On Sat, 1 May 2004, Michael Perelman wrote:
> Is it really a victory over the US or just one of the only intelligent
> things that the US has done.
Both. It is clearly a victory for armed guerrilla resistance for the US to realize that the cost of victory would outweigh the rewards. But that same recognition represents a remarkable and so far unprecedented exercise of intelligence by the Americans. The US suddenly changed several policies that everyone has known were wrong for over a year in a matter of weeks. Their willingness to try out one alternative solution after another in Falluja, to dump Chalabi and to empower Brahami all show a serious will to change course and an extremely rare willingness to swallow their pride. Good signs, both. We'll see how it goes from here. But make no mistake: the US could have flattened Falluja, and in Vietnam they would have done so two weeks ago. This is a sign of institutional learning. It may seem very slow and halting from an individual's perspective, but it's a real change.
There is now actually a chance that there could be a legitimate election in January that would institute a sovereign government that would have the power to ask the US forces to leave. Not a copper-bottomed chance, to be sure, but still -- this is a huge improvement from where we were two months ago.
Michael