Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
We had that in Iraq in 2003: his name was Saddam. And we took him down. The use of fear as a tool to build has its own set of effects and costs. To name one as an example, you have to use it or you lose it. Saddam used it.
While Saddam was excellent at instilling fear, that is not the only way to use fear. I am not advocating in the least the generation of fear. Quite to the contrary, I want peace, which among other things includes the absence of fear.

In this case I am saying that with a fear either of us, the enemy, general chaos or whatever is a condition already extant with which we have to deal. In fact what we really want to do is do away with fear. Counter intuitively, we have to use the conditions created by fear, or the motivation of the fear to generate something good.

I have to respectfully disagree that it was greed that motivated the move of the Shaykhs in Al Anbar, etc. While greed can indeed trump fear, if they were more motivated by greed than fear there were and are far more lucrative ways to take advantage ("Hey! Where did all that contract money go?"). It is no coincidence that the move by the shaykhs came at the same time as American pullout seemed most imminent. Also, we had to give them a viable option to the fear.
The point is that we need to present a viable option to put fear in check. Up until then the only options available were either Shi'ite Domination (and in their mind at least almost certain death) or AQIZ domination (and maybe death). The role that fear played into this is it was the motivator in both cases. Now by empowering the tribes, and hopefully in the future establishing either organizations or conventions that will prevent further 'fearful' situations we can institutionalize peace.

Let me reiterate I am NOT advocating creating fear. That is what Saddam did, and lord knows we don't need more of that. I am merely saying that fear exists aplenty. If we understand it we can harness it, and use it to create a better situation, and hopefully peace. If the fear just went away, that would be fine too, but I think is would be naive to believe that will happen.