Get Your Hayba On

In The Battle for Iraq in the Oct. 11 issue of the "Weekly Standard," Reuel Marc Gerecht says we're setting ourselves up for deep trouble in Iraq by pulling our punches.

The growing range and boldness of the guerrilla-cum-terrorist actions suggests something more vigorous and young than the remnants of the Baath. Sunni militants are unquestionably men of hope, who believe fervently that they can drive the Americans out and create another Sunni-dominated state. And the Americans have certainly given them cause to cheer. The "gradualist" approach of the Bush administration has been a gift. The American retreat at Falluja was an enormous fillip to their pride and self-confidence. As the militants have grown stronger, U.S. soldiers have increasingly withdrawn from Iraqi streets. While the Americans have wanted to seem less provocative to the Iraqi people, they have certainly sent a different image to the holy warriors and ex-Baathists. Washington forgot historical rule number one about getting enemies to surrender and acquiesce: You must first beat them. They must see clearly that they have no hope. In a Middle Eastern context, your hayba, the awe that comes with indomitable power, must overwhelm them. This has not happened in Iraq since the fall of Saddam.

...

The administration and the country would certainly be better off if the Kerry campaign and the Democratic party would outflank the White House from the right on Iraq--to attack the NSC, the Pentagon, and the State Department for their lack of aggressiveness, for the continuing "Falluja syndrome" that still undermines operations in the Sunni triangle. But confronted with essentially a Howard Dean/Edward Kennedy critique--the second Gulf War was a mistake (as was the first), conceived through intelligence incompetence or manipulation, and destined to be a sandy Indochina--the administration will surely be less inclined to judge itself harshly. It seems unlikely that this left-wing stratagem will work in November, if for no other reason than that 1,000-plus combat deaths are too few, even with the media daily pounding George Bush with bad news from the Middle East, for Americans to dump the president and his patriotic call to stand our ground. But the Kerry-Holbrooke assessment will likely define the Democratic party's response to Iraq even after a defeat of the senator in November, further diminishing the necessary pressure on the Bush administration to undertake the ugly counterinsurgency campaign it's been avoiding.