The Redhunter

Why We're Winning

I first posted these reasons as a comment on Kats blog a few weeks ago. I'd wanted to turn it into a post of my own and am now finally getting around to it. For this post they have been expanded and the verbiage cleaned up

Committment: With the reelection of George Bush, the people of the United States decided that we are not going to cut and run. What's more important, the people of Iraq know it. Before our election many of them were "hanging back", unwilling to commit themselves for fear or retribution if we pulled out. I can't blame them either. But now we have seen an upsurge in Iraqis willing to fight the insurgency either by providing intelligence or joining their armed forces or police themselves.

Lack of an Opposing Ideology: The insurgent terrorists have no ideology that attracts the people of Iraq. This is quite unlike the Vietnam War, where the Viet Cong and North had a coherent well thought out ideology and effective propaganda machine. This is also an aspect of this war that many in the mainstream media seem determined to ignore.

The Insurgent Terrorists are Alienating the Iraqi People: The insurgent terrorists are mostly targeting the people of Iraq, which is hardly going to win them over. The terrorists are caught in a devils choice; if they target American forces they are massacred, if they target the people they lose their support.

The Iraqi Elections: Just as important as our own elections were thos in Iraq. These elections were successful (or successful enough) and now the people of Iraq have a government they can look to as being genuinely their own. There is still much negotiation that needs to be completed before the final shape of their government is determined, with much bickering and arguing. This will be reported in the press in apocalyptic terms. We should remember that our own founding was marked by much bickering and arguing as well.

The Sunnis have Come Round: Sunni leaders, who urged a boycott of the elections, seem to have recognized their mistake and are looking to correct that by participating in the government. StrategyPage (June 9 post) relates how Sunni leaders "...are being told, by their followers, that all this violence is not worth it" and that they should end their should cooperate with the Americans and the new government

Foreigners make up most of the Insurgency: More and more the insugency is made up of "foreigners" as they are unable to recruit as many Iraqis as they need to fill their ranks. Iraqis in their armed forces and police will kill foreigners much more readily than they will their own.

The Iraqi Police and Army: One of the most inspiring things about the new Iraq is that despite constant bombing of recruitment centers, Iraqis are still joining their armed forces and police. These forces also suffer high casualty rates compared to our military. That so many are joining cannot simply be explained by economics, that they join simply to get a job.

Other Resources

Other than the aforementioned articles in National Review, here are some other posts and sites that I recommend that you read:

Kat has an excellent series on the war that she's posted recently on her blog, The Middle Ground.

If you're not reading StrategyPage, especially the Iraq Daily Coverage section, you're missing out.

Wretchard has moved his Belmont Club to a new "fallback site". Keep it handy.

The Fourth Rail is must-read.

And don't forget my latest project, Threats Watch, a joint venture with Marvin Hutchins of Little Red Blog and Bill Rice of By Dawn's Early Light. Although it's still in beta you'll find it a great resource for the latest articles and information on the threats around the world that our country faces. We'll announce an official start-date soon, so stay tuned.

Past Wars Were Difficult Too

Yes, I know, this sounds like one of those "tell me something I don't already know" titles. But it's true.

Actually, it's not so much that past wars were difficult, it's rather that we won them despite the fact that we screwed so much up. We made so many mistakes in the Revolutionary War, Civil War (north's perspective), and World War II that when you read about them you quickly begin to wonder how we won at all.

I summarized this in a piece last February called "Right Analysis" in which I quoted Victor Davis Hanson on mistakes we made duriing World War II

Most of our armored vehicles were deathtraps, improved only days before the surrender. American torpedoes in the Pacific were often duds. Unescorted daylight bombing proved a disaster, but continued unabated. Amphibious assaults like Anzio and Tarawa were bloodbaths, plagued by terrible planning and command. The recapture of Manila was clumsy and far too costly. Okinawa was the worst of all operations, and yet was begun just over four months before the surrender — without careful planning for kamikazes, who were shortly to kill nearly 5,000 American sailors. Patton, the one general who could have ended the western war in 1944, was earlier relieved and then subordinated to an auxiliary position with near-fatal results for the drive from Normandy. Mediocrities like Mark Clark flourished and were promoted. Admiral King for far too long resisted the life-saving convoy system and thus unnecessarily sacrificed merchant ships; Admiral Bull Halsey almost lost his unprepared fleet to a storm.

But we mainly remember the P-51 Mustang that blew German fighters out of the sky and the victory at Midway against overwhelming odds. We know that our ships survived incredible damage because our sailors were the world's best at damage control. And this is not a bad thing.

The reality of history is that victory does not go to the side that fights the perfect war. Victory goes to the side that makes the fewest mistakes. And we are making a lot fewer of them than are our enemies.

Update

Micheal Fumento is back from Iraq and is quite upbeat. His assessment is that "the war is ours to lose".

I observed that troop morale in even the most hostile areas was better than I would have believed. Unless I identified myself, nobody knew I was a reporter. Troops didn’t hold back antiwar feelings on my account. Yet I heard none. I also carefully fastidiously read the ubiquitous graffiti in the portable toilets and only once found a negative scrawling – a Bush bash. But three other scrawlings ambushed that first one.

Read the whole thing.