Hi RA,

Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
In other words, as the political scientists point out, because the goals of the government and the counter insurgent aren't aligned we can - under certain circumstances - get a new insurgency: insurgency 2.0.
Pretty often you would get new "insurgencies". But I honestly don't see why you would expect anything else . Maliki is exercising the sovereignty inherent in his position, and the MNF doesn't have sovereignty in Iraq - nor are they under Maliki's command and/or control. In game theoretic terms, this is a multi-player version of the Prisoner's Dilemma with one player (the MNF) having a de facto "get out of jail free" card.

Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
Therefore more clearing and holding could be - under certain circumstances that are difficult to comprehend, but that can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy - be counterproductive.
I don't see why you characterize them as "difficult to comprehend". Really, they stem from the structures imposed on Iraq. If a confederate system had been constructed - the tri-partite split - you would have had a different set of structures and different forms of insurgencies.

I think you do have a very valid point when you note that the government and the counter-insurgents (by which I assume you mean the MNF) goal are different. But I certainly don't find this surprising - it's totally predictable from the way the initial Phase IV was (mis-)handled. In the post-Westphalian construction of the state, a model that was an assumption of the architects of the invasion, such a conflict is inevitable since the MNF does not hold sovereignty.