FALLUJA IS NOT THE END

Mackubin Thomas Owens writes about the military strategy in Iraq in The Weekly Standard. He again reminds us to ignore the media coverage.

Critics are asking what the operation in Falluja really accomplished. They note that the insurgents' leaders appear to have escaped and that violence has erupted elsewhere in northern Iraq. Media accounts also routinely describe the fighting outside Falluja as a "rebel counteroffensive" that surprised the U.S. military, implying that the reduction of Falluja merely created more insurgents. But the view conveyed by these headlines is myopic. An equivalent headline in June 1944 would have read: "Massive U.S. Casualties on Omaha Beach; Hitler's Reich Remains Intact, Defiant." Such stories fail to place Falluja, Mosul, Tal Afar, and other cities in northern Iraq in context. The fact is that Falluja is part of a campaign, a series of coordinated events--movements, battles, and supporting operations--designed to achieve strategic or operational objectives within a military theater. Falluja is just one battle, albeit an extremely important one, in a comprehensive campaign to stabilize the Sunni Triangle.

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