There Is One Alternative

Will we recoil from the cost of eliminating the root cause of Islamist fascism? Will we refuse to try and help Moslems save themselves and adapt Islam to the modern world and democracy?

Or will we accept that the Islamic world's failures are just part of the religion and nothing is to be done?

Charles Krauthammer writes of our recent failure of will:

As the Bush Doctrine has come under attack, there are those in America who have welcomed its apparent setbacks and defeats as a vindication of their criticism of the policy. But the problem is that that kind of vindication leaves America in a position where there are no good alternatives. The reason that there is general despair now is because if it proves to be true that the Bush Doctrine has proclaimed an idea of democratizing the Arab/Islamic world that is unattainable and undoable, then there are no remaining answers to how to counter ultimately the threat of Islamic radicalism.

It is not true that if we don't democratize the Arab/Islamic world that their is no remaining answer to how to counter the threat of Islamic radicalism. If opponents of the President's methods win and compel us to pull back to our shores; and our enemies continue to attack and kill us anyway, we don't have to simply surrender at that point.

One method will always be within our power.

Buildup in CENTCOM

We might send another carrier battle group to be in position near Iran:

Speaking on condition of anonymity because the idea has not been approved, the official said one proposal is to send a second aircraft carrier to the region amid increasing tensions with Iran, blamed for encouraging sectarian violence in neighboring Iraq as well as allegedly pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

This would certainly be helpful if we fight Iran.

It would also be helpful if we fight al Qaeda in Somalia.

One problem we have in achieving surprise is the near impossibility of moving significant forces without attracting the attention of other countries or the media. So if we can't hide the movement, we have to hide the purpose.

So in theory, ships moving to watch Iran could easily shift to the Horn region to join an Expeditionary Strike Group with an embarked reinforced Marine battalion (a Marine Expeditionary Unit). Special forces, Rangers, and aircraft could move in rather discreetly.

Similarly, units surging into Iraq don't have to be for the purpose of some nebulous mission against Sadr or Sunni terrorists.

I'm not saying that we are planning to hit Iran anytime in the next half-year. But if we want significant land forces to support a revolt against the mullahs, the only way to get them to the region is for the public purpose of fighting in Iraq.

If we were determined to deal with Iran. Which I can't say I'm terribly confident we are planning to do.

Something to think about, anyway.

Iraq SITREP

As we look toward the next two years in Iraq, let us review where we stand.

The Iraq War has gone through a number of phases.

Phase I was the period of major combat operations beginning in March 2003 and ending about three weeks later when American forces stormed Baghdad. Although President Bush did not officially declare major combat operations over until May 1, 2003, this phase was over by mid-April at the very latest. The Baathist regime was crushed with the Republican Guard defeated, the regular army collapsed, the Special Republican Guards, Baath pary, and intelligence services scattered (taking the money with them), and Saddam's Fedayeen, the imported jihadis that Saddam would have used to restore control among the Shias of the south if a repeat of 1991 occurred, cut apart by our conventional forces. We suffered 139 deaths in March and April. The monthly average was thus 139.

Phase II was the initial Baathist insurgency beginning small in May 2003, escalating sharply in November, and continuing through the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003, and ending in February 2004. Through this period, primarily US forces were able to slowly throttle the insurgency. We were focused on building a small conventional Iraqi army of 40,000 organized to fight other conventional forces, and which would serve as a cadre for later growth. We recruited light infantry in a civil defense force to work with our forces and worked to put the long-ineffective police force back in service. By February 2004, our monthly death toll was 20 and it appeared as if the Baathist insurgency was broken. From May to December 2004 we suffered 347 killed. The average rate was 43 per month.

Phase III was the Syrian and Iranian counter-attack. This lasted from March 2004 to December 2004. Syrian-supported foreign jihadis and Sunni Baathists in concert with Iranian-backed Shia thugs under Moqtada Sadr rose up and attempted to provoke a national uprising against American "occupation." The contractor killing in Fallujah sparked this and saw the first Battle of Fallujah in April that was called off prematurely to allow "former" Baathist officers to lead a "Fallujah Brigade" to pacify the city. This also saw battles in April, May, and June against Sadr's thugs and again in August. Sadr's forces were defeated without provoking a Shia reaction against our presence. About half of the new Iraqi security forces collapsed in the face of this uprising, showing the inadequacy of our training program. Nonetheless, despite the heavy combat, I judge the enemy to have made a huge error in this uprising. The Baathists sided with the jihadis, thus alienating the previously wary Shias. The Shias had been happy to have us remove Saddam but were suspicious based on our abandonment of their uprising in 1991. In addition, our careful campaign against Sadr was done in a manner that did not provoke Shia anger at us. We also turned over the governing of Iraq to an interim appointed government, thus ending the official US occupying authority. One result of this phase was that the majority of the Shias sided with us. The major flaw was the survival of Sadr. By November 2004, we assaulted Fallujah a second time and this time cleared it of jihadis. In December, we coped with the jihadis who escaped to Mosul where they overran and collapsed the local police force. We lost 514 troops in these ten months for an average monthly rate of 51 deaths.

Phase IV lasted from January 2005 with the first free national elections for an interim parliament and a constitution-drafting body, and went to December 2005 with the election of the first permanent government under the new constitution approved in October 2005 in the second national election. We revamped our training program for the Iraqi military and scored successes with holding three major national elections where the enemy was held at bay and more Iraqis voted than in the previous election. The Iraqi security forces proved up to the task of partnering with us for election security and we began to push ground forces into Anbar province in the fall of 2005 for the first time to clear and hold cities and break up enemy strongholds. The Sunni insurgencies were essentially broken. The Baathists were doomed and the local and imported jihadis merged as each suffered heavy losses. In this year we suffered 846 dead. The monthly rate was 71 dead.

Phase V is the current phase beginning in January 2006 and lasting until November 2006 when our elections essentially mandated a new phase. At the beginning, with the Sunni Baathists and jihadis held back, we hoped that we'd be able to pull back our forces from routine combat and reduce our presence to under 100,000 troops in a mostly logistical and reserve role. Four features have defined this phase. One, the Iraqis had difficulty forming a cohesive government and the resulting government has been weak and unable to make hard decisions. Two, the Samarra Golden Shrine bombing in February unleashed Shia anger against the Sunnis that Sadr and other Iranian-backed Shia thugs exploited to begin a campaign of revenge atrocities against Sunni Arabs. This occurred after two years of Shias patiently enduring the Sunni attacks while trying to coax the Sunnis into ending their insurgency. Three, Sadr's radical Shias emerged as the primary threat to the new government. We pushed the Iraqi government to take on Sadr but failed. We were able to gain more cooperation from Sunni Arabs who knew they lost their shot at retaking the government. Of note was the Anbar tribal decision to throw in with the government to fight the foreign jihadis. And four, our national will to fight until we win has finally fragmented. This may not be permanent as past decreases in our home morale have rebounded. But with many political leaders rather than mere polls reflecting the pessimism, I think any renewed vigor in the war will be fleeting.

The increased violence in this phase since February was primarily Shia death squads under Sadr or similiary Shia death squad leaders killing Sunnis. To speak of increased violence is to ignore the fact that the Sunnis haven't been able to kill more--Shias began dishing it out even harder than they were taking hits. This isn't good, but it reflects the change in primary enemy to Sadr and Shia extremists rather than a resurgence of the Sunni-based insurgencies. Indeed, though the current sectarian violence is exactly what the Sunnis wanted in order to ride the chaos to power, the Sunnis will not be able to overcome their lack of numbers or power to win control. They are history. And many flee Iraq in recognition of their defeat. In this phase we've lost 708 dead over eleven months. The monthly average is 64.

Let's look at the players through five phases.

Iraq is made up of 60-65% Shia Arabs, 15-20% Sunni Arabs, and 15-20% Sunni Kurds:

The Sunni Arabs lost power and are losing numbers.

The Sunni Kurds are more secure than ever in their mountain stornghold and are prospering.

The Shia Arabs have the political power their numbers deserve and ended centuries of Sunni oppression and mass murder under Saddam. They are in the fight for their lives to build a government and military from scratch with few having the education and experience to build Iraq.

More specifically:

Baathists. Mostly Sunni Arab. We destroyed their government and defeated their hopes of winning the insurgency. The Baathists are defeated. They still fight but Sunnis are fleeing the combat areas and even Iraq itself.

Sunni Arab "nationalists." They may not have loved Saddam but they hate being ruled by "inferior" Shias and Kurds. And our presence is insulting to them and tantamount to occupation. They are defeated. They continue to fight at weaker levels. Some have come over to the government and some have sided with jihadis. But their power base flees the mixed areas of Iraq and even Iraq.

Foreign Sunni Arab jihadis. Present in Iraq since before the invasion, they keep fighting us. We killed many Fedayeen that Saddam imported in the years before the war during the invasion campaign and smashed the al Qaeda base in northern Iraq set up after we overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001. They alienated most Iraqis with their suicide attacks, and Sunni volunteers aren't as plentiful as they once were. They are defeated though they still fight. These have merged with the local jihadis.

Local Sunni Arab jihadis. Saddam was not the secular champion of popular mythology. He turned to Islam to bolster his authority after Desert Storm and built many mosques in the 1990s. They have alienated most Iraqis with their bloody attacks that killed Shias and Sunnis, and cannot win. They are defeated. They still fight but Sunnis flee mixed areas and Iraq itself.

Criminal gangs. They thrive in the chaos and contribute to the image of enemy success by inflicting for-profit violence that is indistinguishable from enemy violence from afar. They are not a threat themselves but aid others who seek power. They continue their crime campaign and won't be defeated until the primary threats to the government's power are ground down to managable proportions. We need to address corruption which makes forging an effective Iraqi government more difficult. Still, the enemy is beset by the same culture of corruption so we don't have to create a perfect government.

Arab Shia fanatics. Sadr is the most well known. Down but not out after 2004's disastrous uprisings, since the fall of 2005 they are the primary threat to Iraq's government. They kill Sunni Arabs, defy and paralyze the government, and are even part of the government. They draw on perhaps a third of the Shia community as supporters--or about 20% of Iraqis. Two-thirds of Shias, the Kurds, and certainly the Sunnis would never give them support. But the Sadr thugs are a major threat only because Iran backs them with men, money, and material. Without that support, they would be merely annoying. They have the advantage that the Iraqi government has not decided to destroy them.

Syria. Syria is weakened but still struggling to hold Lebanon. They support jihadis in Iraq to maintain their own hold on government. They have a Shia government ruling over an unhappy Sunni majority with Sunni Iraqis fleeing to Damascus. If Iraq succeeds as a democracy, the Syrians will see Lebanon set free and will face their own internal insurrection or civil war. Israel looms over them as does Turkey to a lesser extent. A conventional war with either would be a disaster for Syria. I once thought they could be flipped. No more. They are tied to Iran and have decided this alliance will preserve their regime. Perhaps. Or it will deliver their ruin. Their status is fragile.

Iran. They appear to be involved in a regional struggle for dominance that starts in southern Lebanon and Hizbollah, goes through their puppet state of Syria, gains support among Palestinians, and is influential in Iraq through their alliance with Syria and their support for Sadr and other Shia thugs. This is the main threat to us in Iraq. Iran's influence extends to the second-class Shia Arab communities in the Gulf who Tehran hopes to support against the Sunni Arab rulers. And Iran pursues nukes. Yet they rule a restless empire of subject peoples and even a majority of the barely majority Persians do not like the current mullah rulers. They are surrounded by hostile Arab states and Turkey which host American forces, and America's ally Afghanistan. The Iranians are advancing but are vulnerable to sudden reverses from inside the country. Iran's military is ramshackle and held together with duct tape. Ignore their scary-sounding military maneuvers. The few high-tech modern items they import are just isolated spots in a vast sea of obsolete weaponry.

Turkey. They watch the Iraqi Kurds with worry and see some common interest in cooperating against Iraq's Kurds with Iran who struggles against their own Kurds. The Turks are no friends to Syria. They are a member of NATO. They have problems with Islamic parties threatening their secular history.

Sunni Arab world. They send their jihadis to Iraq to die. They send money to Iraq's Sunnis. They fear Iran and the Shias. And they fear the jihadis at home. And they blame us for their difficulties. But they have oil.

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.

We've fought off many threats. Don't lose hope people. In the broad sweep of the war, we are making progress. We faced setbacks in Phase III yet emerged in a stronger position to make real gains in Phase IV. We faced a different struggle in Phase V that we have not yet defeated, but it is not defeat for us by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, it is ugly in Iraq. I've never denied that. It is war. But that is what makes me avoid gloom. War is death and misery and tears. The only good thing is that we should fight to create something better out of that death and misery and plentiful tears. Who can doubt our Civil War produced far more of it all? Who can say we didn't create something far better? We can say the same for World War II. We can say the same for Korea. We can say the same for Afghanistan though that fight continues, too. I think we will be able to say the same about Iraq when we look back on it.

That's the situation in Iraq as I see it. So how do we shape the next phase for victory? [UPDATE: And to clarify my point that our will to win has fragmented. This doesn't mean I think we will lose. Since fall 2003 I've judged we are in a race between getting the Iraqi government ready to fight without us and our home front morale breaking. I think we are well enough along in preparing the Iraqis to fight that we will win the race against our declining will to win. But it is now clear that our will to fight will decline rapidly in the next two years. Unless we face another 9/11 situation, of course.]

The Army Question: Part Two

The second real question that is part of the question how large should our Army be (the first question, should the Army be larger, is here) is how many troops do we need in Iraq to win?

I have long argued we have enough to win if you consider all American, Coalition, and Iraqi forces. And the fact that we have an elected Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces when we did not in May 2003 is proof that we've had enough to move the country forward. The enemy couldn't stop that progress and can't even operate in platoon strength for the most part.

I'm not automatically opposed to any troop strength additions. We've had more in Iraq in the past than we do now. The keys to deciding whether to add troops are military missions and managing civilian expectations back home.

If more US forces are sent, they should have a specific mission to achieve. In the past it was based on supporting elections. Once the elections were held, we could draw down a bit and nobody thought we were fleeing. We achieved something tangible. What will we use our extra troops for if we send them in the new year? Will they fight under the same restrictions we now have in place? Can we point to a useful achievement that justifies straining the Army and Marines more and the casualties?

And if the Iraqi government doesn't support using the extra troops wisely to take down threats with a specific mission, we've just added targets and worn out our Army and Marines for no purpose. Consider our failed surge into Baghdad in the late summer and fall. Though some supporters of a surge will say we used too few troops, the main problem is that we failed to fight the main enemy in Iraq today--Sadr's militia which is killing Sunni Arabs at an accelerating rate. If we couldn't get Maliki's permission to do it then, why would we get it next year? And if we get it next year, why surge more troops before we see if we can use what we have more effectively?

And worse, if we send more to Iraq with flags flying and the expectation they will win the war in less than a year, our people will expect victory and when we cannot provide it in a year (500,000 more couldn't do it), will decide wrongly that we can't win ever. This is not the expectation we should encourage. This war is not a sprint but a marathon.

As I've said before, counter-insurgency takes time and I'd rather have more patience than more American troops. Surging risks exhausting our already limited patience. So I cannot support a surge of American troops under the current terms of the debate.

Go on offense? Sure. But do it with forces inside Iraq under war-fighting rules of engagement. Go after Sadr and break him while pressing the jihadis in Anbar. And push the Iraqi government to be right there with us as we do both. And do all these things long enough to win.

And if we have the Iraqi government on board to jointly take down Sadr even as we hit the Sunni insurgents, and we have better rules of engagement, and we've reconfigured our existing troops to go after the Sadrists and jihadis, then talk to me about surging more troops. I might be supportive then. Of course, we probably wouldn't need them at that point.

No troop surge now. The President seems on the verge of supporting a surge into Iraq. I hope he reconsiders this apparent choice for now. The surge in our public's expectations will far outstrip what our extra troops can do.

Now, about the apparent decision to expand our ground forces? That sounds good.

The Main Enemy

The latest Pentagon report states what I've argued for a year now (I think), that Sadr and the Shia fanatics he leads are the main threat to winning in Iraq:

The 50-page Pentagon report, mandated quarterly by Congress, also stated for the first time that the Shiite militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has replaced al-Qaeda as "the most dangerous" force propelling Iraq toward civil war, as Shiite militants kill more civilians than do terrorists.

It is tough to see amidst the carnage, but this is progress when the Sunni-based insurgents and terrorists are way down the line in threat levels. Those thugs can't win. Sadr could.

The Army Question: Part One

The size of our Army is the question of the day.

This is really about two questions. One, how big should our Army be? And two, how many of them should be in iraq?

On the first question, our Army is clearly too small. It has been since the mid-1990s when we started stressing it with peacekeeping missions. The war has increased the stress.

The Army has responded in four ways.

One, the Army expanded by about 30,000 slots for the active component.

Two, the Army is rebalancing the force by converting units suited to the cold War era to units needed today. Less artillery and more Military Police, for example. Rebalancing also includes moving types of units between the reserve and active components.

Three, the Army has identified Army jobs that can be performed by civilians and transferred those jobs to civilians thus freeing up soldiers for combat jobs.

As a result of these responses, the Army is getting more of the units it needs and is expanding from 33 combat brigades to 43 combat brigades.

A fourth response has been to reorganize the Army National Guard to be an operational reserve. Instead of the Army Guard serving as a strategic reserve at low readiness with only a portion of the force earmarked for early mobilization, all of the Guard combat brigades will be organized to be mobilized on a rotating schedule that puts about five combat brigades available each year for mobilization.

But the first three measures may no longer be enough to reduce the strain on the active Army, so the Army may want to grow in the years ahead. The Marines, too, I might add. But adding Marines requires more soldiers, too, who provide their long-term logisitics.

And the fourth is such a new concept--reserves who regularly fight--that it may not work when there is actually a war to fight. So adding even more active troops to avoid such a reliance on reserves may be necessary.

Still, I hope there is more discussion of the best way to reduce the stress on the military--winning in Iraq. Win there and experienced troops will reenlist with pride in their accomplishment and we won't have to worry about that long-term rotation problem.

We are winning and can win. Will we? I'm ashamed I even have to ask.

But the bottom line on the first question is yes, expand the Army. I've long wanted a larger Army; came to accept the Pentagon method for effectively adding troops to the active force as a substitute; and now agree that we need to add more troops since the outside-the-box methods the Pentagon put in place are close to exhausting those methods.

My question now is do we add complete combat brigades or add separate battalions that can be plugged into the existing and planned 43 combat brigades in the active force? Or some combination of those two methods?

Either Way the Press Sucks

Really, there are two competing themes about our media's coverage of the Iraq War.

On NPR the other day, I heard an analyst who opposes the war say our press doesn't report on how bad it is there. She said the press is six months behind in its tone of how it is going. That is, the doom of today actually corresponds to the better situation on the ground of six months ago.

The other side says Iraq is better than the press reports with its focus on pyrotechnics and conviction that we are wrong to fight in Iraq.

I clearly think the latter is right. But I'm not there, so I could be wrong. Still, I trust my ability to evaluate the reports based on my overall knowledge and access to trusted sources of public information. I also have the examples of past wars--including Operation Iraqi Freedom--where the press displayed clear lack of understanding on what it was reporting on. I have to throw my opinion on the side of those who argue a "journalism" degree is pretty worthless. They'd be better off getting education on the world in school.

And I evaluate our situation as one of a slow path to victory--a democratic Iraq that can put down the insurgencies with limited US support. But the progress may be too slow to sustain for long enough to actually reach that victory. I've worried about this race between victory and weariness since November 2003. On the other hand, we've been at this long enough that I don't worry about the Baathists or jihadis shooting their way into power. The Iraqi government can crush those guys if it has to, though that may delay democracy for a generation or more.

But we must wait and see if the press has been too optimistic or too pessimistic about the war.

Still, either way the press is sucking at its theoretical job of reporting on the actual situation accurately.

I hear the Baker commission members are free. Perhaps they can get on this question and issue another report with 79 recommendations for the press to accept with no picking and choosing, please.

Will the press go all doe-eyed over that report?

UPDATE: Lowry says war supporters have been too quick to dismiss reports of problems. Perhaps. I don't think I've been guilty of that. I think I have a higher tolerance for accepting that the enemy fights back and so defeating them will be hard and will not proceed smoothly through the various phases of the plan you adopted before the first shot was fired.

As I've noted before, you can report on difficulties without seeming to wish for our defeat.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Back Talk provides a useful reminder of all the things our press predicted would go wrong that did not. It is too soon to give the press credit.

And as I've written many times, once we win the war, these problems will be seen as just bumps on the road to victory. Who belittles our victory in World War II despite the blunders recounted in books like this? And more important, had these blunders been broadcast live to the world, would we have concluded we were doomed to lose at any time from 1942 to 1945 and given up short of victory?

The Flying Indictments

Newt Gingrich has called for the indictment of the Flying Imams:

"Those six people should have been arrested and prosecuted for pretending to be terrorists," Gingrich said. "And the crew of the U.S. airplane should have been invited to the White House and congratulated for being correct in the protection of citizens."

I'm glad my first impulse to counter-attack is gathering some support.

If you even say the word "bomb" in an airport you'll be hauled off and possibly prosecuted. But act like you are preparing to seize a plane like it was done on 9/11 and you get to compete for that all too valuable designation as a "victim"? No. No. No.

The airline crew, passengers and US Airways have done the right thing. It is time for our government to do the same.

And what about the airline employee unions and the Airline Passengers Association? Civil law should provide remedies if criminal law cannot.

Choosing to Win

The press has been full of speculation on what we may do in Iraq.

My basic concern is that we continue the broad strategy of turning over fighting to Iraqi forces who we work on making effective enough to defeat the insurgencies and terror campaigns--without eradicating Sunni Arabs from Iraq and keeping a democratic system. And I have no particular love for the Sunni Arab Iraqis--they've been bloody enough. But the effort required by the government to kill them or expel them could set back democracy a generation or more. The resulting government might well be better than Saddam's, but it will be no symbol for the region.

So I've raised concerns about various proposals but in the broad scheme of things, even the Baker report could be used to advance the broad strategy. I'm not belittling various military proposals as irrelevant, but I don't know enough about them to absolutely condemn them or back them without reservation. They all have promise and peril. And if they fit in the broad strategy, I'm willing to see the details and then judge. And as long as our President is determined to win, the broad strategy will continue. That is the key.

This article describes the various ideas, saying overall:

Bush probably will ignore the boldest suggestions from a bipartisan commission that studied U.S. options in Iraq, adopting some of the group's lesser prescriptions alongside those drafted by his civilian and military advisers.

By "bold" read "stupid." Talking to Iran and Syria to get their "help" is off the table. They've helped enough, already. Or, I hope, the idiotic solve-the-Palestinian-question first notion is dead. And withdrawing troops before the Iraqis can step up is off the table. Again, I hope it is ruled out.

The competing points on the military side:

--"Go big." Add 10,000 to 20,000 troops Iraq. And do we give them a specific mission or just add them for the long term. Or do we even add troops? Do they pacify Baghdad? Destroy the militias of Sadr and other radical Shias? Go to Anbar? Disperse them into Iraqi units to support them? Add advisors to Iraqi units? Apparently we could add 20,000 and we could have up to 50,000 more for a short period (I assume by overlapping 30,000 rotating troops).

--We may also increase the siz of the Army and Marines. It would cost aboutf $1.2 billion per 10,000 troops per year.

--The Army also wants to mobilize Guard and Reserve troops more frequently than the 24 months allowed. With people moving between units, reserve units can be gutted as some troops who've reached their limit must be left behind when a unit is called up. Other units staying at home are then gutted to fill in the holes in the departing unit. And then those donating units will face the same problem when they are called up, cascading the problem throughout the Guard and Reserves.

Non-military ideas include:

--Benchmark the performance of Iraq's government in standing on its own.

--Talking to many elements inside Iraq to keep from having all our eggs in one ruling coalition basket.

--Talking to Iraqi's neighbors for help. But not bargaining with Syria or Iran to end their assistance to terrorists and insurgents.

--Abandon efforts to get Iraq's Sunni Arabs to stop fighting and just side with the Kurds and Shias to kill the Sunni Arabs until they surrrender or flee.

--Reverse de-Baathification and let high ranking Baathists into the government.

--Guarantee Sunnis oil revenue.

--Renew efforts to solve "other Middle East conflicts." Read that the Palestinian issue, I assume. Or perhaps Lebanon. Now that would be good.

So the President will pick and choose. Some will be the core of the effort and some will just be for the purpose of getting some critics to just shut the ef up for more than the usual two seconds while they draw breath to continue harping on their favorite root cause.

I think our president has chosen to win in Iraq. That is the most important decision to be made.

I Suppose You Wonder Why I've Gathered You All Here Today

The six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear ambitions will start soon. Well, that's what we want the talks to be about anyway. North Korea has other ideas:

North Korea defiantly declared itself a nuclear power Monday at the start of the first full international arms talks since its atomic test and threatened to increase its arsenal if its demands were not met.

Reiterating those demands in its opening speech, the North said the United Nations must lift the sanctions imposed on the communist nation for its Oct. 9 nuclear test. It also said the United States must remove the financial restrictions that led the North to break off the six-nation negotiations 13 months ago.

The North also said it wants a reactor built for it and help covering its energy needs in the meantime, according to a summary of the speech released by one of the delegations involved. Five nations are trying to persuade the North to abandon nuclear weapons — the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

The North said that now that it is a nuclear power, it should be treated on equal footing with the U.S. It warned that if its demands were not met, it would increase its arsenal, according to the summary.

Show him the money. Oh, and the Pillsbury Nuke Boy wants a pony, too.

Screw them. They are dying as pressure piles up on the regime. Our side should talk to the nutballs, smile at them politely, and let that horrible regime die. Squeeze them.

North Korea just wants the goodies and will never give up nukes--not even if we send Madeleine Albright to dance with the pudgy freak with a bad haircut.

Not a sixpence, people. Not a sixpence.

UPDATE: I think we may have our John Bolton replacement. Though Jeff is willing to give more money than I think is appropriate. Heh. ("Heh" will probably soon be a registered trademark of the Instapundit, so I use it while I can.)

LAST UPDATE: The talks are over with no results and no new meetings planned. As I expected, we each wanted to talk about different things. We wanted to discuss North Korea renouncing nuclear weapons. For North Korea, it was all about the money.

The South Koreans surely wish North Korea to deal:

The mainstream South Korean daily JoongAng Ilbo cautioned Pyongyang against dragging its heels.

"If North Korea holds its ground obstinately, it will only face more serious isolation and pain," it said in an editorial.

But their commentary misses the point. We know North Korea won't give up nukes. They may agree to give up nukes, but they've agreed to that before. It is all about saying what they need to say to convince us to give them money. It worked before, why not now they think?

The talks are all about inflicting serious isolation and pain on North Korea until they collapse or face a revolt of the people or armed forces.

Is It Too Much to Ask to Actually Wage War?

Have we given up on killing terrorists? Are we incapable of offensive operations of any sort even when our enemies gather right under our noses?

This just angers me to no end:

The U.S. believes that the Islamic Courts are dominated by wanted al Qaeda operatives, and that it is too late to save the Transitional Government. The Al Qaeda members in Somalia include those responsible for the 1998 attacks on two American embassies in east Africa. Al Qaeda has used millions of dollars in donations from backers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen, to establish themselves in Somalia. The United States does not plan to send troops into Somalia to deal with Islamic terrorists there, but will try and negotiate with the less extreme Islamic extremists who dominate the Islamic Courts.

We'll do nothing, then? Oh wait--not nothing! We'll negotiate!

So we'll just negotiate with the "less extreme" elements of the jihadis. What precisely does that mean? We look away from beheadings of Westerners as long as the jihadis don't film their guys dancing over the severed heads? Women are just prevented from driving rather than allowing "honor" killings of them for such horrible offenses as being raped or learning to read? The mind boggles at the possibilities for nuanced negotiations with such men. Perhaps we'll sign a treaty limiting how much Uranium Somalia will ship to Iran. Yes, that would be quite the triumph of talk, eh?

Are we at war, or what? Since when do we just let our enemies walk in and take over a place? Are we pining for those kite-flying halcyon days of Taliban-run Afghanistan so much that we think a Taliban-like Somalia would be just the ticket? Are we really willing to just let al Qaeda set up shop in a safe haven in Somalia?

I'm not talking occupying the place. Who cares about that pile of sand? But I should think that a visit by CENTCOM would be appropriate.

I'd say that I hope we are just pretending to give in to an al Qaeda victory in order to get the element of surprise, but I've given myself false comfort over the years with that argument in regard to Iran.

But even as we struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan to consolidate and protect the very real gains we've made, we can't ignore the need and opportunities for offensive military action. If we are on offense somewhere, it is more acceptable to our people to be on defense in some theaters of war. But it is important to feel like we are winning to bolster war support, and nothing gives the feeling of winning like offensive military action and dead jihadis.

I hope that our task force in the Horn of Africa will rouse itself from digging ditches and winning hearts and minds to actually kill our enemies when they appear in their backyard.

So what will it be Mr. President? Are we at war, or what?

UPDATE: Good grief. Apparently the President already answered my question:

Six months ago, the Bush administration launched a new policy in war-torn Somalia, putting the State Department in charge after secret CIA efforts failed to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from seizing power in Mogadishu. It hoped that diplomacy would draw the Islamists into partnership with more palatable, U.S.-backed Somali leaders.

Today, that goal seems more distant than ever. Since coming to power in June, the Islamists have expanded their hold on the south. A largely powerless, U.S.-backed rump government remains divided and isolated in the southern town of Baidoa. U.S.-sponsored talks, and a separate Arab League effort, seem to be going nowhere.

And so here we are. With jihadis consolidating their control in Somalia, providing a safe haven for al Qaeda types, letting Iran look around for Uranium, and providing the impression to Moslems everywhere that the "strong horse" is indeed winning the Long War. The CIA failed on defense and then we sent the State Department in to salvage something from that loss.

I have no problem with the State Department being put in charge of coping with developments in Belgium. But what deep-thinking genius thought the talking set was best suited to dealing with the beheading set?

Mobilizing Support

If Congress funds a larger Army over the next five years, the best effect may be on the troops themselves.

While I doubt Congress would support actually using the new troops anywhere, they will help existing rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The President has some time to fight without pressure from Congress to pull troops out of Iraq. Even the Baker commission doesn't insist on strict timetables to leave.

More importantly, the sense of Congress paying for a gearing up of our war effort will be a tangible signal to our troops that we intend to win the war. My main worry since the election is that our troops will think we now don't want to win and so they will not reenlist to fight a war the country won't win anyway. Soldiers are willing to die to defend us and to seek victory. But no soldier wants to be the last casualty in a war that is lost.

So while Congress pays for more troops, the President must embark on speaking tours at American military bases. He must tell our troops that we are in the war to win. He must assure them that every effort will be made to support them to victory. The word victory must be used a lot. The objective is to keep our troops committed to fighting and winning.

Since the fall of 2003, I've assumed we were in a race between winning the war by turning over the fight to Iraqis and losing support of the American people to wage the war. I think we are losing that race. We win--but too slowly.

But a decision by Congress to expand the Army implicitly slows down the losing public support side of the race. For a while anyway. Congress will have signed on to winning since expanding the Army is clearly about Iraq. For a while anyway.

So the President's job becomes to rally the military.

I've long complained that the President has failed to rally the country. I've wanted him to speak every day on this because I have been acutely aware of the race against time. But he has not done this and it is too late to rally the country. But our troops want us to win and are committed to winning. The President is determined to win. Of this I am sure. He must convey this determination to our troops and focus on rallying this last major constituency for winning.

This is the real opportunity that we have with an apparent decision to build a larger Army. We must take the opportunity. And win the war.

Progress Behind the Shield

Our military in Iraq provides the majority of the shield to allow non-military measures to finally defeat the insurgency. While our military's job of killing the active insurgents and terrorists is important, the more important events happen outside the military effort to erase the Sunni motives for joining the insurgency. Fear of death (at our military's hands and increasingly at the hands of Iraqi security forces) must also be accompanied by hope for a better future (a place in a new Iraq without Shia death squads randomly killing innocent Sunnis).

With our apparent support, Maliki will be lawfully eased from office (via Instapundit):

Iraqi lawmakers have told reporters that they are ready to oust Maliki over his utter failure to deal with Iraq's continuing security crisis. Under Iraqi law, they could do so with a majority vote in parliament. Indeed, Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and secular MPs have been gradually shaping a parliamentary majority that specifically excludes followers of Al Sadr. This new emerging majority bloc would be headed by the Shiite leader Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, who met with President Bush in Washington earlier this month. Hakim is well known to be close to Iran, but he doesn't want to be prime minister, and it is doubtful that anyone else wants him to be PM, either. Instead, Hakim backs Adel Abdul Mahdi.

Abdul Mahdi is an interesting figure. Though he, like Hakim, is a member of the Iran-leaning SCIRI party, he is not typical of its membership. (He spent his years of Baathist exile in France.) He is a pragmatic man, a smart man, and, I have reason to believe, a capable man. He has been a frequent visitor to Washington for some time, though his meetings with officials have remained private. He nearly emerged as prime minister in the last round of parliamentary wrangles in Baghdad, and this renewed effort to make him PM is not yet a done deal, either.

Maliki is maneuvering to hold his job, of course. If the main Iraqi groups lobby for votes, we are seeing major progress in Iraqi politics even in this unsettled time. I'm assuming that Sadr was involved in the attack noted in the first post cited above and not the other parties involved in the negotiating. Though I could assume too much, I suppose.

More than any planned surge into Iraq by our forces, drawing a significant portion of the Iraqi Sunnis of central Iraqi into the government could finally break support for the Sunni-based insurgencies.

If the Iraqis can form a government with broad enough support to make the hard decisions to nail Sadr and his militias, and reverse the budding trend of Sunni Arabs seeking safety from Shia militias with Sunni terrorists, this will be significant progress toward killing the Sunni-based insurgency, forestalling an Iranian-backed Shia fanatic threat, and unifying Sunnis (Arabs and Kurds) and Shias to fight side-by-side (hopefully in integrated army units) against the foreign jihadi invaders and their local allies.

And this is something that our Army can't do--no matter how many troops we put into Iraq.

UPDATE: British Prime Minister Blair met with Prime Minister Maliki in a surprise visit to Iraq. They discussed the situation in the south where Britain's 7,000 troops are deployed:

Blair's official spokesman said the leader also wanted to show his support for al-Maliki's government, and for the process of reconciliation in Iraq, which is wracked by escalating violence between rival Sunni and Shiite groups.

Presdient Bush has met with the rumored replacement for Maliki. Perhaps Bush and Blair are doing a little good cop/bad cop to make sure the winner of the parliamentary maneuvering has a friend in the main coalition (Britain and America) supporting Iraq. Plus perhaps a reminder that the struggle must remain within the constitution and involve no gunfire.

Creating More Soldiers

It is common for opponents of waging war on jihadis generally or in Iraq specifically that we are just creating more jihadis. I think that is a fairly pointless argument that advances nothing of use, but never mind for now.

My question is, now that America may increase our Army by perhaps 100,000 troops, will anti-war critics conclude that the enemy has just "provoked" us into creating more American soldiers who will now seek them out and kill them? I mean, really, if not for the jihadis, those 100,000 Americans would have stayed at home and never enlisted. So the fact that more Americans will be in uniform fighting jihadis surely means that the jihadi efforts are counter-productive, and in fact a sign they are losing.

I mean, if the logic works both ways.

But the question answers itself.

When there are more enemy, the anti-war side says we are losing. And just as true, when there are more American troops in the field, they also think we are also losing.

But in truth, whether we add numbers or the enemy adds numbers, this says nothing about winning or losing. We may add more troops to our end strength because we need more troops to push for victory:

In any war, national efforts will increase as time goes on. Each side will put more resources into the fight and the level of fighting will escalate. So by the end, each side is much stronger than at the beginning of the war yet only one side has won. American, British, and Russian strength increased much more than Germany's strength in World War II. German strength, while absolutely greater in 1944 than in 1940, was relatively weaker compared to their enemies.

The fascists we fight today are dying hard. Harder in Iraq than I thought would be the case. But as I've noted, it never occurred to me that we'd let Syria and Iran bolster the Sunnis inside Iraq with impunity. All the focus on errors and whether we should have shot museum looters in April 2003 or whether we should have had 4th ID invade from Turkey miss the point that we have let our enemies support the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq without them paying a price.

So as the enemy fights on, we must escalate our effort to win. As the enemy fights and possibly inflicts higher losses on us even at home with a serious terrorist strike, we could see yet another outcome of a prolonged war--the escalation of our war objectives as the price we pay increases. Should the enemy hit one of our cities with a high-casualty strike, we will want the enemy to suffer even higher losses to consider our efforts worth it.

The enemy is clearly stronger than they were in April 2003. I'm not sure we can say they are stronger than they were a year ago or two years ago. The enemy kills civilians but they haven't gotten better in their ability to fight. They are atomized and rarely operate in even platoon strength. The Iraqi military is clearly stronger than April 2003 and stronger than two years and one year ago. The fighting has expanded but the enemy is not winning. They've merely increased the stakes of the fighting and imperiled themselves if we (Iraq and/or America) decide to use the power at our disposal to destroy our enemies.

And we have the power to inflict whatever losses on the enemy that we need to inflict. And this is true whether we speak of Iraq or the broader war on jihadi terrorists.

We don't have the choice of just halting the fight. Our enemies have never accepted that option. We must win this war.

Create a National Army

The Iraqi army needs work. And equipping it with heavy weapons is not the highest priority.

This Strategic Studies Institute writes about an issue I worry about although I don't think I've really mentioned it much. Looking back at building the South Korean army:

The creation of mixed security force units that reflect society can only mean a Shia majority unit. Regionally based military and police units are now predominantly single sect-dominant units. Such a force suggests serious potential lines of fracture that can undermine national identity, loyalty, purpose, and will. The mutinous soldiers in South Korea formed the core of the insurgency that, in fact, started a Korean civil war well before June 1950. The sectarian Iraqi security forces are now forming the core elements of Iraq’s civil war.

The Iraqi army--which we call the most stable national institution we have build in Iraq--cannot be allowed to develop with units segregated along religious and ethnic lines. Unless we integrate the units with Shias dominating all military units because of their greater numbers, if a civil war does break out in Iraq it will be carried out by far more lethal army units that take sides based on their ethnic and religious composition.

Submerged within Shia-dominated units and alongside Kurds in equal numbers, the Sunnis will come to learn they lost the centuries-long struggle for dominance in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Defeat the Sunnis--Not Exterminate Them

Ralph Peters thinks we need to side fully with the Shias in Iraq and say to hell with the Sunnis.

I am tempted to side with Peters on this question. Lord knows I've expressed my frustration with the Sunni Arabs of Iraq many times in the last several years.

But I can only agree partly with Peters. Yes, we should side with the Shias very clearly. And we should make sure the Sunni Arabs know we are on the Shias' side.

But we must continue to talk to the Sunni Arabs who provide the backbone of the insurgencies and terrorism plaguing Iraq. Ending insurrection must include getting as much of the enemy to defect or quit as possible and not simply killing them all. Killing them all certainly isn't simple, and if the Sunnis think their choices are victory or death they will fight all the harder and require the Shias to kill all the Sunni Arabs.

Still, talking is not the answer to all our problems. We must fight while we talk and never ever halt fighting to talk. We fight until the enemies agree to give up their fight:

Let the enemy and their supporters talk to us. But make sure the sound of gunfire as Iraqi and American troops kill the enemy and the sight of Sunnis fleeing central Iraq are always present in the talks. The enemy needs to know that the longer they drag out the talks, the worse the future will be for them--not that buying time will allow them to weaken us and emerge victorious. Make sure that we are all clear that talking is about how the enemy can avoid complete destruction and not about who wins the war.

Talking is fine--necessary even. But fighting is necessary, too.

Still, whether we side fully with the Shias and abandon efforts to bring the Sunnis in may not even matter. The jihadi strategy of provoking the Shias to hit Sunnis in order to get Sunni Arabs to turn to the insurgencies for protection may be working in at least one area:

Meanwhile, the commander of U.S. forces in the strife-ridden Iraqi province of Diyala said Friday that tribal leaders and some political groups in the province are turning to terrorists and insurgents for protection rather than trust Iraqi soldiers and police.

The Sunnis have little time to avoid their annihilation. Turning to the terrorists and insurgents will buy them a little time before they are destroyed. Only abandoning the terrorists and insurgents can save the Sunnis in the long run. Lord knows I don't expect much from those idiots. Their track record isn't very good, now is it?

Oh, and it is good to see that Peters is back to working the problem. I thought he'd gone loopy on the war there for a while.

AFRICOM Coming

I don't think an AFRICOM is a particularly good idea.

The Pentagon wants it:

A new U.S. military command for Africa, meant to strengthen America's defense against potential threats from the continent, is expected to be created within two months, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday.

Rumsfeld, presenting awards to Pentagon employees, praised Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary for African affairs, for her work on the proposal to create Africa Command.

So we will have an AFRICOM.

While more attention should be paid to Africa, I still think it is unneeded.

In a Bit More Than Two Short Weeks ...

Even as much of Washington, D.C. is on a nuance buzz over the Baker plan and how it will "save" us in Iraq, I notice that nobody is talking about strategy in the wider war.

So for all who think that we've taken our eye off the real threat, remember that THE PLAN is still sitting in its binder ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting bin Laden.

On January 1, 2007, THE PLAN can be put into action. Perhaps that's one of those first 100 hours actions we've heard so much about.

Two weeks, people. And then bin Laden will be history. He is helpless before the awesome power of THE PLAN.

Creating the New Palestinians

Surrendering seems like such a straightforward thing but in practice it can be incredibly nuanced and subtle.

Case in point. Whenever Michael O'Hanlon recommends something, I'm automatically disposed to supporting the opposite. He seems perfectly reasonable but over the years I've come to react with a certain confusion over just what the heck he is thinking when he recommends foreign policies.

He writes (again) to support ethnically cleansing Iraq's regions of minorities so that Kurds have their land, Shias have their land, and Sunnis have their own--and then they can just glare at each other and entrench the existing hostilities within a federal Iraq.

I don't think it is a good idea.

Even aside from the immorality and bizareness of supporting ethnic cleansing when we went to war in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s to stop ethnic cleansing, the proposal is wrong. I do not think we can trust Sunnis with their own little homeland on the West Bank of the Tigris. Nor do I think the Shias could be safe under this scheme with every rich Sunni funneling money and arms to the new Sunni homeland while encouraging the Iraqi Sunnis to continue the fight to "liberate" the Shia and Kurdish areas.

The Sunnis in this rump Iraq exiled from Iraq's mixed regions, would of course insist on a right of return to their former stomping grounds in the Shia and Kurdish provinces. Eventually, the Shia and Kurdish regions would react by simply cutting of the Sunni Arab regions from all oil revenue and then the once-mighty and prosperous Sunni Arabs of Iraq will be impoverished wretches egged on by the Sunni Arab world that sits comfortably at home while the Iraqi Sunnistan residents fight another enemy of the Sunni Arab world.

Hmm. Sounding familiar? Even if we do finally manage to "solve" that Palestinian issue we'd simply create the New Palestinians in western Iraq with refugees in Syria and Jordan who lost their homes to provide the obligatory sad stories for the media to broadcast in Europe and the Moslem world.

And it is worse, too. In the new Sunnistan, al Qaeda would set up shop with their sights set on us as well as Iraq's Shia state.

What a grand idea, eh? Almost gives "nuance" a bad name.

Target Set

So if Ahmadinejad is preparing to strike with nukes in the near future, what would his targets be?

First of all, Israel. Natch. Lots of Jews, don't you know, in a "one-bomb state." This is a no-brainer for your basic Islamist fanatic.

Then America. Great Satan and all that. Remember that Ahmadinejad did have a little something to do with that whole 1979 Embassy Takeover.

And Sunni Arabs. The Shia Persians aren't forgetting the First Gulf War in the 1980s against Sunni-run Iraq or the previous fourteen hundred years or so of violent history, either.

And Hell, who am I kidding? Shia Arabs, too. They are Arabs after all and so to Persians downright deserving of death. Shia Persians showed little restraint in killing Shia Iraqi soldiers in the 1980s.

The Kurds, too, are hated, but I think that the Kurds are not Nuke-worthy in Ahmadinejad's mind. For Europeans, I imagine Ahmadinejad has nothing but contempt. So mere Euros may not be worthy of nukes. Despite Iranian work on longer range missiles, I think Europe is off the target list now. Don't want to mess up the house you think you'll own before too long, eh?

So, Jews, Americans, and Arabs are the targets.

If Iran has one nuclear weapon to use, Ahmadinejad hits Tel Aviv. That should take care of that Jewish problem.

If Iran has two nuclear weapons, he hits Tel Aviv twice. Can't be too sure when you really, really hate Jews.

If Iran has three nuclear weapons, he hits Tel Aviv twice and Saudi Arabia's main oil export terminal at Ras Tanura. That gets Jews, Sunni Arabs, and hits America's oil vulnerability, possibly wrecking our economy in an indirect attack on us.

If Iran has four nuclear weapons, he hits Tel Aviv twice, Ras Tanura, and the main American base in Iraq--Balad Air Base--home to about 20,000 American servicemembers and located about 40 miles north of Baghdad. That gets Jews, Arabs, America's economy, kills American troops directly, and maybe kills some Shia Arabs--it will at least cow the Shia Arabs.

If Iran has five nuclear weapons, he hits Tel Aviv twice, Ras Tanura, Balad Air Base, and Port Said in Egypt at the northern end of the Suez Canal in order to hurt the other major Arab country that could resist Iran and hurt the Western economy a little more by blocking the Suez Canal. So he's killed Jews, Arabs, the Western economy, and our troops.

If Iran has six nuclear weapons, he hits Tel Aviv twice, Ras Tanura, Balad Air Base, Port Said, and Haifa in Israel, just to bring things back home.

Further, Ahmadinejad might need fewer nukes if he substitutes chemical weapons. By using lots of missiles and their air force in a last ditch air offensive regardless of cost, Iran could substitute chemicals for nukes in the attacks on Balad Air Base and Ras Tanura which are within aircraft and shorter range missile range, and one of the nukes intended for Tel Aviv.

And whether or not Ahmadinejad has used all the nukes he has, he should claim he has more to try and scare off retaliation. Ahmadinejad may feel he's taking one for the Islamist team but let's not be fanatics! If Iran can deter a counter-attack, they'll do it.

Of course, this won't be a blow that crushes us. Israel will incinerate the central Persian heartland with a nuclear counter-blow. And we'd have to nuke Iranian Pasdaran and leadership targets while trying to avoid too many civilian casualties. But we won't worry a whole lot depending on how many dead Americans there are. As I've said before, if we are ever nuked and don't respond with nuclear weapons, deterrence is dead. Who will be deterred by us ever again?

But the Iraq Study Group said we and Iran share a desire for peace and stability in the region. So my speculative target list is just silly to contemplate. Right?

Have a nice day.

Rejoice! NRF Has Reached FOC!

Rejoice! Rejoice! The West is secure!

My Jane's email notices have provided the good news:

The NATO Response Force (NRF) has reached its full operational capability (FOC), allied leaders meeting for their summit in Riga, Latvia, announced on 29 November. This was made possible by pledges from alliance members during a force generation conference at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium, on 21-23 November.

Thank goodness. NATO can be on the move quickly, on the ground with combat troops, and then ... what?

What good will a faster NATO do when half of the NATO troops in Afghanistan are from countries that won't fight?

About half the NATO troops inAfghanistan are from countries that will not allow their soldiers to go south and fight the Taliban.

Dress 'em up any way you want, but if the caveats on troop usage aren't lifted by individual NATO governments, the NRF is just a giant ClusterFOC.

Maybe I'm not approaching this grand news in the spirit it deserves.

Not a Final Offensive

A new strategy for Iraq may be emerging that does not rely on the fantasies of Baker's world. Says the LA Times:

As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to "double down" in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff will present their assessment and recommendations to Bush at the Pentagon today. Military officials, including some advising the chiefs, have argued that an intensified effort may be the only way to get the counterinsurgency strategy right and provide a chance for victory.

The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). But the Pentagon proposals add several features, including the confrontation with Sadr, a possible renewed offensive in the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province, a large Iraqi jobs program and a proposal for a long-term increase in the size of the military.

So let's look at the particulars:

1. Deploy more troops to Iraq.
This could be done by increasing the overlap of deploying units. Deploy some early and extend others already in Iraq. This could add tens of thousands of troops for a period of months. I worry about the expectations that could develop. An insurgency takes patience to win. If our public sees the troops marching off and the press raises expectations of really dramatic success, our people who worried about winning but are waiting to see how things go might well become completely defeatist. Plus, I'd rather have more patience than more troops. I don't think a shortage of troops is the problem in pushing progress faster.

2. Build up the size of the Army.
This could be up to 100,000 over five years. This could add 15 to 20 combat brigades if Congress goes along and funds it. Each year, rotating troops through Iraq and Afghanistan would get easier as new units are added to the force. And there would be less need to call on National Guard combat brigades. In one sense, this might buy time to win since we can always say we are waiting for more troops in the pipeline. And Army strain should get lessened each year. We'd also build the ability to surge units for short periods for specific problems without disrupting overall rotations. But will Congress pay for these for the next decade?

3. Increase economic aid to Iraq.
Ten billion per year? Why can't Iraq borrow that money? They've had lots of Saddam-era loans forgiven. I'd rather the international lenders have a stake in Iraq succeeding to repay loans and have the Iraqis have pressure to spend wisely because they are spending loans and not grants. If this aid provides jobs, then good. But I really think this should be funded by European and Arab loans to Iraq.

4. Defeat Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Sadr is the biggest long-term threat to a free and democratic Iraq. With Iranian support, Sadr's thugs could derail the Iraq experiment. And as long as Sadr runs free with his militias, Sunnis who would otherwise end their struggle will not feel safe enough to give up armed resistance and terrorism. Plus, as long as he has armed militias backing him, the government is far more constrained in making tough choices out of fear of Sadr's reaction. If Sadr is dead or nullified and violence is reduced in Baghdad, the government can move forward. I wish we'd nailed Sadr in 2003 or even 2004, as I noted back then repeatedly, but I'm humble enough to accept that we had reasons we believed valid for not ending his threat back then. There is no way to know if we were wrong back then or not in that decision. But today, his armed followers must be defeated, disbanded, and provided with useful jobs to keep them occupied.

5. Go on offense in Anbar against jihadis and their allies.
If a Shia-majority government is going to attack Sadr's Shia militias, they must also go after Sunni terrorists so that Sadr can't argue the government is leaving Shia civilians defenseless against Sunni terror. Plus, this is the major area where Sunni tribes are working with us against al Qaeda in Iraq. Finally, it helps remind people that we are fighting al Qaeda inside Iraq and so we aren't wasting our time on campaigns unrelated to the war on terror. Oh, and a lot of those jobs need to go to the Sunnis to get them too tired to fight while providing them with income.

So there you go. This idea seems to be far more likely than implementing all of the Seventy-Nine Baker Commandments. Most of the elements have aspects that I worry about, but they could be made to work.

Just as long as we don't work ourselves up into viewing this as our "final offensive" to win or die. With expectations that high, we will be bound to be disappointed.

Victory will take time.

UPDATE: More details on the emerging plan:

The nation's top uniformed leaders are recommending that the United States change its main military mission in Iraq from combating insurgents to supporting Iraqi troops and hunting terrorists, said sources familiar with the White House's ongoing Iraq policy review. ...

Sources said that Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is reviewing a plan to redefine the American military mission there: U.S. troops would be pulled out of Iraqi cities and consolidated at a handful of U.S. bases while day-to-day combat duty would be turned over to the Iraqi army. ...

Under the plan developed by Chiarelli's staff, the military would shift about half of its 15 combat brigades away from battling insurgents and sectarian violence and into training Iraqi security forces as soon as the spring of 2007, military and defense officials said.

Does this mean 7 brigades will disperse into Iraqi units? This is beyond embedded training/advisor teams. This appears to be "corsetting" Iraqi units with American units to stiffen them and provide guidance and potent combat power. If so, this means our units won't be out of day-to-day operations. It will mean we will be pushing forward Iraqi units to fight Sadr's thugs and Baathists and assorted jihadis while sharing the missions and risk with them.

Or are half of the brigades to be either redeployed into bases as a reserve and conventional deterrent to Iran and Syria or broken down into training teams an/or small combat units sprinkled throughout the Iraqi army?

Presumably, some units would be sent to Anbar where there are--I think--two Marine regimental combat teams and an Army brigade combat team. These would help seal the border and hunt al Qaeda elements.

It is difficult to evaluate the emerging strategy as yet. It seems to follow the overall path of training Iraqis to take over the fight--which I believe is the broad correctly path--rather than Americanize the fight by shoving the Iraqis aside who are not progressing as fast as we'd like.

One thing it does seem to provide is time. It does not start us on a course that will raise hopes back home for rapid and decisive results. By reducing our presence in the cities while bolstering Iraqis, we should lower casualties and accelerate their readiness to take over. And by focusing offensive combat missions (which will increase casualties) on destroying al Qaeda which is thick in Anbar, we emphasize a mission that continues to have good levels of support in America--fighting al Qaeda. Fighting out west will also undercut our media's impact on the war by putting our troops far from the Green Zone and surrounding areas that our reporters cluster in.

Those who want to win by flooding the country with American troops will be disappointed as will those who want to just get out now or establish timetables for withdrawing. What it does do is support the general strategy that I believe has been correct since November 2003--training Iraqis to take over the fight.

ANOTHER UPDATE: General Schoomaker testified that the Army could add only 10,000 to 15,000 troops to Iraq. So 2-3 brigades could be shaken loose. I assume he means new units which could increase strength in Iraq for a year during their deployment. These units would not have any replacements in line however so the increase would only be for a year. You could get 20,000 more for several months by overlapping rotating units (units in Iraq stay a couple months more and units scheduled to go enter Iraq a couple months early).

But the general notes that surging should be done for a measurable purpose: "We would not surge without a purpose," Schoomaker told reporters. "And that purpose should be measurable." This reflects my concerns about unrealistic expectations of some "final offensive" in Iraq.

AND ONE MORE UPDATE: The WP states the Army may deploy up to 35,000 troops to Iraq--a maximum of 10 brigades if all extra forces are combat brigades. Assuming the earlier estimate of up to 15,000 new troops is good, holding over 20,000 troops in three brigades already in Iraq and bringing in 20,000 troops to Iraq early so the arriving and departing forces overlap would provide the numbers in this article. Again, this could only be for a short time. The 20,000 held over would increase the total as the arriving 20,000 went into the field earlier than planned. But this peak increase would only be for a few month, although depending on the pace of arrivals and departures, you might have increased numbers from overlap for six months. I can't imagine extending units more than three months. The new 15,000 could stay a year to fifteen months. Then we're back to baseline strength

They key is to use them for something useful. I've never been opposed to increasing troops for specific mission--like securing the electons. Once the measurable succeess takes place, the troops go home. So do we set the goal for these extra troops as Sadr's head on a pike mounted at the entrance to the Green Zone? A campaign of a few months against the Mahdi Army to break them would be a good use of extra troops. As long as the Iraqis are with us every step of the way, of course.

If We Can Make it in Paris ...

Even as I've castigated Europe--and France in particular--for failing to stand fully with us in defense of the West against barbarian jihadis, I've on occasion tempered by disgust with disclaimers that I don't assume all Europeans--or even all French--think that way. I've always held that we must not abandon Europe and rely solely on ourselves as Victor Hanson seems to advocate. We must fight for their soul and their allegiance. Europeans are part of the West even if they seem rather wayward for the moment. We belong side-by-side on the ramparts defending our broadly shared beliefs despite specific differences.

Well, the French could be coming around:

French foreign policy--which has become noticeably less anti-American since the Iraq war and tougher toward Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons--suggests that France may already be recovering from its déclinisme. A more pro-American France--a surreal idea for many foreign-affairs practitioners in Washington--may not be that far off.

Never give in to defeatism regardless of the front. And if true, it will really outrage the more nuanced among us!

If we can make it in Paris, we can make it anywhere.

The Price of Dissent in Canadian Dollars

I've argued that our tougher war in Iraq is part of the price we are paying for our very vigorous dissent about whether to fight in Iraq. I'm not arguing freedom must be suppressed as a result of this impact, but those who dissent should be aware of the price our military and nation are paying for their constant and rather loud exercise of that right to dissent.

If you doubt me on this, let's look at Canada in Afghanistan. Canadians, because they do not fight in Iraq, are not constrained to call Afghanistan the "good" war. Canadians dissent a great deal on their government's decision to fight in Afghanistan. And as Strategypage writes, the Taliban have noticed:

The Taliban are increasing their attacks on Canadian troops, apparently because the Taliban are keeping track of Canadian politics via the Internet. The Canadian government is under pressure the opposition to get out of Afghanistan, or get other NATO countries to take a greater role in combat operations. NATO is split over how to deal with the Taliban. About half the NATO troops in Afghanistan are from countries that will not allow their soldiers to go south and fight the Taliban.

So far Canada is paying the price of dissent without breaking.

The Iraqi Army Past, Present, and Future

First, I respect General McCaffrey for his military service. He set the land-speed record in the Middle East in 1991 as commander of 24th ID. And although I am at least glad that in this piece he wants to win in Iraq, I take his policy advice with a grain of salt.

Barry McCaffrey wrote the following:

Lack of combat experience is not the central issue Iraqis face. Their problems are corrupt and incompetent ministries, poor equipment, an untrained and unreliable sectarian officer corps (a result of Rumsfeld's disbanding the Iraqi army), and a lack of political will caused by the failure of a legitimate Iraqi government to emerge.

We need fewer advisers, not more -- selected from elite, active military units and with at least 90 days of immersion training in Arabic. Iraqi troops will not fight because of iron discipline enforced by U.S. sergeants and officers. That is a self-serving domestic political concept that would put us at risk of a national military humiliation.

Sigh. One myth of the war will not die. "Disbanding" the Iraqi army was not a mistake. First of all, disbanding it was a pure formality since the army disintegrated during the invasion. It was gone by the time we took Baghdad. The troops went home. "Disbanding" the military was a purely formal legalistic step. Second, if the Iraqi army still existed, we darn well should have disbanded it. Who among you believes that it would have been better to have had an Iraqi military with "former" Baathist officers in charge of the Iraqi army at any time over the last three years? And if we kept those former Saddam officers, talk about "sectarian!" The officer corps was pretty exclusively Sunni! Remember the disastrous Fallujah Brigade led by former Baathists that went into Fallujah to pacify it after our Marines were called off in spring 2004? It did so well we assaulted the enemy-held city for good in November 2004. Try a little bit of reality on this issue.

Second, we do need to give the Iraqi army time to train and gain battle experience. The Shias and Kurds had few officers in the former Iraqi army and we have to create shake-and-bake officers from the level of general to captain from soldiers of far lower rank--and all while they must wage the war, too! Corruption? Yes. This is nothing new to Iraq. Poor equipment? What does the enemy have? And why isn't Iraq buying it? We are properly focusing on Iraqi light infantry while we provide the heavier firepower and support side which takes longer to develop and which is even harder in Iraq because we must start from scratch with Shias and Kurds who were excluded from higher ranks!

And yes, advisors in their ranks will darned well help Iraqis fight better. We are not talking about imposing iron discipline by taking over as McCaffrey states. We're talking advisors. Even Saddam's army, after being at war with Iran for more than five years, was trounced by an Iranian offensive that took Fao in February 1986. You know what happened after that? The Soviets sent thousands of advisors to the Iraqi army, many of whom were sent to frontline units! Is it any wonder that our brand spanking new Shia and Kurd officers could use some help when even the pampered Sunnis needed help twenty years ago? Iraq's 1986 officer corps: sectarian, trained, and unreliable. At least Iraq's 2006 officer corps has the excuse of being inexperienced and incompletely trained. Plus, as long as we retain combat units we can lessen the chance of our forces being held hostage and us humiliated as McCaffrey writes.

With some experience and our guidance, the new Iraqi army will in time be not only better than Saddam's army, but will be the best army in the Middle East other than Israel's.

Oh, and for all General McCaffrey belittles the Baker report (rightly so I might add), he actually does worse than Baker's boys (and a girl) in one aspect by advocating a timetable of withdrawal for our combat troops.

If we fight another conventional war in the near future, I'd be happy to have McCaffrey as a divisional or corps commander. But I just have to wonder about his policy advice.

Again, by all means debate our future policy in Iraq. But remember what has happened before with a little more accuracy, please.

And can we have some patience?

And When the Deluge?

North Korea is in bad shape and getting worse.

So is the budding deluge I spoke of earlier gaining momentum? Via Captain's Quarters:

Many North Koreans are now aware of the poverty of their country and are voicing discontent after years of near-starvation, according to the fullest study yet conducted of refugees from the Stalinist dictatorship.

While the popular image of North Koreans is of a nation living in blissful ignorance of the outside world and unquestioning loyalty to the leadership of Kim Jong-il, refugees interviewed while in hiding in China reported that there were increasing signs of dissent.

With more people getting out and seeing the outside world, and able to communicate what they see to family back back home, North Koreans increasingly know they are not the envy of the world, and in fact live in a miserable outhouse of a country left far behind by the rest of the world. How much more can these people endure?

Given that the Pillsbury Nuke Boy spends a lot of effort to keep his people isolated from the world to keep them from knowing this reality, the fact that the effort is failing surely indicates that the regime is headed for trouble.

Method to His Madness

We can think that Ahmadinejad is just a maniac and that his latest Holocaust Denial-fest is just another component of his madness, but I think it is a mistake to dismiss this as just an empty carnival of depravity.

Said Ahmadinejad at the conference:

Ahmadinejad, who has sparked international outcry by referring to the killing of six million Jews in World War Two as a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map," launched another verbal attack on the Jewish state.

"Thanks to people's wishes and God's will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want," he said.

"Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out," he added.

Much like his call to President Bush to convert to Islam and his call to Americans to correct our path of injustice, I think that Ahmadinejad is likely preparing the justification in his mind for striking America and Israel. Or do you really think Ahmadinejad is simply a raving lunatic who takes time for Jew-bashing conferences and likes to pen letters to pass his time?

Nuts he is. But not pointlessly and aimlessly nuts. He plans to strike us.

God help us if he either has or will soon have nuclear weapons.

Army Expansion

The Army is now willing to get bigger. Long worried about the long-term impact of having more troops than Congress will adequately fund after the need for those troops goes away, the continuing war in Iraq has changed some minds:

This means the army is now willing to accept an increase in size. It might take an increase of 100,000 troops to get enough additional brigades to provide that two year break between combat tours. The problem here is that, eventually Iraq won't need as large a force of U.S. troops to help with security, and the army will want to get back to its current size of half a million personnel. That's because the basic army philosophy is to have fewer, but better paid and equipped, troops. The army knows that Congress won't provide enough money to equip troops in a 600,000 soldier army, as it does for the current 500,000 soldier army.

The article notes that the Army has already grown the operational Army by 40,000 troops by opening slots in combat units. This was done by moving Army personnel slots from less used Army jobs to combat jobs or by outsourcing some jobs to civilian contractors and using the saved slots for combat units. This process is already getting us to 43 active brigades from 33 before 9/11.

The Army thinks it can get these 100,000 recruits. The Army will have to reduce standards but even these standards will be better than the 1980s standards which were good enough for the Army of Desert Storm. Let's not even discuss the 1970s standards.

I assume the Army will phase in such an increase if approved. Maybe 20,000 per year above the current recruiting to allow for a gradual increase in the training capacity, to provide equipment and facilities, and to avoid a big bang contract expiration of this class four years down the line even if we could recruit them all at once.

I also have to assume that I am incorrect in assuming our current 43 brigades (or close to that since some of our ten divisions may not have grown to 4 brigades each from 3--I forget when this increase is scheduled to be completed) is at least close to supporting 1 year in and two years out. I thought that 1-2 brigades in Afghanistan and 12-14 brigades in Iraq (remember the Marines keep a couple regiments there in addition to the Army troops) meant that we'd need 42 brigades to be darned close to this rotation concept. If you include a few National Guard combat brigades per year, then the strain on our active forces is even less and you might only need to think about 10 to 13 brigades of active Army forces in action and so only need 40 active brigades maximum to support rotation.

I've also noticed on occasion that sometimes additional battalions seem to be present in brigades in Iraq, so perhaps these detached battalions from active component brigades not in Iraq or Afghanistan increase our brigade-equivalents to more than 15-16 deployed. If we are really talking about the equivalent of even four more brigade-equivalents of battalions deployed because this is more common than I'm aware of, then we certainly would need perhaps 60 brigades on active duty to support this deployment if we wish to do so without using any Guard combat brigades at all.

If we add 100,000 troops, I'm assuming this would lead to 3-4 new combat brigades per year for five years, giving us perhaps 60 combat brigades in six years. Or some new units might be other types of support units. We might need more "divisional" headquarters above our current ten. And much depends on how much the institutional Army must be grown to support more combat brigades. They need to be trained and supplied and otherwise supported by other soldiers, and housed on bases that may not exist.

I must also assume that this new thinking means the Army is reaching the end of its current strategy of opening up combat slots within the existing end strength ceiling. If this rebalancing measure is exhausting its potential and the Army still sees shortfalls in creating a rotation base, then adding end strength is surely appropriate.

But Congress must be prepared to fund these new troops for many years even after we are not fighting in Iraq. The post-Cold War drawdown was managed pretty well. But the Vietnam drawdown left a hollow military. I'd hate to see us fail the next drawdown.

UPDATE: The Army assumes it could handle the annual figure I assumed would be used if we really are going to increase the Army by 100,000 slots: "Army officials believed they could recruit at least an extra 20,000 soldiers a year. "

ANOTHER UPDATE: Army Chief of Staff General Schoomaker testified that the Army could add 6,000 to 7,000 troops per year. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two estimates. Perhaps the low estimate assumes current capacity and the higher estimate assumes expanded training capacity and reflects a different measure of how fast troops could be added--perhaps equipping them. The general also wants greater ability to mobilize reserves--currently limited to 24 months in a six-year term, I believe. What with training, this is only enough for one tour in combat of one year.

Land Ho!

Our Navy is supreme at sea. Some continue to agitate for even more blue water forces to confront Chinese naval power far from Chinese shores even though the PLAN is still but a shadow compared to our Navy. Worry about Chinese capabilities regarding Taiwan, to be sure, but China can't fight for very long at any significant distance from Chinese shores. I've argued for getting the Navy closer to the shores in order to bring naval power to bear on land problems.

Fortunately, the United States Navy is coming ashore:

Navy task forces, usually with a battalion of combat-ready marines (and helicopters to move them far inland) along (on landing ships that resemble small aircraft carriers), prowl the world's oceans. The navy is still the service that can have some combat ready aircraft, and marines, to go anywhere, first. But there's more. The new naval infantry force (NECC, Naval Expeditionary Combat Command) already has 20,000 sailors assigned, and will eventually contain 40,000 troops capable of operating along the coast and up rivers. NECC units are already in Iraq, and ready to deploy anywhere else they are needed.

Expeditionary Strike Groups with naval firepower and Marines, naval infantry for coastal and river work, smaller ships to work close to shore, and a willingness to fight this way will make our Navy more useful than sitting in figurative Scapa Flow waiting for a High Seas Fleet that hasn't even been built yet.

To Be or Not to Be?

Although we are having problems training Iraqis for the new security forces, this does not mean the enemy in Iraq would win if we leave.

Our current training effort is 2-1/2 years old and is going much better than the initial effort that saw Iraqi security forces fold in the spring 2004 Fallujah and Sadr uprisings. Back then we were focused on creating a small 3-division regular army and relying on less trained forces for policing the Iraqis. Since then we've focused on light infantry while we provide the combat support and logistical support. Iraqi combat forces have held up much better from the current training.

So, if we leave, rather than the Sunnis marching back into power, the Shias and perhaps Kurds (if they don't withdraw into their mountains) will simply go postal on the Sunni Arabs:

If American troops suddenly disappeared by the end of 2006, the Iraqi security forces would be able to cope. The Sunni Arab terrorists never really had a chance of regaining control. What chance they did have, went down steadily over the past three years. Currently, the Sunni Arabs are outnumbered, in terms of population, by about eight-to-one. In terms of people with guns, they are outnumbered about five to one. The Sunni Arabs still have an edge in skills (and education), and attitude. Many Sunni Arabs still believe they will prevail because, well, because they believe Sunni Arabs are simply superior to those Kurd and Shia scum. But in a fight-to-the-death, the Sunni Arabs of Iraq are a very long shot to win.

It is always gratifying when Strategypage is on the same page. The stupidity of the Iraqi Sunni Arabs is mind boggling.

I have no idea if we can stop the momentum of the ethnic cleansing that the Sunni Arabs have invited with centuries of dominating the Shias, decades of slaughtering the Shias and Kurds under Saddam, and years of car bombing Shias and Kurds since we destroyed the Saddam regime.

The Iraqi Sunni Arabs once has a choice between a smaller role in a democratic Iraq or fighting to regain control of Iraq. They chose to fight. The Shias were amazingly patient with the Sunni-led killings of Shias until the February 2006 Samarra Golden Dome bombing. Because of that event, the Shias are burning with hatred and a desire for revenge. Once aroused, the Shias are not lacking for historical grievances to motivate them.

Now the Sunni Arabs have a choice between being driven from central Iraq or being slaughtered in central Iraq. They seem to be deciding on fleeing central Iraq.

But with no sign they will stop killing Shias, the next choice when most Sunnis are driven into Anbar province will be to decide between fleeing Iraq and being slaughtered in Iraq. When you consider that provoking Shia anger is what the Sunnis figured was a winning strategy for them, you really have to wonder if they have any functioning brain synapses to rub together.

The suspense is killing me. Oh what will Iraq's Sunni Arabs choose?