Marc, you're spot on regarding the symbolic level of this conflict. That's why the oaths you were talking about are so important. We have to embrace that aspect of the conflict (something that as near as I can tell has been missed by some of the high-speed 4GW arguments) and find ways to get it to work for us.

Mike's points regarding COIN in VN are also very relevant to the discussion. In VN we faced a situation where the legacy of central government was (at best) mixed and tainted. Things from that standpoint had always been looser in the South than they were in the North, and we didn't recognized that (if we ever did at a policy level) until it was too late. Iraq, IMO, is somewhat different, but you're still dealing with a region that has reasons to doubt a central government. That makes things interesting, to say the least!

I like the idea of an Imam-developed oath for ralliers to take, and suspect it could be expanded to others in positions of local leadership as well. The problem here is the same one we faced in SVN: insurgents would then target oath-takers and kill them. Provided you have reasonable local security, and can develop more, it's a great idea.

Bill, as far as quid pro quo for wells and such, I think what we may see is a sort of "horse trading" level of operations. Something like "if we don't get hit with IEDs in X area for Y days, you'll get your well." Simplistic as well, I know, and possibly not the best example, but I strongly suspect that this is what it will come to if we go that route. One thing VN showed is that if you do civic projects and then walk away, the insurgents end up benefiting from them (or at least positioning themselves to take credit for them, which is the same thing in this sort of warfare).

On the Frontier, the Army (during the brief periods when they had control of the reservation system) used to threaten to withhold rations and (more importantly) weapons and ammunition from tribes if there was a problem with raiding from the reservation. This could be reasonably successful, even given the weak central leadership structure of the tribes. This may be the sort of thing (or a modified version of same) that we end up going back to.