A New War on Terror

Daniel Gallington offers yet another strategy for fighting an insurgency:

The new strategy: The September 11, 2001, attack was an
asymmetric attack on us. Should we have responded with say, a withering --
perhaps asymmetric -- strike on the leadership or infrastructure of the
countries we know sponsor terror, despite lack of a direct cause-and-effect
relationship with the September 11 attack? This strategy would assume we may
never have a direct cause-and-effect relationship when terrorists strike us. In
fact, it is often the trademark of terrorist attack against us that the
responsibility for it is "stateless" -- so we will not be sure whom to blame.
This new strategy would blame the most likely state sponsors of the terror and
take action against them...

We need make it clear we are tired of
counterinsurgency (we clearly are) and intend to hold the leaderships and
infrastructures of Iran, Syria, et al., at strategic risk for their support of
terrorism -- and that this could include asymmetric
responses.

I like this idea, but its still no excuse, as it probably is intended, for us to quit in Iraq as long as our Army and leadership thinks we can win.