You're talking sense. You must be one of them 'defeat-o-crats.'

No, you're missing the point. One of the ways to create a viable state is to choose a side within the domestic political arena and help it win dominance. The British won in Malaya partly by empowering the Malays against the Chinese minority.

Ah, Total, you think the plan is to empower the Sunni minority against the Shiite majority? And as we're doing this, we'll continue to arm and train all sides in the conflict? And, uh, what about those Kurds?

This isn't a counterinsurgency strategy. It's a run out the clock strategy.

George is running out the clock on his presidency, and his victory plan is to, unless a miracle happens, blame someone else for any bad things that happen after he leaves office.

The plan is to point to Iraq in 2009 and say "There was still a chance for victory! But, sadly, my successor failed, due to lack of resolve."

That's the victory plan. Run out the clock. Do not talk about the fact that the President lied us into a war he had only half-assedly planed for, and turned a bad-but-contained country into a killing field and terrorist training ground.

Instead, make the conversation about feelings. Blame the other guy for the catastrophe because he had bad feelings and insufficient happy thoughts. Use words like "will" and "resolve" to hide the fact that you're talking about feelings.

Run out the clock + Blame the other guy + Talk about feelings = victory.

The pathetic part is that the people running the show actually think this is victory.

Ah, Total, you think the plan is to empower the Sunni minority against the Shiite majority? And as we're doing this, we'll continue to arm and train all sides in the conflict? And, uh, what about those Kurds?

I think you have the strategy in a nutshell there. We will build up the Sunni minority, who will install a military strongman (named Haddam Sussein?) to run the country by suppressing the Shiites who we will have to protect, along with the Kurds, with a no-fly zone. Hopefully then we can get them to attack Iran for us. It's 1985 and 1992 all over again!

For a (long) reasoned explanation of this policy--and it's expected (umm, read desired) outcomes, see Colonel Kilcullen's explanation: http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/08/anatomy-of-a-tribal-revolt/

1. The main point was that it is possible to wage counterinsurgency war by choosing sides in a Civil War. Since nobody's tried to contradict the Malaysia example, I'll read it as proven.

2. The Kurds are a very good example of how to arm a minority and create a peaceful enclave as a result.

3. Those of you arguing that disbanding the Iraqi Army was a mistake while simultaneously mocking the idea of supporting the Sunnis (yes, I see you over *there*, and *there* and in the back row against the wall) should be aware the army was Sunni dominated and thus preserving the Army _would_ have been supporting the Sunnis.

should be aware the army was Sunni dominated and thus preserving the Army _would_ have been supporting the Sunnis.

Which is easier to control, an organized army with some sort of chain of command or random militias with their own unknown agenda?

"Which is easier to control, an organized army with some sort of chain of command or random militias with their own unknown agenda?"

How about we rephrase that question so that it's biased in the other direction?

"Which is easier to control, a raggedy-tag militia with limited weaponry, or a modern, heavily-armed military?"

I don't see in this month's Bush P.R. narrative about strengthening local power anything more than political theatre, procrastination and delusion. I agree with anonymous: this is a run-out-the-clock strategy, masquerading as anything else.

In Opera, they have a saying: "It ain't over till the fat lady sings."

Iraq is sitting on the number 2 and number 9? oil fields in the world. Full-scale production in those fields is the fat lady singing. Iraq will not be "over" until some actor(s) have sufficient political power to secure those fields and put them into full production. That won't be a local sheik -- you can trust me on that. And, it won't be the U.S. with 35,000 troops, as the Project for a New American Century types hoped in 2002, and it won't be the U.S. with 80,000 troops, either.

The strategic objectives of Cheney-Rumsfeld were to prevent a near-term resumption of Iraqi oil production (under the sponsorship of the Russians and the French) due to the breakdown of sanctions, and to create a weak Iraqi state, which would "need" the U.S. to maintain a permanent military presence, analogous to the U.S. bases in Germany, Japan and Korea. Under that umbrella, U.S. oil interests would exploit Iraqi oil in the favorable economic climate on the lee side of peak oil, five years or ten years down the road. They succeeded in their first objective, with great benefit to the Saudis, Exxon/Mobil's and Halliburtons.

The second, longer-term objective has proven problematic, because any Iraqi state weak enough to "want" the U.S. to stay is too weak to hold the country together. The fumbling, bumbling Reconstruction, which aimed to put together a libertarian wet-dream of a weak state, succeeded altogether too well, and Iraq has been falling apart ever since.

It was a classic, fundamental strategic error: the objective of a weak Iraqi state, as a means to establish permanent U.S. military bases, proved to be destructive to that end, because a weak Iraqi state could not hold the country together or make its society and economy function even minimally. Nothing in Petraeus' COIN tactics addresses that fundamental strategic error, and, for the moment, the Bush Administration is going to pretend that the weakness of their strategy is a virtue -- a problem that originates in the weakness of the Iraqi state, social and political institutions, and economy, is going to be addressed by policies that exacerbate that weakness by strengthening the social, economic and political primitives of traditional, local clan leadership.

But, there's no political equilibrium, where Iraq remains a fractious, failed state. First of all, in the present state of affairs, more than a third of the population is in hard poverty -- near starvation, $1/day territory; it's not like anyone is going to want to quit their militia gig and return to their day job in that kind of economy. But, more importantly, at the end of the day, all of that oil is still out there, waiting. That's the prize for a strong, central government, that will be constantly calling a central power into being. The oil sings a siren's song.

And, Iraq won't be over, until the "fat lady" of some power able to take productive control of the oil, sings back.

"I don't see in this month's Bush P.R. narrative about strengthening local power anything more than political theatre, procrastination and delusion. I agree with anonymous: this is a run-out-the-clock strategy, masquerading as anything else."

I think it's the exact opposite. It's setting up a withdrawal (or substantial drawdown) in Spring 2008. "We've secured things, now it's up to the Iraqis" Bush has already planted the seed for exactly that.

"Which is easier to control, a raggedy-tag militia with limited weaponry, or a modern, heavily-armed military?"

You mean the modern, heavily-armed military that had just been utterly and completely defeated? Do you think they were going to hop back in their T-72 tanks and charge out into the desert for some more destruction?

"You mean the modern, heavily-armed military that had just been utterly and completely defeated? Do you think they were going to hop back in their T-72 tanks and charge out into the desert for some more destruction?"

Yes, I mean that army. The occupation (as you should well know) is not the same as the war.

And since you're not arguing the point that the army was Sunni-dominated, I'll take as accepted that not disbanding the army would, in fact, be supporting a Sunni-dominated group.