. . . when the surge ends, there will have to be a strategic turn, away from Americans in the lead. An indefinite war in Iraq "costs us moral authority across the world," [counterinsurgency expert David] Kilcullen said. The occupation of Iraq remains hugely unpopular with America's democratic allies and throughout the Arab and Muslim world. "We need that moral auhority as ammunition in the fight against Al Qaeda," he added. "If we're not down to fifty thousand troops in three to five years, we've lost the war on terror."
Now, Kilcullen's a smart guy - a realist, not an ideologue, as least as far as I've ever been able to tell. But that last sentence rings weird to me, frankly.
I don't believe the "War on Terror" is winnable in any military sense - or indeed in any sense at all beyond reducing global political violence and making civilian life generally safer (which it is, in any case, emphatically not doing).
But I also have a hard time imagining it as "losable," either. I mean, the United States is not going to turn into Northern Ireland, or the West Bank, at least not within the foreseeable future and not by the actions of radical Islamists. The worst that's likely to happen (other than the nuclear threat - which remains largely and curiously unaddressed) is already happening in Iraq and Afghanistan - we're squandering American blood and treasure to little purpose while steadily losing our global influence, particularly for good.
In that sense, I suppose, we've already lost. But when you look at it from the other guy's perspective, things look pretty bleak on that side, too.
They're never going to have their World Caliphate. The Star and Crescent will never fly over the White House. Instead, they're pretty much mired forever in some violent Third World shitholes with the rest of the world hating and fearing them. They're not doing their people any good, certainly, they're not advancing thir standards of living, or their moral authority, or much of anything, beyond a certain misguided pride.
So really, this isn't a generational conflict at all. It's a generational quagmire. For both sides.
Anyway. I just wanted to post something new.
