OxBlog

# Posted 8:47 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

800-POUND GUERRILLAS: A front-page headline in the WaPo tells us that

U.S. Soldiers Face Growing Resistance; Attacks in Central Iraq Become More Frequent and Sophisticated

The NYT headline reads

Deadly Attacks on G.I.'s Rise

the speed with which the "post-war" casualty figures are rapidly approaching the levels sustained before the end of organized Iraqi resistance give us, I think, good reason to worry that the situation won't be improving any time soon. If you ask me, this is the big under-covered story taking place right now.

Apparently, Matt is too busy with The American Prospect to glance at the front page of the WaPo...(Yes, that was a cheap shot.)

Also sounding the alarm is Matt's favorite conservative, Tacitus, who writes that

Blaming this on "Ba'athist holdouts" doesn't seem to cut it, really. It's more honest to admit that these are resistance movements with some measure of popular support that don't need Ba'athist ties to survive. The popular psychology of the Arab world is more than sufficiently motivated to violence by the perceived humiliation of occupation -- as we've seen in Palestine, where it trumps all rational concerns of self-preservation and communal well-being. I hope that the individuals formulating counterinsurgency strategy are being honest with themselves about this.

No wonder Tacitus is the left's favorite conservative. He's still living in Vietnam.

Frankly, I see no evidence of a self-sufficient resistance movement which can survive independent of Ba'athist ties. Nor does Tacitus provide any. Besides, the fact that almost all of the attacks on US soldiers have been in the former Ba'athist strongholds of Tikrit and Falluja demonstrates just how closely tied the attacks are to the fallen dictatorship.

Now here's some food thought: Remember the good old days when our big concern about postwar Iraq was the potential for Shi'ite resistance to the occupation?

Well, even back then OxBlog was pointing out that anti-American violence was coming from the Sunni community, not the Shi'ites. So? The bottom line is that only that small minority who benefited from Saddam's rule seems interested in resisting the occupation.

But don't worry, Matt. Guerrilla attacks on US soldiers will always be big news. While the WaPo and NYT articles were more subtle than Tacitus, the fact is that any military encounter even vaguely reminiscient of Vietnam will go straight to the front pages.

Does that mean I'm discounting the Ba'athist threat? The answer is "yes" if you think any significant amount of Iraqi real estate will ever fall to the ex-Fedayeen. The answer is "no" if you expect the Fedayeen to take the lives of dozens of brave American soldiers but ultimately prove nothing more than a reminder of the brutality of the man who ruled Iraq before Paul Bremer.

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