In response to your comment about there being no clear plan, the plan is for the additional troops to be a police force. This is right out of the counter-insurgency playbook. Look at successful counter-insurgencies throughout history and they all applied overwhelming force to police the populace, provide security, and prevent insurgent forces from operating freely. This may not be the dashing, clear mission objective such as "take Hill 317" or "defend this bridge until relieved" but again successful counter insurgencies have all used military forces in a police role.

To be honest I do not think 21,000 additional troops will be sufficient to establish the baseline of security necessary for an effective counter-insurgency. It is worth a try however because there is still a possibility it might slow down the escalation of sectarian violence, and if we cannot slow down said violence then nothing else we do will really matter. My key point here is that the additional troops for security purposes is straight out of the counter-insurgency playbook. Watch the movie Battle for Algiers sometime. Granted France eventually lost Algeria but they conducted a successful counter-insurgency against the FLN in Algiers several years prior to the mass uprisings that would eventually lead to independence. If you watch the movie, you will see that the French had a military presense on virtually every street corner. Attacks still got through, but the ability of the FLN to operate freely throughout the city was severely, severely limited.

"I agree that a force addition looks good on paper, but it looked good on paper back in Vietnam, the additional force elements there were just not enough to back out of what turned into a civil war. The same situation is being repeated here."

Except that Vietnam was a conflict between two sovereign nation-states. Granted both states were ethnically linked, but it was an external conflict between two states rather than an internal conflict in one state. In the event that the Soviet Union ever invaded Western Europe, US Special Forces teams would have been deployed throughout eastern Europe to make contact with dissident forces and train, equip and lead them on guerilla operations in the Soviet rear. In Vietnam, the North was doing the exact same thing to the South in preparation of a conventional invasion. The reason why we failed in Vietnam was because we treated the conflict as if the South had a domestic insurgency, rather a foreign infiltration by the North. Granted Iran is playing a part in supporting the Shiite militias, but such support pales in comparison to the guerilla combat operations that the PAVN was conducting in South Vietnam.

"If the 21,000 force commitment fails. What then?"

Then it fails and we try plan B, which I would hope would be a partitioning of the country.

"The US will have no maneuvering "

So are you saying we should hold said 21,000 troops in reserve for deployment in some later, alternative strategy? If not, then how does deploying the troops now limit our ability to maneuver? Look, the NIE makes it pretty clear that withdrawal in the next 12 to 18 months is not an option. In the face of that we either commit our available resources in one last push to make this thing work, or we can immediately turn to other options such as partitioning the country. Either way we will be in this for the long haul. With that in mind, giving the surge a try for 5-6 to months is worth a shot. If the security situation improves then we follow up on such success, if we see no improvement then we pursue the other less favorable options (i.e. partition). In the event it doesn't work, having additional forces on the ground gives us additional flexibility to pursue an alternate strategy. If said troops are not needed for an alternate strategy they can be redeployed, if they are then they are already in country availible for use.

"there will be another crushing morale plummet as US forces will pull out like they did in South Vietnam."

In the likely event that Iraq completely falls apart then such a moral plummet will occur regardless of whether or not the troop surge occurred.

Look, I am very pessimistic about our chances for success in Iraq. I think success would still be entirely possible were there still support for the War. I think the troop surge could possibly work, but probably won't. And I think if the surge fails we should look into a soft partition of the country, which is far less than ideal but will serve our interest of regional stability for better than a failed Iraqi state. In all likelihood I think the failed state is the outcome we're going to get however. The last three years in Iraq have basically been wasted, and I blame the bush administration entirely for that. If we are to succeed we basically need to start from square one. There simply isn't patience among the American people any more for such a long term commitment to Iraq however. I suspect that if the troop surge does not succeed, which is highly probably, patience for the war will be entirely over and a rapid withdrawal will follow leading to the collapse of the Iraqi government and a destabilization of the region. With that in mind what I think we should do is entirely a moot point because there will never be an opportunity to do any of it.

There is no clear plan for the deployment of the extra 21,000 troops. Most will be stationed in Iraq and the Anbar province. There is no additional task given to these other then blanket security operations which would only mean exposing the troops to more hostile fire.

At the same time you are dropping an influx of troops into a country where 70% of the population looks upon your forces as occupiers. All that would do is unify the resistance and insurgency against coalition forces even more.

Either way, what will that force increase do without a clear working plan? Are US forces going to be used to actively suppress the Sunni or Shi'a militias? Are they going to be used to force a negotiation?

I agree that a force addition looks good on paper, but it looked good on paper back in Vietnam, the additional force elements there were just not enough to back out of what turned into a civil war. The same situation is being repeated here.

If the 21,000 force commitment fails. What then? The US will have no maneuvering and there will be another crushing morale plummet as US forces will pull out like they did in South Vietnam.

In reply to your comment:
“A couple comments.

As Rickegee said, McCain is in the race to win. His shift to the right in order to make it through the primaries can only be expected after what he experienced at the hands of the Bush campaign in NC in 2000. At any rate, his compromising of principles in order to get elected is the exact same behavior displayed by his chief opponent: Hilary.

q[I find his views on the surge dis-speakable even though hes a veteran of the Vietnam war.]q

He's been for more troops since the rioting after the fall of Baghdad. The fundamental element of any counterinsurgency operation is security. Since the enemy is unconventional you cannot destroy him outright, but with sufficient security you can deny his ability to operate freely. The denial of free operation is the foundation from which an insurgency can be defeated; without it, the insurgency will only grow. McCain's position since 2003 has been that there are not sufficient troops to provide that essential level of security, and accordingly additional forces should be deployed to Iraq.

At this stage in the game, the 21,000 troop surge is all the extra manpower we have to commit. It probably won't be sufficient but it's worth a try. The National Intelligence Estimate released today makes it pretty damn clear that a withdrawal conducted over the next 12-18 month would cause the situation in Iraq to worsen precipitously, further destabilizing the region. In the face of that we have to find some way to stabilize Iraq, possibly through a soft partition or by some other means. Having 5 additional brigades in Iraq at the very least will give us additional flexibility. If they are able to improve the security situation sufficiently to allow for political and economic developments, so much the better. If not, the additional forces provides flexibility for whatever different strategy we attempt to pursue. ”

A couple comments.

As Rickegee said, McCain is in the race to win. His shift to the right in order to make it through the primaries can only be expected after what he experienced at the hands of the Bush campaign in NC in 2000. At any rate, his compromising of principles in order to get elected is the exact same behavior displayed by his chief opponent: Hilary.

q[I find his views on the surge dis-speakable even though hes a veteran of the Vietnam war.]q

He's been for more troops since the rioting after the fall of Baghdad. The fundamental element of any counterinsurgency operation is security. Since the enemy is unconventional you cannot destroy him outright, but with sufficient security you can deny his ability to operate freely. The denial of free operation is the foundation from which an insurgency can be defeated; without it, the insurgency will only grow. McCain's position since 2003 has been that there are not sufficient troops to provide that essential level of security, and accordingly additional forces should be deployed to Iraq.

At this stage in the game, the 21,000 troop surge is all the extra manpower we have to commit. It probably won't be sufficient but it's worth a try. The National Intelligence Estimate released today makes it pretty damn clear that a withdrawal conducted over the next 12-18 month would cause the situation in Iraq to worsen precipitously, further destabilizing the region. In the face of that we have to find some way to stabilize Iraq, possibly through a soft partition or by some other means. Having 5 additional brigades in Iraq at the very least will give us additional flexibility. If they are able to improve the security situation sufficiently to allow for political and economic developments, so much the better. If not, the additional forces provides flexibility for whatever different strategy we attempt to pursue.

Firstly, I'm not denying the fact that the Jewish people have been persecuted throughout history in many different states - not just Arab or Islamic countries. I'm simply pointing out that the people who condemn the 'terrorist' activities of the Palestinians in their attempt to establish their own state are the same people who forget or deny that the state of Israel was also created in part due to the 'terrorist' activities of the Irgun and Haganah. Similarly, today the Israeli government often use 'terror' activities - including the direct targetting of civilians - to suppress the Palestinians, yet condemn them when they are used against Israel. The same charges could also be levied at Palestinian extremists. However, I do not think that the extremists on either side are acting in the best interest of either peoples.

AIPAC and organisations like it paint the issue as black and white - Israelis are good persecuted champions of democracy, Palestinians are fanatical cold-blooded terrorists. Unfortunately this simplistic black and white myth dominates American politics and media.

I'm not saying this is a black and white issue - I'm fighting to regain the grey!

In reply to your comment:
“"The reason they are 'belligerent' - and if by 'belligerent' you mean not completely passive and submissive in the face of overwhelming acts of hostility, suppression, and terror being committed on a daily basis by the Israeli state - is that there have been over fifty years of violations of Palestinian rights - beginning with their expulsion in 1947-8 mainly as the result of attacks by the official Jewish army, the Haganah, and the Irgun, a terrorist organisation. If you treat a people so badly for so long they will turn into extremists. Israel can only carry on the way it does because of the unquestioning support of America - due in a large part to the power of the Israel lobby in the States (particularly AIPAC).."

Dude, Arabs were harassing Jews long before the Irgun and Haganah were formed. The reason they were formed is because of the ever increasing violence against Jews by Arabs in "Palestine". The Arab world wasn't ready to give the Jews a homeland in the Middle-East. Also, Jews were being expelled from tons of Arab countries, where's the outrage there? The Palestinians could have had their own state long ago, but they decided that the partition plan was unfair and rejected it. 5 Arab countries attack Israel and lose, they still haven't gotten over it it would seem.

Funny how you label the Irgun and the Haganah as terrorists, yet you seem sympathetic towards the Palestinian extremists. Sad.”

"The reason they are 'belligerent' - and if by 'belligerent' you mean not completely passive and submissive in the face of overwhelming acts of hostility, suppression, and terror being committed on a daily basis by the Israeli state - is that there have been over fifty years of violations of Palestinian rights - beginning with their expulsion in 1947-8 mainly as the result of attacks by the official Jewish army, the Haganah, and the Irgun, a terrorist organisation. If you treat a people so badly for so long they will turn into extremists. Israel can only carry on the way it does because of the unquestioning support of America - due in a large part to the power of the Israel lobby in the States (particularly AIPAC).."

Dude, Arabs were harassing Jews long before the Irgun and Haganah were formed. The reason they were formed is because of the ever increasing violence against Jews by Arabs in "Palestine". The Arab world wasn't ready to give the Jews a homeland in the Middle-East. Also, Jews were being expelled from tons of Arab countries, where's the outrage there? The Palestinians could have had their own state long ago, but they decided that the partition plan was unfair and rejected it. 5 Arab countries attack Israel and lose, they still haven't gotten over it it would seem.

Funny how you label the Irgun and the Haganah as terrorists, yet you seem sympathetic towards the Palestinian extremists. Sad.

quantumushroom - your understanding of history is deeply flawed and based more on propoganda than facts. Unfortunately for a long time the myth of Israel's creation that you advocate was accepted as historical truth in Israel and the rest of the world.

Thankfully the age of myth is passing. Non-Zionist Jews such as Elmer Berger, Alfred Lilienthal, and Norman Finkelstein have already published well-documented refutations of the official version of Israel's history.

More importantly, the standard myths about Israel's creation have started to be challenged by Israeli Jews — a younger generation of historians with impeccable credentials as Zionists, patriotic Israelis and scholars.

For example, Benny Morris was among the first of the younger Israeli scholars to receive widespread notice when he refuted Ben-Gurion's long-accepted assertion that the Palestinian refugees of 1947-48 left Palestine at the instruction of Arab leaders. In 'The Birth of the Palestine Refugee Problem', published in 1988, Morris concluded that Arab leaders had not urged the local population to leave but that the exodus was mainly the result of attacks by the official Jewish army, the Haganah, and the Irgun, a terrorist organisation headed by Menachem Begin that had carried out assassinations and bombings against both the British and the Palestinians during the British mandate.

Similarly Ilan Pappé, associate professor of Middle East history at the University of Haifa, emphasizes in 'In The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-51' the importance of Plan D in the creation of Israel. Plan Dalet, or Plan D, was adopted by the Israeli leadership to impliment their intention to expel the Palestinians from as much territory as possible and by whatever means necessary. From April 1, 1948 to the end of the war, Pappé writes, "Jewish operations were guided by the desire to occupy the greatest possible portion of Palestine." Pappé also writes that the Jewish army formally adopted the plan in early 1948 after Arabs protested a U.N. partition proposal that allocated to the Palestinians only 38 percent of mandatory Palestine although they made up more than 65 percent of the population.

Israel's apologists blame the Palestinians' misfortune on their opposition to partition, and especially to a Jewish state. If the Arabs chose to fight rather than share, then Israel would also fight—and take enough territory to insure its future security. But Pappé describes a more complex situation, in which blame is shared several ways - including a significant degree of blame for the Israeli leadership and armed forces who pursued what Pappé calls the "uprooting, expulsion, and pauperization of the Palestinians, with the clear purpose of taking firm control over Western Palestine."

http://www.factsandlogic.org/

What are the facts?

The state of Israel was legally created out of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. The area was desolate – desert and swamp – with some small towns and a few inhabitants, many of them nomads. The inhabitants, if they thought about it at all, considered themselves Syrians. The legitimacy of Israel arises from the Balfour Declaration issued by the British, who were given the mandate over the area by the League of Nations. Jews have lived in the country since Biblical times. The Arabs from the surrounding areas were lured to “Palestine” by the industry and prosperity that the Jews brought to the region. Envy, hatred, and religious fanaticism turned the Arabs against the Jews. In bloody outrages, horrible massacres, killings and rapes, the Arabs tried to dislodge the Jews, but were unable to do so.

In 1947, the British, having tired of the trouble and the bloodshed, resigned their mandate. That same year, the United Nations mandated partitioning of the territory. The Jews, though disappointed, accepted the partition. The Arabs rejected it out of hand and launched war against Israel. The armies of five Arab countries invaded the nascent state. Following the exhortations of the invaders, the Arab residents got out of the way hoping to return after victory was attained. They could then reclaim their property and that of the Jews, all of whom would have been killed or would have fled. That and that alone is the source of the Arab “refugee problem.”

Had the Arabs accepted the UN partition plan, there would now have been a state of “Palestine” for the last 58 years. They might have attained a similar level of prosperity, advancement, and development as Israel, which, small though it is, is today in almost every regard one of the world’s most advanced countries.

END WEBSITE

Op-ed: "Palestinians'" greatest fear would be the elimination of Israel, since they would then be forced to face their own failings.

great comments from both scottishmartialarts and farhad.

How about the partitioning of Iraq as a stopgap?

I wasn't too warm to this idea a few years ago, but it strikes me as a more attractive approach to more effectively use the troops already deployed. Bush no longer has the political capital to push through a heavy footprint, and Rumsfeld's work has severely kneecapped the military in this regard.

LOL, the partition makes it funnier. It's like covering a corpse with a blanket. I'd laugh even harder if someone said there was a banana peel on the stairs...

That's another ridiculous attempt to equalize science and religion, when they're not even on the same playing field. Honestly, just stop.

And religious scientists are the exception, not the rule; and all that proves is the human ability to partition the brain into different parts - such as say, an anti-gay Republican Congressman who crusaded against child predators, yet is a gay child predator in his personal life.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

How sad. yeah the partition maneuver was tottemo japanese.

I love the partition on hand ready for such a thing.
Translation must go along "Move along, nothing to see here"

Very interesting article in this week's time magazine that argues that not only should the US withdraw from Iraq and allow it to split into 3 countries, but that a partition into 3 countries has already effectively happened.

qm has an autotype function that magically inserts the GOP talking point of the day. But Autotype has not yet blamed Clinton. Must be a bug.

So I'll try specifics with the autotype program. qm - Do you support the idea of partitioning Iraq (advanced by the Shiites in the current Iraqi government) or are you more in line with the new Baker plan for withdrawal (cutting and walking). Or do you just prefer the current Cheney program (war and chaos without end so the defense contractors get theirs)?

Personally, the idea of partition is slowly growing on me, even though the Turks will be furious at the prospect of a Kurdish state.