Strategy Page:

Both the terrorists and U.S. troops know that victory has been defined as several weeks with no bombs going off in Baghdad. The media is keeping score, and they use their ears and video cameras. No loud bangs and no bodies equals no news. That’s victory.

Not really. The real war is within the Iraqi government. The terrorists lost two years ago, when the relentless slaughter of Moslem civilians turned the Arab world against al Qaeda. Journalists missed that one, but not the historians. The war in Iraq has always been about Arabs demonstrating that they can run a clean government, for the benefit of all the people, not just the tyrants on top. So far, there have lots of victories and defeats in this, and no clear decision overall. Elections have been held several times, but the people elected have proved to be as corrupt and venal as their tyrannical predecessors. Everyone admits that this bad behavior is not a good thing, but attempts to stop it have been only partially successful. Changing thousands of years of custom and tradition is not easy. The clay tablets dug up in the vicinity of Baghdad, reveal similar scandal and despair over four thousand years ago. Most Iraqis realize, however, that if the chain of corruption is not broken, the dreary past will again become a painful present.

Strategy Page:

Both the terrorists and U.S. troops know that victory has been defined as several weeks with no bombs going off in Baghdad. The media is keeping score, and they use their ears and video cameras. No loud bangs and no bodies equals no news. That’s victory.

Not really. The real war is within the Iraqi government. The terrorists lost two years ago, when the relentless slaughter of Moslem civilians turned the Arab world against al Qaeda. Journalists missed that one, but not the historians. The war in Iraq has always been about Arabs demonstrating that they can run a clean government, for the benefit of all the people, not just the tyrants on top. So far, there have lots of victories and defeats in this, and no clear decision overall. Elections have been held several times, but the people elected have proved to be as corrupt and venal as their tyrannical predecessors. Everyone admits that this bad behavior is not a good thing, but attempts to stop it have been only partially successful. Changing thousands of years of custom and tradition is not easy. The clay tablets dug up in the vicinity of Baghdad, reveal similar scandal and despair over four thousand years ago. Most Iraqis realize, however, that if the chain of corruption is not broken, the dreary past will again become a painful present.

The first day of fighting, from Michael Yon:

…our guys have been systematically trapping them, and have foiled some big traps set for our guys. I don

It has begun, and Michael Yon writes about it, and the general state of the war, and the abysmal state of reporting about it:

Northeast of Baghdad, innocent civilians are being asked to leave Baquba. More than 1,000 AQI fighters are there, with perhaps another thousand adjuncts. Baquba alone might be as intense as Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in late 2004. They are ready for us. Giant bombs are buried in the roads. Snipers

Sounds like the Iranian regime is spoiling for one.

Probably not, despite the fact that two Katyushas launched from Lebanon fell near Kiryat Shmona. So far, the Israeli government is downplaying it as not being the work of Hezbollah. I think that Hezbollah and Iran are preparing for war, but they’re not ready yet. They probably want to consolidate things in Gaza and arm Hamas first, so they can attack on two simultaneous fronts.

[Update after noon]

This report from the Jerusalem Post says that there were four rockets.a

Senator Lieberman just came back from Iraq. He’s more encouraged than Harry Reid. He’s also more informed (both on the war, and probably on energy, and almost anything else). Not to mention logical:

The officials I met in Baghdad said that 90% of suicide bombings in Iraq today are the work of non-Iraqi, al Qaeda terrorists. In fact, al Qaeda’s leaders have repeatedly said that Iraq is the central front of their global war against us. That is why it is nonsensical for anyone to claim that the war in Iraq can be separated from the war against al Qaeda–and why a U.S. pullout, under fire, would represent an epic victory for al Qaeda, as significant as their attacks on 9/11.

Some of my colleagues in Washington claim we can fight al Qaeda in Iraq while disengaging from the sectarian violence there. Not so, say our commanders in Baghdad, who point out that the crux of al Qaeda’s strategy is to spark Iraqi civil war.

Al Qaeda is launching spectacular terrorist bombings in Iraq, such as the despicable attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra this week, to try to provoke sectarian violence. Its obvious aim is to use Sunni-Shia bloodshed to collapse the Iraqi government and create a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, radicalizing the region and providing a base from which to launch terrorist attacks against the West.

I guess that explains why he was drummed out of the Democrat Party. No moral or intellectual clarity allowed.

…in Gaza? As Glenn notes, the comparison is an insult to mafiosi, but the parallels exist.

Mark Steyn, on the mythical “Palestinians”:

Seasoned observers have been making droll cracks about a “two-state solution” – Hamas gets Gaza, Fatah gets the West Bank. But even that cynical jest is wishful thinking. The better bet is that the West Bank will eventually fall Hamas’ way, too.

This is the logical consequence of the fraudulence of “Palestinian nationalism”. There has never been any such thing. There is no evidence anywhere in the “Palestinian Authority” that anyone there is interested in building a state and running it. In conventional post-colonial scenarios of the Sixties and Seventies, liberation movements used terrorism as a means to advance nationalism. By contrast, Arafat’s gang used nationalism as a means to advance terrorism. With him out of the way, it was deluded to assume that the “Palestinian people” would stick with a bunch of corrupt secular socialists with little appeal to anyone other than French intellectuals and Swiss bankers.

Want to see what Iraq will look like if we abandon it to the Islamists? Just look at Gaza.

Mark Steyn, on the mythical “Palestinians”:

Seasoned observers have been making droll cracks about a “two-state solution” – Hamas gets Gaza, Fatah gets the West Bank. But even that cynical jest is wishful thinking. The better bet is that the West Bank will eventually fall Hamas’ way, too.

This is the logical consequence of the fraudulence of “Palestinian nationalism”. There has never been any such thing. There is no evidence anywhere in the “Palestinian Authority” that anyone there is interested in building a state and running it. In conventional post-colonial scenarios of the Sixties and Seventies, liberation movements used terrorism as a means to advance nationalism. By contrast, Arafat’s gang used nationalism as a means to advance terrorism. With him out of the way, it was deluded to assume that the “Palestinian people” would stick with a bunch of corrupt secular socialists with little appeal to anyone other than French intellectuals and Swiss bankers.

Want to see what Iraq will look like if we abandon it to the Islamists? Just look at Gaza.