Quote Originally Posted by BRUZ_LEE View Post
ILLOGIC OF STRATEGY vs. THE IMPORTANCE OF STRATEGY

Strategy is more important than tactics. That also applies perfectly to the US IRAQ intervention.
Had the US withdrawn forces after toppling Saddam the intervention had gone down as a big military success; but that would have called for an option of handing over to the UN which was not the case after unilaterally heading into IRAQ and simultaneously insulting allies and the UN as "debating society".
So the perfect timing for an exit-strategy passed and the initial success was not exploited due to all that failed (lack of?) phase-4/COIN-plans over 3 years which everybody is now aware of; add Abu Ghreib and it gets clear, that a big mess was the only logical outcome...
Today, all the invaluable COIN wisdom of Galula, Trinquier and others which has been (unfortunately too late) re-discovered will not help to turn back time, that is my opinion. (There is simply no second chance to make a good impression...) Just look back at the approach: "Garner as a Military Gouverner-no, doesn't work; Bremer and the dissolving of the IRAQI army- maybe a bad idea; Sanchez-mmh, not really the best man; .... lets try a COIN expert like Petraeus at last!" - Is that professional? Is that course of action the best what the greatest military superpower can show up with? Trial-and-error Strategy?

Is there anybody else who has this "deja-vu" feeling when comparing the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the US one in IRAQ? Even the struggling with a normally "simple" tactical threat (Soviets in AFG: anti-air-missiles/Stinger; US in IRAQ: IEDs) is strikingly similar.
For the Soviets the seemingly easy and unimportant AFG-adventure turned out to be the beginning of the end, not at least because of the huge costs of the war in the end...
Like them we went to IRAQ to topple the government at first place (the Soviets toppled Hafizullah Amin in Kabul, we toppled Saddam Hussein in Bagdad) and are now dragged into an attrition conflict in which we resemble the occupier and make a good "bad guy" and foreign fighters see IRAQ (as AFG before) as a playing ground for their form of jihad.
There is a book on the Soviet-Afghan war called "The Bear Trap". Maybe somebody will write a book about IRAQ calling it "The Eagle Trap"...

Summing up, I personally think that all the debates on tactical and operational level COIN-employment (even if they are good and useful - by the way SWJ is an excellent website!) fall short of answering the real question: the question for the grand strategy for IRAQ!
My opinion: a good strategy would definitely include a really good Iraqi government and the UN...

BRUZ

One thing that frightens me is the extent to which the absolutely nonsensical elements in the Administration's explanation of Iraq resonate among the general population. For instance, here's a comment posted just a few hours ago to a general discussion board I sometime look in on:

Let's assume we pull all of the troops out of Iraq. Civil War insues and the Al Queada and other terrorist groups take over the country and the oil supplies.

What do you then do?

Do we just wait on them to organize buy weapons with Iraq's oil money and fight them in the US and other countries when they attack?

So, if I understand, if the United States leaves Iraq, those 500 or so AQ guys are going to take over a country of 23 million, then they are going to launch attacks against the United States.

On one hand we can laugh at this. But it's clear to see where these ideas come from--they were lifted directly from the President's July 4th speech.

Ultimately I'm afraid discourse on Iraq has shifted to the surreal.