There are three mistakes that some say we have made in Iraq that hinder our chances of victory. That we have too few troops to win; that we should partition Iraq into independent Sunni, Kurdish, and Shia states; and that we made a mistake of disbanding the Iraqi army.
We have enough troops and the problems caused by too many troops far outweigh any theoretical advantage; and I don't think we can trust the Sunnis in a state of their own. I've addressed these issues many times and won't go into them here.
The third one though, I want to hit again if only because Strategypage has my six on this one and I want to quote them:
There is still much support for terrorists among the Sunni Arab population, and many Sunni Arabs believe that, if the Coalition troops can be forced to leave, the Sunni Arab tribes can somehow subdue the Kurds and Shia Arabs, and regain control of the country. But the best opportunity for this was lost when the Sunni Arab dominated army and civil service was disbanded after the 2003 invasion. The army and civil service are now thoroughly Kurdish and Shia Arab, and this annoys the Sunni Arabs a great deal. But the Sunni Arabs have been in charge for so long (centuries, even under three centuries of Turkish domination), that they see it as their right to rule. Many other Sunni Arabs in the region, and many Europeans as well, agree.
First of all, let me repeat myself: there was no army to disband except in the most formal legalistic sense. The Iraqi army self-disbanded during the major combat operations. Disbanding was a formality. But the key is even if the Iraqi army existed at the time of disbanding, we would have needed to effectively disband it. We would have had to start from scratch, de-Baathify the ranks, cashier the high-ranking officers that committed no crimes; retrain the lower ranking officers; and try the guilty ones for crimes. Otherwise, the new army would have been a fragile instrument upon which to rely.
Can you imagine the April 2004 Fallujah uprising and the Sadr revolt if we had retained Baathist-era troops without sifting them? Instead of Iraqi units disintegrating, we could have had units defecting to the enemy. We could have witnessed government departments and entities declaring themselves for the insurgents. Had that happened we would have had a real Sepoy Mutiny crisis. The Sunnis believed then and continue to believe that they should rule Iraq. If given the chance they would have tried to reclaim what they believe is their God-given right to rule Iraq. And they would have expected and received support from the wider Sunni world. Instead, the Iraqi government stayed loyal and we coped with the enemy offensive with our units and the few remaining loyal and effective Iraqi units to beat back the offensive.
Now, the former victims of the Baathists are in charge of the government and security apparatus, and are gaining numbers, training, and experience every day. Even if we left, the Shias and Kurds would beat the Sunnis and foreign jihadis (though in a far more brutal fashion than we'd tolerate as long as we remain).
So end this talk of the so-called mistake of disbanding the Iraqi army and de-Baathifying the ranks of the government. That mistake, in fact, may have saved us from defeat. Not every Baathist needed to go, but a heavy hand was preferable to a light hand. Because the Baathists were largely gone from the government's ranks by spring 2004, we did not face a major defeat that we could not recover from when the April 2004 enemy offensive took place. So I am completely amazed that this "error" talk keeps cropping up.
And drop the US troop strength and partition talk as well. Because I swear to God I'll blog on them again if I must.
