The way out of Iraq

Over at NO QUARTER, Larry Johnson outlines a plan that might actually get us out of Iraq. That guarantees that it will never receive a hearing in Washington…

The current U.S. offensive will fail.  We will punch ourselves out on an enemy that is smart enough to retreat in the face of overwhelming force.  We will go house to house rousting able bodied men from their sleep and humiliating them in front of their wives.  We will detain some of these folks but eventually let them return home.  When they return home they will be fully prepared to support whatever insurgent group will help them reclaim the honor we took from them.

We have employed these insane tactics for four plus years.  And what have we achieved?  A steady increase in terrorist violence and insurgent attacks.  More U.S. soldiers have died in the last six months then in any six month period since the war began…

What should we do?  It is very simple.

1. Recognize that we are fighting a hydra-headed insurgency.  There are at least 20 different insurgent groups.  There is no single enemy.  Ironically, we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about “Al Qaeda”.  We deceive ourselves that Al Qaeda is the main enemy in Iraq.  It is not.

2.  Disengage from attacking the Iraqi people.  Immediately institute a moratorium on kicking in the doors of suspected weapons sites, etc.  Whatever value has been achieved by capturing small caches of weapons has been grossly overshadowed by the ill-will we have spawned among the various factions in Iraq.  If a house has to be invaded let the Iraqi police or soldiers do it.  Our boys and girls need to sit this one out.

3.  Empower local sheiks and tribal chiefs to secure the roads and infrastructure in their area.  Pay them to keep the roads open and free of explosives.  Provide training and support to those tribes.  We do not have enough troops to secure the roads and infrastructure.  We would need at least 500,000 troops to accomplish that objective.  We do not have them and we do not have a plan (e.g., draft) in place to produce such numbers in the foreseeable future.  We need to stop bullshitting ourselves and work with the tools we have, not the tools we would like to have.

4.  Convene a regional peace conference.  We need Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria at the table.  We must negotiate our way out of Iraq while preserving our own interests in the region.   Like it or not we have created a majority Shia state in Iraq that will not willingly  relinquish power.  Yes they will be favorably disposed to Iran, at least for the near term.  But we can accomplish more through diplomacy in the region then thru military action.  Our current approach is tarnishing our reputation with each new report of an offensive to “root out” Al Qaeda.

5.  Deploy an international peace keeping force to Baghdad.  As long as U.S. troops are the face of the military action in Iraq, we foster the impression that we want the chaos.  Most folks in the Middle East still believe we are a superpower.  By definition nothing happens unless we want it to.  Therefore, the violence in Iraq is a deliberate choice of the U.S. superpower.   Otherwise, because we are a superpower, we would exert control over the insurgents and stop the violence.  For some strange reason the the Arabs and Persians don’t comprehend, we are allowing Iraq to fall into chaos and disorder.  If we did not want that outcome then we would do something different because we are a SUPERPOWER.

I know one thing for certain.  The approach I have outlined above will work far more effectively in helping the United States achieve tangible, positive results in Iraq then the madness and insanity of General Odierno and his strategy of punching the bag of jello known as the Iraqi insurgency.