MB Civic

By David Ignatius | Wednesday, December 20, 2006 | The Washington Post

Political analyst David Ignatius examines a number of conflicts with strong similarities to Iraq (Algeria, Vietnam and Afghanistan among them), where foreign expeditionary armies failed to insert enough troops to achieve old-fashioned victory, and eventually lost after years of smoldering struggle with guerillas bled them and their home countries dry and destroyed support for more losses. It’s a classic strategy of guerilla warfare, it works, and our armed forces knew about that before they were muscled into invading Iraq in 2003.

What now? What reasonable goals are achievable? Ignatius interviews both CentCom commander General John Abizaid and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, and winds up with something that sounds very close to the Iraq Study Group’s proposals, but justified with a different line of reasoning…BS

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901281.html