Their problems?
As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance for the following reasons:
1. By allowing the American forces to form the forces of the National Guard, to reinforce them and enable them to undertake military operations against the resistance.
2. By undertaking massive arrest operations, invading regions that have an impact on the resistance, and hence causing the resistance to lose many of its elements.
3. By undertaking a media campaign against the resistance resulting in weakening its influence inside the country and presenting its work as harmful to the population rather than being beneficial to the population.
4. By tightening the resistance's financial outlets, restricting its moral options and by confiscating its ammunition and weapons.
5. By creating a big division among the ranks of the resistance and jeopardizing its attack operations, it has weakened its influence and internal support of its elements, thus resulting in a decline of the resistance's assaults.
6. By allowing an increase in the number of countries and elements supporting the occupation or at least allowing to become neutral in their stand toward us in contrast to their previous stand or refusal of the occupation.
7. By taking advantage of the resistance's mistakes and magnifying them in order to misinform.
First, it is interesting that the enemy doesn't think they are winning. Indeed, they see that they are losing. Badly. Makes you wonder about the effectiveness of our media that conveys the opposite to our people and which doesn't understand what is more significant--big booms or quiet counter-insurgency. It is also interesting that the same focus on booms is a complaint by the enemy who see the coverage as highlighting their deadly impact on civilians, hurting their image!
Second, we are effectively fielding Iraqi security forces that are increasingly able to shoulder the burden of the war. Though the National Guard is part of the Iraqi army, now. How old is this document?
Third, the enemy sees our fight resulting in more international support for the Iraqi government--in contrast to our media which paints us as isolated and unilateral in all we do in Iraq.
Fourth, knowing they are losing and seeing no way of reversing the losses on their own, they see their only hope is to expand the war so that al Qaeda gains allies. Their list of possible wars or conflicts to sow is interesting. As I've mentioned time and again, we have to keep the Shias on our side. Keep them and we win. Lose them and there is little point to fighting in Iraq--the Kurds will just secede and we aren't about to put the Sunnis back in power.
Finally, it is interesting that the jihadis see sparking a war between Iran and America as providing them with some breathing space. They think such a war would stretch us too much to defeat the jihadis.
This is interesting alone considering Iranian threats to ignite more fighting in Iraq if we attack them. Each side is willing to sacrifice the other, apparently.
In addition, we have to consider that just because al Qaeda in Iraq wants such a war doesn't mean it would actually help them. They thought their invasion of Iraq following liberation to fight us would provide them with an easy victory, after all. And before that they thought that they could absorb our attacks on Afghanistan and their Taliban hosts and just rebound stronger. So let's not assume their hopes are any better now.
Second, this hope of a US-Iranian war assumes that the Iraqis aren't just about ready to conduct the counter-insurgency on their own (with US logistical and firepower support) in a matter of months. If that happens, striking Iran will not actually subtract power from the counter-insurgency as much as it could halt Iranian logistical support for the insurgents and terrorists.
Third, the hope of a US-Iran war perhaps assumes the fight drags on, tying us down. If our strategy is a regime change tha pulls the mullahs down with non-mullah Iranian support, this jihadi hope will fail completely.
Although at the same time, the enemy assessment assumes that we will beat Iran. Did the assessment assume they could grab arms in the chaos of regime change in the same way that arms depots in Iraq were looted by terrorists to supply themselves? If so, how are they going to ship it to Iraq?
Still, I have always been cautious about expanding the war to those merely sympathetic and helpful to the enemy inside Iraq but not full-scale belligerents. Since I think we are winning the war in Iraq without attacking Syria or Iran, I worry that attacking them will just draw them in to the fight fully and then really stretch our forces. If we aren't willing to commit more force to Iraq, will we really commit the forces to crush Syria or Iran in a conventional fight? We would make things worse by adding forces to the enemy's side as the enemy is so desperate to get.
That said, we have other (nuclear and terror-sponsorship) reasons to strike Iran. It is not just about helping in Iraq. So if Iraq can fight without the resources we devote to hitting Iran, we are not expanding an existing war so much as launching a parallel one by switching forces over to Iran. And as I've said before, if it is in support of internal opposition rather than a straight invasion, we could pull it off.
Most basically, the enemy document is another reminder of the observation by Kipling:
Man cannot tell but Allah knows
How much the other side is hurt.
The enemy is hurt badly. Yet our press has spend all its time describing the pain we've felt. The enemy died in the shadows and our press did not draw any conclusions worth a damn. We've seen hints before. And before that. And the latest was their assessment before Zarqawi was killed and we rolled up a lot of his operatives.
UPDATE: Ledeen thinks it is an Iranian fake. Could be, I guess. I don't rule out we forged it, actually, to demoralize the enemy. But if a forgery, it has to have a lot of truth in it to get the false stuff by us. Since we do have past indications of the enemy's worries, this pat rings true. And Ledeen's complaint that the National Guard is already infiltrated by the enemy mistakes the NG which is now part of the army with the Interior Ministry police, I think.
Still, authenticity is something to question whenever something like this comes up. You never know.
