that "the sad balance of probability is that Abu Ghraib will be displaced from the front pages by the next terrorist outrage, the next Bali, the next Madrid, the next 9/11 until we find ourselves wondering why it upset us at all" -- and the process has already begun. People who only yesterday were beating their breasts at infamy of the 800th MP brigade will be calling for a MOAB to dropped on Fallujah tomorrow. And to the inherent madness of war we will add another lunacy: strategy by manic-depression. 'Are we feeling generous today toward the enemy? Or do we want to get some aggression off our chests? Hmm?'

This is what comes of asserting the right to unleash emotions disconnected from rational perspective as "patriotic". This is what comes of not sticking to facts and they are these. The enemy has attacked America on its own soil and therefore must be defeated utterly. Members of the US military have committed a court-martial offense and therefore they must be punished severely. Any withdrawal from Iraq will not bring safety from enemy action inasmuch as they attacked Manhattan and Washington DC nearly two years before OIF. Any withdrawal from Iraq without first setting up a stable and responsible government there would result in a bloodbath beside which the massacre of the Shi'ites and the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam would be a pale moonlit shadow. Therefore we must persist until victory.

And the final fact is this. The only exit from war's inhumanity is through the doorway of victory. For while it may be mitigated, controlled and reduced to a certain extent fundamentally "war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it", though victory can end it. While it continues, as many in the Left who long for a 21st century Vietnam hope, it will unleash unpredictable forces which no one can control. Those who delighted in discovering the photographs at Abu Ghraib little imagined Nick Berg's video. And while we can safely grant Andrew Sullivan's plea and publish both, for reasons the media imagine are laudable, it is what comes next that I am afraid of.

Return to Fallujah

In recent days, Coalition forces have engaged the Madhi Army in a variety of places, arresting Sadr's aides, recapturing sites  seized during the heyday of the "Shi'ite uprising" and generally isolating him from the Shi'a population. Even in the city of Karbalah, Sadr appears to be wearing out his welcome.

Residents of this Shiite Muslim shrine town sit around a hotel lobby cursing the militiamen of radical leader Moqtada Sadr as an influential cleric in the neighbouring holy city of Najaf tells them to leave. The US military appears to be succeeding in its goal of isolating Sadr and his Mehdi Army militiamen and slowly eroding any sympathy that residents of Karbala and Najaf might have felt towards the firebrand young cleric. People in both cities say they have had enough of the "thuggish presence" of Sadr's gunmen around their holy shrines and lament the impact that the standoff, which has gone on for more than a month now, is having on their economy. "The Mehdi Army are a bunch of extremists," says one man from Karbala in his 30s without giving his name. "In fact they are a bunch of thieves and former Ba'athists."

And there were plenty of Ba'athists in Fallujah manning checkpoints with US Marines, partly because the town is full of members of the old Republican Guard. The Washington Post describes how the Marines, despairing of help from Baghdadi politicians, began negotiating with the old generals:

On April 19, after a week of talks, a group of local civic leaders and a few Sunni politicians from Baghdad made a deal with Marine commanders. In exchange for relaxing a nighttime curfew and allowing families to return to their homes, the leaders promised to collect heavy weapons from the insurgents and hand them over to the Marines.

That never happened. All the Marines got was a pile of rusty, antiquated arms. Most of them didn't work. The next day, an interlocutor approached Conway with an enticing offer: A group of former Iraqi army generals was willing to assemble a force that would restore order in Fallujah. ...

Thus far, the generals appear to be opting for a strategy of co-optation instead of confrontation. They have recruited scores of young men who fought against the Marines last month, according to U.S. officials familiar with the new force, called the Fallujah Brigade. The officials said they believed that most members of the brigade participated in the fighting. ...

Conway's aides said they were not alarmed by these developments. More important, they insisted, was improving security in the city and getting Iraqis to take responsibility for restoring order. They said they were encouraged by former fighters joining the brigade. They also said that Iraqis without extensive military service would not have had sufficient clout to take charge in a city such as Fallujah, where a disproportionate number of men served in the army, particularly in the Republican Guard. ...

Although Marine commanders insisted that Conway's superiors were fully briefed about the arrangement and signed off on it, the unorthodox nature of the deal has led senior officials at the Pentagon, the U.S. military command in Iraq and the civilian occupation administration to react with skepticism. "It's Conway's thing," said one U.S. civilian official involved in the issue. "Either it works out, and he emerges as they guy who solved the Fallujah problem, or it turns into a big failure." ...

Marine commanders said they intended to test the new brigade's success in combating the insurgency in a week or two, when they plan to send a convoy through the center of the city. "We're going to see whether anything has changed," one officer said. "If not, we'll just have to go back to where we were."

That convoy has made its way to the center of city. The UK Telegraph reports:

US marines have entered the Iraqi city of Fallujah for the first time in more than a month, according to witnesses. Soldiers drove armored vehicles to the mayor's office in the city center without incident. They were accompanied by Iraqi security forces, who will eventually take over security, witnesses said.

Although hundreds of suspected insurgents have been killed (according to the Post) the original objective of the Fallujah operation to capture those responsible for killing and mutilating four Blackwater contractors has not yet been achieved. But the outstanding arrest warrant has not been served on Moqtada al-Sadr either. While neither operation has achieved its goals, both are still ongoing and much has transpired both on the political and military fronts. US forces have notably been busy driving wedges between Sunni and Shi'ite, between foreign and local fighters and between factions within the Sunni and the Shi'ite, organizing militias and selectively targeting key enemy personnel.

These tactics have deflated -- for the present -- the main danger posed in April: a potential general uprising by a united Sunni and Shi'ite front against US forces, an event probably planned and abetted in both Damascus and Teheran. Yet drawing the fires by playing the factional card may have hastened the very thing both Syria and Iran desire: the de facto division of Iraq into sectarian camps where each would absorb the fragments. The vision of a unitary and democratic Iraq has faltered in the absence of a leadership willing to create it.

Initially the expectation was that an effective central leadership would emerge from representatives of the different ethnic groups. The days immediately following the fall of Saddam Hussein were filled with calls to reconstitute the seat of government. There was an 'international outcry' for the protection of antiquities, the restoration of electricity and the return of oil production. In response, an unprecedented amount of reconstruction money, largely unspent, was earmarked at international pledging sessions for high profile projects. A governing council was organized. Oil ministries were repaired, airports refurbished, a UN headquarters established.

But while the center waxed fat, the field languished.  In the months immediately after OIF, men like General Petraeus were forced to use their meager divisional funds to prop up a local societies in a power vacuum. His success was applauded, but not too loudly, lest his expedients prove too durable for replacements coming down from Baghdad. Possibly to avoid that fate, the Marines deployed to the Sunni triangle in early 2004 resolved to build closer relationships with the local leadership, along with a ton of money. Even during the height of the Fallujah battle on April 19, long before any ceasefire was announced,  the Marines were drafting proposals to spend than $77 million in the town, to achieve by design what Petraeus attempted by improvisation. These measures may indeed create a relatively peaceful Iraq, but not the Iraq America set out to build.

The rout of the UN and the impotence of the Iraqi Governing Council during the April crisis have cast doubt over the prospects of erecting a nation from the center. US efforts around Najaf and Fallujah to deal directly with local leaders with a combination of fighting and alliance constitute may succeed, but at the price of altering the initial vision. It is this unresolved tension between the ideal of a multiethnic, democratic Iraq and the reality of a land divided along sectarian lines that makes the military mission so difficult. If war is politics by other means, then military operations can have no definite object unless the political goals are successively refined. Europe historically opted for plunder, preferring to divide the area under Sykes-Picot, with a map as if idly drawn on a paper napkin, and thereafter busying themselves making making lucrative deals with their pet despots. That model is still on offer today, in French United Nations clothing, the road already taken.

The debate over the way forward is almost entirely political in aspect. The fate of Iraq and the War on Terror will depend as much on the outcome of the Presidential election, the controversy over Abu Ghraib and the diplomatic vision of the Middle East as much as it will on military science.