Marc,

I don't think we should use Iraq as "the" example, because the conflict there is far beyond a simple, or even complex insurgency. By the DoD definition I guess it falls under the category of lawlessness, so we're doing COIN, but the country is in such disaray that traditional COIN approaches are too little, too late. My biggest concern isn't Iraq, but rather that we draw the wrong lessons from Iraq when we get involved in COIN missions in the future. I'm concerned we'll hear, oh we can't do that, we tried it in Iraq and it didn't work. The fact is we tried it after we lost the high moral ground, so of course it didn't work. Our national leadership didn't understand the nature of the war they getting in, and now we're trying to play catch up, and the reality is a lot of these tactics won't work once you're past the credibility tipping point.

Iraq was complex to begin with (although that seemed to be a conveniently disreguarded fact during planning). Some of the larger issues is the ethnic make up, the uncooperative neighbors (that's putting it politely), the multiple insurgencies, multiple criminal gangs, ineffective economy, massive unemployment, civil war, transnationals, limitless munitions, all topped off with a cherry on top known to us as the Iraqi government, but I doubt many in Iraq see it that way. We walked in to this with our eyes wide open, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Quite simply, war doesn't have to be the way in the future. Iraq could have looked much different if we engaged our brains first before committing our military. I think there is a timing or phasing issue with COIN TTP that we haven't discussed much, but if we started this war focused on the Iraqi people from day one, and fought to maintain the moral high ground instead of just taking ground, we may have been able to pull this one off.

I think our COIN doctrine has merit, and would work if applied correctly from day one in numerous countries inflected with insurgencies. I think we have to pull the population away from the insurgency to the government, and if you can't do that you can't win.