Firm grasp of the obvious.
If they can put together a troop of Iraqi military who are worthwhile and they can take out the guys in Fallujah that would be a win in my book
True, although that's a pretty big if.
What I do know is that we surrounded Fallujah and announced the Marines were going in to pacify the city. Didn't happen. Then, for many days U.S. Generals said if the Iraqis don't adhere to an agreement to turn in their weapons, we were going in. They didn't and we didn't. Then we were going to have joint U.S. and Iraqi patrols. Didn't happen. Now, we are told U.S. forces are pulling back and an Iraqi unit is going into Fallujah. I agree, that might work in killing or disarming the bad guys. Wanna place a small wager on that? I bet they find precious few bad guys or weapons.
As the cleric in the article said, right now the bad guys think if they hang tough they can face us down. They think they've won a round. If we do eventually go in, that will make our job that much harder. This is not the picture we want to present. That part of the world respects strength and disrespects restraint.
I think it's fine if they think they've won, they'll come out to celebrate and find a bullet between their eyes.
Have you seen one thing that has been reported about what we're going to do that has turned out to be right? Of course not. That's the whole point.