And it only took 3 weeks to win Iraq.
We might have gone in with more troops. It may well have been different, but I don't think it necessarily would have been better. More boots on the ground in a counterinsurgency also means more targets.
It's not unfair at all to suggest that the surge worked when it happened, but had it happened early and in more force that the Iraqi people would not have been as ready to turn the corner and take sides *with* us rather than not. It was the change that happened in the hearts and minds that changed things on the ground. It wasn't merely the extra troops, it was the commitment that the surge demonstrated, that showed they could trust us not to leave them to the wolves.
IMHO.
Notice that I said we’ve been at the LOW INTENSITY side of this for 5 years. We were at WWII for only the 4 years. There was no lingering low-intensity conflict going on being the Germans or the Japanese. They each unconditionally surrendered.
There is every reason to think that 100,000 more boots on the ground would have prevented the insurgency from getting off the ground. For one, the experienced military commanders BEFORE THE WAR, who had no political ax to grind at that time, said so.
I’ve taken a lot of grief over the years for standing up for Shinseki, but he was a good general, and his ideas prevailed. The surge proves it.