The Col. Gentile collection and debate

[Rob Thornton]

To get back to your original point, parts of (1) and (2) are due to improved COIN doctrine and implementation. However, they are also due to AQI missteps, coupled with a sudden Sunni ability to count (that is, a realization post-Samarra by Sunni tribal and militia leaders that they needed protection against an angry, well armed, and larger Shiite community/militias).

(That being said, success is, in part, capitalizing on opponent errors.)

I like it when the enemy screws up - it makes for less work, but don't sell short the ability to understand a mistep/screw up and capitalize on it. Too often an enemy gives us an opportunity and we ignore it, miss it, or screw it up.

I like your second part Rex - there is some art in being a good counter-puncher.

Best, Rob

[Norfolk]

I will take it from the both of you then, Rex and Rob, that the US Army (and Marines) in Iraq are now and increasingly so, waging a Counterinsurgency campaign with sustantial, if still limited, success, and that the future, while unpredicatable, is more hopeful than a year ago or more - at least as things stand right now.

Starting with the fact that some of the insurgents (mainly Sunni), and especially those from AQI, have overstepped themselves, and are paying the price. AQI seems to be in quite the hurt locker lately, and I am inclined to believe that with its deliberate targetting of the civilian population in its last major terror "offensive", it succeeded in turning even the Sunni population more or less against it. Combined with a more or less successful Coalition adaptation to the requirements of COIN, the Sunni backlash against the excesses of many of their own extremists have led to Sunni tribal leaders' re-evaluation of which side the butter on their bread truly lies (at least for the moment). In the Sunni areas at least, Coalition (and especially US) forces are more and more being seen as allies, at least for the time being.

The Shi'a situation will have to be dealt with in time, particularly the Sadr'ists. I did notice a few years ago (around later 2004, maybe early 2005 - I am taking this purely from reported news and articles at the time - the Marines were clearing Fallujah and ordered to call it off just before finishing, whilst the Sadrists were rebelling in Najaf - and US troops dispatched to face them down) an increasing US awareness of the dynamics of the Sunni-Shi'a divide, and a developing ability to play them other off against one another. A strategy of divide and conquer, even if by necessity rather than design.

However, gathering from Rex's post, even if the Sunni tribes and the US reach a practical accomodation, the Shi'a extremists will pose the greatest challenge of all to bring to heel, and their strength may even be increasing.

Okay, I gather from what Rex has said that the situation is still too fragile to make evena tentative call on whether the US/Coalition forces are indeed slowly succeeding in defeating the insurgency; whereas Rob thinks that the situation is a little firmer and clearer than that, with the US/Coalition forces in Iraq having largely caught-on to the demands of the campaign, and succeeding in making things happen, so far. I think that it goes without saying that the Governmental side (above local tribal sheiks), which is formally outside the direct control of the US anyway, is a clear disappointment, but essential to the successs of the counterinsurgency.

Be that as it may. But I gather that it could be argued, with qualifications especially as to its tentativeness, that US/Coalition troops in Iraq have more or less caught-on to what needs to be done, within the limits of what is possible for them to do (necessarily excluding such matters as Iraqi governmental politics at all levels of government); and furthermore that both General Petraeus' Iraq strategy and the COIN Doctrine from which it derives are genuine, if qualified and still reversible, successes so far.