Most soldiers I know greeted yesterday's news about the reduction in combat-tour lengths with a great deal of cynicism. It's not that they don't appreciate the reduction -- they do, and their families most certainly do. It's just that even a 12-month tour is such a hardship, such a departure from the deployment models used before the Iraq war strained the Army to its breaking point...
Counterinsurgency requires detailed knowledge of the human, geographic, political and social terrain, and it takes time to acquire that knowledge. I'd say it became effective around the fifth or sixth month of my tour as a police adviser in Iraq. Arguably, advisers, commanders and troops operating outside the wire should serve longer tours in order to develop and cement their relationships, and capitalize on them.
But they can't -- there's a finite limit to the amount of combat that men and women can endure. So we must balance combat effectiveness, and the needs of an all-volunteer force (and its families), against the steep learning curve of counterinsurgency, which demands longer deployments...
Grim of Blackfive has recently returned from Iraq and shares his thoughts.
Iraq has essentially three problems to "solve" to become a stable country. These are the Sunni problem, the Shia problem, and the Kurdish problem. By "problem" I mean not that the people are a problem, but that each of the main subsets of the population has a particular challenge that has to be resolved before it can integrate into a successful state. (This is, of course, at a high degree of abstraction -- at the ground level, Shiites and Sunnis may be intermarried, etc.)
The Sunni problem was rejectionism. The Surge has solved the Sunni problem.
That's a fundamental shift in the situation on the ground from a year ago. The gains are -- as Petraeus said -- reversable...
Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club provides insights on the Shia problem.
Now whatever one may think of Moqtada al-Sadr's participation in politics, the essential question is whether his participation will take place within the framework of an Iraqi Shi'te subpolity or within an Iranian dominated framework. The difference is essential. Sistani's declaration that the "law is the only authority" goes to this very point: whose law and whose authority. In this case Sistani seems to suggest that the Shi'ites can settle their "problem", but settle it within the framework of Iraq...
Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal discusses combat preparations for operations in Sadr City.
Three weeks after the Iraqi government initiated Operation Knights Assault in Basrah, US and Iraqi forces have squared off against the Mahdi Army daily in the Shia slums of Sadr City. Additional US and Iraqi forces have moved into northeastern Baghdad to prepare for a possible major engagement against the Mahdi Army...
Herschel Smith of The Captain's Journal shares his thoughts on the fighting in Basra.
There are tens of thousands of Iranian fighters inside Iraq. Five days of fighting in Basra and a few more in Sadr City are not enough to rid Iraq of Iranian influence. We are only at the very beginning stages of the fight in the South. Since Britain implemented the "we may as well go ahead and give all of the terrain to the enemy" approach to counterinsurgency, the developments in the South lag far behind the West and North...
Will Hartley of Insurgency Research Group discusses the Taliban, General Giáp and guerrilla strategy.
While the Taliban's desire to explicitly adopt classic insurgency doctrine is interesting, it is questionable whether they are in a position to successfully emulate Giáp in Afghanistan. One of the main differences is that Giáp was able to benefit from a regular supply of heavy weaponry and munitions from Mao across the border in China, including the artillery and anti-aircraft guns that proved key to isolating and destroying the French at íiện Biíªn Phủ.
Although able to overrun isolated outposts manned by poorly equipped Afghan National Police (ANP) - in the same way as Baitullah Mehsud's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are able to temporarily seize isolated forts in the FATA in Pakistan - the Taliban are a long way away from achieving the kind of coordinated assault, backed by heavy weaponry, that would be required to seize a coalition Forward Operating Base. It is also questionable whether the Taliban have the extremely tight command and control structure required to conduct the coordinated multi-pronged offensives key to Giáp's success...
Comments
Thanks for the reply, Mr. Herschel. It should be pointed out that in the past, the Iraqi government has signed security agreements with Iran, and has even gone so far as to sign an agreement that provided Iraq with Iranian assistance with arms and military training. Only the objection of the occupying power (US) prevented the execution of the latter agreement.
The IRCG is operating in Iraq but not with a standing army the likes of which you suggest. What's more , it does so with the approval of the Shia dominated, US allied government of Iraq.
"There are tens of thousands of Iranian fighters inside Iraq. Five days of fighting in Basra and a few more in Sadr City are not enough to rid Iraq of Iranian influence."-->Herschel Smith
Tens of thousands of Iranian fighters? The Mehdi Army is an Iraqi force, not an Iranian force. The contention that Iranians were involved in the tactical command of these troops in the latest Battle of Basra has yet to be supported with proof by the US government. Furthermore, the Battle of Basra highlighted the efficiency and prowess of Iranian influence in southern Iraq, not the opposite. It should also be noted that this was not the first time that Iranian efforts have been successful in brokering deals between Shia factions in southern Iraq.
There is a growing competition between Iran and the US over influence in Iraq, which could be seen in many of the comments made last week by Crocker and Petraeus. This competition was best displayed by the recent state visit to Baghdad by Iran's President Ahmadinejad, which fully belies Crocker's contention that Iraqi leaders recognize Iran as a negative influence in Iraq.