Remember the Minutemen?

The Sunni Arabs in Iraq, whether the Baathist or jihadi types, relied on cash to pay for attacks. It always annoyed me that this enemy was portrayed as so ideologically motivated that we couldn't beat them. Indeed, it was the height of liberal sophistication to assert that fighting them only created more jihadis (This sat right up there next to the claim that Shias could not cooperate with Sunnis to fight us).

Strategypage, in noting our quiet efforts to dry up al Qaeda funding, reminds us of our success on this front in Iraq:

Meanwhile, the most successful tactics for keeping the terrorists broke involves lots of lawyers, bankers and accountants. The success of this approach was first seen three years ago in Iraq. The Islamic terrorists there suddenly saw their financing drying up. Since most of the terrorism was carried out by mercenaries, no cash meant no action. That played a large role in the defeat of Islamic terrorism, and al Qaeda, in Iraq.

Far from being "Minutemen" who rose up to defend their home from invaders, the Iraqi terrorists consisted of a smaller cadre of true jihadis and Baathist leaders who relied on paying Sunni Arabs to make and plant bombs (including delivering a suicide bomber to the target) or otherwise carry out attacks on Coalition forces. No cash--no attacks.

Drying up the cash was an important factor in winning that stage of the Iraq War.

Our enemies aren't ten feet tall. Kill them, jail them, starve them of funds and weapons, and delegitimize them in the eyes of Moslems.