Blowing up the bridges hurts the guerillas as well. Even isolated, it would be several years before they could muster enough firepower to pull a Dien Bien Phu. (They also don't have the jungle cover that makes it easy to avoid airpower and allow them to move up equipment.) It will make it harder to move American supplies, and that will force them to withdraw from remote FOBs.

I'm not saying the American position isn't severely eroding, I just don't think a campaign of direct attack by the guerillas will do them any good. If supply goes into the toilet along with morale, the army will be forced to steadily withdraw, no massive battles or overruns needed (or likely possible at this stage).

m, at any rate, we're screwed one way or another

The war is lost. Americans should begin to deal with what that means.

Los Angeles Times, By Christopher J. Fettweis, June 12

LOSING HURTS MORE than winning feels good. This simple maxim applies with equal power to virtually all areas of human interaction: sports, finance, love. And war.

Defeat in war damages societies quite out of proportion to what a rational calculation of cost would predict. The United States absorbed the loss in Vietnam quite easily on paper, for example, but the societal effects of defeat linger to this day. The Afghanistan debacle was an underrated contributor to Soviet malaise in the 1980s and a factor in perestroika, glasnost and eventually the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Defeats can have unintended, seemingly inexplicable consequences.

And as any sports fan can tell you, the only thing that feels worse than a loss is an upset. An upset demands explanation and requires that responsible parties be punished.

The endgame in Iraq is now clear, in outline if not detail, and it appears that the heavily favored United States will be upset. Once support for a war is lost, it is gone for good; there is no example of a modern democracy having changed its mind once it turned against a war. So we ought to start coming to grips with the meaning of losing in Iraq.

[...]

Either way, the Iraq syndrome is coming. We need to be prepared for the divisiveness, vitriol, self-doubt and recrimination that will be its symptoms. They will be the defining legacy of the Bush administration and neoconservatism's parting gift to America.

CHRISTOPHER J. FETTWEIS is assistant professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. These opinions are his own.

God give him rest, posted about this very thing some months back as well. His point, as I recall, was pretty much that the guerillas would be acting to isolate the US forces prepratory to trying overun attacks. The isolation would serve to complicate resupply and hinder mechanized responses.

_{"I beseech you in the bowels of christ think it possible you may be mistaken."}

This seems to be a significant uptick in sophistication on the part of the "bad guys" (whoever they are). So gee, I wonder if this revoltin' little development has anything to do with all that training I've been paying for.

And once again, we find ourselves on both sides of a war.

EvilleMike
Those who love to dance are often thought insane by those who cannot hear the music.

All this makes me chuckle remembering kids in my poli sci classes agreeing with that manifest destiny/American exceptionalism nonsense. B/c what I want in a populace is blind faith in their awesomeness! To quote Homer Simpson, "I'll never get my comeuppance! Never!"

I can't even imagine what would happen if something Dien Bien Phu-ish happened right before 2009, which I suppose is when we'll officially start leaving (save all the permanent base nonsense, which depends who wins). What's the wargame if the Resistance overruns a few bases in the runup to the 08 elections? Does Rudy McRomney soil himself, or aim for martial law?

Or what if the Iraqis wait instead till December or January? The Iraqis just want us the hell out, so I'm guessing that the goal of most of the guerillas is just to force us out with these tactics. But what if some of the fresh new Al Qaeda recruits hop on the end of these intelligent tactics and try to spark Bush into getting even crazier (refusing to step down, etc.)? For clarity's sake I mean that what if, in the midst of this Shi'ite resistance movement some coordinated Al Qaeda strikes raise more hell at a politically opportune time for American fear-mongers. Forget the GOP, I wonder what Hillary or Barack'd do?

And on a local front, my brand spankin new congressman Joe Sestak, Mr. Admiral, still voted for the funding. Oh, and the first Osprey, which was our old guy Curt Weldon's baby, just got finished with his 'reluctant' approval. "Too late to scrap it", or somesuch. You know the Osprey, another absolutely useless piece of expensive hardware.

National politics is so depressing I'm just sticking to my county council race.

PrairieStateBlue

Is he ok? Do you think he's planning on writing again? I do miss him and his Buckminster Fullerish densely packed writing style.

This isn't just about the capital, of course. It's about getting some significant overrun victories. The more you restrict the US's ability to reinforce isolated positions, the more likely it becomes that you can overrun them and either destroy them, or take hostages.

You don't understand what al q is doing. Or the US, for that matter.

It is trivially (and unfortunately) true that the future most likely holds some small overruns and hostage taking, but this has no particular relation to the bridge attacks.

Al Q will continue to hit targets of high symbolic value and targets of high economic value. Their tactical goals are sustaining state failure to cause delay and hence attrition, without which, they lose. Massive overruns are mostly beyond their means and always outside of their interests (for where the US troops are forced to flee, the shadow they cast as they leave is likely to be illuminated by rockets and missiles).

There are signs that Al Q's play is backfiring, what with increasing numbers of Sunni taking up arms against them.

-t

Scenario extensively, and many other scenarios as well.

Max's comment is comical and on the logical lines of "the more they defeat us and force us into retreat, the more they overextend themselves, and the more we concentrate our forces, so therefore it's a big win for us, in the long run."

Please. The occupation was planned to end 4 years ago. The 2002-2003 plan did not call for guerrillas to be dropping concrete bridge spans on US GIs in 2007. The US is losing all control on the ground because they do not have a concentrated enemy in the field to bomb and fight. The US cannot fight diffuse guerrilla forces who are growing stronger and better armed and better informed and better motivated every day.