... for clarifying discussions of Iraq. Ban the use of the phrase "the enemy" and all variations on it. No "our enemy," no "freedom's enemy," no "America's enemies" None of it. From now on, instead of "the enemy" specific group of people that are our enemies must be identified. If we mean "foreign al-Qaida linked fighters" then that's what we have to say. If we mean "Iranian supported Shiite militia linked death-squads in the security forces we are setting up" then that's what we say. No more of this treating them as the same thing by referring to them both in the same phrase. The sooner we get into our minds that in this war "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not true, the better our chances of coming out with an even halfway decent solution will be.
Although we don't like to say it, we are working with Iranian backed groups in some parts of Iraq. For instance, we work with the governing coalition of the Iraqi parliament. This means that if the claims are to be believed, we are working with Iranian backed groups in some parts of Iraq, and being attacked by those same groups in other parts of Iraq. If we can't have faith that our friends and allies against one group of enemies in Baghdad are not our enemies in Basra, how can we possibly imagine that we might win this war
thinking about "the enemy" as a unitary force?
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The war is also about language and word choice, i believe the "enemy" is used in order to reach a majority of americans. a majority of americans do not understand the nuances of all the different enemies america is fighting, whether its iranian backers, shiite militia, alqueda, the umbrella term i think should be islamists, but... enemy of freedom means something to an average person.
Yes, but this is exactly the problem. "Our enemy" means something to Americans, but there is no real entity in Iraq that corresponds to what "our enemy" means to us. Until we recognize that our actual enemies are not the force conjured by the phrase "our enemies" but a collection of different groups, with different goals, that may be our allies in one part of the country and our enemies in another, and that their relationship with us isdetermined much more by their relationships with each other than by what they think of us for ourselves, we will keep making policy choices tha do not make sense in the real Iraq. And that's true no matter how much sense those policies make in the public relations Iraq.
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