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Terror attacks are the lowest level of guerrilla warfare. It can make things very uncomfortable for the government, but it cannot win so long as the governemnt keeps its nerve. "Getting tough" with the populace is what the terrorists want. It drives people out of our camp and into the indifferent middle and out of the middle into the terrorist's camp. The French were plenty tough in Vietnam and got their a@@es handed to them. They were a lot tougher in Algeria, but the home folks were so appaled by what was being done in thier name that they (through DeGalle) quit while militarily they were ahead.

The Brits have won a couple of guerrilla wars and they did it by: (1) having a real political program that appealed to the people, not just paying lip service to politcal reform, (2) fighting the guerrillas not the population as a whole, and (3) cutting off the guerrillas from outside help.

It is a lot easier to punish the Iraqi people than the guerrillas, the people cannot hide, but it makes about as much sense as craking down on law abiding gun owners because crack dealers are shooting each other.

We need to keep going with politcal reform, work hard to catch and kill guerrillas while not terrorizing the population and seal the Syrian and Iranian borders. It won't be fast or easy, but it will work.