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I think that a dramatic stroke may still have a role. For example, there are a lot of ignorant civilians, including non-Fedayeen paramilitary types, who might profit from a little education--like a MOAB dropped on the south edge of Baghdad.

Some of the stupidly nationalistic civilians who are resisting us (or refusing to resist the Fedayeen to death) will throw down their arms (or, better still, turn them on the Fedayeen) if they see that their resistance to the coalition is even more surely fatal than siding against Saddam's thugs.

If I'm an Iraqi citizen, no MOAB dropped 15 miles away trumps a Fedayeen rifle barrel aimed at my wife and children in the poker game of priorities. I'll grab a rifle and give it a go against the Godzilla/Mothra American brigade. Those tricky bastards, they didn't give me any bullets. Fodder for the Marines.

But, the Fedayeen can't sustain that program. The next Iraqi guy is going to resist his knock at the door. His neighbor is dead on the street in front of his house. The neighbor knows he was a carpenter, not a soldier.

The guerilla campaign is unsustainable. These guys will become nothing more than criminals holding hostages. There's one chance for surrender. Then the boys go in.

Notice that my scenario admits the possibility that Saddam is dead. (I was one of the first FReepers to argue rather vociferously that he was killed in the first strike of the war.)

But even if the regime is running on auto-pilot, we need to remember that "shock and awe" may still have its place. It just hasn't worked yet. (It hasn't worked at the level of the RG.)

Why not? Why hasn't it worked at the mid-level of the RG? It's because of the residual but fierce terror which still pervades the mid-level officers under the doomed regime. They have examined their odds and made their best calculations for survival. Alas, they have made the wrong calculations. Despite the fact that they have thus far refused to surrender, 60 officers were executed last night by the regime--and replaced with Fedayeen militants.

These poor bastards in the RG keep making fatal mistakes--because they aren't scared enough of us yet.

This terror-wrought stupidity is something we still have to deal with. Still, I think that the civilians are the ones whom we need to terrify the most. (Some people say we shouldn't scare the civilians, but just try to woo them to our side. This is utter nonsense. The dynamics of the situation are those of terror. We need to fight terror with terror.)