Longer Surge or a Piecemeal One?

I have posted in the past here and , more so, on other sites that General Petraeus, for all his good qualities, may, in fact, be an idiot. Why? My previous posts would have the good general going to Iraq and leaving behind his most important weapon, namely, his own plan.

I have also posted here and elsewhere missives describing the dishonesty of the Republican Party and the duplicity of the command structure in the handling of the war in Iraq.

Today, in the Washington Post, in an article entitled Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08 written by Ann Scott Tyson evidence emerges that I was wrong about the former and right about the latter.

Tyson's article describes the August 2007 deployment plans of 35,000 troops who will serve as replacements for troops ending their tours of duty in Iraq. The deployment notifications are occurring now in order for the military to be ready to "sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year."

"'The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure,'" Tyson quotes of General Ordierno, Petraeus' Operational Commander!

Next year! The Democrats and Republicans in Congress are currently debating funding of the Iraq war within a backdrop, a context, given to them by the Republicans and the military and General Petraeus that gives September of this year as a time frame for evaluating success or failure of the surge, the escalation of the war, in Iraq, not next year! If we need to keep the troops in Iraq into next year it seems the military may have used the September time line as a pacifier and a ruse to get reluctant approval from the Congress of the Republican escalation of the war.

Have the Republicans with the duplicity of the military command been less than honest with America once again? Given how many times in the past they have misled America on the war in Iraq one could make a strong argument that they have.

But how is this news evidence that I was wrong about Petraeus and his plan?

His plan, you will recall, as detailed in FM 3-24, approved December 2006, calls for 20 to 25 counterinsurgency troops for every 1000 inhabitants in the Area of Operations. That would require between 550,000 to 685,700 for all of Iraq. The plan's troop density numbers include in their total the host countries troops and police.

With the June completion of the the troop surge into Baghdad, the number of U.S. counterinsurgency troops will rise to about 170,000 from 140,000 for all of Iraq. The short fall of troops in all of Iraq would be around 380,000. Is anyone not recently released from an insane asylum claiming there are 380,000 fully trained, battle tested, and trusted Iraqi troops and police in Iraq to help us fight the counterinsurgency? I don't think so. Hence my previous doubts about Petraeus taking his own plan with him to Iraq.

But this recent news strongly suggests that he has. He is just implementing it piecemeal. If you look at the troop density numbers for Baghdad alone one could argue Baghdad is a test bed for his plan.

The population of Baghdad is roughly 6 million and, tragically, falling. This would require a troop density of about 120,000 to 150,000. This surge in Baghdad, this escalation of the war, would bring the total U.S. counterinsurgency troop density to about 70,000. What number one could honestly put on Iraqi troop and police participation is unclear. Let's be generous, or ridiculous, some would argue, and say 20,000. That gets us closer to the minimum number. It may be, and many Americans have every right to doubt it, a number that quells the violence in Baghdad.

I hesitate to use the word success for the simple reason that no one has ever given the American people a clear set of parameters, quantitative or qualitative, by which to measure the success of the surge.

Do you know how we measure it? Will someone please tell me? Will this administration for the record state as clearly as possible without giving away battle plans how the American people should measure the success of the surge?

Let's say that the surge in Iraq does quell the violence in Baghdad. Then what? This brings us to the piecemeal implementation I believe Petraeus and the Republicans have in store for America.

One of the problems in the past with our "winning the hearts and minds" approach in Iraq was not having enough troops, the proper troop density. We would go in and clean up a town or city or province and leave. Back would come the insurgents, and we would be back to square one, at the most. Tal Afar and other places come to mind.

With the test bed surge in Baghdad, perhaps, we really do have a new plan. Perhaps General Petraeus did bring his plan with him to Iraq. If we quell the violence in Baghdad, and I'll use that as a success matrix for now, perhaps we will keep the surged troops in Baghdad and not trot them off to other places in Iraq.

This would require additional troops, an additional surge elsewhere in Iraq, unless you are going to let the fleeing insurgents have free reign in the rest of the country. This would require a piecemeal implementation of Petraeus' plan, a complete escalation of the war that would drive the troop density levels closer to the one stated in his plan.

But before all that, America is owed a fair, frank, maybe even blunt, discussion about what constitutes success in Iraq, what constitutes victory. It was decried by Republicans not long ago that it was a sad day in America when you had to define the meaning of "is," but how much sadder a day is it when you have to define the meaning of victory, once a word that had clear meaning to America before this Iraq war. Sadder still it is because every day that passes while we try to define it or move its definition, as the Republicans have, more Americans and Iraqis die, more are wounded, and more treasure is squandered.

Victory once was defined as removing Saddam Hussein. Victory on that score was achieved long ago. Victory was also defined as ridding Hussein of Weapons of Mass Destruction. He no longer had any. We could have achieved that without a single soldier leaving our shores by simply telling the truth or, if you prefer, by having performed an honest appraisal of the prewar intelligence.

We have achieved victory by two definitions. What's left, a democracy in Iraq?

Like everything else about this war, this has never really been openly and honestly discussed with the American people. I have my doubts democracy in Iraq would be a success for the West or for Sunnis world wide.

Why? Because rule in a democracy means rule by the majority, even Republicans will begrudgingly admit that, and rule by the majority in Iraq means rule by the Shiites; and rule by the Shiites in Iraq means, de facto, rule of Iraq by Iran. That is not what I would consider a victory for the West, unless I mean a Pyrrhic one, since the Republicans have constantly demonized Iran- Axis of evil and all that.

In all the world, Sunnis make up the vast majority of the Muslim world. But in Iran and Iraq the world is upside down. Shiites are the majority in Iran and Iraq. The Shiites and Sunnis have been fighting, often in a hot blooded manner, for control of all of Islam for over 1300 years. That's a battle that has been going on for over a thousand years longer than America has even existed.

And off we have gone, half-cocked, singing the praises of democracy, of which there are many, as we try to give someone else a democracy, and we have never considered if that would constitute a victory.

How is turning the weapon of Iraq's oil reserves over to the Shiites of Iran and Iraq- a.k.a. West Iran, a victory for the West? It can't even be a victory for the Sunnis, because after the Shiites handle the West they will turn to their age old enemy the Sunnis.

So do I pray for success of Petraeus' tactics if it means victory of a strategy that brings a Pyrrhic victory of galactic proportions to the West and to Sunnis world wide or not? Should America have a dialogue about it before we go forward with any more surges? God, I hope so because one of the alternatives to a democracy is allowing another Sunni strongman to rise to dictator.