I was particularly struck by recent comments of new Army Chief Odierno that the US military presence not be too big----which would be an impediment to Iraqi progress for its own self-determination.

A small, belated but very insightful mea culpa to the entire sphere of post-defeat "foreign" activism, under any acronym we care to attach.

In grad school in the 1980s, the buzz word was Industrial Policy. The Japanese centralized control and we did not. The argument went that we must follow their lead or (1) we would be toast, and (2) they would take over the world.

A decade ago, the planning profession became enthralled with the term "Smart Growth," to which, ultimately, every smart, dumb, good or bad idea later became attached, and could be thoroughly argued from each side---to the point of meaninglessness.

I am all for "Smart Power," and generally, smart anything, but I can't seem to extend that to haphazard "Whole-of-Government" approaches, or ill-conceived COIN strategies aimed to locally prop up an ineffective central government, etc...

Smart is as Smart does, but it seems, from recent use, that those who argued it, and plaster "Smart" all over their idea, program, project or policy, do so to mask underlying problems.

In Northern Iraq in early 2008, the bridges were all down across the Tigris, and checkpoints restricted almost every movement. It was obvious that trade could not be restored until bridges were reopened and paths cleared.

That done, the recently released Wiki sitreps from Salah ad Din, for example, showed prices dropping, trade increasing, and business returning---across the board.

There is not a lot of rocket science to this, and no need to attach Smart monikers to most obvious post-conflict problems or solutions.

No matter how you label them, if they are stupid, they will fail.