The smell of victory, part deux
<p>Aha.  The <a href='http://news.pajamasmedia.com/2005/12/18/6710814_Sunnis_say_they_.shtml'>Sunnis<br />
say they want to work with US</a>.  This comes hard in the heels of<br />
reports that the Baathist dead-enders protected al-Qaeda polling<br />
places from jihadis during the just-concluded elections, in which<br />
turnout pushed 70% even in the heart of the Sunni triangle.</p>
<p><span id="more-245"></span></p>
<p>I expect this story will be just as thoroughly overlooked in the<br />
mainstream media as <a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=143'>Qaddaffi&#8217;s<br />
terrified capitulation</a> was back in 2003.  But it&#8217;s even more<br />
important. We&#8217;re getting a clear message that the ex-Baathist end of<br />
the insurgency wants to put down its guns and enter electoral<br />
politics.  This matters a lot, because they were most of the footsoldiers.<br />
The al-Qaeda fighters are far fewer, and have alienated most Iraqis with<br />
a terror campaign that has killed more Iraqis than it has coalition<br />
troops.</p>
<p>If the insurgent leaders believe they must stop fighting, this<br />
implies two other things: that the Sunni street has accepted that<br />
Sunnis aren&#8217;t going to run Iraq any more, and consequently that Iraq<br />
is not going to fly apart into three Kurdish, Sunni and Shi&#8217;a<br />
fragments.  The political foundations for a stable Iraq deeply hostile<br />
to the Islamofascist program have been laid.</p>
<p>(Yes, I support the development of a stable Iraqi state despite<br />
my anarcho-capitalism.  This is because I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s possible to<br />
go from tribalism and autocracy to market anarchy in one go. At<br />
mininimum, it takes a couple of generations of civil society to prepare<br />
people for true self-government.  Cultural experience matters.)</p>
<p>Others in the blogosphere have noted that George Bush&#8217;s most recent<br />
speech uses a lot more &#8220;I&#8221;, that he&#8217;s taking personal responsibility<br />
for the U.S.&#8217;s Iraq strategy, and that this means he is now sure of<br />
victory and wants to nail down the credit.  I agree with this<br />
assessment.  For the first time since 2003, I am now feeling fairly<br />
sure that all the home-front sabotaging of the Iraq campaign by the<br />
Left and the mainstream media is going to come to nothing in the end.<br />
It&#8217;s not, after all, going to be Vietnam II; they will not snatch<br />
defeat from the jaws of victory again.</p>
<p>I&#8217;d like to think this means emergency conditions will end soon,<br />
and I can return to my natural position of calling for the dismantling<br />
of government power rather than reluctantly supporting a government<br />
war.  Unfortunately, the Iraq campaign, like the Afghani campaign<br />
before it, is only part of that longer-term war.  I think it is quite<br />
likely we will be required to invade and subdue Iran before the larger<br />
struggle to break the will of Islamofascism is over.  Alas, wishing we<br />
had tools other than state power for achieving this won&#8217;t make it<br />
so.</p>
<p>Still.  I expect to enjoy the effect on U.S. domestic politics as<br />
the Iraq insurgency collapses. The American Left, having committed itself<br />
to defeatism, is going to get badly hammered in the 2006 elections. I&#8217;d<br />
relish that even more if I could be sure that the beneficiaries of their<br />
collapse wouldn&#8217;t be the Republicans, but you can&#8217;t have everything.</p>
