It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

HOW DO WE KNOW WE'RE WINNING? Winds of Change asks the question of how should we measure progress or its absence in the war on terror. Given the predilection of our leaders and potential leaders to resort to sound-bites (it is an election season after all), I think it is a worthy task to try to consider slightly more precise, detailed and nuanced answers to this question. The comments to the post are filled with suggestions ranging from the commensensical (if a bit vague):

Signs the War on Terror is going well.

1. Multiple Middle-Eastern nations moving toward pluralism & tolerance. (Iran hopefully soon, who will be next?)

2. Forces of moderation emerging among the Palestinians and gaining real political influence.

3. A true Arab success story (hopefully Iraq). By this I mean a country embracing some basic free market principals, and rapidly becoming prosperous relative to their neighbors - an "Arab tiger", if you will.


Signs the War on Terror is not going well.

1. More terrorist attacks - particularly if they are supported by states claiming plausible deniability and getting away with it.

2. The dictators in Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. using the war on terror as an excuse to "crack down" when the real intent is simply to strengthen their grip on power. We will never win the hearts and minds of their people if this is how this plays out.

3. The cynics being proven right. Ethnic fighting or civil war in Iraq and Afghanistan "prove" that democracy in the Middle East is a quixotic fantasy.

to the more precise:

Signs the War on Terror is going well:

1. Serious reform of the Pakistani education system combined with successful diplomatic engagement with India to defuse Kashmir as a major issue. Once Kashmir is taken care of, the byzantine domestic Pakistani considerations of maintaining the two dozen or so jihadi outfits will no longer apply and can be crushed in turn by the current military government there. Ideally, Musharraf will eventually relinquish power after a decade or so or will retain the position of Maximum Leader until his death, after which time a new Pakistani democratic system can be formalized.

2. A grassroots resurgence of traditional Sunni Muslim orthodoxy against innovations introduced by Wahhabism over the last 200 years ranging from the idea of military jihad as an individual rather than state duty, an end to the "fatwa shop" mentality, and above all else the formulation of a moderate counter-ideology that will serve to at the very least marginalize the kind of anti-Semitic and anti-Western mantras that are currently all too familiar in the Arab world.

3. The establishment of a successful democratic government in Iraq that respects both ethnic and religious pluralism. Once preliminary reconstruction efforts are completed, the US should serve to protect the moderate Shi'ite clergy like Ayatollah Sistani and others in An Najaf and Karbala to serve a counter-balance to the Khomeinists in Qom.

Signs the War on Terror is not going well:

1. Simultaneous non-conventional nuclear attacks by al-Qaeda using bombs supplied by rogue elements in Pakistan, VEVAK in Iran, or purchased from North Korea in US, European, and possibly Russian and India cities. The kind of total war envisioned by Michael Totten ensues.

2. Al-Qaeda successfully triggers a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Pakistani state is destroyed in the aftermath and India suffers heavy casualties. Millions die and the end-result is that al-Qaeda makes off with a sizeable chunk of Pakistan's nuclear assets.

3. France's efforts to ban headscarves combined with rising xenophobia stirred up by Monsieur le Pen's National Alliance (among others) caused the Algerian immigrant population in France to begin a full-scale Islamist insurrection that quickly spreads to other countries.

to the rather bizarre:

signs that we are actually fighting a war on terror

1) bush gets shitcanned
2) bush gets sent to the hague for his war crimes
3) bush gets hung like the nazi he is

signs that the war on terror isn't going well

1) bush gets to continue his war for oil for another four years
2) the zionist occupiers in isreal don't get buried under radioactive debris
3) anyone but Dennis Kuchinich wins the DEMOCRAT nomination

Any more suggestions?