Terrorists know the lingering Western complexes from Vietnam and Mogadishu well. Their strategy is based on their understanding of a timidity that overwhelms judgment after several well-placed terror attacks. For some of the terrorists' targets, that strategy has won a brief victory:

International organisations continued their exodus from Iraq on Thursday, with the United Nations announcing a further cut in its staff following this week's string of car bombings in the capital and stepped up attacks against coalition troops.

On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, medical aid group also said they too were pulling their workers out of Baghdad despite pleas from the US administration to stay.

Terrorists have also used to their advantage the arrogant, self-described magnanimity on which most non-governmental organizations pride themselves. Believing themselves invulnerable to attack, both the United Nations and the Red Cross brushed off and continue to reject military protection:

Red Cross officials said they would take steps to improve security but would not accept protection from the U.S.-led coalition, citing their organization's stance as an independent and neutral humanitarian force.

Apparently, the vaporization of a three thousand-strong independent and neutral pecuniary force two years ago failed to make an impression on NGOs. We repeat: terrorists do not discriminate between civilian and soldier, involved and uninvolved. They'll read actions by the UN and Red Cross as Thank you, may I please have another? The terrorists have struck a blow to at least the bureaucratic West - and provided us all with, by tragic means, the best possible example of why the United Nations has neither the will nor the sense to determinedly bring order to Iraq.

Our boys, on the other hand, won't run. The terrorists' psychological strategies with poor execution tactics in both Iraq and Afghanistan against troops are a fatal mismatch. Faced with American and Allied resolve, the terrorists will be forced to fight a war with conventional values and victory conditions - troop strength and morale, land and resource control. That's a war they can't possibly win.