Fallujah

Every time I start thinking that the Pentagon, or the coalition leadership in Iraq, has a whole drawer of screws loose, I find out that I just hadn't thought about it the way they do, and their way makes sense. Example of the day: Fallujah.

I was completely in accord with the many commentators who called, last April, for Fallujah to be levelled if that was what it would take to kill the insurgency. I was utterly wrong, and here is why:

By allowing a few areas that were totally under the control of the enemy, and beating the enemy senseless everywhere outside those areas, the enemy was compelled to isolate himself from the general population of Iraq. It appears that in Baghdad the enemy's organization is still very loose, but in Fallujah and Ramadi the enemy is forming into not only a static defense, but a hierarchically-organized structure. In other words, our enemy has collected himself in a small number of places, has organized himself into units larger than cells, has given the Iraqi army and police organizations time and space in which to train and grow, and has given the majority of Iraqis not under his control a distinct sense of the stakes if they let the Baathists or jihadis regain control. None of this would have happened had we levelled Fallujah.

But there is another thing the enemy has given us by concentrating and organizing as a regular force: they've not just made it easier to find them, and easier to take them apart, they've also put themselves into a position where it will be Iraqi forces that take them out (my guess, Fallujah will not last as an enemy pocket until the January elections). This will provide both a definitive closure for Iraqis, and a measure of pride that they did this task for themselves, that they would not have gotten had we taken Fallujah in April.

If, in the process, we find serious documentary evidence leading to Iranian or Syrian control (and it's very, very likely that we will), a pretext for war is readily to hand. (Not that I think we need a pretext, but there are a lot of people who will want one.)