The New York Times has been reporting about concerns about developments in Iraq focusing particularly on the current state of the Awakening Councils and Sons of Iraq (many of them former insurgents who switched sides) (Troops Arrest an Awakening Council Leader in Iraq, Setting Off Fighting) and the ability of Iraqi security forces to deal with the continuing low-level violence and insurgency in the country (Iraqi Militants Show New Boldness).

As a general rule, I think this conclusion from today’s NYT converage likely continues to apply:

To some experts, this amounts to ugly, but unavoidable, background noise, the deadly but no longer destabilizing face of violence in Iraq. In this view, there will be attacks, but no longer ones likely to topple Iraq’s government.

I have for a long time argued that the threat of a takeover by radical Islamist groups was low. Further, I would argue that it is easy to overstate the level of training and expertise required to contain the threat. Saddam Hussein, after all, managed to stay in power with a poorly trained army. The challenge was and remains a political one rather than one of military capacity. That said, it is also clear that the challenge has become easier to manage in large part because of the changes in American strategy in the country that are loosely described by the “surge.”

But whatever optimism I have about our ability to learn from our interventions gets dimmed when I read quotes like this:

“In most places there isn’t an insurgency in Iraq anymore,” said an American military intelligence officer in Washington, who was not authorized to be quoted by name. “What we have now is a terrorism problem, and there is going to be a terrorism problem in Iraq for a long time.”

Anonymous quotes are always a problem. Is this a senior intelligence officer whose assessments ought to be considered as indicative of institutional assessments? Is he a marginalized loud-mouth who just likes to get quoted in the paper? We can’t know for sure. But this assessment, to the extent that it reflects any sort of institutional consensus within the military intelligence community suggest such a deep lack of understanding of insurgency as to make me question our handle on the situation in Iraq.

Insurgencies are not one-size fits all. They vary based on local conditions. Insurgencies usually combine political action with military operations. The latter are divided between “guerilla” tactics that involve attacks on government facilities and security forces and “terrorist” tactics that involve attacks on civilians. Terrorism is tactic often used in insurgencies, though it can also be used to support other goals. But if you have a group whose ultimate goal is the replacement of an existing government and is using terrorism as a tactic, it is, by definition an “insurgency.” Insurgency is defined by the end goal, not by the particular tactic in use at any given moment.

Indeed, insurgencies in the classic model evolve through stages from organization to terrorism to guerilla action to open warfare, sliding seamlessly between stages in response to victories and setbacks.

So, I wonder, when I read some of the latest news from Iraq… is it possible that we still just don’t get it?