A Soldier's Tears: What have we gained an lost in trying, so far?:2007's Strategic Assessment (due this week)
Another Lebanese-style failed State ... and who can stop it?
For all the talk about the US and its coalition-of-the-willing (when is the next time we are likely to ever hear that phrase from the GOP?) "occupying" Iraq, the sad truth is that Iraqis, now culled of their best and brightest who have fled to Jordan and beyond, are unable to "occupy" Iraq.
The entire history of building out the ISF is almost one of almost abject failure, now at $19 billion dollars to-date with another $5 billion for next year. The key successes, such as the Scorpion Brigades, have been small compared to the powerful forces pulling apart the effort to stabilize the country politically under the onslaught of 'insurgency', 'terrorism', and old-fashioned extortion and racketeering. The powerful "dead-enders" killed the head of the Scorpions, at one point, to show that no one is 'untouchable'. The conclusion is this:
In any event, the ISF will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months. -Commission Report, Exec Summary
The headwinds have been enormous, with Iraqis taking 2-10 times the number of non-civilian casualties than has the coalition, during various periods long before - before - "the surge" even began! Murderous intimidation and kidnapping and even end-game considerations (who will have been seen to have 'collaborated with occupation' when the US leaves) keep recruitment down (not that you'll ever get these sensitive figures from the US G'ovt), except for those who are already 'collaborating' with this-or-that militia (i.e. adverse selection).
The Shia-related parties got control of the Interior Ministry, as they should have, post-Saddam; but they have run it like a shambles, with little sign that corruption and self-interest are attenuating (that I've seen), except when Big Brother USA has been looking over their shoulder. [Last I checked, a 'moderate' Sunni was in charge of the Ministry of Defense].
As early as 2003, in testimony before the Congress by people who didn't dare speak during Saddam's power-grip, it was made plain that the police were Saddam's goons and deeply hated and mistrusted. While the Army was and has been seen as the true set of "professionals", that Saddam himself mistrusted, to the point that he had services and Fedayeen watching everyone. This information seems to have never 'made it' to the field, so that it comes up as 'noteworthy' in a report in 2007, four years later, that what police there are have credibility problems ...
The catch-22
Which comes first, political power consolidation or security alignment? Well, as a costly Nation Building exercise, the civil-military swells have possibly found out the hard way that there is no security alignment without political power consolidation and to have hoped for one was a bridge too far, even if it wasn't irrational altogether.
Logically, one would have thought that a newly empowered political group, such as the al-Maliki government, might have swiftly seized the opportunity to be in a position to defend itself with legitimized, well-organized force, even as sectarian violence began to spiral.
But, the incompetence of the ne're-before-governed-nuthin' crowed that took over has been breathtaking.
Why does the GOP keeping hanging onto "paper victory"?
So when J. Rauch asks, quite logically, about seizing "certain defeat from the jaws of possible victory", the counter question is "what stinking victory?"
Put less rudely, there is absolutely no evidence on which to base a policy of providing free-rider security to a political environment that, on the one hand, is intent to abuse it to the full extent in order to 'stick it' to the US and, on the other hand, unable to build-out a force to "self-occupy" Iraq, without an appeal to a shameless brutality and tribalism.
"Victory" will make orphans of nattering nabobs :: a frictionless policy of hope
Now, if the GOP - or the nation - would like to follow a frictionless policy of hope, to make it realistic, they have to start going to the GOP base and asking them to pay for the war and they have to change civilian leadership. Otherwise, their policy of hope just looks like a divorced-from- gravity plan to keep hanging onto the cynical political hope that victory will make orphans of all those with legitimate misgivings.
Money from the precious GOP coffers seems as unlikely as a 'wartime' draft, and the likelihood that Bush-Cheney will depart in favor of restoring even a modicum of trust in their vision of Hope has just about the same zero probability.
Putting the conclusions into strategic context
There is nothing in the Commission's report that supports the contention that the ISF will develop meaningfully after 12-18 months. There are no run rates, based on historical experience and the like. For the variables that might be modeled and tested, such at attrition, recruitment, etc., no assumptions are laid out. (It's a long report, and I haven't read it all, yet, however). Last report I read, some nine months ago now, was that, even in Fallujah, where the "build" part of clear-hold-build has been underway a long time, they had problems getting recruits for a decent police force.
As such, the Commission's assessment is just another Rumsfeldian "trust me", perhaps issued as such because, as I read the tea leaves, Petreaus continues to jockey and sway for the most precious quantity that he doesn't have and that hangs in the balance, time. His career (and place in history) now depends on it, even.
I'd bet that Iraq could secure its borders almost overnight if it were attacked by Iran. Everyone has a gun. All they would need is someone to point them all in the same direction and say "when" ...
