Winnability in Iraq: none

Related to the earlier post on demanding an answer to the critical question from the President and Vice President, Middle East expert Juan Cole as an excellent analysis of the essential "unwinnability" of this so-called "asymmetric" warfare in Iraq (for those not following recent military-speak, that means warfare between a militarily powerful force, like the U.S.A., and a movement lacking aircarft carriers and F-16s, like the Sunni guerillas.

Dick Cheney and the Two 21st Centuries;
On Nukes, Vice President Confuses Television with Reality
The 21st century is also the century of independence for the countries of the global south. It is the century that followed on wave after wave of decolonization, during which the French were shown not to be able to stay in Algeria, the British were kicked out of the Indian subcontinent, and the Dutch had to relinquish Indonesia. . . .

So actually the late 20th century and the 21st century aren't on the side of the US project in Iraq. Iraqis are much more socially and politically mobilized now than the Algerians were in 1960. Iraq is farther away from the US by orders of magnitude than Algeria was from France, and far less important to its public. . . . You could instance Britain in India just as easily, or for that matter the Soviets in Afghanistan. And, the contests, while uneven, are increasingly less so. India now has a multi-billion dollar software industry. Cheney is still living in a day of the white man's burden. . . .

The Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq enjoy all the advantages of internal social and political mobilization-- sophisticated tactics, high-powered munitions, excellent networking and communications. They benefit from a vast Sunni Arab hinterland of support that includes the oil millionaires of the Gulf (there are a lot of them and they hate to see fellow Sunnis mistreated) and the committed young professionals of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, the Sudan, and North Africa.

Against 6 million truly mobilized people, a mere 160,000 foreign troops is unlikely to prevail. The US lacks good intelligence on the guerrillas, and there is no prospect of it getting better intelligence soon. In fact, every year more Sunni Arabs hate us than the year before.

Cheney has been watching the television show "24" too much

When Cheney and his pals came back into office in 2001 after Clinton defeated them in 1992, the terrorism czar Richard Clarke was amazed at how hung up they still were on Iraq and threats posed by lumbering rogue states. They had not seen the rise of al-Qaeda and discounted asymmetrical struggles. Clarke said that it was as though they had been frozen in amber since 1992.

But since Cheney & Co. don't even so much as seem to know about how Nehru, Gandhi and Jinnah kicked Britain out of India, it would be more accurate to say that they have been frozen in amber since 1945. They haven't understood the social history of decolonization.

The Project for a New American Century was always a project for a new American empire, an empire of the old rickety nineteenth-century sort. Its time passed a long time ago. Peoples of the global south don't have to surrender their independence to European district commissioners anymore. They have enough biopower to forestall that fate.

Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. Cheney.

When you can't even define what it actually means to "win" this war, you do not belong there any longer.