Not enough killing

Josh Marshall argues that the massive scale of violence and decisive defeat inflicted on Japan and Germany are what made the transformations of those societies possible. He used this example to support the argument that we were pulling our punched in Iraq. The argument surely has some merit as applied to our failure to destroy Iraqi Republican Guard Units that were left largely intact at the end of the war are a large part of the resistance we face today. The failure to win total victory not because of military considerations but because of political considerations has been a consistent feature of the US and Israel's prosecution of the conflict, for example during the Suez crisis, the decision to not destroy Egypt's 3rd Army during the Yon Kippur war. Examples could be multiplied of Israel's refusal to press military advantage out of concern for longterm Arab good will.

The "not defeated enough" argument was made at length by Nail Ferguson in his History of WWI. The Allies decision to grant an Armistice to the Germans before the German army was destroyed in a way that was apparent to the German people themselves was what made it possible for the inter-war generation of Germans to believe that they could have won had they not been betrayed by German liberals.

The example of the Germans suggests that we are missing something very important when we think about public opinion in the Arab world solely in terms of minimizing hostilities and civilian casualties and ending hostilities as soon as possible. The benefits of such a policy may be outweighed or at least compromised against the cost of support those in the Arab world argue that the Arab world can win through military confrontation.