S-2

"...a timetable should be set and kept to. however, a force of around 50K-75K is sustainable over some period of time...it will allow our troops to concentrate on defeating al-qaeda, deter turkish adventurism, and if positioned away from the cities, give us a good base for wielding a stick versus iran."

Sustainable? Logistically? Of course. Nationally? At what cost and to what end? I support our forces continuing to exploit our current successes at the local level as completely as possible. We've got momentum here and it deserves continuance. But the horizontal successes we'll likely achieve don't create conditions that necessarily foster reconciled communities. That said, establishing baseline security takes precedence and, to date, our new approach has proved the only effective solution. Still, if effectively pursued, there'll come a time where we'll have reached the natural limits of success. What then, if so? What then if we're stymied, as our continued success itself is not assured?

Are you really worried about turkish "adventurism"? I see their issues with the PKK as legitimate and a severe test of KRG maturity. 3,000 PKK guerrillas appear intractable to the Kurds? Let them suffer the consequences of not even trying.

Do we accrue significant strategic advantage with Iran by having 75,000 troops tied to a time-line along their border? That constitutes about one reinforced corps. How would they threaten Iran in any case without crossing the border as an invasion? If so, there are a veritable bevy of questions that stem from that supposition.

In short, the threat of invasion by their presence must be credible in objective and means. Is it?

AQI in Iraq doesn't, by itself, require the commitment of 75,000 U.S. ground troops for any period of time. I probably can't be convinced that AQI represents a viable direct threat to the United States. Frankly, I can't be convinced that they represent more than a wild-card who's cachet of local credibility is nil.

It's a huge commitment of forces for marginal gain beyond our current objectives. Those are limited objectives based upon realities down on the deck. I believe that we're fast approaching the end of our useful purpose. After that, without a breakthrough to a nat'l reconciliation, we're targets sheparding three nations to a partition from one another.

It'll be an unmitigated goat-screw. Even in Kurdistan.

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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski