There is a single major flaw in the American effort against terror: an over-abundance of mercy. Mercy can be a good thing. Magnanimity towards a defeated foe can assure a lasting peace and a strong sense of charity can win you friends where you had none before. However, the prerogative of mercy can be deemed credible only when it is seen as just one of the alternatives at your disposal. When you are kind because you are afraid of being harsh, your enemies will see you as weak, and rightly so.

Take a look at what went on in Fallujah today. There four American civilians were killed by a mob who then desecrated the bodies while chanting anti-American slogans. Fallujah has been a problem all along. It is, in the words of one Daily Telegraph story, “an extremely pro-Saddam town in a staunchly pro-Saddam area.” It is, in other words, atypical of Iraq as a whole and an excellent candidate to be made an example of.

Some have suggested razing the entire city. I reject this on the simple grounds of practicality: there are 500,000 people there. No more than a few thousand are likely to be members of the active resistance and, even if extreme fighting were to occur during demolition, destroying the town is likely to saddle the Coalition with in excess of 400,000 people to house and care for. Were this a small village, such a proposal might carry more appeal, but it is not. So, what then?

The first step will be to identify some of those responsible. A group of fifty or so will do. How will these be selected? Simple: send a heavily armed convoy into the city and arrest the first fifty or so people who attack or confront the convoy. Then construct a gallows and, under the laws of war, hang them all. Place the city under full martial law and disperse any attempted gathering or demonstration with the use of live ammunition. Evacuate and demolish every structure in the area where the incident occurred.

We focus too much on the fact that Iraqis are Moslems and forget that most of them are Arabs as well and that, in many cases, the latter trumps the former. The Arabs are a practical people and one which respects strength. On the whole they value family and tribal loyalties more than they do religious or national ones. If we really want to hurt them, if we really want to make sure that they get the point, then we should strike at the things they really care about.

A few weeks of a “get tough” campaign and the Iraqis will well understand the fact that you can have no greater friend and no more dangerous enemy than the United States of America. Resistance must have a price. So long as the resistors believe that the United States will only respond within certain definable limits people will be able to observe those limits and judge for themselves the consequences of exceeding them. It is time to exceed those limits ourselves.

In the year since the beginning of the war I have not heard of a single case where an enemy irregular has been executed. Why is this? Per the fine traditions of warfare pirates, spies, and bandits (meaning terrorists and other irregular forces which do not obey the traditional rules of warfare) may be summarily executed upon capture. Certainly such actions would be contrary to both American and International Law at the moment, but I fail to see why that would be a terrible obstacle. American law can be easily changed and international “law” can simply be ignored when it is convenient to do so. After all, it isn’t like our enemies are following the letter or the spirit of the Geneva Convention themselves.

This, of course, would make for great domestic politics as well. In general the public strongly approves of the use of American force, especially against the sort of foe we are fighting. Those who do not approve are all supporters of our domestic enemies, in any case. However, actions of this sort would cause an uproar from the left-wing of the Democratic Party, thereby forcing John Kerry to implicitly defend the murderers of Americans. He should be good at this. He’s had a lot of practice, after all.