Having worked closely with Marines in the field, to include in Iraq over a couple of deployments, I would like to provide some reaction to Mr. Will's article.

Parts of the article appear correct, other parts not, and I believe that the title is somewhat misleading. In my experience, the Marines in Iraq have known and do know their mission, thanks to some enlightened command (such as Gen. Mattis), and they are executing their mission well.

That said, there are some larger weaknesses, of which the Marines are well (even painfully) aware:

-- there has been a steady blurring of overlapping missions or components of missions--this has truly been Gen. Krulak's "3-block war" fought by "strategic corporals"--kinetic action, counterinsurgency/counterterrorism, civil affairs, humanitarian relief, and missions as mundane as clearing the trash and clearing debris from government buildings have all been parts of the day-to-day job, often concurrently.
-- a large reason for this has been the relative lack of an interagency presence or participation in the larger mission. The new COIN field manual and historical experience show the need to have a strong interagency involvement in situations like Iraq (I realize I am preaching to the "Small Wars Choir"), which has been lacking and which has, as a result, obligated the military to shoulder burdens which others should have carried.

The Marines have accepted--and compensated to the degree possible--for these weaknesses, and have served with honor.

Will's anecdote about Gen. Shoup explaining the costs of the taking of Tarawa and the analogy for military action in Cuba is good--but better analogies for understanding the current situation in Iraq might be our experiences in Lebanon in the early 1980's, when there were conflicting political and military missions, placing the Marines (literally) in the middle of a larger conflict between segments of the population that they could neither control or influence, or Somalia, where military capability was undercut by loss of domestic political will and coalition military capabilities that were not synchronized with US military efforts.

Bottom line--the Marines I have worked with know their mission and are dedicated to accomplishing it, in tough circumstances and against a tough opponent. We owe them our support and tribute.