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March 21, 2007

Gary Hart on "The Lessons of Iraq"

Gary Hart has written an insightful piece on Iraq and the new global political environment we find ourselves in today. One key point:

[T]reat jihadist terrorism more like organized crime than traditional warfare. By declaring "war on terrorism" we made the fatal mistake that it could be crushed using conventional warfare and massed armies. We clearly had the legal and moral right to overturn the Taliban government in Afghanistan that harbored al Qaeda as it planned and carried out the 9.11 attacks. Even so, the democratization of an ancient tribal society is proving hugely more difficult than driving the Taliban out of Kabul. Indeed, it seems set on returning. Instead, we should create NATO II, an organization combining the intelligence services, law enforcement agencies, and special forces of Western democracies to coordinate the crushing of jihadist cells.

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