Assuming it's true that there's been an influx of foreign terrorists, why are they having more success in Iraq than they have had in Afghanistan?

Several, uh, praktikal possibilities. :-)

[1] More stuff to get at in Iraq. Way more urbanized for one thing. And I'm sure al-Qaeda would love to blow up the Afghan oil and gas pipelines... oh, wait... Well, there's still always the good old fashioned car bomb - we'll just drive it across the winding mountain pa... oh, wait...

Which is why they spend their time burning down girls' schools. You don't hear that reported, but they've nailed rather a few. Also a few prominent assassinations have been successful, a couple Canadians recently died from a roadside explosive in Kabul, and indeed many NGOs do refuse to work in Afghanistan outside of Kabul (or at all). "Too dangerous." Mmmm hmmm. Which is why the USA has created special militarized aid units there.

Me, I think the USA needs to adopt the Cuban paramiliatary aid model as its standard (yeah, you heard me right). It has been tested in conflict zones, repeatedly, and works.

[2] More competent help in Iraq. When you hear about "Syrians" in Iraq you're really hearing about Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad. Ditto for the Iranian cadre, plus Revolutionary Guards. Now add some Special Republican Guard types and dead-ender Ba'athists. All better trained, more sophisticated, better equipped especially with heavy weapons and explosives. No doubt many of them have spent more than their share of time in Lebanon, otherwise known as live combat training.

Remember that Beirut Marine barracks in 1981? Same people again. I'd vote for sticking around Iraq to nail these @&%*$! just for that incentive alone.

[3] Different setup in Afghanistan. The USA doesn't have boots on the ground in most of Afghanistan - and that's actually smart. Tribes & warlords are paid off or have special Forces attaches, everyone knows that crossing the Americans gets not only JDAMS but fast response and other tribes bribed to fight you, and groups of U.S. forces (and now a fledgling Afghan Army) have secure bases from which they'll go hunting al-Qaeda based on intel, special forces tips, and sightings.

Why don't they commit troops everywhere? Why don't they try to disarm the warlords? Uh, because they saw the Soviets try that, and it didn't seem like such a hot idea.

So, if you want to go after US forces in Afghanistan, you have to lure them to chase you and plan an ambush (doing what it takes it itself expensive, and when they chase you, it's with lots of stuff not small patrols) - or you have to attack their bases. Not exactly attractive, either way.

Because we DO have boots on the ground around Iraq (and should, because it's a better situation to work with and that approach does a lot of good), we also have more targets on the ground. Which means more ambushes will succeed.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, Joe. Very insightful analysis; you're obviously incredibly well-informed on this subject. I would add that Iraq is geographically closer to these groups' bases of power, and certainly "closer" in a historical/religious sense to the heart of the Middle East. In other words, it's more convenient and they care more about it. Plus, they've got welcoming hosts in the Ba'athists.

From what I can see, it seems like we're in a Catch-22 situation in Iraq.

We're attacked because we're there. Hence if we leave, we won't be attacked.

Of course, it ain't that simple.

If we suddenly pulled out of cities, abandoned the policing function, and operated only "search and destroy" missions like in Afghanistan, would widespread looting and general lawlessness resume in urban areas?

My first thought is that perhaps the looting crowd and the RPG/remote detonation crowd are not part of the same phenomenon, and thus we can't assume that anarchy would resume if we, say, pulled out of Baghdad.

My second thought is that terrorists are like water on a leaky roof--it's going to find the cracks. If we pull out of Baghdad, they'll flow in and start wreaking havoc, and we'll have to respond. The Shiite's finger-pointing after the Najaf bombing was a prime example of how we're "damned if we do, damned if we don't" provide security for Iraqis.

My next thought is that we've got civilian administrators and contractors to protect, and there's no way we're going to abandon them.

So, the least bad option is to knuckle down and transition policing functions and reconstruction to Iraqis.

See why people compare this to Vietnam?

Agree on least bad option... which also happens to be exactly what the U.S. intends to do with Iraq anyway. That option would be the mission even if everything was 100% peaceful.

Yes, terrorists will find the cracks and you're right about the results of an Afghna-type strategy in Iraq. To which I WOULD add anarchy in Sunni cities, plus internal sectarian strife between Shia militias in the south which U.S. and international troops keep a lid on. Iraq is just a different situation, and what works in Afghanistan is a bad idea here.

Wouldn't have worked in Kosovo, either. (Speaking of real quagmires, a decade later... good job, U.N.). But the key lesson of Kosovo that everyone took away is important, and even the Europeans say this (about Kosovo, anyway, when they're not trying to make the Americans fail in Iraq): don't turn things over too soon, wait until everything is ready. Otherwise, like a bad software project, you end up in endless bug fix hell and nothing is ever stable.

No, do not see the comparison to Vietnam. 400-500 American casualties per year is a very acceptable price given the strategic stakes. RE: the Democratic Party approach: do you see the comparison to Somalia?

The recent NYTimes Magazine article inspired me to do a link dump from the past few months worth of URLs I have collected on Iraq reconstruction.

I look forward to someone fisking the article itself - it seems to me that his conclusions don't necessarily follow from his examples of pre-reconstruction bumbling.

My definition of "quagmire" includes both an indefinite stay and continuing casualties. In Kosovo, the latter condition was not met.

400-500 American casualties per year is a very acceptable price given the strategic stakes.

I assume you mean deaths, not casualties, so I won't nitpick there.

This is tough for me to argue against. I'm not one of those who says "no casualties are acceptable."

What happened in Somalia was, fundamentally, a misguided notion that we could turn a non-nation into a nation. I blame the UN and Madeline Albright for failing to understand what could and could not be accomplished there. We should have held our noses and worked with Aidid.

I'm not sure what you're talking about by bringing up Somalia, however. If you're saying that we should only intervene where we have a clear national interest, we can talk about that.

My definition of "quagmire" includes both an indefinite stay and continuing casualties. In Kosovo, the latter condition was not met.

400-500 American casualties per year is a very acceptable price given the strategic stakes.

I assume you mean deaths, not casualties, so I won't nitpick there.

This is tough for me to argue against. I'm not one of those who says "no casualties are acceptable."

I personally believe that our strategic goals in the Middle East are better accomplished through other means than the war in Iraq, so that's where we differ.

What happened in Somalia was, fundamentally, a misguided notion that we could turn a non-nation into a nation. I blame the UN and Madeline Albright for failing to understand what could and could not be accomplished there. We should have held our noses and worked with Aidid.

I'm not sure what you're talking about by bringing up Somalia, however. If you're saying that we should only intervene where we have a clear national interest, we can talk about that.

Somalia... See my article "Mogadishu Democrats" for the explanation.

And yeah, I'm for intervention being clearly linked to national interest. I thought the idea of going into Somalia in the first place was a bad choice, for instance. But when the USA gave up and quit, that was far, far worse. Senior members of al-Qaeda itself have openly bragged about that (AQ was involved in planning & executing some of that firefight), and it was a strong encouragement to further attacks on the USA.

A democratic, prosperous Iraq would be a major blow to Islamism throughout the Middle East. Iran's regime understands that, and is treating it like a fight for survival. Ditto the Saudis. Ditto Syria. They will stop at nothing to sabotage America's efforts in Iraq, the only limit being that they don't want to provoke a direct war with the USA. The more weakness they perceive, and the more secure they themselves feel, the more they'll step up their efforts to destabilize Iraq.

The USA, cognizant of the lesson of 9/11, needs to have a similar level of seriousness and resolve. This is not a fight it can afford to back out of, or lose, or even fight to a draw. And again, this view of the situation and its accompanying belief set is another facet of that key psychological divide you're seeing between Roger Simon, A.L., Totten, and many of their fellow liberals.

RE: My definition of quagmire - it includes the continuing necessity of an indefinite troop commitment without much noticeable progress, prospect of relief, or strategic gain. Doesn't require casualties to me. There's usually an emelent of "uncertain borders, potential conflict everywhere" to it as well. Kosovo meets that last testm so would Liberia, so would Congo, and so does Iraq. But does Iraq meet the others?

I think we're making gains in Iraq, and I'd put the progress there in under a year up against the UN's dismal decade-long record in Kosovo any day. The verdict from visiting members of Congress, from BOTH sides of the House, is pretty conistently similar to that view.

I'll also add that quagmires are occasionally justifiable - if we play the British game in Afghnistan, for instance, it strikes me as least of all evils. Fight on the enemy's territory, not yours. Pick the place of your battles, and don't make it your heartland. How come Carville and Begala get that concept so well in their new political advice book, I ask myself, but not in the world beyond the USA?

Jon, I'm developing a healthy respect for you.

Regarding Kosovo: so we haven't recreated Periclean Athens...at least it's not bothering anybody, and genocide is no longer occuring.

Regarding Somalia: little argument here. I would only point out that Bush41 went in, not Clinton. But I think your point about the Clinton fucking it up by (a) changing the mission and (b) punking out is beyond reproach. Again, I blame Albright and the UN for changing the policy, and I blame Clinton for not paying attention.

As for the question of "national interest," I'd say that Kosovo meets the test. As for Somalia, I don't know enough about the links to Al Qaeda to say. I think the original Bush41 mission was acceptable on the grounds that its parameters were limited, but perhaps not strategically justified.

I would have supported an intervention in the Sudan, as long as the goals were clear and realistic.

I'm not sure about Rwanda. Don't know enough to say.

Regarding Iraq:
If only the administration had laid out this case in such a clear and honest way, I might have supported it.

Except:

Why couldn't we have accomplished these goals by aggressively cracking down on terrorists while exercising soft power on hearts and minds?

If the premise behind invasion was that this had to be done now because of the intersection between Al Qaeda and WMD, I think you'd have a much stronger case for invading Syria than Iraq. But I wouldn't have supported that one, either. I would support extensive Black Ops throughout the Middle East.

Regarding picking your battles:
Isn't it possible that the blowback we're getting is not just temporary but is in fact here to stay?

Regarding the need to demonstrate our might and will, wasn't this sufficiently accomplished in Afghanistan? We had Al Qaeda on the run, and then we went and stirred up the hive.

And finally, this "flypaper" theory has some appeal, until you realize that nothing we do in Iraq prevents Al Qaeda from operating in the United States. They can simultaneously metastasize in Iraq and go after us here at home. Do you think they'll get so distracted that they'd stop trying to hit us here? Hard to believe.

All this aside, I certainly support reconstruction at this point, but I think it's been royally fucked up and needs better leadership, and the bar (prosperous democracy, American ally, not anti-Israel) has been set impossibly high by soaring rhetoric.

And furthermore, I think this war has royally fucked up our chances in Israel/Palestine. We have years and years of hard work to do if we're to be seen as an honest broker at this point.

New leadership and a sober reality-check is needed.

joe, not jon. typo.

praktike writes: "And furthermore, I think this war has royally fucked up our chances in Israel/Palestine. We have years and years of hard work to do if we're to be seen as an honest broker at this point. "

There is little basis for this comment. The Palestinians were cheering for Iraq more than a dozen years ago. The Palestinians haven't viewed us as "honest brokers" for many years, no matter how much sucking up to them the State Dept did. They already hated us and this war in Iraq did nothing to change that.

The benefit from the Iraq war on the Palestinian / Israel situation is that we have undercut one of the outside supports for the regime of terror in the PA.

***The benefit from the Iraq war on the Palestinian / Israel situation is that we have undercut one of the outside supports for the regime of terror in the PA.****

And.............they'll realize we have a leader that means what he says and has a line you don't want cross. Although, I think our tolerance has been way to high concerning Arafatass and his band of Gypsys. (No disrespect intended to Gypsys.)

If you believe that ending the $25,000 of support for Palestinian suicide bombers is of greater importance than arousing the suspicion and hatred of the entire Muslim world, I can accept your argument.

Misrepresents the argument praktike, and your conclusion about arousing "the suspicion and hatred of the entire Muslim world" has yet to be proven by you.