I described the five phases of the Iraq War in this "Iraq SITREP" post in December 2006, and speculated about the next two phases:
With all this in mind, we are now debating the form of Phase VI. It began this month and will likely be the last phase dominated by American combat operations. I estimate it will last no more than sixteen months.
Phase VII will be the Iraq phase with the Iraqi government taking the lead in fighting the insurgents. We will supply air power, special forces, and keep at least seven brigades of troops inside Iraq to deter conventional invasion. I only question the pace of our draw down in this phase. The main question is whether we break Sadr's forces and the other Shia extremists and make the Iraqi government's task easier. The second question is whether Syria and Iran will continue to support their side, perhaps escalating to direct intervention. The third question is whether the government will win by winning hearts and minds or by slaughtering enemies. This phase will last as long as it takes one side or the other to win. Iraqis can't go home. It will be victory or death and on this struggle will depend our image for resolve in the Long War. And whether Iraq serves as a beacon of hope for others or simply reflects the realist-level goal of flipping an enemy Baathist state to a friendly authoritarian state.
I was pretty close with my estimate of how long Phase VI, the last American-dominated phase that would be defined by the Surge and Awakening, would last. It ended with the American and Iraqi campaigns in Sadr City and Basra, respectively. Call it April 2008.
Phase VII went from May 2008 through December 2013. It was the phase dominated by Iraq that saw America turn over the fight to Iraqis, transition to a formal end of our combat operations in New Dawn (with 6 combat brigades recast as "advise and assist" brigades rather than 7 as I expected) in September 2010, and leave Iraq entirely in December 2011, leaving Iraq in victory as both the president and vice president boasted. I call the end of that phase as December 2013 because in January 2014 the jihadi enemies began taking ground in Anbar, Iraq, culminating in the collapse of Iraqi security forces across the northwest Sunni Arab regions in June 2014, leading to the ISIL caliphate spanning eastern Syria and western parts of Iraq.
Phase VIII was the rise of ISIL in Iraq and our re-intervention to defeat the Islamic State caliphate in September 2014, what I have called Iraq War 2.0. America organized a coalition to defeat ISIL that unfortunately undid the work of Phase VI that included the defeat of Iran inside Iraq by allowing Iran to return to Iraq in 2014 to fight ISIL. The liberation of Mosul by June 2017 when the ISIL defenses were broken signaled the end of Phase VIII and the beginning of a new defense of what we achieved.
So call it Phase IX to defeat Iran in Iraq since July 2017. Iraqi protests against corruption and lack of effective government and services began in 2018 and continue despite extensive violence directed by the Iraqi government and encouraged and enabled by Iran which wants to keep and deepen its foothold in Iraq.
What we are doing is not working.
The question is, should American tactics shift--again--to deal with the new threats that the tactics appropriate for the last phase no longer no longer work for the existing threat and the fragmentation of Iraqi governance into virtual fiefdoms based on tribes, militias, and political parties:
Humanitarian programs in the fields of education, health and job skill training are desperately needed in Iraq. While military training programs budget could (and probably will) be cut, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) type program may be a viable solution for addressing endemic problems in Iraq, without the use of outside military and civilian contractors.
The WPA employed millions of American citizens to build sustainable infrastructure, learn skills and earn income for their family, savings and discretionary spending. This type of temporary program implemented in Iraq, would cost less than building, arming and training (yet again) Iraq’s military.
Moreover, no nation can maintain its existence as any form of “democracy” without an educated population and qualified leadership. Instead of supporting training for the military and law enforcement, an allocation of funds could go toward partnership for teacher training, curriculum and materials development, counseling for those children affected by Daesh/ISIS indoctrination and those suffering from post-trauma reactions and victimization. These projects could expand the horizon of adaptable systems for different communities within Iraq and encourage networks as well as exchanges for educators in other Arabic and English-speaking countries. The United States could supply them with a first round of instruments of mass instruction in a range of subject areas, at a lesser cost and greater lifetime use than arms/weapons sales.
Of course, we'd have to prevent such aid from being dispensed by the fiefdoms to benefit their own loyalists. But I'm open to something like this in pursuit of new tactics appropriate for the new phase of war we are facing in Iraq.
Work the problem.
UPDATE: This article says that Iraq is "stuck in the middle" of the US-Iran conflict.
That's not quite the way I'd frame it, to say the least. Honestly, the piece seems like another effort in the long left-leaning genre of "fighting back just makes things worse."
Iraq is one objective in the US-Iran conflict. And working the problem there should be for the purpose of getting Iraq fully on our side to fight and defeat Iranian influence in Iraq--and not cushioning Iraq's discomfort as if they are an unfortunate bystander in a conflict that has nothing to do with Iraq.
