Flypaper Strategy Working: Evidence

Impearls links several reports indicating that the “Flypaper” strategy is working.

David Warren first articulated this strategy for the public. It’s the notion that having the Americans in Iraq would draw jihadis from around the world to blow themselves up in Iraq instead of in New York, Paris, etc.

Impearls concludes:

It’s also worth observing how the suicide bombers we hear about every day in the news from Iraq are actually arriving from abroad. From the reports I’ve seen, essentially none of the fanatics willing to blow themselves up taking many Iraqis along with them are Iraqis themselves. So much for the idea that it’s primarily the Iraqis who hate Americans and the Coalition and want us out; rather it’s radical Islamofascist foreigners from around the world who are desperate to prevent Iraqis from taking destiny in their own hands to establish a modern, decent democratic society in the heart of the Muslim world.

But, as Thomas Friedman speculated a while back, what happens if the Flypaper strategy works too well. That is, what happens if Iraq settles down and the US leaves? Will that risk the security of the West because then the jihadis will no longer be distracted by the Iraqi theater?

And consider the moral dimension of remaining in Iraq. Consistent with the logic of Flypaper, it’s in the West’s interest to keep things at a slow boil in Iraq. So long as things don’t get too violent there, the West can keep the flypaper there as a means to draw jihadis away from attacking Western targets. However, this also means that Iraqi civilians take the brunt of the attacks. Not exactly the humanitarian impulse the West had in mind in liberating Iraq.

UPDATE: Belmont Club explains just how well the flies are sticking to the paper.