Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
Agreed. What was tactical level "whack a mole" has become "operational level whack a mole," neither of which constitutes a strategy beyond meeting the immediate demands. Mark O'Neill raised it earlier in this thread; the military/security aspects of the current and previous efforts are the supporting/shaping operations for what must be done at the political and social levels to move forward. If MG Mixson says he cannot maintain the successes he has achieved without a sustained "surge", then without forward political progress we are just marking time.
At this stage such political progress is very doubtful. Steve Metz posted a quote from Fouad Ajami in which Ajami essentially lamented that naive Americans were somehow taken in by Arabs who had the cheek to act like Arabs. Given that Ajami was born in Arnoun, Lebanon (a small village on the northern slope of the mountain made famous by Chateau Beaufort) and lived there until nearly 18 when he came to the US, Ajami seems disingenuous at best in portraying Americans as naive when he actually argued for the war. But in the quote posted by Steve, Ajami makes some cultural comments that are accurate. He lists "despotism, sectarianism, antimodernism, willful refusal to name things for what they are" as salient issues for the current state of affairs. He does not list tribalism as the hand maiden for Arab sectarianism, at lest in that particular quote and that is a gap of great significance.
The zero sum game of sectarian and tribal conflict is at play; making progress on the political front means the players would have to agree to sharing victories and splitting costs. The game is simply not played that way. The irony with regards to Ajami is that the only Arab state that has gone beyond the "zero sum" game was post-independence Lebanon with its confessional political system. The interjection of the Palestinians into that delicate mchine destroyed it and the result was the 1975 Civil War, which still echoes today. It is fashionable to look at Saddam as a monster: that is certainly true but he was not an anomaly. He emerged under the conditions of the same zero sum game and he played it to its (his) closing minutes. There are plenty of Iraqis looking to do the same today.
Best
Tom