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Surging: Things are Turning Around in Iraq
Bing West, a former Marine and former assistant secretary of defense, reports in this month’s National Review on Dead Tree (subscription required) that the surge is working.
During this month-long visit, I have accompanied twelve Iraqi and American units in Anbar Province (including Habbaniyah, Haditha, Ramadi, Saqwaniyah, and the Zidon) and Baghdad (including Rusafa, Sadr City, Azamiyiah, Khalidiah, and Ghazaliyah). I have visited these areas many times since 2003, and it appears to me that, in both Anbar and Baghdad, the war-fighting strategies are now sound and clear.
This should not be taken for granted; the U.S. strategy in Iraq has been erratic. Iraq’s 26 million traumatized inhabitants have few leaders, are rent by religious and ethnic antagonisms, and are slaughtered and terrified by the Grendel-like monster called al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The reasonable timeline for counterinsurgency and nation-building under such conditions is ten to twenty years. The administration and the Pentagon envisioned completing “full-spectrum counterinsurgency†— i.e., clearing, holding, and rebuilding the key cities — in 2005; transitioning to Iraqi forces in 2006; and pulling out in 2007. If accomplished, that would have been the fastest turnaround in history.
The new American military team has infused the effort with energy and strategic clarity, and seized the initiative. In this war, the moral/psychological element outweighs the physical by 20 to 1. And on the two primary battlefields — Anbar and Baghdad — I see a common characteristic: U.S. momentum.
. . . The Surge Strategy and top American leadership have certainly infused a new sense of momentum. I’ve read about our army being “broken,†and certainly at least a year at home — what’s called “dwell time†— is deserved by every unit that is called upon to redeploy. But I have been out with enough different units to attest to the energy and focus of our troops. These are good guys who understand the strategy Petraeus has laid out.
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