janjak desalin
Junior Member
We, obviously, have divergent definitions of defeat. In mine, there is no reformation of that insurgency whether under the same name or any other.
Whether one wants to acknowledege, or not, there is a continuous chain of command and a continuous pool of personnel that has persisted since the Russians invaded Afghanistan. That the US, unwisely, assisted this phenomenon, at that time, and prevented Iran from attending to it, at a later date, are, now, largely irrelevant. What is relevant, and actual, is that from Al Quaeda, to the Taliban, to ISIL, no nation, or coalition of nations has defeated this pseudo Sunni Islamist insurgency. Whether that is a result of tactical and strategic ineffectiveness as I argue, or of a lack of political resolve, as you do, or a combination of degrees of both, is up for discussion. One thing I know for certain is that no bombing campaign, using jets and cruise missiles designed for conventional, state-level, warfare has, as of yet, ever defeated an insurgency.
Alternatively, pseudo Sunni Islamist insurgents never seemed to have much success in Iraq during Hussein's regime and the Jaish ul-Adl and Jundallah, pseudo Islamist Sunni insurgents in Iran, though capable of isolated terrorist attacks, have never gained a foothold there, either. Possibly, the tactical knowledge and political resolve to combat these insurgencies effectively derives more from the necessity of having to suffer the consequences of not doing so than it does from some COIN theory theses and foreign policy doctrines conceptualized by those that have never faced that reality?
