As I wrote yesterday, I'm feeling better about our new course in Iraq on my first impression. I've felt a change in operations to reflect the new stage of the war we are in is more important than adding troops. I don't think we need a surge. But a surge for the right strategy is better than no surge with the wrong strategy or, God help us, a surge with the wrong strategy.
We are stressing out our active ground forces with this plan--although mobilizing the Guard and Reserve components may make the stress endurable (while increasing the stress on the reserves) in the short run while expanding the Army and Marines will help in the long run. Hopefully, the Iraqis pick up the slack before the long run expansion impact is necessary.
And let me add that even breaking our ground forces to win the war is a price we have to pay, just as any commander would expend troops or units to win a battle. Losing in Vietnam did more to break our military (and national will) than the stress of fighting did. Win the war first and worry about the tools used to win it after, as much as possible.
That said, I don't think we are close to having to make that deal. We will likely be ahead even after the surge is over in the tension between our ground forces gaining experience and getting worn out. Still, adding troops also adds expectations of rapid victory that can't easily be achieved in this type of war.
So based on my criteria for a surge, how does the President's plan hold up? I wrote:
1) Does the mission help the Iraqis fight more effectively after our surge ends? This can mean either a weaker enemy or a stronger government. Relative strength is the important consideration.
2) Does the surge provide a visible and measurable gain? If we surge and leave but can't tell if we did any good, it will hurt morale at home and encourage retreat whether we gained or not.
3) Does the mission reflect the new stage of the war we are in or just reflect stale arguments over what we should have done in 2003, 2004, or 2005? The Baathists can't win, now. Neither can the the Sunni jihadis or Sunni Arab nationalists. Sadr is the main problem. He is a threat despite being supported or admired by only a minority of the Shias only because Iran stands behind him. So ideally we address Sadr or his Iranian backers.
I personally would rather have more patience in Iraq than more troops, but I work with the war we have and not the war I want.
Well. Without going through the briefing bullet points line by line, looking at the document leads several things to leap out. In all my options given for a surge, we've picked bits of a number of them. Which makes sense since I think my options reflect things that in a perfect world should be done.
Supporting my first criteria:
We will help the Iraqis fight better and provide better security for the population. The Iraqis will plan and lead the Baghdad operations (with our help). This makes Iraqi forces stronger.
The rules of engagement will be loosened. This will make the enemy weaker.
The command-and-control of Iraqi units will be non-sectarian and non-political. Easier said than done, but it will help create a national army as I've written is necessary. This will strengthen the Iraqis.
The Iraqis will expand the army and reevaluate their police. This will strengthen the Iraqis.
We will embed more in Iraqi units as advisors. This will strengthen Iraqi units.
Adding five US brigades to Baghdad will help us kill the enemy. This makes the enemy weaker.
We will partner 9 battalions of US troops with the 9 Iraqi army brigades that will each have responsibility for a district inside Baghdad. This is different than embedding. This is corsetting the Iraqis to give each unit a reliable unit to bolster the rest. Each of our brigades in the new format has two line battalions of 4 companies each and a smaller recon battalion. Assuming each Iraqi brigade has three line battalions and a recon element, one of our brigades could partner with two Iraqi brigades. Two Iraqi brigades would need six US line companies and two US recon elements. By breaking up the line battalions and splitting our recon battalion into two elements, we'd support the Iraqis and still have two companies left as a reserve plus brigade elements like engineers and other support units acting as infantry for local defense. And we'd have 3-1/2 US brigades intact for operations. This will make the Iraqis stronger.
Supporting my third criteria:
We recognize that Iran and Syria threaten our success and know that Iran is the bigger threat. This supports my contention that Iran's support of Sadr is more of a threat than Syria's (and Iran's) support of the Sunnis. The Sunni Arabs, whether Baathist, nationalist, or jihadi, cannot win. Sadr backed by Iran is a threat because it could exploit the sentiments of the majority population. This Sadr-exacerbated sectarian violence that has Sunni Arabs and Shia Arabs killing each other could break the Iraqi government and country as communities turn to local private forces rather than the central government or official security forces for safety.
We recognize that since the Sunni Arab insurgency is a lesser threat, dialogue with insurgents of the Sunni Arab variety are no longer the key to settling down Iraq. Even a deal with non-jihadi Sunni Arabs without stopping Sadr will not end the primary threat to Iraq. The Iraqis will continue to talk to these Sunnis to get them to surrender and join the government, but in the meantime we will go after the Sunni Arab jihadis and other insurgents in Anbar where more and more Sunni Arab Iraqis are fleeing.
With Baghdad the main combat area for the sectarian war going on, adding 5 US and 3 Iraqi brigades to the existing 3 US brigades and Iraqi army brigades (Six? With 9 Iraqi police brigades, too?) in the city supports the main effort here against the main enemy. Putting an Iraqi commander with a brigade and other units in charge of nine districts recognizes the sectarian violence as the main threat and recognizes that Iraqis cannot see this as an American-led effort. We can't lose the Shias, remember?
We will increase operations against Iranian actors. This recognizes Iran's destructive influence. I don't know what this entails but it is good. There is no talking to those guys except when we have them knocked back and defeated.
We will put a lesser effort of two new Marine battalions (combined, bigger than one of the Army's brigades) into Anbar recognizing that halting Syrian efforts to support jihadis is important to safeguarding Baghdad. But it recognizes that Anbar and the jihadis are a secondary threat unlike their status from 2003 to 2005. Having a main effort means we don't split our forces. Anbar can wait for the main effort in Baghdad to succeed.
We will deploy security assets to the Gulf. This means naval and anti-missile assets mainly. Simply having more ground forces is a threat, too. And we have plenty of air power. This will hold a hammer over Iran and Syria as we increase operations against Iranian and Syrian efforts to undermine Iraq and kill Americans and Iraqis.
What is absent is something addressing my criteria two. What are the metrics for this effort? Is the metric the absence of killing in Baghdad? Some percent reduction? This is not clear to me, and given my conviction that we need patience more than troops (and worry that adding troops makes our patience more fragile if we don't have visible success), this could be the fatal flaw. I worry that too many supporters see this as "one last effort" and that opponents of the war will also use anything less than clear success as an excuse to retreat.
Oh, and special forces aren't mentioned in the plan. They are never mentioned in troop strength discussions. I assume they will be sent for going after Sadr and their Iranian friends, but that it is policy not to mention where the snake eaters go.
But the gradual nature of the so-called surge may dampen this problem of expectations. I do await news of my second criteria. But until then, I back the plan as presented and as I evaluate it.
Now we see how we implement the plan and how the enemy fights back. And what happens here at home, of course. War is like that. We'll probably even make mistakes in this phase, too.
UPDATE: Secretary Gates addresses my second criteria (emphasis mine):
I think that what we will see over time is a lessening of violence in Baghdad. If the strategy is successful, over time we will see a lessening of violence in Baghdad. We're going to be, to a certain extent, the prisoners of anyone who wants to strap on a bomb and blow themselves up. But if -- but if the environment in Baghdad improves to the point where the political process can go forward, where the reconciliation process can go forward, where an oil law can be passed for the distribution of the revenues from the oil sales, where provincial elections can go forward, and where the government is actually beginning to make its writ felt outside Baghdad, and we see the government of Iraq beginning to operate more effectively, I think all of these things -- as the president said last night, and as I suggested this morning, it isn't going to be like anything we've experienced before in terms of when we'll know whether or not we're being successful, it's going to take a
little time. And we will probably have a better view a couple of months from now in terms of whether we are making headway in terms of getting better control of Baghdad, with the Iraqis in the lead and with the Iraqis beginning to make better progress on the reconciliation process.
The ease of destroying versus the difficulty of building is really the heart of the matter, is it not? I'm not saying we can't achieve this. But this is not nearly as clear as I'd like our mission to be. I hope we refine it a little more tightly as the months pass.
