Letter: War of attrition unfolding in Iraq

Saturday, Jan. 13, 2007 | 7:11 a.m.

Well, the prez outlined his new plan for Iraq. I am willing to give it a try as it sounds reasonable. However, a new Iraq policy is not a great necessity, you know. Another 12 to 15 years of muddling through like we have been and victory is assuredly ours.

No, I am not being facetious. In order to win, our enemies have to have a new caliphate - a large area of the world hermetically sealed from any of our social, cultural, economic or political influences. They have to have this form of privileged sanctuary while practicing coercive proselyting in our homeland. Without these conditions, they are doomed to failure.

If they don't get their caliphate within a decade or so, their one opportunity will vanish for a good long time at least. And with Uncle Sam camped along the Tigris and Euphrates, said caliphate is impossible.

Therefore, continuing as we have been and taking the same casualties we have been will stymie our enemies good and proper and cost us not more than 75 percent to 80 percent of the deaths we took holding the line in Korea more than 50 years ago. That ain't bad. I can fight it out on this line if it takes all century.

So why all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth? On a worst-case basis we are about to secure our survival in a conflict that is already a millennia and a half old. The Man from Midland knows that. His trouble, and ours, is that some of the opposition doesn't know the meaning of the concept "loyal opposition."

Dave Hanley, Las Vegas