Quote:Actually, there is evidence to the contrary. I think if competent measures were made to prevent terrorists from having mobility and safe harbor, that the strategy of eliminating or neutralizing them would work. It worked for the British in Malaysia.
I presume you are referring to the Malaysian Emergency?
Not equivalent. A handful of Chinese Communist rabble-rousers in a country full of Malays who could mostly care less is nothing like what the US are dealing with in Iraq. National sentiment was for the British, not against them. That this is definitely not true in Iraq is clearly evidenced by the composition of the Insurrection. You would not be seen as allies helping deal with a nuisance, but as colonialists and opressors come to fight Islam. (You yourself were perfectly happy embracing the idea of it being a 'Jihad', hardly an outlook that encourages local collaboration.)
Terrorists can be denied "mobility and safe harbor" if the population that would presumably harbour them supports you in this. The population in Iraq, overwhelmingly, no longer does, and really only ever did in Dick Cheney's fantasy world. If you expect a warmer reception in Iran, or Syria, or Lebanon, or anywhere in the Islamic world, I'm not quite sure why.
-Jester