| People have begun making too much of larger historical forces, when contingency still plays a crucial role in human affairs. Without Washington, there would have been revolt, but not a coordination of resistance among the colonies, nor the ability to maintain unity, assuming victory. Washington was crucial to the creation of the United States that we know. Similarly, without General Grant, it is quite possible that the Confederacy would have won its freedom, and gone on to create mischief in the ensuing conflicts between progress and reaction. In the same way, I am not at all sure that analogies will do the trick in analyzing the situation in Iraq, and that we can discount the actual players and contingent circumstances. I believe, for example, that cutting off the head of the insurgency will have a profound effect on the conflict, and therefore that we have at most several dozen people to kill or arrest before the thing falls apart. I think that the character of the indigenous leadership, in the course of this final phase of putting together a new government, will be crucial to success or failure. And I am therefore not prepared to say "cut and run" yet........ |
