Wednesday, June 15, 2005

American strategy in Iraq -- success breeds success

It is always easier to describe your team as successful when scoring is rare, if you can see the stripes of the football field. The American media has a fundamentally difficult time describing success in Iraq because there is no clear WWII-style front line that can be seen to advance or retreat.

That was one of the reasons that the American success against the Tet Offensive could be described as disaster by the 1968 press. That is the reason that fundamental success in Iraq can be described as mired by the 2005 press.

This article does something that we rarely see in the American press -- describe the strategy and the battleline. We can now see the stripes on the football field. Any football devotee will tell you that a running offense will not score often, but as long as it keeps the ball moving down the field, the opponent cannot score. Cap that movement with seven points at the end of the drive, and the offense was doubly successful in preventing the opponent's from scoring and making progress toward a win.

(I got my first mention on Powerline here!)

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