This piece from today's New York Times -- Profusion of Rebel Groups Helps Them Survive in Iraq -- is proof positive that political strategists and policy wonks have learned absolutely zilch from the rise of the Internet. Perhaps they should have paid more attention to how Linux could put the Fear of God in Microsoft and how a ragtag bunch of Firefox hackers could seriously threaten Internet Explorer.

...whatever the appearances, American and Iraqi officials agree on the essential structure of the Iraqi insurgency: it is horizontal as opposed to hierarchical, and ad hoc as opposed to unified. They say this central characteristic, similar to that of terrorist organizations in Europe and Asia, is what is making the Iraqi insurgency so difficult to destroy. Attack any single part of it, and the rest carries on largely untouched. It cannot be decapitated, because the insurgency, for the most part, has no head. Only recently, American and Iraqi experts say, have they begun to grasp the new organizational structure that, among other things, is making the insurgency so difficult to stop.

"There is no center of gravity, no leadership, no hierarchy; they are more a constellation than an organization," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corporation. "They have adopted a structure that assures their longevity."

[emphasis mine]