Fumbling victory: allow the enemy one last great blow before the end.

Excerpt from J.R. Dunn's The Problems of Victory:

Consider the Jihadis. They opened up this conflict through a surprise blow designed as much to make an impression as to cause damage. With two strikes at the very centers of American power, the Jihadis succeeded where the Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans failed, despite all their bombers and ICBMs. The Jihadis have attempted to duplicate or even surpass these strikes since, with no real success, though they have struck serious blows in London, Madrid, and Bali.

Now consider the situation, from the viewpoint of an Islamist mujahaddin. Until even as late as six months ago, the Jihadis had Iraq in the bag. They had stymied all attempts to provide security to the Iraqi people. They killed where they wanted, when they wanted, and as many as they wanted, and as often as not, got clean away with it. Through a series of carefully measured atrocities, including the attack on the Golden Temple, they came very close to triggering an ethnic civil war in Iraq, a development which would have given them their victory by default.

Now all that is ended. They are being turned out of the same country where, only months ago, they proclaimed their new "caliphate". Their erstwhile Iraqi allies have turned on them. The infidels are about to hand them a humiliation even greater than that meted out to the Taliban in December 2001.

How likely are they to take that sitting down? And what would they do if they decided not to?

The next move on the Iraq chessboard may occur continents away. The Jihadis cannot take a public whipping in the Middle East without responding, and responding as ferociously and brutally as they know how.

The question of where they'll strike is one easily answered: wherever they find a soft target. One that in some way represents America and will cause the maximum amount of damage and uproar. It could be in Europe, in could be in Asia, it could be down the street from where you're reading this.

global war on terror Iraq World War IV Long War jihadists