Lessons for Israel from the American War on al-Qaeda

In 2005, H.R. McMaster led U.S. troops in a successful campaign to drive jihadists out of the Iraqi city of Tel Afar in what became a model urban counterinsurgency mission. The circumstances of the battle, as McMaster notes in this conversation with John Spencer, bear many similarities to those faced by the IDF in Gaza, with a notable exception: Israel seems unable to remove the civilian population from the areas it wishes to attack, in large part because of international pressure. Spencer, it’s worth noting, recently remarked that Israel’s reported plan to seize control of the entire Strip is “long overdue.” (Audio, 44 minutes. A discussion of Gaza can be found at 27:44.)