The Anti-Qaeda

Instapundit lead me to this TCS article on combating non-state terrorist groups using a similar distributed organization that holds itself above the law. It really worries me.

We've had such organizations before although never on an international scale. In the US such groups generally referred to themselves as Committees of Vigilance. A good Committee forms to deal with a specific threat, defeats it, and by doing so re-establishes legal order. Then they disband. A bad committee quickly degenerates into just another competing pack of thieves and killers. Vigilance Committees are never good things. But, I would argue, they have sometimes been necessary in the history of the Republic and, as such, have been necessary evils. The creation of a group like an Anti-Qaeda seems like making a similar monster.

That said, I have to wonder if the real lesson of this story and the war in general isn't a little different. To win an insurgent war, a nation must to either be willing to crush them and any related populations or be on the insurgents side. North Vietnam formed the Viet Cong to destabilize the South. Iran is backing Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army. Why don't we start training pro-democratic insurgents in Iran and/or Syria? I'm not seeing a huge downside to it.

UPDATE: From Instapundit on January 4th:

It's been obvious that Iran is behind much of the internecine slaughter in Iraq. I don't understand why we haven't been returning the favor by fomenting insurrection in Iran -- or what made the mullahs so confident that we wouldn't. I continue to wonder if they've managed to deter us from significant action, somehow.

Exactly.