Najaf

If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna.
-Napoleon

The current fighting and negotiating in Najaf perfectly exemplifies how the US is able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. There should be no negotiations with al-Sadr or his gang. The only possible solution to this "uprising" is to mercilessly crush it and kill al-Sadr. Every time we allow negotiations we simply give this thug more legitimacy (See this Cox&Forkum cartoon). Ralph Peters outlines the mistakes we are making and what needs to be done.

Our troops fight in streets and alleys, amid civilian populations, against unscrupulous opponents determined to run out the clock until the political referees toss a flag. A hostile media not only magnifies American errors, but invents American atrocities. Our allies panic, followed by our own leaders.

The new American way of war is to quit on the edge of victory.

This really isn't hard to figure out: When we fail to win fast, we lose. Our military is slowly digesting the lesson, but our political leaders ignore the truth entirely. They don't want "excessive" casualties or collateral damage. So we dither. And, over months and years, the casualties and damage soar beyond what a swift victory would have cost.

Now the feckless dithering in the White House and the Pentagon has resulted in an even more difficult situation in Iraq, with the addition of yet another political layer. By delaying resolute action against Sadr until sovereignty was handed over, we gave a minority of Iraqis a veto over what must be done to protect the majority.
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A point may come soon when it just won't be worth risking the lives of our troops any longer. If we cannot fight to win, we're foolish to spend our soldiers' blood for nothing. If Iraq lacks the will to save itself, our troops won't be able to save it. And then there is the bogus issue of mosques, which our leaders approach with superstition, not sense. While Najaf's Imam Ali shrine truly is a sacred place, the fact is that there are mosques and there are mosques.

Our unwillingness to target even a derelict neighborhood mosque packed with ammunition, weapons and terrorists is not only militarily foolish — it's based upon the assumption that Muslims are so stupid that they don't know the rules of their own religion. That's nonsense. They know that mosques aren't supposed to be used as bunkers. But they're not going to shout it from the rooftops to help us out.