This is what the Colombians have done to begin winning their decades-long war:
The campaign against the leftist rebels and drug gangs grinds on. It's a slow process of moving elite army and police units in first to clear out rebel and drug gang bases and gunmen. This is followed by regular police and rehabilitation specialists, to restore government services, and the economy.
The problem in Iraq was that the enemy was too well-armed, well-financed, and bloodthirsty (and right in the cities, too) for the poorer quality Iraqi forces to deal with even in the hold mission. The surge was more about our troops doing the holding, too, to atomize and smash the enemy to a level that the Iraqis could then hold without our help. It has generally worked out that way.
And this also shows that when you discuss troop numbers needed to win a counter-insurgency, not all the troops need to be of the highest quality. Different levels of quality will suffice for different missions, and it will actually be a tremendous waste to put a Navy SEAL on guard duty in a traffic circle.
