At Issue in Falluja

I think Matthew Yglesias has this right:

"The problem was supposed to be that insurgent control of Falluja and other cities would make it impossible to organize elections which would undermine the legitimacy of the Iraqi government in the eyes of Sunni Arabs and make it impossible to undercut the insurgency's political support. That wasn't a bad analysis. But demolishing Sunni Arab cities against the advice of the main Sunni Arab figure within the Interim Government and then having people publish op-eds about what a good job Donald Rumsfeld has done twisting the arm of the 'sovereign' Iraqi government doesn't accomplish anything if the problem was that the Interim Government lacked legitimacy in the eyes of Sunni Arabs."

Not all - perhaps not even most - of the people we are fighting in Iraq are terrorists. A large swathe of people just don't trust the United States and want us out of the country. It is highly unclear why we are seeking to defeat them militarily when according to our stated goals in the country we have very little to fight about. This and the post immediately below also show why so many people see the "sovereignty" of Allawi's government as little more than a PR front.