perfidy

Ralph Peters' analysis of the recent clashes and rioting in Iraq is right on the money.

SEVEN American soldiers died in Baghdad on Sunday because we failed to respond to last week's Fallujah attacks. Whatever our motives, we looked weak and indecisive. Additional enemies believed their moment had come.

In the Middle East, appearances are all.

Intelligence personnel are routinely warned to avoid mirror-imaging, assigning our values and psychology to an opponent. Imagining that our enemies think like us has cost us dearly in Iraq. The bill will go still higher.

Combined with the administration's folly of trying to occupy Iraq with too few troops, our notion that patience and persuasion are more effective than displays of power has made the country deadlier for our soldiers, more dangerous for Iraqis and far less likely to achieve internal peace.

Americans value compromise; our enemies view it as weakness. We're reluctant to use force. The terrorists and insurgents read that as cowardice.

When U.S. forces arrive in a troubled country, they create an initial window of fear. It's essential to act decisively while the local population is still disoriented. Each day of delay makes our power seem more hollow. You have to do the dirty work at the start. The price for postponing it comes due with compound interest...

On the day of the ambush and mutilations in Fallujah, we made another inexcusable mistake. The Marines, who expected to control a major city with a single battalion, failed to respond immediately. The generals up above seconded the decision. The chain of command was concerned about possible ambushes and wanted to let the situation burn itself out. The generals in Baghdad proclaimed, in mild voices, that we'd respond at the time and in a manner of our choosing.

In a textbook military sense, it was the correct response. On a practical level, it was the worst possible decision.

We viewed our non-response as disciplined - rejecting instant emotional gratification. But the insurgents, the terrorists and the mob read matters differently: Our failure to send every possible Marine and soldier, along with Paul Bremer's personal bodyguard and a squad of armed janitors, into the streets of Fallujah to impose a draconian clampdown created the impression - not entirely unfounded - that we were scared.

We broke a basic rule: Never show fear. No matter how we may rationalize our inaction, that is what we did.

Instead of demonstrating our strength and resolve, we have encouraged more attacks and further brutality - while global journalists revel in Mogadishu-lite.

Of course, we're not going to flee Iraq as President Bill Clinton ran from Somalia. But our hesitation to respond to atrocities against Americans has renewed our enemies' hope that, if only they kill enough of us, as graphically as possible, they still can triumph over a "godless" superpower.

To possess the strength to do what is necessary, but to refuse to do it, is appeasement. Since Baghdad fell, our occupation has sought to appease our enemies - while slighting our Kurdish allies. Our attempts to find a compromise with a single man - the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani - have empowered him immensely, while encouraging intransigence in others.

Weakness, not strength, emboldens opponents - and creates added terrorist recruits.

We came to Iraq faced with the problems Saddam created. Increasingly, we face problems we ourselves created or compounded.

The cardinal rule is, show mercy after you've won. To do it before makes winning a lot harder.