Iraq - 10 things progressives ought to be saying Posted by Suzanne Nossel

While the public has finally woken up to the Administration's disastrous leadership in Iraq, progressives have not been able to seize the upper hand on Iraq policy. They're caught between the belief that an immediate pullout would bring disastrous results (and undercut progressive national security bona fides), and the difficulty of saying how the war can be corrected at this late date.

In the meantime, the debate on drawdown has narrowed, if you put to one side those calling for a complete, immediate withdrawal.  Within the mainstream debate there are those urging that we set a timetable for drawdown and then do everything in our power to stabilize Iraq before then; and those who favor doing everything possible to stabilize Iraq so that we can draw down sooner rather than later (see Dorgan's comments this AM).  The difference of emphasis matters, but not much. Both groups want major troop reductions next year.

Rather than splitting hairs on drawdown, progressives should be clear and forceful where they can be. The Center for American Progress has done a fantastic memo to the President outlining what we're up against in Iraq.  A great follow-up would say what conclusions can be drawn and what ought to happen next.  Here are 10 things the progressives ought to be saying on Iraq.

1.  This Iraq operation was a mistake - The American public needs to hear it from those progressives who haven't yet admitted it. 

2.  The Administration's actions have brought us to this point - Bad intel, poor planning, inadequate international support, and faulty decision-making all played a part; and the Administration's to blame for all of these.  Whether a hypothetical war, done differently, might've gone better is not the issue.  For those who supported the war, the biggest mistake was trusting an arrogant and blinkered Administration to do such a tough job right.  There's no need to apologize for not calling the problem sooner. Progressives have demanded mid-course corrections at every turn.

3.  We'll never win without a strategy, and the Administration doesn't have one - The Iraq operation has been lurching without direction for months, and none of Bush's public statements have come close to filling the gap.

4.      Any strategy needs to start by facing the facts on the ground - The Administration is in deep denial, and the public is growing uneasy about it.  Acknowledging the strength of the insurgency, the failure to achieve a constitution that enjoys Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish support, and the toll the effort is taking on American troops will not come off as defeatist, since even the most casual observer is painfully aware of all of these.

5.      Any strategy will end with American withdrawal - We never intended to be in Iraq forever, so there's no shame thinking about how and when our men and women come home.  The difficulties we're facing and the absence of an Administration strategy make the question more pressing. 

6.     Our objective is pure and simple: to leave Iraq stable - Security and stability are the main concerns of Iraqis, and the leading U.S. interests when it comes to Iraq's future. They are also prerequisites for liberty and democracy. But rather than utopian visions of Iraqi freedom, our focus is on the precondition for US withdrawal, and that's stability -- meaning a weakening of the insurgency; law and order; a functioning Iraqi authority and a stable dynamic between Iraq's major political forces.

7.      We need to quickly determine how to achieve success - Right now we don't know if the war is winnable.  We should take a finite amount of time -- say through the end of 2005 -- to figure that out.  Doing so should entail the following:

- - a coherent counter-insurgency strategy -  Yet another major lapse in the Administration's conduct of the war has emerged publicly in recent days:  we have no counter-insurgency strategy and the most basic lessons of major past insurgency battles, like Vietnam, aren't being heeded.  A variety of proposals have been forward for counter-insurgency approaches.  The Administration needs to adopt one and fast so that by December we can judge whether its gaining traction or not.

- - an independent audit of the training effort - it's hard to get straight facts on how the training of Iraqi troops is going (estimates of capable Iraqi troops range from 2,500 to 21,000).  Without accurate information, it's impossible to know whether we stand a chance of turning Iraq over to homegrown security forces.  The audit (by the Government Accountability Office or another qualified body) should focus on four questions:  1)  how many Iraqi troops are now capable of keeping the peace and fighting the insurgency?  2) how many more do we need so that the US military is no longer the only thing between Iraq and full-on civil war?  3) how long will it take to get to that number? and 4) what - meaning tactics, resources, equipment - will make it happen faster and more reliably?   The audit should be done by October 30 so that we can judge by late December whether the results are being put into practice.

- - direct engagement of Iraq's neighbors - Iraq's neighbors will play a key part in what happens once we leave.  As Wesley Clark and others have suggested, we ought to be talking to them now about political and economic relationships with Iraq, and about the insurgency.  Even if we get the cold shoulder, we'll at least know we can't count on them.

- - a strict border control regime - This is essential in every scenario, to keep Iraq from being both a magnet and a source of insurgents. Lighting, night-vision equipment, weapons detection equipment and radars are all part of the package, as are cooperation with Iraq's neighbors and ample trained personnel. 

- - expedited reconstruction projects - According to CAP, only $9 of the $24 billion allocated by Congress for reconstruction projects for FY 2003-2205 has been spent.  Security is an impediment, but if our goal is to be out sooner, the pace of reconstruction needs to be stepped up, even if the cost of projects gets inflated due to the need for extra protection.   The Administration should be charged with devising a list of reconstruction projects that deserve priority because they can play a role in getting us out sooner.

8.  Progress on each of these points should be reported monthly - If there's no significant headway being made by year's end once the next round of Iraqi national elections take place, withdrawal timetables may deserve the center stage some are giving them now.

9.  Meanwhile, we need to do a better job supporting our troops and veterans - When it comes to benefits, equipment, schedules, etc.

10.  And keep leveling with the American public - Since the Administration seems bent on keeping the truth from the public, progressives can play a key role making sure the debate is well-informed, and that the public stays engaged.

Comments

[David Edson]

Yes, they should. My next question: why don't they? what are they afraid of? and why don't you just use the word Democrats?

[Dan Kervick]

1. Life

2. Isn't a bowl

3. Of bullet points.

4. Stop making lists

-- Of the obvious,

-- And the vacuous,

5. And start

6. Thinking.

7. We need real

8. ideas - not another

9. Vapid Executive Summary.

10. Seriously.

[Azael]

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

[David Billington]

It is another unfortunate irony of this war that the proper military strategy (outlined by Andrew Krepinevich in the current Foreign Affairs) is about to gain general acceptance just after it may be too late to work.

Counterinsurgency can only be meaningful if it establishes the control of a government over an insurgent area. The leaders of the people we are training (mainly Shias) seem to want only to control their own territory, not the Sunni triangle.

[my cat]

I think it was DIgby that made the point that it doesn't matter what position the progressives/Democrats take (as long is it isn't pullout right now) since our plan will not be adopted or tested. He thinks we should all get behind Clark's plan, not because it would work, but because by so doing we would be able to campaign on an I-told-you-so-you-should-have -listened to me basis against the Republican candidate in 08.
I think the one point upon which we should all unite is to punish those politicians who still think the invasion was a good idea.

[doc]

"It is another unfortunate irony of this war that the proper military strategy (outlined by Andrew Krepinevich in the current Foreign Affairs) is about to gain general acceptance just after it may be too late to work."

...nothing ironic about it - try criminal: Krepinevich's original treatise on counter insurgeny ( the basis of the FA article - was published in the mid 80s; it's been publicly suggested as a tatic by several staff officers since 2003, as well as it has been publicly abooted about by the media for as long. all to no avail.

...regarding tyhe post itself - i've been waiting for over a year for a dem to stand up - so far hart has been the lone voice. perhaps i should not credit that overly much as he has nothing to lose.

...but if you think about that last sentence, it does not speak well of every other dem.

[doc]

...in fact, speaking of the dems, here's their latest stance (2nd article down the page...).

[Cal]

Whether a hypothetical war, done differently, might've gone better is not the issue.

Maybe it's irrelevant to this post, but I hope the liberal hawks will re-think their strategy at some point, and not just put all the blame on Bush, as Michael Signer tried to do the other day.

This war was stupid from the get-go. The State Dep't and the CIA said so. Much of our on the ground intelligence dated from 1918, and even if it had been better, nobody could know for sure how important players like Sistani would behave. How many hawks had even heard of Sistani before the war?

Nobody's calling for a public rending of garments, but it's clear that the elites of both parties have to broaden the mainstream debate if they're going to make better decisions.

[Dan Kervick]

The Krepinevich article is all the rage inside coulda', shoulda' woulda' circles, but I think there is reason to be skeptical about his plan.

History is wonderful. And I would certainly agree that among the many failures of those charged with executing this war is a lack of historical perspective. But every war is different, and presents a unique combination of challenges. I'm not sure the Malay emergency, with its jungle-based communist rebels, is the best analogy for Iraq, with its chaotic profusion of town-based groups and competing agendas, and its penchant for suicide bombs and IEDs.

An interesting dynamic should emerge soon in Iraq. Among the many ways in which Sunni Arabs are divided, one is this: some seem determined to reject the constitution at the polls in October, by producing a 2/3 no vote in at least three (Sunni Arab dominated) provinces. Others seem convinced that any participation at all in the US-established political process, even to reject a US-sponsored constitution, is a traitorous legitimation of that process.

Soon these groups will be fighting each other. But the prospect of a political mobilization to defeat the constitiution, defeat the Shiites, defeat the Kurds and defeat US political efforts, could provide a unifying agenda for many Sunni Arabs. And in order to defeat the constitution at the polls, they will have to create the conditions in which a successful plebiscite can be held.

This might help local religious and tribal leaders build the power base they need to pacify their own communities and seize control of the resistance from the more militant and uncompromising mujahedeen. And it might put the US in the awkward position of supporting, quietly and from a distance, the political efforts of groups organized to defeat the constitution we helped write.

If such a movement grows, that is a good thing. At this point, anything that channels poilitical energies and organizing efforts into something resembling normal politics, and away from warfare, would be welcome. A way needs to be found for people to oppose the US, and express that opposition in a way which is not merely symbolic, but poilitically powerful, without pushing the country further into violence. If some powerful political movement grows whose double-edged slogan is "Say NO to US occupation and imperialism! Say NO to violence!", that would be a relief.

[Dan Kervick]

Sorry about the extended link. Hope this turns it off.

[J Thomas]

1. Whatever you say about the war, Bush has made it clear he won't listen. And by January 2009 most of the uncertainties will have clarified. So if we want to argue about it, what we're really arguing about is what is the best way to impeach Bush/Cheney.

2. It doesn't matter at this point whether the war was originally a mistake, except for the goals of impeaching Bush/Cheney and replacing legislators who supported them. Even if the war had originally been a brilliant idea but unknowable factors meshed together to put us where we are now, still this is where we are.

3. There might be a strategy in place now. There might be. If so, it is a strategy that must not be revealed to the US public or the world. Can it win? Maybe. Insurgencies have been beaten before. The english in ireland. The chinese in tibet. Etc. The general rule though is that a local government which needs foreign troops equaling 1% of the population to stop an insurgency, is unlikely to win.

4. We don't have facts on the ground to face. Our military naturally collects facts that are useful to its short-term military goals. Our civilians don't collect facts, they collect stories that people outside the Green Zone tell them. We are the blind giant who flails around helplessly and accidentally steps on the wrong villages. So for example we don't know how strong "the insurgency" is. It isn't strong enough to face us directly. It's hard to tell much about "the insurgency". How much is it organised gangs who attack police because they know a strong police force would attack them? How much is it militias associated with iraqi politicians, who try to kill rival politicians? How much is it covert operations by other nations, trying to incite mutual shia/sunni hatred? How much is it iraqi-government death squads killing iraqis? We don't know much about the insurgents who get away.

It's like we take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle, and on one side we list the iraqis we hear about who attack us or each other, and we label them all insurgents. And on the other side we list the iraqis we kill and we label them all insurgents too. When that's how we think about the insurgency, the obvious way to keep score is by comparing the numbers of "insurgent" actions versus dead "insurgents"....

5. This time last year a lot of people were arguing that while we have no imperial designs on iraq at all, of course not, still we will never leave. We still have bases in germany and japan don't we? Germany and japan are sovereign states with US bases in them. For the next 50 years Iraq will be a sovereign state with american bases -- bases we need to do airstrikes on other bad nations in the area.

It was not diplomatic to say we intended never to leave iraq, so the government didn't say it. In a rare burst of honesty, when Bush was given the opportunity to tell the iraqis that he didn't intend US troops to stay in iraq forever he declined. We have no consensus about staying in iraq. How about bases with big kill-zones around them, right next to the oil. Protect the oil. I'd like that myself if we could do it for free, without wasting troops, and without getting the iraqis mad at us.

It might help to say we intend to leave. But it might hurt, too. They might not believe us. And they might think the fact we were forced to make that concession, that lie, shows that we're losing. Now, if we were a superpower we wouldn't care what they thought. We could announce our plans ahead of time, and let them watch us carry them out, and there wouldn't be anything anybody could do about it. But in reality, we have to fake out the enemy. If they hear the truth about us they would get so confident that they'd go out and win. So we must be careful never to do anything that looks weak to them, no matter how stupid it is for us not to.

6. Leave iraq stable. What a great slogan! Here's how we were doing that in 2003. We sent democracy-building teams around to get elections in cities and towns. People were electing local representatives to work out garbage collection and such. It was working pretty well. Elected officials responsible to the voters. There was some question about collecting local taxes versus spending funds handed them by the central government, but the point was that these were people who were establishing a following. The next step would be for them to start campaigning larger, to have regional elections. Each elected politician would speak for his people -- including their militias. He could try to balance the needs of the different local militias and try to get them focused on protecting the community from outsiders instead of shooting each other.

But there were problems -- Bremer didn't want local people, he wanted to appoint leaders who spoke english. And he had no interest in regional elections either. And then when he got the violence going with al Sadr, all of a sudden the democracy teams couldn't stay in iraq except where there were US troops to protect them, so they left iraq. And now our democracy efforts consist mostly of guarding the occasional election, and guarding the iraqi Assembly in the Green Zone.

7. We don't need a plan for success starting now. There is zero chance that such a plan will be followed. We need a plan for January 2009. But we can't possibly make a plan now for 2009. So repeating point 1 above, the plan that matters at the moment is the plan to impeach Bush/Cheney. That is the first order of business. Once their removal from office looks very likely, *then* is the time to think about strategies for iraq

[Rob]

1. This Iraq operation was a mistake.

"Was" being the key word here. We broke it we own it, and we cannot leave it. Sorry.

2. Bush bad.

If all you feel that's required to make this situation better, is for Bush to confess. I have a bridge to sell you.
Bush is a primo ballerina who has pirroetted a very tricky dance, far better than any of us give him credit for. He needs to keep a story going on a daily basis that requires our continued presence in Iraq. On that score, he's been doing quite well don't you think? We have 130 thousand some odd troops right where the oil is. True he's acrook, and the oil companies are being lavished upon. But I feel alot of people consider that "guilt" money.

3. We'll never win without a strategy, and the Administration doesn't have one.

Oh yes they do. Winning equals permanent bases in Iraq and protection money in the form of discount oil.

4. Impending civil war....

And Bush has done a lovely job convincing anyone that he cares about anything else in Iraq other than oil. If a civil war breaks out, watch for the arms sales to start happening again. The important thing is that the oil flows. For evidence I point to Bush celebrating the advancement of a constitution that signs off Iraqi women and the Sunni population.

5. Any strategy will end with American withdrawal.

No.

Strategy 1.
Excellent discount oil. (Incredibly unlikely without our continued presence)
Strategy 2.
Complete removal of all Iraqi Oil.
Strategy 3.
U.S. removes its dependancy on Oil.

6. Our objective is pure and simple: to leave Iraq stable.

Short term?

Again no.

Unless we can legitamize our presence there, our objective is to encourage an unstable atmosphere, where our troops will constantly be needed.

In the long run, we can leave a stable Iraq, only when the value of oil is reduced by 99% of its present value.

7. We need to quickly determine how to achieve success

I agree in principle , and in a Truman Commission to remove the fat, and the thug.

I'd also suggest we start taxing recreational gas use heavily. We need to smack America off of SUVs.
I feel we need a national network of MagLev Trains. As fast as we can lay down the track.

We need to start construction of Pebble Bed Nuclear reactors. And we need to feed the remainder of the grid with solar and wind. Not gas, oil, or coal.

Lastly, we need to increase investment in mass drivers, quencher cannons, and room temprature superconductivity.

Only by making oil obsolete, can we stabilize any nation that has an abundance of such a resouce on their land.

8. Progress on each of these points should be reported monthly.

If not daily. Press should keep us informed, not distracted. I don't care what the Olsen twins are up to.

9. Meanwhile, we need to do a better job supporting our troops and veterans - When it comes to benefits, equipment, schedules, etc.

Blood flow does play into the destability. Keep arguing your points, but Bush is dancing quite well in Iraq. Concentrate your push for correction in fat trimming from funding. There should be no way possible for money earmarked for Iraq to wind up in Delay's legal fund as an example.

10. And keep leveling with the American public.

Leveling starts with yourself. Do you really need to drive to work? Is there adequate public transportation? Can I bike to my destination? Start seeing where you can reduce your dependancy on fossil fuels. Then get your neighbors to follow suit.

Hate to keep arguing with you Susan, but with premium at 3.24 this weekend. I stll feel you are missing the 5000 lb elephant.

[Martin Lindyck]

Dan Kervick criticizes this format as a list of the obvious and vaccuous. I politely disagree. The Democrats are confused, and when you're that flummoxed there's nothing wrong with sitting down and listing out some simple points on a piece of paper.

I have not heard the idea of simply going out and doing an objective audit of the status of the training effort. It seems obvious, in a sense, but also like something that ought to be acted on quickly.

I also think the points, particularly those under number 6, offer a set of solid steps that can be done without prejudicing whether the answer is withdrawal. This list is a lot better than nothing.

[David Billington]

Dan,

The five principles and four stages of counter-insurgency that Sir Robert Thompson identified in his 1966 textbook have never been followed in Iraq and they do not require the special circumstances that existed in Malaya. But since it is either too late to follow them now, or unlikely that America will make the effort to do so, they are probably moot points.

A plebiscite could strengthen tribal leaders in the Sunni triangle as you suggest. But I think your idea assumes that of the three sources of insurgency: the Sunni tribes, ex-Baathists, and jihadists; the tribal leaders are to some extent restrained by at least one of the other two groups. Since the tribes supply nearly all of the footsoldiers of the insurgency, I don't think this can be true. Any tribes that want to vote against the constitution may find themselves at war with other tribes that want to boycott the whole process. But that will not strengthen moderates in general against radicals.

It is even harder to see how unifying the Sunni Arabs to defeat the constitution will improve the prospects of non-violence if the Shias and Kurds maintain their present positions. If anything, Sunni rejection at the polls will convince the Shias and Kurds that the Sunni Arab population and not just the Sunni elites are irreconcilable.

Instead of putting a bad constitution to a vote that could sink what remains of Iraqi nationhood, the present interim constitution should have been extended for five years once the depth of inter-group differences became clear. The real question is whether the Sunni opposition to federalism is smokescreen for opposing a unitary state that Sunnis can no longer dominate. The proper way to test this is to preserve the interim constitution and then see if the Sunni Arabs are willing to support the national army and police that a unitary state logically implies. They can't be in favor of a unitary state but against the forces necessary for such a state to exercise effective jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, it may be too late to return to the interim constitution. The Shias and Kurds want to move on and it doesn't look like we will stand in the way.

[libertarian soldier]

The GAO could certainly audit the cost of the training effort, but has no expertise in auditing the effectiveness of it (who, if not the US military conducting the training, can tell them how many "trained" personnel there are, in each of the categories).
A strict border control regime? Come on, we can't even do that here--all the drugs and illegal immigrants aren't teleporting in--so how useful is it to call for one in Iraq?
Counter-insurgency strategy? It is seems clear to me thatthe coalition forces are already implementing it and have been for some time--the big oil spots are the north and the south of the country. As for its effectiveness--it or any other only has a marginal chance for success on military terms as the ability to identify the insurgents or interdict their movements and isolate them verges on the impossible. Except for some of the jihadists, they look like the non-insurgents, talk like the non-insurgents and live with the non-insurgents.

[Dan Kervick]

David,

I've been reading Frank Pelli's Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, And The Marines In Vietnam online. It is available here
Pelli discusses Thompson and his counter-insurgency techniques in this work. But I have to say that the style of warfare that Thompson is concerned with, insurgent guerilla warfare conducted according to Maoist principles, still strikes me as quite different, in very significant ways, from the type of fighting we see in Iraq. Despite that, it seems to me that the US certainly has attempted to counter the Sunni Arab insurgency with something very much like the tactics Thompson recommends.

Here is one key passage from Pelli:

"He [Thompson] emphasizes the need to isolate the entire insurgent organization (political and guerrilla) from the population. Also, the guerrillas must be separated from their own political infrastructure. The political infrastructure, he says, must maintain contact with the people in order to secure supplies, intelligence and new recruits. Once separated the political insurgents will be forced to expose themselves in an effort to reestablish contact with the population. When this occurs the police should be prepared to arrest or kill those insurgents they can identify. In turn, the guerrillas must be separated from the political infrastructure. This is where they get their support. Also, as the infrastructure begins to lose personnel the guerrillas will be forced to provide replacements within the infrastructure. Guerrillas will also be forced to attempt to make contact with the population for support. So, they too will be forced to expose themselves to make contact, resulting in open combat with government forces. Once contact is prevented, Thompson explains, the guerrillas will be forced away from populated areas and will break down into smaller units in order to survive because of
the paucity of support."

Despite the revolutionary nature of Mao's style of warfare, there was still something conventional about it in comparison to the situation prevailing in the Sunni Arab parts of Iraq. Here are some of the characteristics of Maoist guerilla warfare:

1. There is an insurgent organization - a unified group with a clear political agenda, and a military strategy tailored to achieving that agenda;

2. That organization has both a military and a political/social arm;

3. The political arm occupies the cities, towns and villages. The function of the political arm in the cities is to provide support: intelligence, food, clothing, money.

4.The military arm consists of organized, but decentralized mmilitary or para-military units, that come out of the mountains, or the jungle, attack vulnerable government forces in quick hit-and-run strikes, and then return to their hideouts outside the towns.

5. The "rebels" are still an army; they sometimes wear uniforms; they have commanders: generals, captains, and lietenants. And they generally live apart from the populations. Even when they are living with the townspeople, they do so only temporarily to hide. They then leave those towns to join their units for raids.

Because of these characteristics, it is easier to see how one could accomplish Thompson's main goals of isolation: Isolation of the the whole insurgent organization from the rest of the population, and isolation of the military arm of the insurgency from the political arm.

Maoist fighters still had to play hide and seek. They had to swoop in unsuspected on opposition units and then run away. They could not operate in plain view. They did not just walk up to their enemies and blow themselves up. They did not plant IED's in plain view of hundreds of people who apparently see the devices being planted but do not report them. They generally did not go home at night to their mothers and fathers and sleep in their own beds; they did not hide their guns in closets in their parents' houses and in bunkers all over the town. The Iraqi fightings is a style of fighting that is completely contained within the towns. It is something Mao did not envisage. With this style of fighting, it is almost impossible to separate the "military" and "political" wings of the insurgency - it is all one. Nor is it at all clear how one separates the "insurgent organization" from the rest of the population. For one thing, there may not be much of an insurgent organization, just a bunch of people who are all keen on attacking American soldiers and government officials. But there is also no clear distinction between insurgents and non-insurgents. In a situation in which town-based resistence has the broad appeal it apparently has in Central Iraq, the only difference between an insurgent and a non-insurgent is that the latter is a person who has not killed any US soldiers or Iraqi policemen - yet.

Yet the US does seem to have countered the Sunni Arab insurgency with something like Thompson's techniques. Reports on US activities are spotty, since reporters have trouble getting out and observing them. But the details do leak out from time to time. We know that US soldiers have gone house to house, looking for suspicious young men with weapons. They have been prepared to kill or arrest them, shooting some on the premises, and hauling off thousands of others to prison. They have tried offering money and other kinds of aid to prominent leaders. They have established draconian security measures of the kind Thompson recommends in places like Fallujah.

The style of fighting we see in Iraq is of a relatively new kind - newer than Mao - made possible by the dawn of the suicide bomber.

[Rob]

re post from upstream..

1. This Iraq operation was a mistake.

"Was" being the key word here. We broke it we own it, and we cannot leave it. Sorry.

2. Bush bad.

If all you feel that's required to make this situation better, is for Bush to confess. I have a bridge to sell you.
Bush is a primo ballerina who has pirroetted a very tricky dance, far better than any of us give him credit for. He needs to keep a story going on a daily basis that requires our continued presence in Iraq. On that score, he's been doing quite well don't you think? We have 130 thousand some odd troops right where the oil is. True he's acrook, and the oil companies are being lavished upon. But I feel alot of people consider that "guilt" money.

3. We'll never win without a strategy, and the Administration doesn't have one.

Oh yes they do. Winning equals permanent bases in Iraq and protection money in the form of discount oil.

4. Impending civil war....

And Bush has done a lovely job convincing anyone that he cares about anything else in Iraq other than oil. If a civil war breaks out, watch for the arms sales to start happening again. The important thing is that the oil flows. For evidence I point to Bush celebrating the advancement of a constitution that signs off Iraqi women and the Sunni population.

5. Any strategy will end with American withdrawal.

No.

Strategy 1.
Excellent discount oil. (Incredibly unlikely without our continued presence)
Strategy 2.
Complete removal of all Iraqi Oil.
Strategy 3.
U.S. removes its dependancy on Oil.

6. Our objective is pure and simple: to leave Iraq stable.

Short term?

Again no.

Unless we can legitamize our presence there, our objective is to encourage an unstable atmosphere, where our troops will constantly be needed.

In the long run, we can leave a stable Iraq, only when the value of oil is reduced by 99% of its present value.

7. We need to quickly determine how to achieve success

I agree in principle , and in a Truman Commission to remove the fat, and the thug.

I'd also suggest we start taxing recreational gas use heavily. We need to smack America off of SUVs.
I feel we need a national network of MagLev Trains. As fast as we can lay down the track.

We need to start construction of Pebble Bed Nuclear reactors. And we need to feed the remainder of the grid with solar and wind. Not gas, oil, or coal.

Lastly, we need to increase investment in mass drivers, quencher cannons, and room temprature superconductivity.

Only by making oil obsolete, can we stabilize any nation that has an abundance of such a resouce on their land.

8. Progress on each of these points should be reported monthly.

If not daily. Press should keep us informed, not distracted. I don't care what the Olsen twins are up to.

9. Meanwhile, we need to do a better job supporting our troops and veterans - When it comes to benefits, equipment, schedules, etc.

Blood flow does play into the destability. Keep arguing your points, but Bush is dancing quite well in Iraq. Concentrate your push for correction in fat trimming from funding. There should be no way possible for money earmarked for Iraq to wind up in Delay's legal fund as an example.

10. And keep leveling with the American public.

Leveling starts with yourself. Do you really need to drive to work? Is there adequate public transportation? Can I bike to my destination? Start seeing where you can reduce your dependancy on fossil fuels. Then get your neighbors to follow suit.

Hate to keep arguing with you Susan, but with premium at 3.24 this weekend. I stll feel you are missing the 5000 lb elephant.

[David Billington]

Dan,

Before addressing your points I should note that Krepinevich's analysis of Vietnam needs to be seen in conjunction with the view of Harry Summers, who concluded that the United States should have extended the DMZ to the Mekong river, fortified the resulting line, and defended it. Krepinevich and Summers are usually cited as if they stood for opposing views on how the war in Vietnam might have been won but in fact their views were complementary. For an overview of the debate between them if you are interested, see here:

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/jfq1903.pdf

Counterinsurgency has an external as well as internal dimension. If the intention is to win, then both must be dealt with.

To your points now. The multitude of insurgent and criminal groups, the lack of central organization, and the fact that the insurgents are urban do represent a different set of conditions compared to Malaya. But the difference boils down to the fact that in Malaya the insurgents were full-time, whereas in Iraq the insurgents are mostly part-time. Instead of needing friendly civilians to destroy the insurgent support organization as in Malaya, counterinsurgency in Iraq needs friendly civilians to turn in the insurgents themselves.

The first two stages of counter-insurgency urged by Thompson are to clear and hold territory. Clearing means chasing any full-time insurgents away or forcing them underground. Most of the places we have cleared we have not held. Those we continue to hold (eg. Fallujah) are not being held according to Thompson's principle of using local police to do the holding with troops only as backup.

The second stage also requires isolating the insurgent (and here I would depart from Thompson and refer to the insurgent as an individual and not as an organization). For isolation of the insurgent to succeed, two conditions must be met: (a) the population must be provided with a level of permanent security so that bad guys can be turned in by their neighbors, and (b) the neighbors must identify sufficiently with the government to be motivated to turn the bad guys in. The last condition is obviously the key. (But we cannot conclude that (b) is a failure if we haven't achieved (a).)

The disaster of the last several weeks has been the deadlock in the political process to establish a government with which the Sunni Arabs can identify. If the Sunni population as a whole is alienated from the political order, then counterinsurgency (at least by our rules) will not succeed.

There does seem to be some dissension among Sunnis over whether to oppose the constitution now or let it go through and try to amend it later or make the best of things through whatever central government emerges. I do think you make a good point that a nonviolent campaign by Sunnis to vote (one way or the other) could be a stabilizing event. But this would be much more true if the vote was the December election and not the October referendum. Sunni rejection of the constitution in October will harden the positions of all three groups, which is why I would have deferred a permanent constitution for several years. If the Shias now go ahead with a separate sub-state, it will not be possible to reverse it later by constitutional amendment, and I do not see how a truly national army and police can function.

There are a lot of imponderables here and it is not impossible that the three groups could reach agreement by October. But the American people will not support a continuing military commitment unless the strategy on the ground changes, and that cannot happen unless the political deadlock is broken.

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