The Long War

Real classy, Osvaldo. You don't have an answer, do you, only sneering, shallow personal insults. About like our vice president.

It is clear that we cannot win in Iraq. We have to end this thing, and let the chips fall where they may. As someone who opposed the war before it began, I'm tempted to say "Amen." However, it's not that easy. The last thing I want now is another repeat of Pol Pot. We should leave as quickly as possible, but we should do so while setting up a system to prevent mass slaughter after our departure. This means effectively partitioning the country and separating potential combatants. It's not a perfect solution, and there'll be a lot of misery in the process, but it's better than a generation-long civil war.

And take heart in this: we lost Vietnam but still won the Cold War.
But from a second Jimmy Carter, good Lord, deliver us.

Lt. Col. Yingling is, from what I've read so far, a true patriot. Mr. Mandias, if you hold command rank and you have at your hand the details of the situation in Iraq, then I might sit still for such an untoward remark. Absent that, expressing how you feel about the situation might be better couched in terms one can respect. Just a thought, sir.

Without getting into the war debate, I strongly, strongly urge everyone who hasn't done so to read E. B. Sledge's book--at least, those of who've never experienced combat. I'll never again think about war without thinking of this book.

Nice post, Derek. Obviously, those of us who supported the war have every reason to be chagrined at the outcome. But one thing that continues to bother me about the anti-war side is their indifference to the possibility that a U.S. pullout will be quickly followed by a human rights catastrophe. For Rod to say, "let the chips fall where they may" strikes me as being very cold and callous. Whether you supported the war or opposed it, the fact that it took place does give us some moral obligations to the Iraqi people, especially to the people who are targeted for slaughter by armed militias.

Rod, when we bailed out of South Vietnam, we allowed a massacre of nearly 1 million Vietnamese, and the chaos that followed allowed the Khmer Rouge to return Cambodia to the stone age. We are bleeding American troops - 3,000+ so far - and that is very very bad. When we bail on Iraq, which you are advocating by using the intemperate language you are using, the consequences in Iraq will be as they were in SE Asia. If the mishandling of the insurgency is Bush's responsibility, the holocaust which results from our soldiers leaving will be the fault of those - left and right - who demanded that the only superpower left in the world, having encountered moderate resistance, give up and leave.
The lack of historical perspective here is astounding. This war is nothing like fighting the Japanese at Iwo Jima. Say what you will about their savagery, Japanese soldiers were at least brave enough to stand and fight. We lost as many against Japan in a single DAY as we have lost in Iraq in an entire 5 year campaign!! We lost as many as we have lost in Iraq in HOURS during the Civil war, in battles the Union won!!
We are policing an insurgency, arresting gangsters, extortionists, and fanatics who target civilians because they are incapable of doing anything but bombing or sniping at our military. When they stand and fight, we destroy them. Do you know how many stupid mistakes were made during WWII? You would have been demanding an end to it when the US troops hit Sicily! We were fighting SS battalions in Italy, not cowardly bomb builders. Rod, you have made a career attacking a quick McDonalds culture, but you are furious we cannot have a quick McDonalds war. Well, we had that, Gulf War 1. We left before much of anything challenging happened, and that led to a massacre of Shiites, an ineffectual blockade which starved non Sunni Iraqis while enriching its dictator, and left the stage set for our current action.
I saw you speak in Indianapolis, I loved your talk, and my wife and I both loved your book, but you are exasperating on this subject. Grow up!! The very therapeutic instant culture you do not like is informing your view on this war! Did Bush screw up? Yes, usually only on days ending in "y." Were there enough troops? No, and there still aren't. Was the intelligence bad, or misunderstood? Yes. Were all our other wars perfectly executed? NO! Lincoln went through generals like toilet paper, Washington perfected the retreat, Wilson lied about keeping our boys out of war, Roosevelt did not take the Japanese threat seriously enough until after we lost 2/3 of our Pacific fleet, etc.
The ONLY question that matters is, having contributed to this mess, are we then going to allow the post-pullout massacre. You want a lesson from Vietnam? There it is. You are morally responsible for that massacre if you keep beating the drums for withdrawal, just as Bush is for doing a very poor job managing the war. Petreus should have been put in charge two years ago, but unless you like the idea of bullet riddled Sunni babies and the gang rapes of minority Christians and the destruction of still more Shiite holy places and the carnage of a generation of civil war and the triumph or Iran in the region, grow up and give Petreus a chance to succeed. It is very easy to attack Bush - the man is an idiot. What requires a bit more fortitude is paying some kind of attention to the humanitarian debacle which will ensue the minute the last American chopper lifts off out of Sai - Baghdad.
In the orgy of blood which follows, you and others who are not giving Petreus a chance to succeed will howl about Bush. But you will be responsible as well. Ask yourself this - how may years of horrific Civil War did it take Lincoln before he found a general who could do the job?

Rod, I don't see how your visa idea will ever fly. After all, how many people are you talking about? And, since the Sunnis are technically a religious minority (Iraq is majority Shiite), are you suggesting that we offer visas to all of the Sunnis? That strikes me as completely unrealistic. Worse, the problems posed by a collapsed Iraq (increased Iranian influence, freedom for Al-Queda sorts to move around, plan and collect resources; further decrease of stability) will have an influence beyond Iraq's borders, even if we are no longer there. When we went in, the more sober recognized that Iraq was like a vase in an antique shop -- you break it, you own it. We probably shouldn't have picked it up. But we did, we dropped it, we broke it, and now we have to clean up the mess.

VDH's NR column of day touches on something that should scare the hell out of Bush(but since he's a stubborn and foolish man, who knows?); American on the right no longer care about the ME, and as he puts it, "In short, America believes that the entire region is not worth the bones of a single Marine,"as the unexpressed soto voce thought of many Americans on the right. When I heard Bush babble on last Friday about "Iraqis yearning to breath free", the sense of anger and frustration was overwhelming.why waste bright and wonderful American young men and women on a foolish evil lot of scum like this?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTljYjgzNmRjOWY4ZjljZDJhODcxODhkNjhjZTExMTU=&w=MQ==

Rod, What would it take to convince you that there was any possibility of success in Anbar? I agree that the political progress has been very frustrating, but I think we should give the counter-insurgency strategy time to work while applying political pressure. Evidence that it will succeed takes longer than a couple months of increased troop numbers in Baghdad. I fear it won't work, but I think it's better to give it a try and support it than give up yet.

I do not know that the war is winnable. But I do not believe that we should leave before Petreus' tactics get a chance to work. My childhood best friend served there as a corpsman, and I agree that it is terrifying to have a friend there. No, our thousands are not abstractions, BUT NEITHER ARE THEIR MILLIONS.
I would argue this. Petreus is both an intellectual and a man of action, a rare combination. He has both the local knowledge and the historical perspective so many have lacked thus far. And, or course, he literally "wrote the book" on counterinsurgency. Thing is, no one was following his book. What Gen Petreus is doing is profoundly different at the tactical level from what had been being done up to now. I think it can work, to be honest. But these tactics are time consuming. They take months, not days.
He will be integrating small groups of soldiers into Iraqi communities. Building up checkpoints each within sight of the next, police style stations, and other small institutional presences throughout trouble spots. Less green zone, more "broken windows policing." He will also be cultivating informers, not only by paying them, but by being close enough to them that they feel safe talking.
This can work, but it takes time. It also means we need patience here at home. Was exporting John Locke at sword-point viable? No, fine, lesson learned. Were we going to be welcomed with open arms? - well we were by the Kurds, but other than that, no. Were there WMD's? No. Is mission accomplished? Duh. You know what? that doesn't matter at this point. What matters is that we give a counter insurgency expert time to counter an insurgency, without a constant drumbeat of despair energizing Al Quaeda in Iraq and that Sadr wacko. There is a larger problem here as well. If it is clear, from Vietnam, Somalia, and Iraq, that Americans cannot deal with insurgency tactics, there will be more of this stuff - not less. For our own military, and for the sake of our standing in the world, we have to beat this insurgency - or at least we need the chance to try to apply these tactics.

It's beyond the military. How can you save a people that don't want to be saved? The Vietnamese were at least rational people. The ananlogy doesn't remotely hold because the Iraqis and the entire ME subcribe to a religion and belong to a culture that are both far more alien to us than Vietnam ever was.
If Bush wasn't literally prepared to burn down the village to save it, this was a collosal waste.The only thing these people respect is brute force. Fighting a PC war was the ulitmate in stupidity.
And I write all this knowing I can expect my stepson to get out of Parris Island within the next 18 months to 2 years and be on his way there, if it isn't ended. I don't see sending more people to die making it any better.
We're going to leave.Call it what ever, but let's go already.

Friends, I got this from a friend doing clandestine stuff in Iraq. He or she is on the ground, and what s/he says makes me fear deeply for our Christian brothers and sisters over there. Bears on things people have been saying re: religious minorities and civil war. I've edited for length and a little for obscurity, and i'm curious what others think. "Hello, my friend. Sorry for the delay in writing. I'm been busy since my arrival, due to events you likely hear about every day. I'm reasonably happy, reasonably busy and reasonably safe, so don't worry about me. "The security situation here in the north is deteriorating rapidly, and the violence from Baghdad seems to be creeping northward, despite the coalition's best efforts to thwart it. I'm in the process of firing off a letter to the president of my alma mater...and the Archbishop of ... asking for their assistance. The north of Iraq has not seen the levels of violence that are in the news everyday, but things are getting worse.
"There is a small but robust Christian community in Iraq that is coming increasingly under fire. If the Coalition pulls out of Iraq, I greatly fear they will suffer a holocaust not unlike that in WWII. We are already seeing attacks on Christian neighborhoods in Kirkuk increase. If the violence down south increases, the Christians will be caught in the crossfire, and will slaughtered by both the Sunnis and Shiites, as they are small in numbers and easy targets for executions. ...[T]here was a massive bombing of a police station next to a Christian school in the Rahimawa Neighborhood of Kirkuk, and many children were injured or killed. A lot of the Christian families are leaving for Syria and Lebanon, but many are too poor to leave, and will have no place to turn, should things continue to worsen. I'm not sure how much power you have to address these issues, but the time is fast approaching where we as Christians will need to do something to protect our brothers here in Iraq. I urge you to contact anyone you know who can help, and start a campaign to address this situation. Were specific religious communities and institutions in the U.S. willing to take in and "adopt" Christian families from Iraq, the U.S. State Dept. would probbly be more willing to allow them refugee status. I greatly fear for their safety, and of events to come if the Democrats force a withdrawl of troops. Abandoning Iraq will mean their assured slaughter. The holocaust of our time is unfolding, and their blood will be on our hands if we sit back and do nothing to stop it.

Several other commenters have noted this, but I also think it is far from "clear that we cannot win in Iraq." Petraeus' testimony is that there are steps forward and setbacks. Is is certain we will win? No, but it is also unclear that we will lose. Iraq has made many strides over time, not always on a timetable we would like, but progress has occurred. I don't know much about the current Iraq Parlaiment situation (based on comments here I plan to look into it a little), but I wonder if the withdrawal of the Sadr coalition from Parlaiment is creating current difficulties, but will be better in the long run? Also, the "civil war" is, in my mind, fomented and supported to some extent by external influence. I am hopeful that dealing with these influence will allow the "civil war" to resolve without necessitating dividing the country. FWIW.

"Wars are won by those who can out-brutalize their enemies." War is hell. But your comment is wrong. The Allies hardly "outbrutalized" the genocidal Nazis. They did suck it up and do what was necessary, including some brutal acts (Hiroshima comes to mind- hope this doesn't open another can of worms.) Demoralizing the enemy is key, and FORCE that overwhelms an enemy is key to victory. BRUTALITY is not. (Maybe I'm putting too fine a point on the distinction, but I think it is necessary).

Irenaeus, with all due respect to the grief your friend is witnessing: why are there still Christians there? If your friend is correct, and a WWII "style" holocaust is in the offing, night-time treks across the desert to a friendly border would seem like a sane alternative to staying where they are. There is no polite way to put this: people who put pride and place over the prospect of certain death do not deserve my sympathy. They can have their Alamo if they want it. If they have children, all the more reason to disdain their choice to stay. Sorry, but lessons of the past that go unlearned are difficult to bear seeing repeated.

You can withdraw the troops from the Iraqi front in the war against the jihadists but you'll just have to transfer them to another front in the near future. Once Iraq becomes a safe haven and source of funds for the jihadists, does anyone seriously believe that they are going to stop attacking the US? Thank God a slim majority of American appears to continue to be opposed to surrender in Iraq: A Bloomberg poll reveals 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea (3/3-11, 2007). A recent Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll found that 56% of registered voters favor fully funding the war in Iraq, with more voters strongly favoring funding (40%) than totally opposing it (38%); (3/25-27, 2007). POS found also that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested (3/25-27, 2007). A separate POS poll finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people. And 59% of voters say pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored (35%); (2/5-7, 2007). A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007). According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007). That same poll found a plurality of adults (45%) believe a terrorist attack against the United States is more likely if we withdraw our troops from Iraq while the country remains unstable Should a date for withdrawal be set, 70% of American believe it is likely that insurgents will increase their attacks in Iraq starting on that day. This is supported by 85% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, 4/17-18, 2007). An LA Times/Bloomberg polls reveals that 50% of Americans say setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq hurts the troops, while only 27% believe it helps the troops (4/5-9, 2007). (http://corner.nationalreview.com/)

Franklin, As Americans, we are all descendents of people who packed up and left at some point. We don't value attachment to a certain place/homeland the way many people do. Christians have been in Iraq since the second century (or earlier). To say, you aren't deserving my sympathy because you haven't left your home to face poverty in a refugee camp (where you may continue to be persecuted for your religion) seems a little harsh. What friendly borders are there for Iraqi Christians? Iran? Turkey? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Certainly none of those. Jordan and Kuwait aren't much better.

Zak, You add an important point to my statement, and I agree: there is no simple way to state the case, and consequences are important to consider regardless of which choice is made. But, in the end, standing there (in my imagination) with my children and wife huddled close by, I still see a very human choice: stay and die, or find the possibility of life somewhere else. Most of my maternal extended family, Jews all, died after attempting to escape death at the hands of the Nazis. I'm here today only because my mother's family succeeded (barely, and over a four-year period) where the rest of them did not. If making that my standard is harsh, I must accept the criticism.

I don't think making that your standard is harsh at all. But aren't you at risk of making that a standard you judge everyone else by, thereby imputing it to me? D'oh! Ah forget it. It's Fridy. God bless y'all.

For those of you who are fans of Sledge's book, you should know that HBO has greenlit a mini-series based partly on it. Hanks and Spielberg are teaming up for another "Band Of Brothers" type series, but this one focused on the Pacific theater. Details at http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117963752.html?categoryid=1238&cs=1&p=0. Neil

Franklin Eavans, you write: "Ask any military historian about guerilla tactics and their effectiveness against a conventional force." There's a lot of scholarship on this, as you probably know, and the results vary, depending on how the conventional force responds. If it is not successful in adapting to (which sometimes means adopting) the non-conventional force's tactics, the conventional force will lose. But, as I've pointed before here, not all insurgencies win. Broad brush, the insurgents win about 2/3 of the time.
Petraeus knows all this. I think Bush's biggest blunder was keeping Rumsfeld and Abazaid so long. If Bush had put Petraeus in charge 3 years ago, my guess is that things would be dramatically better know. For a whole bunch of reasons, including the political realities in the US, the odds of Petraeus pulling out a victory are pretty long now. J.L. Chamberlain's gamble at Little Round Top was amazingly effective. One of my great, great grandfathers, who was in Hood's Texas Brigade, was on the receiving end of the 20th Maine's charge.

Rod, I know this thesis has come up before, especially after VietNam. It makes a certain sense, but the logical leap from the generals saying "no" to a coup is rather short. It's rough, but I would prefer the generals to shut up and go along with whatever idiocy the current or future occupant of the WH cooks up than turning the US into a coup ridden caudillo state. Whatever we have learned from this mess, is that our liberties are fragile, and people will give them up far too easily. Let's not make it any easier Kim M

Rod: More and more you sound like a one-man Andrew Sullivan amen chorus. Does it make you guys just plain feel good to strike your breast and say mea culpa, mea culpa, or what? May I say: Enough already. You really just can t say let s go to war and then when things get bad, say oh, no, I m not up for this, it s so brutal and nasty. And about Iraq being in a civil war -- may I recommend you read Michael Novak in today s National Review Corner blog? I know he s an evil neocon, but give it a try. You might actually learn something. Here s Novak: Two false assertions are being made these days about the Sunnis and the Shiites in Iraq. The first is that they have been fighting one another for ages. The second is that they are currently waging civil war upon one another. Shiites and Sunnis have lived in rather remarkable proximity in many cities of Iraq, with not a few intermarriages, and for many generations. They have often boasted of being Iraqis first, before being Sunnis and Shiites. The most influential Shiite Imam, Ayatollah Sistani, has been amazing for his peacekeeping and calming effect, urging the Shiites not to seek revenge and, instead, to turn to democracy and peaceful ways, rather than futile combat. In fact, Imam Sistani has been so successful at this preaching that, in desperation, al Qaeda dramatically changed strategy during 2005. They viciously destroyed the old, revered, beautiful golden dome of the mosque in Samarra. They stepped up their campaign to terrorize other Shiite mosques and the worshipers attending them. Al Qaeda members are virtually all Sunnis, from foreign countries, and they care not a whit either for Iraqi Shiites or Iraqi Sunnis. Their strategy for 2006 was to commit horrible atrocities against Iraqi Shiites, so that the hotheads among them would unleash death squads against the Sunnis in retaliation. Then the Sunnis would retaliate against the Shiites. This was not real civil war. It was a contrived and phony ploy to bait each side into fighting the other, while the foreigners waited to pick up the spoils. One has to remember that the foreigners who make up both al Qaeda and nearly all the (self-immolating) bombers are motivated by politics, not by faith in Islam. They have no hesitation about bombing mosques, murdering imams, or destroying hundreds of worshipers. They regard anyone who does not join their war of terror, even if they are Muslims, as infidels worthy of death. They will use any means necessary to keep their toehold in Iraq and to work to eventually take over Iraq for their own political purposes. This is not civil war in Iraq; it is a limited, strategic, and tactical ploy whereby foreigners try desperately to inflame Iraqis against one another. The aim of these foreigners is to bring about such a cataclysm of murder and insecurity and fear that their tiny, tiny minority can then capture total power -- just as the small minority of Bolsheviks did in the early rise of the Soviet Empire; just as the tiny bands of ruthless black shirts and brown shirts under Mussolini and Hitler spread social paralysis to launch the rise of Fascism. Mayhem requires only a ruthless few. Those who falsely call this a civil war in Iraq are conferring on al Qaeda a success that al Qaeda has not been able to bring about itself. They are puffing up a phony, contrived civil war far beyond the bounds of reality.

I agree completely with those like Derek Copold, who say we can't just pull out our troops.
Also I feel that people like Senator Lindsey Graham are closer to taking the correct position.
Even though I feel the war was a blunder of huge proportions, as Graham said, the war will not end if we pull out our troops now.
Not only is there a danger of a bloodbath, but there is also no guarantee the U.S. won't be drawn into a larger, regional conflict.
I realize there are some anti-war people who believe that things will calm down when we leave.
Unfortunately, I don't hear any anti-war people articulating what we should do if things don't calm down, if we find a Bosnia or Darfur-type situation developing.
I feel that Bush is wrong about everything (related to the war) except this one thing -- we cannot withdraw our troops until we have stabilized the country and calmed things down.

If you want a really nasty read about warfare, try this one: A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. It's a first-hand account of a child soldier fighting in the brutal wars of Sierra Leone. READ IT. If close combat in the Pacific Theater doesn't touch your desensitized heart, then maybe drug-addled 13 year-old killers will.
We soldiers who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, even those of us who are not banging down doors on patrols, do feel a little bitter and alienated from the rest of you. Especially when you complain about little things. You are perfectly safe and have 18 brands of toothpaste to choose from. Your schools and buses are not blowing up everyday, you are not being mortared by night, you aren't spending parts of everyday trying to calculate if gunfire is being aimed AT you, and if so, how far away it is. We watch and experience these things every day. We come home, and people see us in uniform, and sort of look the other way. It ain't what it used to be.
General Petraeus is rock star to us. He calls it like it is, acknowledges our hard work and sacrifice. He knows we might not succeed, that we will be in more danger for longer tours in country, and that many of us will die in the process. But his honesty and inspiration are enough to keep us going. When he says that more commitment is needed, and more over time, however, I hope that means more will be asked of the average American than an extended shopping spree.
But even after Iraq, we have a long way to go. Especially since the current administration doesn't think too highly of diplomacy. I will go no further down that road.
LTC Yingling's comments were published in an unofficial journal which openly states that its purpose is free and open discourse. He has a few good points. Conformity and loyalty and supremely important in the armed forces, ESPECIALLY in the higher ranks. Us juniors at the bottom of the heap can only cause so much damage by insubordination. But at the top, it risks everything below breaking down. Inexcusable in war or peacetime. The Lieutenant Colonel may well suffer for his words. But I hope that they will be heeded anyway. The loyalty must not extend past the point of moral courage.
We have, as a nation, entrusted a great deal to General Petraeus. Let him play it out for another six months. Things are not going to work out perfectly to our advantage. A stable government in Iraq will likely NOT be a great power-sharer. The most likely outcome: it will be a Shia-dominated Iran-friendly government which will curtail sharply the civil liberties of its minority citizens (of a necessity, as the Sunnis will continue to cause mayhem until we withdraw, and then will tone things down but still cause damage on a regular basis.) If it can do this without killing or openly persecuting very many of them, I think we will have to take it, and hand power over to it, and go home somewhat gracefully. We may very well have to settle for stability only slightly better than Saddam's regime. Because I don't see partition working out peacefully. Read up on the split of India and Pakistan sometime. And I don't foresee these people willingly choosing to compromise.
My heart goes out to those Iraqis who helped us, and who have fled Iraq for their lives, and who wait in refugee camps for someone to take them in. Our government has shown no signs of being willing to do this.

Dub, what about "conscientious objector"? AnotherBeliever, I've never worn a uniform. I've never had any sort of military training. I know what war is like from my immigrant parents: my Jewish mother and family were hidden and protected by Italian farmers for 4 years; my father was a chetnik (let me know if you don't know that term, but he was a Lt. in the Serbian Army). I'm also 51, and I've lived most of my life in or near an urban center. I've witnessed murder, gang violence, and attended the funerals of neighbors killed in their homes or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time during a drug war battle. My wife has taught for 35 years children of crack addicts, kids living in poverty most Americans can describe only because they've seen it in a movie. I know a few 13-year-olds. They live right around the corner from me. If you learn one thing during your service -- a service I, personally, will get down on my knees and thank you for without being asked -- it's that the vast majority of a society is exactly like me. We will never see a gun, hear a bullet meant for us go by, never see a human dead at our hands. If you are going to be proud of your service, be proud that you were one of the few who understood that our ignorance is the point of it all. But don't ever assume that we can't understand. Too many of us found that understanding before you were born. I believe we all need a stiff dose of reality once in a while. There are many who thought as you seem to see, that a soldier is worthy of contempt because his hands are dirty from his job (or he's a handy target for the present administration), but whose minds and hearts were opened by 9/11/2001. You may not meet them very often, but they are out there, in large numbers. Do not judge them by those whose ignorance is so strong that even a 9/11 is not enough to make them see. Come home safe and proud. Don't let the assholes sour it for you.

Rod, you complain about the possibility of an open-ended commitment to Iraq. You forget that, once upon a time during the Big Bad Cold War, we had an open-ended commitment to Western Europe. Why? Because we realized that the Soviet Union was perfectly capable of taking over -- and that this, somehow, was considered intolerable. Of course, organizing the defense of Western Europe was far different than organizing the occupation of Iraq. But, once again, you are confusing and conflating two issues: the incompetence of an invariably short-term presidential administration with the necessity to confront an intractable enemy that thinks in terms of centuries. What we need is a new NATO consisting of nations that recognize the jihadist threat and are willing to join us in fighting it. India, Israel and Australia would make fantastic inaugural members of this organization; except for the UK, we can write off most of Western Europe in this venture, unfortunately.