Getting Serious About Iraq
Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute wants to know if we're ready to really do what is necessary to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. He argues that Iran is using the same quite effective tactics in southern Iraq that it used in Lebanon. He cites example after example, such as this:

It is in the info-war that Washington has stumbled most severely. The U.S. operates in Iraq as if the country is a vacuum. Sheltered within the Green Zone, diplomats are oblivious to enemy propaganda. Resistance to occupation is Hezbollah's mantra. It is a theme both the Badr Corps and firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army adopted. Why then did Foggy Bottom acquiesce on May 22, 2003 to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 which formalized U.S. and Britain as "occupying powers." What U.S. diplomats meant as an olive branch to pro-U.N. European allies was, in reality, hemlock. With the stroke of a pen, liberation became occupation: Al-Manar and Al-Alam barraged ordinary Iraqis with montages glorifying "resistance." They then highlighted U.S. fallibility with images of withdrawal from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia.

Tehran has a formula for success in Iraq; Washington does not. Victory will require U.S. diplomats to recognize that any successful policy must include strategies not only to promote U.S. and Iraqi interests, but also to derail our adversaries' strategy. Iran's methods are clear. Less clear is U.S. resolve. The stakes in Iraq are high, and one side is playing for keeps. Are we?

Let's hope we are.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:58 AM