Quote Originally Posted by LawVol View Post
Okay, assuming that "winning" in Iraq means the establishment of stability (rather than US-style democracy), how do we win?

Hezbollah provides goodies to the populous and win them over. I'm sure the Mahdi army does the same. So it would appear to work, just not for us. Perhaps its the religious aspect of this fight? Our other COIN efforts have involved political ideology rather than religion. The old adage blood is thicker than water comes to mind. So if we can't win them over, what is our next move?

One other thought: if we'd have established immediate human security (i.e. freedom from crime) as Baghdad fell, would we even be at this point? In other words, would winning hearts and minds have mattered?
But Hezbollah is not using "goodies" to overcome a lack of affinity. The affinity already exists. They just augment it with social services. (They also have the advantage of being seen as heroic protectors of the downtrodden. I don't think an infidel can play that role in an Islamic society).

This suggests that the Iraqi government might be able to win "hearts and minds" (if it could transcend the image that it only advances the interests of those who already support it rather than the "undecideds") but we can't. So, the solution would be to just funnel resources through the Iraqi government and be willing to tolerate the fact that a significant portion of them are going to be "lost" in the process. This has another advantage--keeping the government dependent on us to fuel its system of patronage gives us some leverage to modulate their more egregious transgressions. We might have to, for instance, overlook corruption but not tolerate human rights abuses.