The country has been fought over, and a verdict can already be discerned–rough balance between its erstwhile Sunni rulers and its Shia inheritors, and a special, autonomous life for the Kurds. Against all dire expectations, the all-important question of the distribution of oil wealth appears close to a resolution. The design for sharing the bounty is a “federal” one that strikes a balance between central government and regional claimants. The nightmare of the Sunni Arabs that they would be left stranded in regions of sand and gravel has been averted.

This is the country midwifed by American power. We were never meant to stay there long. Iraq will never approximate the expectations we projected onto it in more innocent times. But we should be able to grant it the gift of acceptance, and yet another dose of patience as it works its way out of its current torments. It is said that much of the war’s nobility has drained out of it, and that we now fight not to lose, and to keep intact our larger position in the oil lands of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. This may not be the stuff of glory, but it has power and legitimacy all its own.

Knowing this, how do we deter the modern Gnostic warriors, the jihadi?

Mainly, we do not. Those who are dead already, who consider themselves dead to the world and only alive to the Afterworld, those who wish to die, generally cannot be deterred. Faith has been described as a belief in things
invisible. Gnosticism is belief in a fantasy that is taken to be more real than the common reality: they do not believe what they see, they see what they believe. This cannot be deterred. Imagine Osama bin Laden is in front
of you: how do you deter him? Or Zawahiri, or Zarqawi ? Deterrence? Don’t even think about it. Deterrence might have worked way before contemporary jihad was able to reach critical mass, sometimes perhaps in the early to
mid-1990s.

I highly recommend reading the above link in it’s entirety.

Suicide bombings in operation Iraqi freedom.

Islamic tradition. Islamic suicide bombings are of interest because they provide the philosophical context in which such operations in Iraq are being conducted. Raphael Israeli’s article, “A Manual of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism,” is the best overview of suicide bombing’s Islamic philosophical origins. (10) He notes that the conceptual basis for the Shi’ite cult of martyrdom is a tradition that originated with Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of the prophet Muhammad. Hussein ibn Ali, sacrificed himself for Allah when he and his followers were annihilated by Caliph Yazid’s army at Karbalah in 680.