America won the war in Iraq for two primary reasons. First, the surge and its changed tactics showed the Iraqis that we were not going to do a Vietnam-redux and abandon them to the tender mercies of the Jihadis. Second, and of perhaps even greater importance, the brutality and viciousness of the Jihadis had already alienated their constituents by the time the surge took place. It is arguable whether we could have won the war prior to the alienation of the Iraqis from the Jihadis taking place. This is germane for discussions of the Mumbai terror attacks and the aftermath.
Peter Brookes summarizes an argument that many have made, when he asks WAS THE REAL TARGET INDO-PAK PEACE?
IN the wake of the terror attacks that killed more than 180 people (including at least six Americans) and wounded another 300 in Mumbai, India, last week, the burning question is: Who done it - and why?
It's still speculative, but most fingers are pointing toward Pakistan and such terrorist groups as Lashkar e Tayyiba (LeT) and Jaish e Mohammed (JeM).
Yes, the attacks could've been homegrown. India is home to more than 150 million Muslims, including several active Islamist terror groups - one of which claimed responsibility for the attack early on. But few believe these indigenous groups could've pulled off such a well-coordinated, sustained assault without outside assistance from a highly capable foreign organization.
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Another attack on India with even a whiff of Pakistani government involvement would kill any chance of better relations - and maintain the terrorists' leverage over Pakistani policies.
If there's any glint of hopeful news, it's that Islamabad may finally take tougher steps to rein in JeM and LeT. (We've already seen some improved efforts recently against the Taliban and al Qaeda in the tribal areas near Afghanistan.)
Zardari's offer of full cooperation with India may help restabilize relations between the neighbors. The early challenge is a possible Indian military response against Pakistani interests, which could lead to escalation.
The tragedy also provides Washington an opportunity for greater counterterror cooperation with both Islamabad and New Delhi - an idea both may be open to now. That step would make us all safer.
The Muslim world by and large remains tribal and as such their first reaction to any atrocity committed by one of their own is to, almost reflexively, defend the Ummah, even if this means they must find ways to minimize and mitigate the atrocities. The first reaction is always to worry about ways in which the terror attacks might injure them rather than any concern for the victims. This is why there is rarely more than a perfunctory apology issued by Muslim spokesmen and much louder voices immediately emerge to condemn Islamophobia and find "underlying causes" with which to shift the responsibility onto the victims. Considering the current terror assault, an escalation of methodology if not results (if result is confined to consideration of the number of victims rather than the impact on CNN), the question that should be of greatest interest to Indian and American leaders if how to maximize the possibility that the aftermath can be a time of enhanced (and real) cooperation from Pakistan against its Jihadis rather than a period of increased instability and danger in the subcontinent.
Yasser Arafat, in modern times, was the first and foremost practitioner of "plausible deniability" of terror.
While encouraging and supporting terror with money, men, and Arabic words, he would tell the Westerners what they wanted to hear, using the language of peace, rights, and liberalism. It took hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead Jews before Israel (temporarily) recognized the tactic for what it was, war via obfuscation. It is too early to tell if the Obama administration will need to relearn the lesson, but it goes without saying that any diplomacy will be quite difficult. The problem with Pakistan (as with the Palestinians, though on a smaller scale) is that they can plausibly threaten that things could become a great deal worse if they are pushed too far and too fast. Yet all evidence suggests that those who support the terrorists are hardly likely to stop when their tactics actually work to advance their cause (at least to their way of thinking.)
Right now, just as there are foolish pundits suggesting that if only there is more pressure on Israel, there can be peace with the Palestinians, when the reality is that the Palestinians do not seek peace except as a tactic in the service of their strategic interest (the destruction of the Jewish state) so, too, voices are now being heard suggesting that Pakistani fueled terror can be ameliorated by settling the Kashmir problem. Here the give-away is the name chosen by the Jihadis for their recent assault; they self identified as the Deccan Mujahedin. If they were ever to "liberate" Kashmir and return it to Islamic rule, they have already announced that the next step would essentially be the rest of India.
Westerners who seek to take the path of moderation with Islam are, in their own ways, facilitating the spread and deepening of violent Jihad. This is of course (with very rare exceptions) unintentional, yet the fact that they propose what they imagine to be moderate solutions to the problem (out of ignorance), while empowering the worst among the Ummah, does not change the fact that their contributions are an important weapon for our enemies.
In a tribal society, only when the danger to the Ummah from their active and passive support of terror surpasses the danger to the Ummah from resistance to the terrorists will terrorism be defeated. Islamic terror can never be defeated by Christians, Jews, Hindus or any other outsider; only Muslims can defeat Islamic terror. Until the West, and indeed the civilized world in toto, can find ways to make support of Jihad more costly to the Muslims than repudiation of the violent Jihadis in their midst will the Pakistanis, Saudis, et al, be forced, out of the most narrow self interest, to confront the evil within that they have unleashed on the world.
Update: Ed Morrissey notes what could be a sign of a Changing Calculus.
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