In today's NYT Op-Ed section two of the editors Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert follow the dark thoughts of Nicholas Kristof in yesterday's Times with requests that we accept the inevitable and get out of Iraq. There is much to recommend this policy, as I have suggested earlier. Yet it is incumbent on serious commentators to develop avenues and means to achieve results other than those they fear, or at least to phase out the withdrawal in ways that preserve as much as possible of our original goals.

In Falluja, an Iraqi General in Republican Guard uniform has been brought in to restore order. After days of shelling and bombing, the Marines are moving back to blocking positions. As discussed last night on Lehrer, this will be seen by many Iraqis, as well as much of the Arab world, as a defeat and retreat for U.S. forces. This could have incalculable results in Iraq and elsewhere. Yet as they also said, it was probably the best alternative for the United States. What has not been mentioned is the fact we seem to be equipping and launching an Iraqi army that may soon grow rapidly into an uncontrollable competitor to coalition forces in Iraq. If the general could put together a force of 1100 almost over night, what else might he do on a broader canvas? Again, this may be the way to go. I hope someone has thought it through.

The disgusting mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. reservists is being shown on television throughout the world. There is no way to undo it. Court martials, if they come, will be buried on back pages. The fact seems to be that we put together a lot of untrained and now low morale troops to try to make over Iraq's society. Better planning would have avoided this. Yet "these things happen in war". The answer to this is that if we cannot adequately train and discipline our troops, then we should not get into these adventures, and if we do we should cut them as short as possible.

Two contradictory pieces of information in today's NYT.

The first, a news article, tells me that Saddam's regime organized the forces and supplies that are being used in the present campaign against the Americans well before the fall of Baghdad. Even the suicide campaign was so organized, with even colonels in his Fedayeen being groomed for later suicide action. The outfits they wore, complete with bombs, were manufactured and stockpiled before the war. If this accounts for a large part of our problem, and it may, this suggests two things. (1) The struggle against our forces is primarily a nationalist rather than a religious struggle. The tutelage of the Baath party in fascist ideology is well known. (2) The supplies and numbers of people willing to take part in this effort might dry up. If not, we need to understand how recruits and supplies are now obtained.

The second, an Op-Ed by an apparently knowledgeable observer, claims that the resistance in Falluja is primarily based on the tribes of the city and its environs. While they were treated well by Saddam, he never trusted them. They form a world of their own. From their perspective, the worst thing an outsider can do is kill one of theirs, for then they must exact revenge on the killers. (She thinks that failing to understand the tribal structure of much of the society is an important root of our problem.) The short-term solution might be to reduce the killing of Fallujans and offer compensation for their losses following tribal custom in settling disputes.

This leads to two pieces of meta-advice referring back to the points made in yesterday's submission to this log.

First, greater effort must be made to "map" Iraq geographically and stratigraphically in detail. We must learn where and in what condition -- attitudinally, economically and otherwise -- the many subgroups that we label "Iraqis" live. We must know their traditional and current leadership structures. This data must be gathered, collated, and organized in such a way that it can be communicated down to all levels of our security and civilian forces and acted upon. The result may be a mosaic of actions that it hard to handle bureaucratically, but the effort needs to be made in haste. One imagines that most of this knowledge already exists with the American camp, but it doubtful that it is getting to where it is needed most.

Second, and in effect developing the point made yesterday, we need to organize and protect our security and development efforts on a local level, transferring the effort to Iraqis at radically different rates depending on the situation. "Secure areas" for both development and political development should be carved out slowly and gradually blended together where they come to join one another. Obvious starting points are in the Kurdish areas. But even here we must go far beyond the blanketing of areas with labels like "Kurd". For these areas, too, consist of a mosaic of different subcultures and allegiances. Knowing these will be the basis of any secure progress we may be able to make.

In today's NYT Op-Eds, Kristof confesses that he has been avoiding discussing Iraq because it seems too discouraging and essentially hopeless. However, he brightens up enough to come to much the same conclusion as Juan Cole and others: press for a quick devolution of power to the Iraqis and elections as soon as possible.

The problem is, of course, how to do this, particularly if the Americans are led into more deadly firefights and end up killing one too many Iraqis.

Perhaps this is not a new idea, but it seems to me the way to organize elections both locally and nationwide is to follow something like the Indian system where elections are spread out over several weeks with security forces and other election facilitators moved from place to place. In those communities in which adequate security could not be established in time, elections would simply be postponed. If national elections could be held in as much as 50% of the country by this means, then the result would be declared legitimate with the seats from districts unrepresented left open until such time as security were established in them. Of course, all this is easier said than done.

I have just come across the web log of Juan Cole, a Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Deeply versed in the history and religions of Iraq and the surrounding area, Professor Cole has been following the 9/11 to Iraq discussion closely, has been called before the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee etc. The portal to his world is at http://www.juancole.com/

His running commentary is detailed, informed, and balanced. This site includes only his latest postings, but the accompanying archived postings go back several years. Many of the postings are actually excerpts from hearings before Congress and other sources (including a discussion by my old acquaintance William Polk). The site also includes at http://www.juancole.com/weblogs.htm an excellent listing of many other avenues that the student of these issues should follow down.

Based on a first impression after skimming rapidly through the material, I have two impressions:

First, the solution that Cole sees to our present diffiuculties in Iraq is summed up by the need for a renewed search for legitimacy. He sees this coming about primarily through going forward with the transfer of power following Brahimi's model on June 30, through developing working local governments by elections or otherwise, and through carrying through an election by the end of the year even if the security situation is not as we would like.

Second, and a little eerily is his feeling that the bloody cycle of action and reaction has landed our mission in deep trouble from which we might not be able to extricate ourselves. He quotes Polk, another Iraq expert, as saying simply and directly that we are going to be defeated. It is a little hard to see how we can keep the road open to his solution embedded in his first point long enough to reach our goal. On the other hand, I agree plaintively that "we must".

His recounting of our mistakes covers familiar ground, but more knowledgeably than most. One point that is often not made is that under Saddam the country had developed a web of opposition groups many of which we seem to have been oblivious to. By failing to realize the full extent and nature of the anti-Saddam structure on the ground we made critical mistakes that are still haunting us.

Again the destruction and deaths of Iraq have been moved to the tenth page. The attacks are all over the country. Many are small bombings killing only a few Iraqis. Several kill Americans. Two American sailors die defending an oil installation against suicide bombers coming in by sea. One can almost feel the mounting frustration of the Americans who know only too well that every wound hurts twice -- first the physical pain and then the damaged effort.

One can feel this frustration in today's Thomas Friedman Op-Ed. He calls the biggest failure in Iraq one of common sense. But whatever the mistakes of leadership, he knows we must find a way out.

He concludes that there is no way the United States will be able to maintain its present forces or anything like them for more than another year. So the question is to consider how we will get out. He suggests three possibilities. The first is a continuing downward spiral from which we will have to fight our way out as in Somalia. (I prefer Napoleon after Moscow.) The second is that we manage to establish a working caretaker government. But the thousand cuts campaign of the Iraqi opposition goes on. Continually frustrated, the United States (again) counterattacks in a big way. Since the caretaker government is fast losing the support of the people because of lack of security and the fact it appears more and more to be an American stooge, the new government pressures the U.S. to just leave. The third alternative (Friedman's hopeful outcome) has us making it through to the elections and the establishment of a Shiite government. Soon U.S forces are asked to leave or command is turned over to the U.N. (which might amount to the same thing).

Everyone concerned with the issue needs to ponder Friedman's alternatives to try to come up with ways to make them turn out better for Iraqis, Americans, and the common goals of development and a freer society that accompanied us into the fray. In earlier notes I suggested how we might save something from the course of something like Friedman's first scenario. Whatever we do in any of these scenarios we must think of how we might preserve a larger portion of our reputation and ability to operate in the world than would appear likely at first glance. Remember that one of the worst aspects of our previous efforts in this area has been the sense of betrayal left in the hearts of many when the United States left, notably the Kurds on more than one occasion and the Shiites after the Gulf War.

The essential ingredient to my approach was to identify groups and areas in the country with which we can continue to work after we have left the bulk of the country. What obviously comes to mind are the Kurdish regions. In many cases it would make sense to try to preserve their independence in what is essentially a balkanized Iraq. This would require some hard bargaining with the Turks. A strategy that satisfied both these players, our only strong allies in the immediate area, would be costly, involving what would amount to major gifts on our part. But the cost could not be greater than the costs of not making the effort.

This is just one thought. We should come back and develop other alternatives, perhaps for Freidman (2) and (3).

David Brooks attempts in today's Op-Ed trying to convince readers to abandon "the myth of perpetrators as victims". Using an FBI study of the Columbine killer teenagers, he points out that one of the two was not a depressed, unsure outsider, but rather a overly self-confident young man who saw himself as a Nietzschean Superhero. He was so contemptuous of eveyone else that he saw nothin wrong in eliminating them. Brooks makes this argument in an attempt to put in their place those weak-kneed who always look for the "reason" behind fanatic actions such as suicide bombing. Such persons are thought to be prone to find the reason in the injustices or other problems that the perpetrator has experienced in his or her life time.

I am foolish enough to continue to believe that there are reasons for what we experience as evil in the world. It may be that some personalities are genetically programmed to become suicide bombers. But I suspect that this is a small minority. The others cover a wide gamut of personalities formed through a medley of life experiences. Understanding this complexity will not lead to immediate solutions, and the suicide bomber of today must be stopped today in spite of why he is who he is. But we would offer humanity a brighter future if we could work out ways to prevent this ending for them and us for a significant fraction of offenders.

The Saturday paper reports that Paul Bremer has issued a serious warning to the Iraqi people. It is up to you, he said. "If you do not defend your beloved country, it will not be saved." This message unfortunately has two messages within it. First, you must cooperate with us if we are to carry our mission through successfully. Second, if you do not help enough, we will sooner or later abandon the effort. It is not, after all, our war. For Iraqis who are wavering, who do not see how they personally can help bring order, who live in fear of both sides, this message is not very reassuring. Yet Bremer is right. Perhaps he had to say it.

Meanwhile the standoff continues. General Abizaid says he may ask for more troops. General Kimmitt says "Our patience is not eternal." Cheney, speaking of recent attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, says" Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed and that is the business at hand." And so it goes.

Bill Moyers' program last night had a guest from BBC who repeated the attacks I have repeatedly heard against commercial news outlets in the United States. According to this view, ABC/NBC/CBS et al laid the groundwork for the Administration's movement into the Iraq and the continued support of President;s Bush's policies by presenting only the Administration's side, by never questioning the claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and by continuing to insist on the Administration's interpretation of news from the front. There is the stated or unstated implication that commercial broadcasting is all on "his side" because Bush is the friend of the large corporations.

I do not know what universe these critics are living in. As one who regularly follows the news in both public and commercial sources (primarily ABC News, 60 minutes, PBS' Lehrer show and National Public Radio) I have found almost the opposite to be true. From the first talk of war to today, ABC's evening news has regularly pointed out the doubtfulness of the administration's claims. 60 Minutes has held many interviews with players in the drama that are bitterly opposed to administration policy or merely highly critical. It has been my impression that, on balance, the public outlets offer a more pro-administration view than the older TV channels. They seldom hold a discussion of a topic relevant to this discssion where they do not include spokespersons for the Administration. Jennings and Lehrer often have such presentations. I realize that Fox and some radio talkers are a different matter. But the overall condemnation of commercial outlets (and of course the NY Times is also commercial) offers a misleading picture of how these events are being communicated to the American public.

Aside from ideological echoes, this misleading criticism has been brought forward partly to explain what seems inexplicable to both Europeans and the Academy: "Why in the world does the American public continue to support the Administration in its foreign adventures?" Their answer is that our public media have led the people astray by deliberately covering up what has been happening. It appears to me that this is simply not the answer. The answer is partly simply inattention, partly the Bush style that appeals to at least 50% of the public, and partly?

Let us summarize a few Iraq related items in the April 22, 2004 NYT.

Coordinated suicide attacks in Basra aimed at police buildings kill 68, including many school children. Residents angrily pushed away and stoned British soldiers coming to the rescue.

Marines engage in severe fire fights in Falluja. Officers say that the "truce" may have to be ended. If it is, the Marines will come in in a big way. About half of the city remains completely out of control, the rest is only partly uncontrolled. Iraqi security forces cannot be trusted to help. Marines estimate about 2000 hard-core insurgents in the city. These are made up of foreigners from Yemen and Syria (about 200), former members of the Iraqi Special Republican Guard, Islamic fighters, and former members of Hussein's Fedayeen paramilitary. Marines are fully aware of the danger of making the city "an Alamo" but may have no other choice.

Opinion on the street in Baghdad reported increasingly anti-American. They see the Americans now as simply killers who do not care at all for the Iraqi people. They see them as having failed to bring security having in large part failed to adequately restore services such as electricity and waste disposal. One Christians interviewed reported that he had reluctantly turned against the U.S.

In addition to the announcement of withdrawal plans for Spanish troops, the Dominicans and Hondurans have also announced withdrawals. It is possible the Poles are also wavering in their commitment. Halliburton and Bechtel are reducing the travel of their employees within Iraq. General Electric and Siemens have suspended most of their operations in the country.

Further afield, suicide bombers in Riyadh kill four and wound 168 at downtown police building.

Let us hope for better days.

Reconsidering the President's Briefing, particularly his opening statement, it appears to be an excellent summing up of an idealistic vision of America's role in the world. Given this fact, it is more than ever necessary to understand where he goes astray.

His first mistake is to assume his international projects are much easier to accomplish than they are. Leaving aside his error in misleading the American people on why we went into Iraq, his goals of eliminating two of the world's worst regimes (Taliban and Saddam's) were worthy goals, the accomplishment of which would serve the country's long-range interests. The stated goal of striking at the heart of the bin Ladin movement was also a worthy one for both the United States and the world. But accomplishing these goals was bound to be much more complicated and expensive than the President imagined. He should have brought together and kept together a much larger coalition of forces and development programs to accompany and follow our initial successes in Afghanistan. Taking his first goal more seriously would have forced him to put off Iraq until after it was much further along.

Taking on Iraq with the full capabilities of this country and a larger grouping of supporting players would then easily have waited until more of the UN was with us. It also should have waited until the job of conquering, securing, developing, and reforming Iraq was described in the dimensions that it required and until adequate funds were appropriated for the effort. It would now have been the time to eliminate the tax cuts or even enact new "war taxes". This would be part of a major effort country to sell the country on the necessity of everyone joining together to make the sacrifices that would be necessary. Then with perhaps 500,000 troops committed we should have moved in. Our troops would have been accompanied by a large force committed to the task of establishing civil order as we entered cities. The size of the force and its composition would have greatly reduced the initial fighting, curtailed the looting and destruction, and discouraged much of the guerrilla warfare and terrorism that is continues today.

The President's second mistake has been his tendency to take his goals and values as givens, imagining that all the world thinks or should think as he does, and that it makes no sense to adapt to peoples and societies as they are. This leads him to overstate the degree of change that we must accomplish quickly in societies such as Afghanistan and Iraq. His briefing suggests that anything less than an American style democracy firmly established in the center of the Middle East would be failure. Indeed, in his opening statement he said "Iraq will either be a peaceful democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terror and a threat to America and the world".

Let us recall that there have been many discussions recently of the evolving Russian state under Putin. It appears that it will not be a Western democracy, but that it will stabilize as a system that is much preferable to the Communist past. And it also appears from extensive public opinion surveys and many election that this is the direction that most Russians want to go. China is also far from what we would like, but in its present "imperfect state" it is a system we can work with. Pakistan is also far from a democracy, but it appears to be a better system for us to work with than the others that offer themselves, even if there were free and fair elections. We can live with this Pakistan for a while yet as long as it can be stabilized.

The conclusion is that Bush often seems to have his heart in the right place. He has an appealing vision of America's role in the world. Unfortunately, he also seems unwilling, perhaps unable, to understand the complexity, the cost, and the to time it will take to reach his goals for all humanity.

I have just finished reading Bernard Lewis' The Crisis of Islam, a recent primer by an Islamic scholar on the relationship of terrorism to Islam. Having studied Islam for some time in my youth, the material was not exactly new. Yet it was a very good review, relating much that I vaguely remembered to the present crisis. Particularly interesting is the disjunction between what Islamic radicals are advocating today and traditional Islam. In traditional Islam, dying in a holy war was indeed praiseworthy, but never committing suicide for whatever reason, and never killing civilians for whatever reason. The jihad was a traditional rules-bounded enterprise, not a no-holds-barred slaughter.

This said, Islam wasl traditionally a religion that did not countenance any other belief system. The world was to become all Muslim. Peace treaties with the Dhimmis were recognized and should be observed. But for Muslims, hey were only short-term solutions.

Looking at the three interconnected religions (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity), they are all highly exclusivist. Judaism began as a tribal religion. In this stage, all who did not accept the Jewish gods were enemies of God and at times slaughtered as such. Later Judaism looked inward and gave up its conversion mission, but nevertheless it built ideological walls. Today,Israel is perhaps the only modern state to identify itself in terms of one specific religion. Christianity did not begin as a warring tribe, but at many times in its history, it became one. This was not tribalism of the ancient variety, though to some of its enemies it must have seemed so. Islam has had a dual nature. At the beginning the Prophet advised his followers to live in peace with others, but in later verses (later in his life) he advised destroying the other (particularly in Arabia). This was not racism or tribalism, at least on the surface, but rather belief-centered exclusivism intended to univeralize his mission.

In recent years, modernist leaders in all three traditions have updated the message of their separate traditions by adopting a less exclusivist modernism. Yet now, under the pounding of bloody events these gains are threatened. In Islam Wahhabi propgaganda spread by Saudi-funded education throughout the Muslim world has forced modern Islam into retreat. Lewis makes the point that the advance of Wahhabism and other extreme factions is not the advance of "fundamentalism", for there are many fundamentalist interpretations in Islam that have nothing to do with terrorism. What has been destroying the middle ground is a particularly vicious interpretation of Islam that ignores or dismisses much of Islamic tradition, heaping the blame for all of the problems of the Islamic world on Jews and Christians and l "secularists".

The answer to such extremism is not to counter with a claim that the Christian God supports the armies of the West or that all of Palestine belongs to the Jews by God's decree. We should strive instead, even in the midst of the chaos and war reported in the nightly news, to refresh the dialogue of people identifying themselves as Christians, Jews, and Muslims (and one should add Hindus and Buddhists in South Asia). The first task of this dialogue would be to admit commonalities in both the positive and negative histories of all three traditions, attempting to lift the concept of God above the fray. If we can get beyond self-worship, of which the emphasis on the worship of "our God" is one form, maybe we can bring others along. As our instructor in Islam at the University of the Panjab repeated to us several times, "You must bring us more than just the material goods of the West". This may have been an insincere piety, but I do think that we must offer a vision of the future which is more than "You become like us" and is more like "Let us all get beyond our past glories and our past mistakes and build a better world together."

Niall Ferguson's discussion of "The Last Iraqi Insurgency" (NYT Op-Ed 4/18) offers an excellent summary of Iraqi resistance ot British rule in the 1920s. (The Smithsonian Magazine had a longer piece on the same subject some months back.). Briefly, the British drove the Ottomans out of Iraq in1920 they faced a full-blown revolt. The revolt came about six months after a consultation with tribal chiefs and an announcement that the British would have a League of Nations "Mandate". With about as many troops as we have now in the country (and of course a much smaller population) the British were unable to handle the attacks everywhere and nowhere approach of the Iraqi militia. They found arrayed against them both Sunnis and Shias. Finally they decided to "get tough". With fierce punitive expeditions and aerial bombardment of civilians they succeeded (leaving an unending hatred of the British who were forced to keep troops there until the 1950s.

Ferguson's conclusions are (1) The fact of International involvement did not help at all, (2) consultation did not help, and (3) our troops will have to be there for a very long time. All that really worked militarily was a barbarous suppression that even shocked Winston Churchill. Ferguson's recommendation, apparently, is to turn to a barbarous suppression of the Iraqis and expect to stay for a long time. He says we should realize we are imperialists and get on with it. This is not meant as a joke or a slam at the US.

Fortunately, Ferguson of the Hoover Institution is not in charge. His evidence is chilling. But his solution is not one the American people can live with. Nor is it one that will serve longer-range U.S. policy objectives in a world in which old-fashioned imperialism no longer has a place.

The fighting in Iraq has at least temporarily tapered off. There is still a steady stream of announcements of coalition casualties, although lately our enemies seem to have shifted to kidnappings. The scale of the war this month is suggested by the fact that two days ago an announcement of the killing of 100 Iraqi civilians in a small town north of Falluja was found only on an internal page of the New York Times. War has a numbing effect.

The United States is facing a critical decision point. The important shrine city of Najaf is essentially out of our control. The same seems to be the case with Karbala and perhaps a few others. The Shiite leader Sadr continues to defy us from a house in Najaf. If we allow this to go on, there may be consequences. If we do not acquiesce and force our way in, there may be worse consequences.

In spite of continued bluster from the Bush camp, it appears as though our approach may be swinging in a more reasonable direction. In now endorsing the United Nations taking the lead in the political area, we appear ready to settle for less than we would have preferred. What still remains unclear is how whatever political structure emerges, temporarily or permanently, interacts with American and other coalition forces. It is anamolous for a government to be considered sovereign without being in control of the military forces residing in the country.

Regardless, these moves by the Administration mean that the exit strategy that I feared was lacking is being worked out, whether intentionally or not. After Brahimi and his Iraqis take over politically, we can withdraw if we have to without a complete political disaster. For we can then claim that we have succeeded in our essential mission even if a variety of anti-American forces remain in the field.

Pauk Berman's long and thoughtful Op-Ed (NYT 4/15) suggests that the democrats now have a stake in making the war in Iraq achieve the purposes for which it should have been fought. He is right in writing that it is uncomfortable to imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein had not been brought down by Bush, in which the Iraqi people would still be suffering under the twin pressures of Saddam's tyranny and the economic sanctions -- and the continuing ability of Saddam to do mischief to neighbors and those further afield.

However, he is wrong when he suggests that leading democrats should take over where Bush will (hopefully) leave off, carrying on the struggle as a campaign against "fascism" and for the establishment of a democratic bastion in the Middle East. In other words, he is insisting on continuing the Bush struggle against evil under different and more effective leadership.

We have had enough of attempts to remake the world. Given the scale of the effort we are evidently prepared to make, our goal in Iraq should be to work out an agreement with the country's power brokers that assures some stability for the near future. This may mean institutionalizing the democratic system we have been working on. It may be less than that. If we are successful, we will be laying the basis for an eventual transformation to democracy without the stigma that might be attached to a system that seems to be forced down the throats of the people.

"Making the world safe for democracy" has become "making the world a world of democracies". This is a worthy long-term goal, especially if we mean by democracy the possession of basic civil freedoms by all peoples, including freedom of conscience. It is a less worthy goal if it means that the United States makes it a policy to require all countries to become democracies according to our time table. This is neither in our state interest, the interest of the international community, or the interest of the peoples we would "convert".

A recent article in Foreign Affairs by Pipes (I believe the father) is instructive in this regard. He cites polls in Russia that seem to indicate the the recent moving away from Western style democracy in Russia is widely approved by its people. Only about ten percent of the population gives any value to having our kind of democracy and freedom. They see security and a strong state as greatly to be preferred. Pipes certainly does not believe this response is coerced or the result of clever propaganda. Rather he sees it as resulting from the continuing vitality of ancient Russian tradition.

To the extent he is right, it would be foolish for us to exert great efforts to make Russia our kind of democracy. It would be wiser to move slowly, continue a dialogue on human rights, but try to work with Russia as it is. Russia has many interests in common with our own, including the struggle against Islamic terrorism, the provision of energy resources for the world, and reductions in nuclear arms.

Islamic countries present another challenge. While a small elite in these countries may want Western democracy, they are unlikely to be able to control the political process were full democracy instituted. The only Muslim country with considerable experience with democracy, Turkey, has developed its democratic institutions under the shadow of a secular, Westernized officer corps that has assumed the right to intervene whenever the democracy seemed to be getting out of hand. They have felt, and it still may be the case, that Turkish democracy teeters on on the brink of descent into a religious dictatorship in democratic clothes. They may be right. It would ill serve the United States and Europe to put such heavy pressure on this corps that in the end we prove them right. The implications for what we really want in Iraq should be obvious, but no one dare spell them out.

I have just finished reading an excellent book on Al-Qaeda by Jason Burke (London: Tauris, 2003). I gain two major insights:

(1) Even at its peak (1996-2002) al-Qaeda ("the base") was a highly decentralized operation. It consisted of a hardcore group of a dozen or more individuals based at this time in Afghanistan, all having given an oath to Osama bin Laden. They were regarded by many Islamic militants around the world as their leaders. Yet projects were generally not "ordered" by this hardcore. Bin Laden rather made clear what he wanted in general terms. Often projects were brought to him or his lieutenants. They would then pick and choose or modify. Their part was often the financing of projects and providing training in Afghanistan (or money for training in the case of the infamous pilots in the U.S.). Most Islamic terrorism has rather closely defined local objectives (Eqypt, Palestine, Chechnya etc.). Such projects may also be supported loosely by al-Qaeda. But bin Laden's real "contribution" is to see the effort in global terms, and the projects most closely under his "supervision" are global projects. Al-Qaeda is no doubt even looser now. It is also important to note that the Taliban protected al-Qaeda but was also very suspicious of it. It close on occasion to throwing the whole Arab enterprize out. They were much less interested in global mischief and also ascribed to a different version of fundamentalist Islam than bin Laden.

(2) The Afghanistan base was very important for the development of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda operatives. Hundreds if not thousands were trained there. The number rises to many thousands if we include those trained for war in Afghanistan. This much larger group included many Arabs from a wide variety of countries, but especially Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Training for war in Afghanistan and for terrorist operations overlapped a good deal. Some who went for the former ended up in the latter. What is important for the future is that by making Afghanistan unusable, we have dealt a serious blow. We must be sure to maintain that unusability there and in Pakistan's NWFP, and make sure no other useful base areas are developed.

With our present difficulties in Iraq, it is commonly asserted that "It looks like another Vietnam". For the record, for one who was heavily involved in the Vietnam War on the research side at the time, I find this comparison is in error for several reasons.

First, at all times, the South Vietnamese government had more forces in the field fighting the Vietcong than we did, and they suffered more casualties. Although Americans often disparaged these forces, especially those at the village level, they often fought bravely and well. It also must be remembered that their forces had to fight year after year while ours were regularly rotated. For the last year before the final Vietcong offensive, the South Vietnamese held the line after American forces had been withdrawn. We cannot count on local police, irregular, or regular forces in Iraq to anything like the degree we did in Vietnam.

Second, after the early stages, most of the forces we faced were North Vietnamese regular army troops. In fact, after the Tet offensive, there were very few Vietcong cadres left. This meant that the primary problem for our side was that an endless source of men and meteriel in the North made victory impossible if we did not invade the North (which for fear of China we avoided). In Iraq, although some arms and men enter from the outside, the numbers are small compared to the scope of the problem. Outside aid and is unlikely to ever become critical to the success of our Iraqi opponents.

When we sent forces into South Vietnam, they came at the invitation of the government in power in the south, one that had been recognized by the United Nations. We were never an occupation force, although I am sure some South Vietnamese were not happy with our presence. Outside of a limited number of communist cadres, few people in the South had a reason for intense hatred of Americans (although as casulaties and destruction mounted, I am sure this changed in many hard hit rural areas)

Security in the cities in South Vietnam remained quite good throughout the war period, with the exception of a few days during the Tet offensive. Certainly, for the weeks that I was in Saigon in 1966, the atmosphere was very relaxed. In the cities, Americans could generally count on those around them. In Iraq today, foreigners seem to live in a state of siege almost everywhere outsidet the Kurdish enclave, and this situation is getting worse.

My conclusion is that the problems we face in Iraq must be understood in their own terms. The planners of the Iraq "experiment" failed both the United States and Iraq in a number of ways. They failed to put enough troops into the country to do the job they set out to do. Without an adequate occupation force in Baghdad when it was first captured, we were unable to prevent massing looting and destruction, a process repeated in many smaller communities throughout the country. Without adequate forces, for months we were unable to secure massive Iraqi arms depots scattered throughout the country. We disbanded Iraqi security forces without having anything to take their place, so that when we belatedly began to build such forces anew, we were too late. Initially, we tried to go it alone with the British, and then as needs increased we brought in a wide variety of forces, trained and partly trained, ready for combat and not, to assist us. It is not their fault that we have to come to their rescue as often as they actually help.

We set the goal of a democratic Iraq without realizing that a really democratic Iraq might well be a conservative Shi'a state. When the Shi'a realized we were wavering on this issue, they began to press harder. We claimed to want a unitary state, but then wanted to assure the Kurds that they could control their own areas. Now all those militants who oppose us see their opportunities. We have shown our vulnerability, and a long suppressed hate of the occupier and friend of Israel is spreading like wildfire. This is not Vietnam.

The following is the draft of a letter to be sent to the Iraqi People by President George W. Bush in the very near future:

The United States and its coalition partners have accomplished their major goal in Iraq. We invaded to bring to an end the cruel and dangerous regime of Saddam Hussein. As long as he lasted he was a threat to the lives and well-being of every Iraqi and a potential threat to neighboring countries. Our secondary goals were to establish a free and democratic regime in Iraq and to restore and improve the country's infrastructure. We have made major strides in these areas, but the security situation has severely hampered our efforts in most of the country.

Recent events suggest that we will not be able to carry out our full agenda. While we remain confident that most Iraqis support our desire for a democratic and prosperous Iraq, this majority has not been able or willing to counter the attempt of militants who for whatever reason are intent on driving us out of the country.

We abhor the killing and destruction that these militants have forced coalition forces to commit in an attempt to maintain security for all. It appears that our continued effort to secure the country from these groups will only result in continued destruction of land and property, bringing to naught the efforts that so many Iraqis have made with our help over the past year.

For this reason, we have decided to abandon our efforts to complete our agenda in most of the country. Except in a few secure areas, notably Kurdistan, we will begin tomorrow to withdraw our troops into coalition bases in preparation for evacuation from the country by June 15.

To avoid chaos, we are offering local and national leaders in all areas limited support in securing the country from more destruction. The nature of this support will be determined by the situation, area by area, and any agreements that we may make with the Iraqi leaders involved. In the interest of all Iraqis we will immediately remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq. He may be tried later in The Hague for his crimes, or may be returned to Iraq for trial before a responsible court after security has been reestablished.

We hope to work productively with any and all governments that eventually emerge from the present confusion. It is our earnest hope that Iraq's leaders will be able to work together to secure a democratic and free Iraq in the future, either on a unitary or federal basis. The United States and all members of the coalition governments are saddened that we will not be able to take as large a part in this effort as we had hoped.

Good luck to all Iraqis. Assalam alikum!

The tendency to conflate terrorism and guerrilla war confuses many discussions. The fact that this usage is employed in part to make almost anything the United States does in Iraq or Israel does in Palestine/Israel is painfully selfserving.

Flying planes into the World Trade Center was terrorism. It was an act without any direct policy objective and it was directed primarily against civilians

However, persons fighting against the United States or its allies on the side of the Taliban in Afghanistan were engaged in "legitimate combat", sometimes guerrilla actions, sometimes more conventional actions. The fact of such participation does not make them "terrorists". In Iraq we are faced with a growing guerrilla war. These killers have a real and potentially obtainable policy objective -- the driving of Americans out of the country. While some actions target civilians, most target soldiers or what the locals regard as soldiers (such as the members of a hired army in Falluja). Guerrillas can be awful people with terrible objectives. But in fighting them we should not delude ourselves into thinking we are fighting a war against terrorism.

One cannot help but get the feeling that a large percentage of Iraqis hate us. When we first entered Iraq, we had considerable support because many people did want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his family. However, subsequent events have, for many reasons, soured the mood of Iraqis. We can now count on only the Kurds, a portion of the highly modernized classes, and small minorities such as the Christians. And we will have to tread carefully to retain these groups.

The more we react strongly to violence, the more Iraqis will hate us. The more we temporize, the more Iraqis will gain confidence they can drive us out.

It is time we sit down with the most responsible and least anti-American groups that we can find in Iraq, explaining to them that we have decided that we will leave in three months. We should ask them if they would like to take over security quickly, and, if so, how we can help them take it over (by providing arms for the short- and long-term, working out agreements with the UN etc.) In those areas where there is real reluctance to make such agreements, we should moderately extend our stay. It should be a condition of our leaving that we will take Saddam Hussein with us. He can be tried in the Hague, or, if the Iraqis want the job, brought back to Iraq later for trial.

We could be leaving behind a bloody mess. But mostly it will be their bloody mess. We will have already achieved some of our initial goals. These cannot be taken away from us. Leaving in this manner will represent a considerable loss of face for the United States. It will make more unbelievable our threats of intervention in the near future. But it will also free up American power for activities that are more directly in support of international interests, in the Sudan and elsewhere in Africa, and for the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Later, as whatever government(s) emerge in Iraq come to depend on the export of oil as in the past, we should be able to work out agreements as we would with any "normal" government.

The tragedy in the western Sudan adds to the tragedy of a country we had thought was emerging from the blood letting of wars between north and south. But as Emmanuel Dongala points out in today's NYT (Op-Ed) the problem is a small part of a larger and generic African dilemma. Many African states are not states in the European sense. They are collections of tribal and ethnic groups thrown together by the winds of nineteenth century colonialism. Too often, instead of seeing their neighbors as fellow citizens, Africans see them as hereditary enemies. Events forced the world to face up to the reality of unworkable borders in Yugoslavia. Unless we face up to this reality of Africa, the international community must expect to live with an unending string of genocidal horrors it will be unable or unwilling to effectively control.

This morning's news from the front is alarming in several ways. Its suggests that the disaffected are not confined to a few locales, but are rather scattered in many areas, reporting to a variety of leaders. If we had the luxury of being a truly Draconian occupying power, this would be in some ways encouraging. But as it is, we must respond in measured ways, spilling as little American, allied and opposition blood as possible. How we do that in the glare of publicity and under the watchful eyes of world opinion is right now beyond me. One can only hope that Sistani will find it in his interest and capacity to rein in the Sadrists. Otherwise we will end up leaving without accomplishing anything other than the removal of Saddam. (I hope we take him out of the country before we leave.)

Reading recent studies of Islamic terrorism, fanaticism emerges as the common denominator. Reading at the same time about the Passion of Christ and the immensely popular novels based on a literal reading of Revelations makes us recall that Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism are all equally subject to bouts of fanaticism. In an interconnected world with ever more destructive weapons widely available, the common enemy of civilization becomes fanatic beliefs and the acting out of those beliefs. The common mark of fanaticism, however, is not belief as much as it is a willingness to treat other people as actors in a cosmic, paranoid drama rather than as individuals with as much right to life and happiness as any of us.

The letters in the NYT following the recent Falluja tragedy illustrate the continuing unwillingness of many to fail to understand the difference between American history and the history of too many other countries. Our Constitution was based on centuries of background in the development of self-governing institutions, as well as the experience and education of our enlightened eighteenth century leaders. This condition cannot be produced overnight in Iraq.

All peoples deserve democracy and someday they will attain it. We cannot force it upon them, certainly not with the size of the effort that we have been prepared to make.

We must persist. But if we are to get out in a way that benefits Iraq and attains some of our goals, we must scale down our objectives and strive for something less revolutionary.

The responses to the latest at Falluja are predictable. Some want to hit harder. Others want to pack up and leave. There are few who try to develop ideas that will offer a way out of this mess. I believe the "enemy" is primarily nationalist. I do not see how they persist as effectively as they do. But they do. This would seem to indicate that we needed to make a larger effort, perhaps twice the size of the force we have there now, with a heavier effort in police. However, at this point neither Bush nor Kerry is going to go this route.

The NY Times editorial this morning endorses the idea of regionalization. This is what I advocated a while back. However, it still has as many drawbacks as it had then. (1) The Baghdad area is hard to divide up in any regionalization. It needs to be a region in itself, and this will be a region in continual struggle. (2) The Kurds would approve, but the Shi'a think the country belongs to them (especially the oil) and probably would not approve. (3) Large sections of the population, especially the more modern, are Iraqi nationalists. They would forever hold a grudge against the country that broke them up. This would only add to the ranks of the bitterly anti-American.