I don't believe Iran is a suicide state.
From John Abizaid
And so I think that if the person has the funds, the network, and the equipment to do this, and also the experience, which is the key factor, then they can be quite deadly.
Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.
But all that having been said, you can't, in a city of a million people like Karbala, or 5 million like Baghdad, you can't be in all places at all times.
Being on the run, having to change the way that you do business, being unable to plan in a safe and secure environment, always looking over your shoulder, knowing that some day somebody's going to knock on your door and it's going to be your last.
I think you will see a lot of strains develop in the political process that will result in violence everywhere in the country - but it's controllable, it's workable and it will lead to a much better future for these people.
You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.
I think what actually works best is local-level individual targeting of key leadership nodes.
Everybody needs to understand that I learned Arabic from the United States Army as a second language. I never spoke it at home.
But my Arabic is pretty good. It's good enough to have conversations with people, to understand what they say, to understand what they're feeling.
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