How about instead of Jesus we ask "WWCS"?
Clauswitz made a good point when he proposed that the longer a war continues the greater role chance plays (paraphrased).
War expectations have allot to do with this.
Until you can get the public to accept that chance is going to play an increasing role in long term conflicts where political solutions weigh heavily, its going to be a hard sell. That is not to say it can't be done, just that politicians must articulate the threat as so it is self evident. That does not mean they should mis-represent the threat, to do that is to erode trust, once trust is gone its not easily recovered. In today's info age, there are many wiki-ists who will go out of their way to find the truth.
Is time really on the side of Insurgents?
Many COIN theorists discuss how the guerilla or insurgent has time on their side, and that often they only need to survive to win. However, in Iraq, time (or lack there of) has always been a concern of key leaders of the Iraqi insurgency. There have been many incidents where insurgent leaders demanded an insurgent "surge" such as during elections and other milestone events. The insurgents do not want to just sit around and wait for the government to collapse, they feel pressure to increase instability before the government does have an effective counter-insurgent force, and before the people truly grow tired of insurgent presence. This is what I believe happened in al Anbar (specifically Ar Ramadhi). The Iraqi people just got tired of the AQ types, joined up and kicked them out. AQI moved elsewhere. Eventually AQI will be forced out of that province as well. It is a matter of time. But how long?
I posit that time is not solely in favor of the insurgent, as much COIN study suggests, and the counterinsurgent can use time to his advantage after proper analysis. Everyone is worried about time. Everyone wants to see change. A counter argument might be that the insurgent, a soccer fan, may see a stalemate against a stronger opponent, similar to a tie, as a victory. But eventually people want to see real gains and real wins. Just as we ask how much time the US has before our strategic CoG, the will of the American people, is broken, we should give serious thought and discussion to just how long AQI and other Iraqi insurgents have until their popular support recedes due to a lack of any tangible gains.
Recommendations for analysis:
1. Determine an estimate of how long insurgent organizations can sustain the fight. How long will the population tolerate them, how long will their local and foreign support last in a particular region? We can use these estimates to help determine time frames for troop levels and goals for security force training. We can focus efforts where we feel insurgents have the least amount of time remaining.
2. What are the “deal breakers” with the population that might end passive or active support for the insurgents? What events might influence foreign entities to cut ties to the insurgents? We can use “deal breaker” events to decrease the time insurgents have left before losing popular support. (Many of the deal breakers would be actions taken by the insurgent, however, if we know what they are, when they happen we can be better prepared to exploit them).
3. Perhaps we should demand a timetable for AQI's withdrawal. When they refuse to give one as we have refused, it may have an effect on their local support, just as our refusal to submit a time table affects our support. We have to stop thinking of the insurgent guerilla as this mythical entity that cannot be beaten and use their own strategies against them.