The New Plan for Iraq

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Lots of news, editorials, commentary and blog coverage on the President's address and his new plan for Iraq at today's SWJ Daily News Links.

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From ZenPundit's blog - There's More Surging in DC Than Iraq.

The President outlined his plan tonight, along the lines of the much discussed "surge" option. The comments required here on this plan can be brief and on the response by the Democratic Majority, I will get by with even less.

The President's intention to clear and secure Baghdad is a long overdue tactical move to address a problem that never should have occurred in the first place. In itself, this is appropriate and I have no doubt that, if it is planned and executed by the military without being required to cut operational corners to appease idiotic political concerns in Congress, they will succeed in doing so. Albeit with pockets of very bloody fighting with stay-behind suicide-terrorists (the al Qaida in Iraq leadership having long since decamped, no doubt). This will get the government of Iraq at least to the level of controlling its own capital city, most of the time.

The real question is more strategic: what do we have ready to implement as the next three steps after we " clear and hold"? This is the point of concern that will determine what progress, if any, becomes permanent. Simply buying time is not an appropriate answer. Changing the situation requires making very hard political choices in reference to Iraq's sectarian communities and regional diplomacy that "surging" will not allow the administration to ultimately escape. My vote is to throw in with the Kurds and cut a deal with the Shiites that creates a viable medium term, containment plan for an Anbar " Sunnistan" until the U.S. -backed tribals can chew up the nuttier elements. We don't need a city on the hill right now, just manageable levels of violence...

More at the link.

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From today's London Times - New U.S. General Will Copy British 'Softly-Softly' Style by Tim Reid.

The new US ground commander picked by President Bush to direct the military “surge” into Iraq believes that the war can be won with a radical change of tactics: those used by the British in Malaya and Ulster.

Lieutenant-General David Petraeus, handed perhaps the toughest US military assignment since the Vietnam War — to stabilise Iraq and defeat its militias — is one of the Army’s premier intellectuals and a devoted student of counter-insurgency techniques used by the British and French during the last century.

General Petraeus, who has spent 2½ of the past 4 years in Iraq, has been one of the few officers advocating a troop surge into Baghdad. He believes that a new approach, based on soldiers living and patrolling amid the population and co-opting local leaders, can halt the slide into chaos.

Having co-authored the US military’s counter-insurgency manual, General Petraeus believes that only by combining military strength and sensitive interaction with locals can an insurgency be defeated. He has been influenced by a study of the British in Malaya during the 1950s by John Nagl, a Pentagon official...