James Fallows has an article in the Atlantic on how the US should declare victory on the War in Terrorism and step down from some of the larger pieces of hysteria driven policy that it has engaged in. He wrote the article by interviewing a bunch of experts, who all pretty much thought the same thing, then wrote the article. Most of it is behind a subscription wall, but if you have a paper copy, or a subscription, it's worth your while to read.

It's in that light that it is effectively a group interview that the article should be read, as a monument to current elite groupthink, not as a startling work of great insight. Indeed the piece has what I consider a number of problems.

1) Fallows appears to believe in continuing the Iraq occupation until "victory"

About half of the authorities I spoke with were from military or intelligence organizations; the others were academics or members of think tanks, plus a few businesspeople. Half were Americans; the rest were Europeans, Middle Easterners, Australians, and others. Four years ago, most of these people had supported the decision to invade Iraq. Although they now said that the war had been a mistake (followed by what nearly all viewed as a disastrously mismanaged occupation), relatively few said that the United States should withdraw anytime soon. The reasons most of them gave were the need for America to make good on commitments, the importance of keeping the Sunni parts of Iraq from turning into a new haven for global terrorists, and the chance that conditions in Iraq would eventually improve.

If the US wants to stay in Iraq until conditions improve, at the current bleed rate of men and money, you will lose thousands mroe men and will either have to give up social security and medicare, or you will have to raise taxes significantly. That's the trade off. I'm sure Fallows and most of his experts are set for retirement and have private medical plans, but regular Americans may not think it is worth it. In addition, there will be no money for energy independence, or anything else, for that matter. The War on Iraq is the most expensive part of the War on Terror and standing down the rest of the War on Terror, while generally a good idea with some exceptions, is a marginal decision if you don't stand down from Iraq.

2) Fallows argues that al-Q'aeda is much less dangerous now because as an organization it has taken huge hits, and has less money, can't ship what money it has easily, has lost a lot of its leadership and has communication problems because it has to use couriers. As an operational unit - as an organization capable of carrying out attacks itself, like 9/11 it is much less dangerous. I would agree, however I would note that what has really happened is that al-Q'aeda has mostly been subsumed into the Taliban, who protect its key members. As such Omar is effectively bin Laden's superior, as long as bin Laden wants to go on living. And the Taliban is much more interested in local operations - in recapturing Afghanistan, than it is in striking against the US.

3) Fallows thinks that al-Q'aeda as an inspiration is much less dangerous than al-Q'aeda as an operational unit. I suspect the Spanish and the Brits might disagree. As I said years ago I believe al-Q'aeda as an ideology is much, much more dangerous than al-Q'aeda as an operational unit. People inspired by ideology spring up with minimal or no tethers and thus are very hard to track. While it's true that lack of support means that many of them will blow themselves up or fail due to lack of tradecraft, it really isn't that hard to make relatively powerful bombs from materials that you can buy off the shelf and since the investment was zero from al-Q'aeda for self starting terrorist plots, there is no real loss when they fail, and when they succeed the victory comes at zero cost.

4) Al-Q'aeda was always most dangerous not where it did terrororism - terrorism, minus nukes, is as Fallows notes, not an existential threat to any state. Insurgencies - rebellions, are. And the US actions of the last 5 odd years have incubated insurrections, and made of them teaching laboratories. Word is that a number of Iraqi insurgency types headed to Lebanon when this Lebanon mess blew up, for example. If Hezbollah cooperates with them, they are going to come back having learned a lot from Hezbollah. Do you really want to face insurgents in Iraq who are as disciplined and tactically sophisticated as Hezbollah is - but in much larger numbers?

Iraq is currently disintegrating towards civil war. The word from government sources is that they've given up on the federal project and are jockeying for a partition to take place. There are three scenarios in such a case - in one of them a partition does occur. In the second a de-facto partitions with a Lebanese style civil war. The third is that a strong man rises (al-Sadr, for example, has stated he will not allow partition of Iraq) and unites the country through blood and iron.

In at least two of those end states (both partition scenarios) Iraq will be a major source of training of and supply of insurgents and equiptment. In the third case scenario, it may well be if the hard man decides to.

Then there's the Lebanese mess, which is inculating hatred of both the US and Israel throughout the Middle East. As I keep telling my US political friends, "what Israel does, you wear". The images of death and destruction will spawn self starter terrorist groups - I guarantee it. It's a war that will create terrorists. And if it ends without a real sustainable peace, say a "peacekeeping" force in Southern Lebanon which the southern Shia regard as illegitimate, then it will lead to a rash of terrorism against those troops, and could lead to terrorism in the countries that provide the troops and the logistical support.

The continued supposition on the part of various actors, including the Europeans, Israelis and Americans, that there can be a sustained peace without actually talking to Hezbollah, is delusional. Hezbollah has the support of about a million people. It isn't going away. If you kill every single soldier (an impossible tasK) it will reconstitute its military wing.

Furthermore Hezbollah has substantial overseas assets - sleeper cells which pre-select targets years in advance. These cells constitute probably the most capable terrorist organization in existence, and they can be activated if Hezbollah thinks it is in their interest to do so. And if the international "community" forces a settlement on them which they regard as unfair and tries to back it up with guns, you can be sure that they will activate it.

The War on Terror was bullshit to begin with. But the current actions of the US and Israel are doing nothing but spawn insurgents and guerillas... and quite possibly, terrorists.

You reap as you sow. It has always been so, and it always will be so, and if you sow terror you will get terror in return.

Fallows may be right that it is time to end the idiotic rhetoric of the "war on terror" and that US overreaction has been al-Q'aeda's primary tool (something I said the exact day of 9/11) but what he does not recognize is that until the US, Israel and indeed Europe, decide that peace is the path they want to pursue, terror will continue to spring up in their wake.

NB. The article as originally published said that Fallows was a supporter of the Iraq war. He did near the end of the pre-invasion period express some doubts about the occupation, I have changed the article to reflect that.