We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

[Dayuhan]

Dare I address this yet again, only to be accused of reciting a mantra? :-)

No, this is not a mantra... mantras are the short ones, like "insurgency is the source of AQ's energy" and "foreign fighters travel to fight in order to change governance in their home countries". Finally we get a bit specific, a good thing.

Look, the "tactics" of what precisely needs to be done in any particular place is always going to be unique, and must be shaped to the specifics of the problems, cultures, types of governance, nature of grievances, types of active revolutionary and pre-revolutionary organizations, any outside state or non-state UW or FID actors, etc. Oh, and then of course shaped by what, if any, national interests we might have in that place or the issues taking place there.

I was looking more for policies than tactics but this will suffice.

But with these three countries you name, a similar strategic understanding and framework applies:

With much of this I agree; no response to those is necessary. There are some sticking points.

1. All have high conditions of insurgency (that are unique in how they manifest and how active they are etc).

As I've said before, I think you're using a non-standard definition of "insurgency" here, which makes discussion confusing. I'd agree that there's widespread discontent with governance in these areas; whether or not that has reached a point where it can be called "insurgency", as the term is generally understood, is debatable. If you're going to use non-standard definitions of terms it's good to explain your definition before using it. Discussion gets complicated when people ascribe different meanings to the same words.

3. All have systems of governance that are, or have been until recently, highly reliant upon their relationships with powerful external partners

Major red flag on this one. Looking at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States, I don't see one case in which you could realistically claim systems of governance that "are, or have been until recently, highly reliant upon their relationships with powerful external partners". Reliant for external defense, possibly, but not for control of the populace and certainly not for economic sustenance. One of the consistent weaknesses of your argument is that you consistently and drastically overrate the reliance of other governments on us, and therefore the degree of influence that we can bring to bear on their behaviour. Assuming influence that you haven't actually got is dangerous.

6. All were under Ottoman and European control prior to the Cold War, and all were locations the US/West worked diligently to maintain or gain the role of primary security ally (rather than the Soviets) throughout the Cold War; and then worked to sustain those relationships through the comfortable certainty of sustaining particular people, families.systems of governance in place post-Cold War.

Again, you overrate the degree to which these governments were "sustained" by outside influence.

9. The status quo is increasingly unsustainable at acceptable costs (though the Saudis and the Gulf States are pouring in increasing amounts of bribes, security, etc as their fear of revolution grows).

I think "increasingly unsustainable" is simplistic and inaccurate. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are arguably more stable today than they were in the 90s. Not that they've solved the problems, but domestic investment, decreased unemployment, etc have bought a substantial reprieve.

So:

Now we get to the sticky bits...

The US has an opportunity to be a agent for peaceful, evolutionary change on the terms of the people, cultures and governments actually involved. But so far we have demanded to cast this on our terms in our context. Step one is to abandon our context and embrace theirs. This is there problem, it must be their solution.

You assume that "they" have a consistent context, that we know what it is, and that we have a part to play in the changes. I'm not sure any of these assumptions are sustainable.

1. We need to mediate or facilitate mediation in as neutral a way as possible.

2. We need to set redlines for both governments and populace groups in terms of violence, and other activities counter-productive to the process.

3. We need to encourage populaces to embrace non-violent tactics for their insurgent movements, and then deter governments from applying excessive violence against such activities.

4. We need to use our full DIME(but light on the M) to get these governments to hold true, substantive talks with their many diverse populace groups.

This, frankly, fills me with horror, and I can imagine no worse course of action. What right or standing have we to mediate in these disagreements? re we being asked to mediate, or to impose red lines, or to "use our full DIME" by any of the actors in these environments? Very simply put: no, we are not. The governments don't want us involved, the populaces don't want us involved, our own populace doesn't want us involved. Any attempt by us to impose ourselves as "mediator" is going to offend everyone involved and be perceived by all concerned (including most Americans) as a Trojan horse ruse aimed at building our own influence and taking control. This directly supports AQs narrative of western interference and subversion.

We are not trusted or wanted in these places, and any attempt to impose ourselves in these internal consequences is likely to blow up in our faces. Even where we've played a part in creating problems through meddlings past, bad meddling can't be corrected by more meddling. It has to be corrected by less meddling: unless there's a specific request from groups with a realistic claim to represent the populace or a significant portion thereof, we need to stay out of the internal affairs of these countries. Even where such a request exists, it's best managed mutilaterally.

Look at what happened in Bahrain. We came in advising accommodation, negotiation, and reform. We were promptly ignored, and achieved nothing beyond underscoring our own impotence.

Effectively what you're proposing here is that these governments need to be "fixed" and that we have a central role to play in making the fixing happen. That's scary.

5. We need to stop conducting CT operations against elements of these revolutionary populace groups simply because they are talking to AQ. We need to incentivise them to work in the context of our concept for supporting evolution, rather than in the AQ context of supporting revolution.

Are we "conducting CT operations against elements of these revolutionary populace groups" in any of the countries under discussion?

There are a lot of "ifs" that good tactical approaches tailored for each place will need to address. But all of those tactics must be in synch an over-arching strategy similar to what I lay out here. To date we set tactical metrics, and then get so focused on putting up big tactical numbers that we lose sight of what we are actually trying to do. Time to put good strategy in the lead, and let intel and tactics follow. My opinion.

The overarching strategy you describe seems based on the assumption that the governments in question are reliant on us and must do what we want them to do, and that the populaces concerned want us to step in and interfere in the domestic affairs of their nations. These seem to me like unsupported, exaggerated, and very dangerous assumptions, and I don't see how you can build "good strategy" on faulty assumptions.