Fallback strategy for Iraq: train locals, draw down forces

I see where you're coming from, and I agree with the gist of your reasoning. I think here is where I see it a little differently.

If this was a classical insurgency your plan which was also Abizaid's plan would work.

For one, Abizaid, Casey and the rest never gave more than lip service to a SOF foreign internal defense option. The love using top tier SOF as a laser to burn out individual terrorist leaders, but this tactic doesn't reduce their numbers faster than they can regenerate. It's a top down, thunderbolt-from-on-high method that some parts of the Pentagon enjoy, but fails to stop the problem.

The reason that this isn't working is that the Sunni communities themselves have yet to be co-opted. The communities are the enemy centers of gravity, not the terror cells themselves. Some of the big tribes will change sides, or say they do, but they're still politically adrift, and are not solving the problem.

The best way to stop this phenomenon is to treat the Sunni resistance like a classical insurgency, because in the end, they still are. (The Shia can be kept in line politically and conventionally, in the interim) Lower tier SOF is still the only real tool we have to subvert the communities an insurgency needs, but they need to be able to work like they were trained, and like their doctrine requires.

Big Army is in the way of that, because they see SOF as a sideshow, and won't relinquish control until forced to. They need to be forced, before politics at home stops the show. If we need troops to hold back the Shia, they should be redeployed out of Sunni areas to that end.

Thanks to Zarqawi's strategy which al-Qaeda in Iraq is using to this day that strategy will simply result in a real civil war in Iraq. We need our troops there to hold back the Shia from being prevoked by al-Qaeda incredible outrages.

Again, it's a vicious cycle that we need to break. The reason that there are Sunni outrages on the Shia are because we're not fighting the Sunni correctly. We've let the situation get out of control because of the conventional military mentality that doesn't understand who the enemy is or why they fight. Either we change that mentality, or we'll lose the war politically at home, and be forced to withdraw. We only get so many do-overs with the American public, and the Shia, before they decide that we just can't get the job done.

Surge notwithstanding, there is no conventional solution to Iraq. Either we neutralize the Sunni insurgency's support in the Sunni communities, or we're just forstalling the inevitible civil war. We have to take a risk on another option, because what we're doing isn't politically viable for much longer, either at home or in Iraq. It's checkmate in 5 moves for us, unless we show that we're capable of doing a more-of-the-same surge.

I understand the counter insurgency aspect.

But, most importantly what needs to be done is for an Iraqi Army to be built (IMHO it needs to be around 350,000 strong) that can prevent militias like the Medhi Army from ethnically cleansing large parts of Baghdad.

Right now we are the stop gap measure until we have Iraqi troops to fill in those bases we are setting up around Baghdad.

We need to massively increase the speed of training Iraqi troops and standing up battalions. In my view this is a race to get enough Iraqi troops in enough bases around Baghdad over the next year to civil war proof the capital for US withdrawls.

That's exactly right. Media kept redefining the "winning" and "losing" and even "war in Iraq" from the "Mission accomplished" time.

"Looting", "violence", "insurgents" and other words and phrases have been used to show that we are "losing in Iraq". When I ask someone who says "we are losing in Iraq", why he thinks that he invariably says "violence". What would "winning in Iraq" mean? Who are we "at war with in Iraq"? They don't have the answers, because they don't remember what the mission was originally (except "there were no WMDs") and what the mission evolved into - a mousetrap for al-Qaeda in Iraq, because they can't "lose" it.

If one doesn't know what the "winning" and "losing" is, and which "war" we're in and who the enemy is, how would one understand what we're doing there? How would one recognize winning or losing, if the terms have been so redefined?

Whoever wrote the article probably didn't even recognize that the strategy of restructuring and rebuilding Iraqi military and police so they can defend the country and also help us in killing and capturing and getting precious intel from al-Qaeda which must pour whatever limited resources they have into this one place to "defend" Iraq (the last aspect is not dissimilar to Reagan's successful strategy of militarily "outspending" communist Soviet Union) was executed from the beginning, despite Rumsfeld and Bush constantly repeating it. Most of our intel about al-Qaeda and Iran now comes through military in Iraq and DIA, not CIA.

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