... To refer to politics in al Anbar is to refer to something that doesn’t currently exist. The brass in Iraq, by diminishing force projection in al Anbar in order to let “reconstruction win the hearts and minds of the people,” are deferring to a phantom. The very people whose hearts and minds we want to win are being protected by the enemy who destroys their political institutions and prevents reconstruction.
The Strategy Page from a few months ago is correct. There isn’t civil war in Iraq, and there can never be civil war in Iraq. If the factions war with each other, the Kurds will be left along (or defended by themselves alongside the Kurds in Turkey), and the Shia majority will utterly destroy the Sunni minority. Rather than speak of civil war, we should speak of genocide.
The only force in the region who is capable of winning the war on the battlefield is the U.S. Reliance on the Iraqis to effect the victory is a losing strategy...
...Maintenance of the peace can be accomplished by the Iraqi troops alongside U.S. troops, and the political process can be protected by both the U.S. and Iraqis. Reconstruction can be assisted by the most versatile force in the world, the U.S. military. But winning the war on the battlefield is necessary prior to winning it politically. Unless and until the enemy is killed or captured, politics is irrelevant because it doesn’t exist.
We can still win this war, but we need to dispatch a division of Marines as soon as possible to begin operations in Ramadi, Fallujah (yes, it has regressed), Hamdaniyah, Haditha and al Haqlania. Generals who learned the wrong lessons from the wrong war and who are applying them in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons with the wrong understanding are decreasing our chances of success in al Anbar....
Thanks for the assist Jed
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