David Warren writes that we need more quagmires:

...by mucking in, the U.S. and allies have succeeded in creating a theatre of conflict far from Europe and the U.S., that draws Jihadis away from where they could be operating. Quite often, British and European I.D. is found on the corpses of the insurgents, who were recruited in Western mosques.

So much for Kerry's charge that we're "creating more Al Qaeda recruits." We're destroying them on a battleground of our choosing, not theirs.

Another advantage is that the longer the USA and USMC are continuously engaged there, the more they learn, the better they get. Iraq is tempering a generation of officers that will ensure U.S. military dominance through mid-century.

Of course, the jihadi are learning, too. From this point of view, the incessantly negative media coverage is probably a significant advantage to U.S. soldiers, since it helps distract the jihadi from serious contemplation of their tactical defeats. The more chortling they do over some unctuous NYT analysis of Dubya's Oedipal issues the less chance they will notice that they keep losing 100 guys for evey 1 of ours, which is, er, not sustainable. . .

Arthur R touches on a very interesting (and little explored) point.

The United States military is arguably the most experienced military in the world, from the tactical (squad, airplane) level to the operational (battalions, squadrons) to the strategic (divisions/corps, wings, fleets).

Maybe the Brits have had some more experience in city fighting (back when they were patrolling Belfast). A few units of the Foreign Legion have probably gotten blooded. But as an overall military, the US military far outpaces that of other nations.

Which will have an enormous impact in future wars, as it filters to training, equipment design, etc.

It's not just that our weapons and sensor technology will be vastly ahead of other nations. So will our TROOPS.

Arthur R's comment is why Fallujah/Najaf and the perpetual ceasefire/broken ceasefire doesn't worry me so much anymore.

The complaint is: "They're just yanking our chain to regroup, rearm, and recruit".

But this is NOT Vietnam. If we find Chinese passports or Russian passports in significant numbers - THEN I might be worried. Or skilled troops. But _this_ is 'Here kitty kitty WHACK.' At least, the Iraqi's on the ground think so, and the Marines aren't leaking like sieves about how horrid this is.

So the response is: 'Yes, they _are_ regrouping, rearming, and recruiting. The more the merrier.'

Eh, the flypaper strategy seems fallacious in theory to me, though it may well be getting the job done in practice. I don't believe that there is a finite number of _potential_ jihadis, and that once we cap the last one we will have won. We have to erode their enthusiasm for the fight, and that may depend on time as much as any walloping we dish out.

Terrorism expert Walter Laqueur has an interesting article in Policy Review, which expands that idea: http://www.policyreview.org/aug04/laqueur.html

Sanity Inspector;

Eroding the enthusiasm for being a jihadi may take time, but large scale whacking will make that time go faster.

Putting Annoying Old Guy's post a different way:

There _IS_ a finite number of TRAINED jihadists, and there is a finite number of CURRENT plans. (It may be big, but it is finite.)

If you pursue the 'fix the root cause' strategic solution while ignoring the current plans and jihadists - there may well be 0 jihadists in twenty years. But we may lose NYC, Boston, LA, and Seattle (or big chunks) in the process.

You _have_ to do _both_. We can argue about _how_ to do both, but... when papers in Iraq lead to tracking down a fellow in Pakistan who is used to roll up 3+ separate 'cells' that had active ongoing plans against both US buildings and the UK Prime Minister - that seems like a good thing. Yes, it may have created 10x as many _UNTRAINED_ but willing jihadists. We do need to distract those people, but you MUST pursue the active plots.

If you treat it as pure law enforcement, you get the responses we had throughout the 90's. _RE_active. And even the _reactive_ responses pissed people off and probably created jihadists _ALSO_.

Two vignettes from Marine OCS 23 yrs ago:

1. Re: Dispersal. - Spread yourself tactically such that the burst radius of a grenade won't take out more than one Marine.

2. Re: When your position seems untenable. - My sergeant instructor related the story of the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War (misattributing the statement to Chesty Puller). A journalist asked "General Puller, you are down to a third of your personnel strength, you're out of food, nearly out of ammo, outnumbered by 20 to 1, and surrounded by fanatical Chinese. What do you have to say about these impossible odds?"
General Puller replied, "Got those fuckers right where I want 'em."

The opposition is stupidly concentrating their forces "right where we want them." The presence of non-Iraqi enemy forces is important for US strategic as well as tactical/weaponeering purposes. Every western-born jihadi uncovered (or buried) makes the case for continuing this war stronger, and the case of the law enforcement purists weaker.

Okay, so what exactly do we do with Sadr? Let him run for office in the upcoming election?

It seems to me that we might well "cave in" at Najaf the same way we "caved" at Fallajuh. Did we ever bring to justice the people who mutilated those four American contractors in Fallajuh?

Expanding, a bit, on Arthur's point above.

The Army and Marines seem to have hit upon the sweet spot wrt absorbing lessons learned from past conflicts and applying the correct actions to future conflicts.

The key might be to retain this ability in a systemic way.

Quite often, British and European I.D. is found on the corpses of the insurgents, who were recruited in Western mosques.

I've heard of 2 occasions where British Muslims have been identified fighting in Iraq. Could we have a link to some of these "often" occurances?

Or is this just more hyperbole?