The Basrah Gambit

[Rank amateur]

My apologies to Ken and Ron. I was responding to multiple quotes, started copying the quote tags and then deleted some quotes and got confused about who said what. (Maybe someone can fix it for me. I can't edit it anymore.)


To summarize my thoughts. War is messy. COIN particularly so, but I think we need to move beyond "it takes a long time" to "A COIN effort is going down the wrong track if [or the right track if]...."

From Abu Muqawama

While we're on the subject of Lebanonization, though, here's another historical analogy that Amb. Crocker missed. In Lebanon, in September 1983, the U.S. lent direct support to what it assumed was a national institution, the Lebanese Army, in the battle at Souk el-Gharb. By doing so, it became, in the eyes of the rest of the Lebanese population, just another militia and thus fair game. What happened next? Ask any U.S. Marine.

Now we all know the situations in Iraq and Lebanon are not exactly the same, but Souk el-Gharb was running through Abu Muqawama's head during the battle of Basra two weeks ago when we were lending our support to the "national" army of Iraq in its fight with the Sadr crew. To us good-natured Americans, it may have looked as if we were lending our support to the legitimate, national institutions of Iraq. But to other Iraqis, it probably looked as if we were taking sides in the intra-Shia political dispute between ISCI and Sadr in the run-up to this fall's provincial elections.

I think we can discuss the issue here, which is one reason why I like having discussions here, but I can't see the Senate having a reasonable discussion about it.

Then stop using the word!

An excellent example of how a single word can make it difficult to wrap everything up. Imagine how long we'd both go on if we both believed that this was a debate, instead of a conversation, and that one of us would be declared a winner and the other a loser.

In any event, I think it's safe to say that if we do withdraw precipitously, the Islamists will claim 'victory' and thus trumpet our 'defeat.' That can have a detrimental long term effect albeit not probably a fatal one -- so any cost benefit analysis should consider that in some detail.

An excellent point. I think the analysis really depends on how the debate is framed. Losing a battle in a long war isn't a problem. In a long war, you can have Pyrrhic victories. On the other hand, if you frame Iraq in black and white terms, no one likes to lose.