Counterterror - Krauthammer with with

Counterterror - Krauthammer with with historical and demographic perspectives on the guerrilla war in Iraq:

"The Saddam loyalists swim in a small lake. They represent the deeply loathed Baathist regime, with just a small constituency at home -- bolstered by foreign terrorists who may speak for a general kind of Islamism but are no more loved by Iraqis than they were by the Afghans, who despised them.

There is no general uprising among the Iraqi people. On the contrary: 80 percent of the country is either Shiite or Kurd, for almost a century ruled and repressed by the Sunni Arab minority. Which is why most polls show a very substantial majority of Iraqis want the Americans and British to stay and are pleased with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

The resistance to the U.S. occupation is overwhelmingly Sunni Arab. But it represents only 15 percent to 20 percent of the Iraqi population. For 30 years, through their own Saddam Hussein, they used their power not just to rule but to rob. They gorged themselves on Iraq's oil wealth. Tikrit was a sleepy town before Saddam rose from it to Stalinist god-king and poured not only privilege, power and protection into Tikrit and onto Tikritis but vast amounts of money as well."

The American left, whose knowledge of history goes back no further than 1968, regards all guerrilla war as unwinnable. Krauthammer notes that it's not true, citing the British war in Malaysia in the '50s (and even Krauthammer swings and misses - the Brits won even more similar wars in Yemen and Oman in the '60s).

You'll want to read this.

(Via Vodkapundit)

Posted by Mitch at November 3, 2003 06:01 AM