U.S. Strategy on Sunnis Questioned

[Tom Odom]

Originally posted by Uboat509:Not neccessarily. There is a middle ground. The IA and the IPs generally focus on the big cities and towns. There is an awful lot of ground that doesn't fall under that definition in Iraq. That is where I would think athat the neighborhood watches come in. It's not perfect but it is a start. In any case, if you want to truly build a democratic society in a Iraq you will have to start by co-opting the tribes, and then build from there. If you try to build it without them then you threaten the power of the Sheiks and they will shut you down.

Again, I do not disagree with your points on the tribes. But I am extending to the larger political strategy and the huge gap between what is a security and reality driven measure to work with and acrively arm the tribes and the political strategy that is nominally trying to keep Iraq together. The reality has intruded in the military realm but fallen behind in the political. We are pursuing countervailing courses.

Meanwhile none of what you and I have exchanged so far even touches on US political reality. We do not have the 2 generations Ken White talked about. We have 1-2 years maybe at any sizable tropp commitment.

Since we do not have the option of brutality then we absolutely have to deal with the tribes.

Exactly. That is the reality. When do we alter the end state of our political strategy to recognize an extremely federal Iraq or a true division? That is the geo-political reality that is not reflected in the current state of affairs. So when you talk about people who look at things as they should be versus how they actually are, that symptom is very much in play when we ignore this disconnect.

Best

Tom