I don't know how many times I can say it.  I don't know how many different ways I can say it.  I'll say it again, anyway.

Those who advocate retreat from Iraq are fools, d*** fools, or cowards.

The same people who preached on the effect of blowback, as regards Afghanistan, now cannot comprehend a similar effect today, in Iraq.  The short-sightedness of it is incomprehensible unless one considers that those who advocate retreat (re-deployment) are fools.

The price of ignoring Afghanistan and leaving it to anarchy was more than 3,000 dead.  That was just the price from 11 Sept 01.  It ignores the price paid in Bali, Casablanca, London, and Madrid, so many other places.

Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.  A corollary--those who learn the wrong lessons from the mistakes of history are doomed make new and spectacular mistakes--is relevant today. 

The study of history is important.  The desire to learn from the mistakes of history is evident on both the left and right.  From parallels drawn to WWII to analogies to Viet Nam, people are determined to learn.  The problem is that too many people take their analogies out of meaningful context and draw parallels with intersecting lines.

I am not a historian.  While I've read von Clauswitz, I am not a tactician of any repute (for good reason).  VDH is able to draw parallels to Peloponnesian war.  Frederick Kagan can draw positive parallels to Viet Nam.

All I've got is a rudimentary understanding of logic.

It seems violently counterintuitive that a bunch of unarmed, unorganized, untrained ragtag butchers could have any possibility of defeating the most well-trained, well-armed, well-organized fighting force in the history of humanity.  The fact that it "seems" so should be reason enough to examine why it seems so.

The insurgents cannot hold territory against a determined assault.  Their tactics isolate them from the milieu in which they attempt to move.

The Tupamoros provide an instructive example.  The Tupamoros followed Marighella's doctrine of urban "guerrilla" warfare, discussed in the "Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla".  (Marighella was a Brazilian doctor and legislator).  Marighella believed that small, autonomous groups engaging in urban terrorism would provoke the non-communist regime to show its true fascist colors and violently crack down on all citizens.  This crackdown would then, theoretically, open the eyes of the people, who would rise up to form traditional guerrilla armies to overthrow the oppressive regime.  The focus had to be in urban areas so as to get the most attention.

It didn't work that way in Uruguay.  The Tupamoros followed Marighella, to the letter.  They engaged in expropriation--robbing banks--to gain funds to finance their terrorism.  They kidnapped and held civilians for ransom.  The government of Uruguay responded as Marighella predicted.  The citizens of Uruguay did not.  The citizens of Uruguay, for a large part, supported the government crackdown.  Uruguay is still recovering 40 years later from the effects of the campaign of terrorism, and the resulting crackdown.  Uruguay never reached the point of Argentina, but it still lost much of itself.

The insurgents' inability to cause a religious and ethnic conflagration, despite years of trying and numerous heinous provocations demonstrates their limited constituency.  The millions who risked their lives to vote provides another demonstration of their limited constituency.  With the insurgents' limited constituency, it is possible to starve the insurgency and attrit the insurgency.

Merely because the U.S. is fighting a counter-insurgency, in a foreign land, in the midst of a "civil war", does not make the present situation Viet Nam.  The terrain, the weather, the immediate political history, and so many other things are so violently different as to make any such basic analogy meaningless.  Too many people don't recognize this.  (Both in this, and the following example, I am simplifying some of the arguments from analogy.  But, only just).

Just because the U.S. is in a long term fight against fascists does not make the present situation WWII.  Our enemies are un-uniformed and do not follow a command structure.  They do not use traditional, legitimate military tactics.  The American attitude toward sacrifice has shifted (to put it mildly).

We are not fighting the Viet Nam war, or WWII (or the Peloponnesian war).  We are fighting the Iraq war, or battle, if you will.  There are lessons to be learned from Viet Nam, as well as from WWII, and the Peloponnesian war.  Everything, however, must be viewed in context.

The lessons must be taken from similar contexts.

The withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan left a weak and ineffectual government behind.  A civil war ensued.  An outside power (Pakistan) introduced a stabilizing influence, the Taliban,  into Afghanistan.  Members of the Taliban were ethnically and religiously allied with Pakistan.  The Taliban was overtly supported and sponsored by Pakistan until 11 Sept 01.  Parts of the Pakistani government continue to support the Taliban to date.

This is an analogy of more recent vintage.  Iran plays the part of Pakistan.  Ethnic strife (Uzbek, Tajik, and Pushtun) is replaced with religious and ethnic strife (Sunni, Shi'a, Kurd, minority religions).  I expect the analogy to extend further in tragic ways if retreat is forced.

If they are not fools, perhaps they are merely cowards.  They cannot face the difficult decisions that are made by a nation at war.  They are unwilling to accept the sacrifices that often must be made, in the face of intractable enemies.  Because they are unwilling to do so, they impute their unwillingness to do so on to everyone else. 

People don't like war.  People shouldn't like war.  War, however, if I may paraphrase, sometimes wants us. 

Perhaps there are valid reasons for a withdrawal from Iraq.  Perhaps I've been to harsh.  I have yet, however, to hear any such arguments and I cannot fathom any such arguments.  I am more than willing to entertain such arguments, but the burden of proof lies on those who seek to convince me of the rightness and wisdom of withdrawal.