Quote Originally Posted by Jones_RE
I don't think it's a good idea to exactly mirror the insurgency, but I'm hard pressed to think of the counter insurgent movement that succeeded without adopting at least some of the tactics of its opponents.
What, specifically, should the Iraqi army (and perhaps the US army) attempt to copy from the insurgents?
Mirroring is not copying your opponents tactics. Mirroring is a strategy. To accomplish this strategy takes information of the implicit nature of your enemy. Once you know your enemy, you can train in his tactics and counter them. If you are good enough, you can counter before your enemy acts, this is called offensive maneuvers.
I at first thought the Iraqi Army could, if anyone could, mirror the insurgency. This was because of the fact they know, implicitly, the insurgency. However, the problem with this idea, one of must be many, is that a mirroring strategy takes two players. The Iraqi Army may know the insurgency well enough to participate, however, they don't know themselves well enough. The Iraqi Army's implicit rules (what they feel inside) are too divided. I don't think it would be possible to mirror your enemy when part of what you feel belongs to the enemy.
So the statement in the 28 articles should be amended. It should read instead: the Iraqi Army should follow the explicit orders of the US military until such time that the Iraqi Army develops an identity of itself. It should be the strategy of the US military to promote an Iraqi Army's self-identity through training and support. While this creates a big Catch-22, I am sure this is something the US military is quite able to handle, given time.