On July 4th President Bush said:

Al Qaeda hasn't given up its objectives inside Iraq. And that is to cause enough chaos and confusion so America would leave, and they would be able to establish their safe haven from which to do two things: to further spread their ideology; and to plan and plot attacks against the United States. If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms -- they would follow us here, home. If we were to allow them to gain control of Iraq, they would have control of a nation with massive oil reserves -- which they could use to fund new attacks and exhort economic blackmail on those who didn't kowtow to their wishes. However difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it -- we must succeed for our own sake; for the security of our citizens, we must support our troops, we must support the Iraqi government, and we must defeat al Qaeda in Iraq.

For the sake of discussion, let's overlook the rather bizarre assertion that if the insurgents "win" in Iraq "they would follow us here." Instead let's look at what this line of thinking implies.

The President identified an al Qaeda "win" (defined as controlling Iraq) as the threat. I personally think that's impossible but if we accept it, it suggests a very different military strategy than our current one. If foreign fighters are the threat, our entire military should be focused on border control, leaving internal pacification to Iraqi security forces (an approach, by the way, that might have been effective in Vietnam).

I still insist, though, that the "center of gravity" in the Iraq insurgency--and in all insurgencies--is the morale and integrity of the state security forces. The Maliki government appears uninterested in or unable to assure the integrity of the state security forces. If history holds, this suggests that the counterinsurgency effort will fail.