http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/...ntsvictory.pdf

Cordesman reviews current operations in Baquba and relates them to the overall condition of Iraq.

"...Giving tactical victories lasting meaning requires the following additional elements:

1. Iraqi Army forces must begin to take over meaningful operations without US embeds and US partner units, and dependence on US reinforcement and
support. There does seem to be increasing Iraqi Army capability here, but
Coalition reporting does not provide a useful picture of progress – merely grossly inflated figures on areas of responsibility and total numbers of battalions in the lead.

2. Iraqi police and local security forces must establishing a lasting security
presence in the areas where tactical victories are won, and do so credibly in
ways that give ordinary Iraqis security. There can be no “win” without “hold.”
So far, the US has made claim after claim to have secured cities after winning
tactical battles to control them, and has never actually established lasting security in even one of them. The most critical problem has been the lack of active, combat-capable police, without corruption and sectarian or ethnic ties. Falluja and Samara are only the most obvious cases of such failures.
Coalition reporting so far talks about the number of police posts established. It has not said a word about the ability to provide lasting security using Iraqi police in parts of Baghdad or anywhere else. It also has not talked about the ability to support police efforts with an effective local criminal justice and court system or to screen detainees in ways that do not breed local hostility.
The Coalition also needs to start talking about who actually does provide local
security, and stop treating militias, local security forces, and police hired locally without Coalition training as if they are always hostile or do not exist. In the real world, these forces and not the “trained and equipped” police are the real local security forces in most of Iraq. There has to be a credible plan to use, absorb, or contain them.

3. The Iraqi government must follow-up security with a meaningful presence and by providing steady improvements in services. “Winning hearts and minds”
doesn’t come from public information campaigns and propaganda. It comes from providing real security for ordinary Iraqis, and showing the government cares, is present, and can steadily improve services. Once again, promise after promise has been made in past campaigns, and the central government has not yet shown it can follow up in even a single case. If this is happening even in the “secured” areas of Baghdad, no one has yet said so. How it can happen in Diyala or other high threat areas is unclear.

4. There must also be effective local government. The liberation of various areas often has seen the emergence of local leaders willing to work with the Coalition –although often with little faith in, or ties to, the central government. In most cases, however, they have become targets, and the effort has broken down in local factional disputes or because of a lack of effective government support and problems in Coalition civil affairs efforts. Once again, if there is progress in creating stable, survivable, effective local government; none of the details are clear.

5. There has to be economic aid and progress. Iraqis have to give priority to
physical security and key services, but unemployment, underemployment, and
shut or failed businesses affect some 60% or more of Iraqis nationally and the
figures are even higher in high threat and combat areas. The strategy President Bush announced in January 2007 advanced proposals for accomplishing such an effort in Baghdad. Once again, there has been no meaningful Coalition reporting on broad progress in such efforts in the secured areas of Baghdad, and past promises such aid would be provided in “liberated” cities like Samara and Falluja were not kept.

6. There must be an end to sectarian and ethnic cleansing and displacement.
There is no near and perhaps midterm answer to suicide bombings and atrocities, to attacks on sacred shrines and critical facilities. No mix of security forces can stop even small cadres of extremists from occasional successes. No tactical victory has meaning, however, unless Iraqis can be secure in neighborhoods and areas where they are in the minority, and can reach across ethnic and sectarian lines and barriers in ordinary life.
One of the greatest single failures of the current approach to fighting in Iraq is that it does not track sectarian and ethnic separation and displacement and make ending this on a local and national level at least as important as halting major attacks and killings. It may take years to make Iraqis secure from Islamist extremists and the worst elements of Shi’ite gangs and militias.

There can be no meaningful tactical success, however, unless Iraqis can be safe from their own neighbors and begin to lead ordinary lives in their own neighborhoods..."

As Cordesman indicates, our military operations represent only a component of the overall requirements to stabilize Iraq and make viable its government. As presently conceived, it's fine that 80% of AQI's Diyala leadership has moved on according to Kilcullen, so long as we secure the population remaining behind. I'd agree, in theory. On the ground, again as Cordesman points, there are serious flaws to this concept that largely stem from the Iraqi government and military that raise fundamental questions to eventual success, much less any meaningful near-term progress.

Iraq's challenges are MASSIVELY larger than any over-publicized, under-staffed military operation can reasonably address. I can't help but be convinced that the issues and salvation increasingly reside with the Iraqis, not us. Sadly, with each passing day, Iraqi talent drains away from the nation as divisions only grow deeper among those remaining