Shek

Let's 'Surge' Some More - WSJ.com

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

S-2

So if we get this right afterall, doesn't that validate pre-emption and regime change?

Template's there. I'm sure we can do better on the next go-around with a bit of tweaking on the edges .

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

Albany Rifles

With a crowbar and a sledge hammer!

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Ironduke

I just finished up on the section of Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife on British COIN during the Malayan Emergency, a lot of practical lessons to be learned from their experience. I'm glad to see Petraeus using them to good effect.

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astralis

i wonder how possible it is to increase the number of troops in the region- as it is, the army is rather stretched already. i'm pretty sure it would mean a return to 15 month deployments, which bush just got rid of (past aug 2008, IIRC).

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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

dave angel

most things are possible, the greater issue is whether they are sustainable for long enough to work.

i have no doubt that the US could put an extra 100,000 troops in the field by adopting a 'we are at war and you'll stay there until its finished' doctrine (as well as binnng other deployments and hoping that nothing else crops up), the problem that will arise however is whether the people who are currently joining the US Army knowing that they will spend a year in Iraq every three years or so would continue to do so knowing that they might spend the next five years in Iraq.

if you have a volunteer army there is a limit to how hard you can push it, and no amount of cash or political will can stretch that limit.

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before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes.................... then when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

mweber24

You can push a volunteer army as hard as you want, but at some point it will become a conscript army instead, like the British Army in WW1. The US has an unbelievable amount of combat power in reserve, but it is trying to maintain the nature of its volunteer forces while performing challenging, manpower intensive sustained operations. A very challenging task. The ace in the hole that I have seen in the US Army is there is a common appreciation that there is one thing definately worse than a tired Army, and that is a defeated Army.

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ba1025

Where do we get the troops to increase forces in Afghanistan which we need to do as well as increase forces in Iraq again and cut deployment to 12 months next year???????
Since they seem unable to reach a political accord amongst themselves do we stay in Iraq forever? Wasn't Malaki in Iran most of the last 20 years? Why do we think a government run by Iranian sympathizers will be good for us?

I think we were better off with Saddam at least he was secular in rule and he hated Iran. He had no WMD it wasn't a slam dunk. We haven't brought peace and freedom to them have we? Couldn't the billions we have spent in iraq of aided in catching Osama who actually did attack us? What would the millions of refugees say about a statement saying we had brought peace? Dont you think the government in Iraq is a bit too cozy with Iran? is any other nation really good allies of ours and of Iran's...how will that work in the long run?

Whose camp do you think they will be drawn too when we leave. You do want to leave there someday right? How long does liberation take? When does liberation become occupation? If the Iraqi factions cant even agree on oil revenue sharing after a year what chance have they to govern? How many of the benchmarks our President laid out when he announced the implementation of what is a militarily successful surge have the Iraqis met? How come we the people have not been asked to make any sacrifices for this war but instead our children will get the bill? if this is so important isn't it important enough to pay for or?

How come we are supporting people who actually fought with Iran in the Iran/Iraq war when Saddam was our bastard?

How come Iraqis pay $1.30 for gas while the US Military pays over 3 dollars a gallon? Is it the behavior of a state that is committed to aiding us "root" out those well who are we fighting It changes weekly over there. is it Al Quada, Badr brigade, pkk or Mahdi army this week...anyway how come they aren't ponying up if they want us there?
Even the doctrine of pre-emption requires a threat. What real threat did Saddam pose to us? hasn't a destabilized Iraq been more of a threat the last 5 years? Every dictator wishes they had WMDs.

mweber24

I agree that the numbers don't work to ever increase troop strength in Iraq again and reduce tour lengths to 12 months. The 12 month tour length limits forces in Iraq to about 140,000. More troops (perhaps another BCT) could be sent to Afghanistan because the Army is expanding the number of BCTs it has available for deployment. It and the Marine Corps are finally getting bigger, so they can sustain more deployments.

The Iraqi's have come a LONG way toward politcial reconciliation. It is a myth that they have not. They have passed much more important legislation in the past year than the U.S. congress. Provincial elections are planned, deBatthification law passed, their budget passed, etc. The sole remaining major obstacle is the oil revenue sharing bill, but even that is showing new life after Maliki demonstrated to the Kurds and Sunnis that he is willing to fight the Shiite militias in Basra. Not an act of an Iranian sympathizer. He is also supporting efforts to root out Iranian networks in Iraq.

The U.S. will be in Iraq as long as Iraq wants us to be. Think Germany, Japan, and Korea. This would be good for the U.S., but unlikely to occur, since the Iraqi government simply does not want to have us cramp their style and look like they are a puppet. They will kick us out when they are confident that their own security forces can act effectively to preserve the prosperity of the state without U.S. direct aid. It is hard to predict when this will be, but with Iraqi security forces growing past 600,000, and increasing its combat effectiveness, I would say the U.S. will be gone in no more than five years, with most of the focus during that time being developing logisitical systems for the Iraqies.

We were not better off with Saddam. He posed no strategic threat to Iran after Desert Storm, his WMD bluff was to keep Iran from invading him in his permanently weakened state. Never ending U.N. sanction enforcement operations were not a good deal for the U.S. (people forget that Navy and Air Force have been at war with Iraq for 18 years, not just 5).

The ability to find Osama is limited by respect for national sovreignty of Pakistan, not money or troops. More troops would be helpful in Afghanistan NOW that the taliban has reconstituted, but this has only been the case since 2006, and their reconstitution was not pre-ordained.

The Kurds and Shiites of Iraq were virtual slaves to the Sunnis under Sadaam. Now they have a chance to determine their own destiny. A peace with servitude is not an acceptable peace. I have no sympathy for the Sunnis, they supported Sadaam and all his abuses.

Sadaam posed a threat because he had the potential to proliferate WMD to proxy forces who would have no restraint in using them against the US. He had every PROVEN intention of reinstating his WMD programs as soon as he could get away with it. It is folly to think that a dictator who's every dream of conventional conquest has been foiled, who has been at war with the U.S. since 1991, and is sitting upon a wrecked economy, would just passivly sit in his palace and not take measures to threaten the U.S. with proxy forces that had proven so effective on 9/11.

Iraq subsidizes it's gasoline price. It also rations gasoline. How a government spends is money (which almost totally comes from oil sales) is its own business. I WOULD like to see the start of some monetary support from the Iraqi government to offset the cost of US operations in Iraq. Japan pays over half the cost of the US presence in their country, it is reasonable to expect that the government of Iraq start paying some of our costs now that they are flush with cash from oil sales.

It seems like there is a new enemy in Iraq every month because there are SO MANY enemies in Iraq. It is the central front in the battle for the future of the middle east, it is strategically vital ground, so everyone is fighting over it. There was an Iraqi Sunni insurgency (largely defeated), and Al Queda insurgency (formerly allied with the Sunni insurgency, now largely defeated but still capable of killing), Shiite militias (at least two major militias), one under Sadr, supported by the Iranian Qom force of the Republican Guards. The fight has shifted amongst these forces, but the government has survived and increased its power and the US has gotten smarter in how it fights. The Sunnis are now allies against Al Queda, and it looks like the government is finally serious about fighting the militias (not just the US), with the full support of the Kurds and Sunnis who hate the Shiite militias.

The war is not over, but victory in Iraq is possible, with victory being an Iraq capable of providing for its own internal security (it may always require outside guarentees against Iran), a representative, constitutional government, with an expanding economy. It see this in five years.

Zemco

So, you're of the opinion Iraq was incapable of providing for its own internal security before the US invaded?

That's funny, I quite clearly recall numerous rebellions by Kurds and/or Shi'a elements being crushed rather quickly, much more efficiently and quickly than the US has been capable of doing.

The US cannot leave nor will it leave. The Turks can only keep the Kurds under control so long as the US is there, and once the US leaves, the Kurds will declare independence and the Russians will be among the first to recognize their sovereignty and through this new "Kosovo" right back in the face of the hypocrite US. On top of that, Maliki will not be re-elected in 2009 and there will be numerous problems.

JAD_333

Yon's article is heartening and at the same time worrying. He's saying we've come far but we are in danger of faltering near the finish line. Congress, he says, is mired in consideration of past problems. But it is worse than that; we're in an election year and, as it happens, more votes can be won opposing Iraq, or at least criticizing the military's progress, than can be won supporting it and acknowledging the military's successes. Congress is largely the puppet of the people in an election year and the people are mostly for quitting. So, things will be said by politicians now that they do not mean. Not until after November will we see the real lay of the political landscape insofar as Iraq is concerned. Until then Bush will hold the line.

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astralis

yon's article is interesting, but i wonder if more troops in iraq would be better for overall strategic interests than the same amount added to afghanistan.

the next few months of pause/eval will show exactly how the iraqi gov't is using the space given by the surge, and then it will be decision time...