Pan-Arab/Muslim Military Strategy: Plausible deniability and the use of surrogates

The difficulty that the United States is experiencing in Iraq – fighting an enemy with no address, no uniform, and who is unwilling to fight a conventional face to face battle – is a product of our military/political leaders imposing our Western value system against an enemy that is playing by another set of rules. The sooner we acknowledge the real boundaries and the real rules of the battlefield, the sooner we can win the war in the Mideast.

I didn’t say win the war in “Iraq” on purpose, because the reality is that the war is about pan-Arabism and militant Islam. No, it’s not a “war on terror” anymore than WW2 was a war on execution squads (it was a war against Nazi fascism). Muslim/Arab terrorism is a tactic, a military strategy, and the motivation is both Pan Arab Nationalism and extremist Islam – and the epicenter of this movement (as it relates to the war in Iraq), runs from Iran, through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. So until we acknowledge that the formal joint military pact between Damascus and Theran is playing itself out on Iraqi turf against coalition forces and the Iraqi people, we will be fighting this war with one hand behind our back.

How is it that Iran and Syria can send fighters and munitions into Iraq and we don’t do anything about it? Because the US has spent decades allowing surrogate fighters in Lebanon, trained by Iranian/Syrian military experts, to fight against Israel. Once the US accepted this strategy, it blossomed around the world. As long as Iranian/Syrian fighters weren’t pulling the trigger, as long as there was no “smoking gun” that could provide evidence of their involvement, they could deny it. Our political establishment demands “irrefutable proof” so we back off. This strategy of “plausible deniability” has proven hugely successful for the Saudis. They have financed Islamic terrorism for decades and financed the exportation of their Wahhabi extremist version of Islam around the world. They continue to supply fighters against US forces in Iraq. They even made up the majority of the 9-11 hijackers, they paid cash under the table to Palestinians suicide bombers…. yet our politicians consistently refused to connect the dots.

The West can win the war against Islamic terrorism by using precise military strategies that reflect the reality on the battlefield. Terrorism will never be reduced to zero. There will always be the “deranged individual” willing to strap on a bomb. But at least he won’t have a bomb expert supplying the c4 explosives and the know-how to execute his mission. If the politicians were to back off and allow the US military to demonstrate to the world that they are playing by a “new set of rules” that doesn’t recognize surrogates and plausible deniability, we will see our troops come home a lot quicker, and the world will be a safer place.