Hamas won because its fighters are religious fanatics ready to die for their cause. Fatah runs an armed employment agency under the banner of Palestinian nationalism. Most of the latter's security men are on the payroll because relatives or ward pols got them jobs. And they want to stay alive to collect their wages.
The result was predictable. Our government pretended otherwise. Now hairs should be standing up on the backs of thousands of necks, from the White House to the Green Zone.
Oh please. This is the kind of rot that those who want to run from our enemies just love to read. More reason to run! We're doomed!
Does fanaticism trump numbers? It can. But fanaticism is not the trump card. The fanatics lost in the Iran-Iraq War. The fanatics died in huge numbers in Vietnam assaulting out-numbered but wired-in and prepared defenders. The fanatics died in huge numbers in Korea flinging themselves in human wave assaults on American positions. Dervishes died over a hundred years ago against outnumbered troops in Sudan. And those vaunted Sadr boys were happy enough to fold and go home in August 2004 after their second obvious defeat at the hands of our non-fanatics. Using that clash as an example to bolster his point is just silly of Peters. Even the jihadis don't seem eager to test their fanaticism against our guns. Their reliance on car bombs indicates they know that even Iraqi numbers trump their fanaticism. The jihadis may be fanatics but they are not stupid.
What Peters means to say is that fanaticism (high morale) beats poor morale. That's fair enough. Better morale beats poor morale.
But that is but one equation in the calculation. Better training beats poorly trained. Better armed beats poorly armed. More troops beat fewer troops. Better leadership beats poor leadership. Better supplied beats poorly supplied.
Winning a battle depends on the combination of all those factors and not a little bit of luck thrown in.
And I doubt if anybody in our government doubted Hamas was militarily more effective than Fatah before the Five Day War was fought. As soon as the fighting started I knew that Fatah was doomed if it was a test of arms.
I enjoy reading Peters. But his article just feeds the retrograde impulses of our Retreatist Americans without adding anything of value to our discussions of Iraq. And Peters knows this!
He writes, "Fanatics with guns beat liberals with ideas." Peters is quite right. But Iraq isn't a contest between fanatics with guns on the battlefield and liberals with ideas on the battlefield. On the battlefield, fanatics with guns face Iraqis and allies with guns. We are winning this calculation.
The problem is that fanatics with guns on television beat liberals with ideas here at home. This is a serious problem for us. But it is not a battlefield problem. The battlefield is the least of our problems.
