“Why the Rebels Will Lose”

It is not worth asking why the public opinion’s backing of the Iraq war has not dwindled. All the papers’ front pages only talk of the rebels’ kingdom of terror. Instead of describing our enemies as terror giants, we’d better insist on their weaknesses. Iraqi insurgents lack many things to achieve what Algerian rebels did in the 1950’s and what the Afghans did in the 1980’s.
Iraqi rebels lack organization and a unified central leadership. They only have the support of a minority within the Sunni community, which is, in turn, a minority in the country. They don’t control large territorial zones; they only managed to control Faluya for six months. Neither can they launch a great offensive. But their greatest weakness is to have turned from the national liberation movement condition into that of a movement that fights a democratically elected government. Nationalist groups often win, like the movements that succeed in getting the masses mobilized against those regimes incapable of evolving, but this is not the case in a democratically elected government. However, this doesn’t mean that the insurgency can be quickly defeated but that as the Iraqi power grows stronger, the insurrection loses ground.
The only advantage of the insurgency is that it still receives regular assistance from combatants abroad. However, the United States will manage to beat them patiently.