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November 30, 2005

Gloat: Told Ya

The White House has published its Strategy in Iraq. This is the plan they've been working off of since 2003.

If you're a long time reader though, nothing in this document will be news.

Nice to be vindicated though. :-)

The document leaves out Why Iraq? though, which I've covered here.

Here are some interesting tidbits about the Administration's viewpoint. They see 3 sorts of enemies in Iraq:

  • Rejectionists are the largest group. They are largely Sunni Arabs who have not embraced the shift from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to a democratically governed state. Not all Sunni Arabs fall into this category. But those that do are against a new Iraq in which they are no longer the privileged elite. Most of these rejectionists opposed the new constitution, but many in their ranks are recognizing that opting out of the democratic process has hurt their interests.

  • Saddamists and former regime loyalists harbor dreams of reestablishing a Ba’athist dictatorship and have played a lead role in fomenting wider sentiment against the Iraqi government and the Coalition.

  • Terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida make up the smallest enemy group but are the most lethal and pose the most immediate threat because (1) they are responsible for the most dramatic atrocities, which kill the most people and function as a recruiting tool for further terrorism and (2) they espouse the extreme goals of Osama Bin Laden – chaos in Iraq which will allow them to establish a base for toppling Iraq’s neighbors and launching attacks outside the region and against the U.S. homeland.

The administration sees the war in Iraq to function along three tracks:

Political: Isolate, Engage, Build Security: Clear, Hold, Build Economic: Restore, Reform, Build

What I notice is that all 3 tracks have “Build” as a major element. The mistake the White House made in the Iraq war was overestimating how functional Iraq was as a state.

Also, as I predicted but haven't written about much yet:

As security conditions improve and as Iraqi Security Forces become increasingly capable of securing their own country, our forces will increasingly move out of the cities, reduce the number of bases from which we operate, and conduct fewer patrols and convoy missions.

Basically that means less Marines, and more airplanes. That is, we'll have an Air Force base or something somewhere in Iraq, the Iraqis will go into a town, we'll bomb the terrorists. That kind of thing. That means less deaths from IEDs. As I've pointed out for a long time, the insurgents switch to IEDs is a losing strategy. In fact, I think its worth another blog post.

Posted by the at November 30, 2005 9:29 AM

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