Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Can anyone now say the Surge isn't working?

hiredgun · 02-07-2008, 09:15 AM

This is a big question and deserves serious answers, many of which I've glimpsed above.

That the number of casualties - including both civilians and US/Iraqi military - has dropped very significantly in the last year is beyond doubt. I will grab more stats on this later if I get a chance after work, as I recall seeing some nice graphs. The number of attack videos released by the insurgent groups' various media arms has also decreased dramatically... from one or two a day to a handful per week.

That said, there are a lot of reasons why we might have seen this happen.

1) The surge - not so much the increase in troops, but the tactical shift on the ground and the implementation of the Petraeus strategy. I will admit straight away that we probably owe some portion of the drop in violence to this plan.

2) Sadr sitting out - the Mahdi army has been in a unilateral ceasefire and has been sitting on the sidelines, for reasons that are not a hundred percent clear at this point. Most likely they are either tired and resource-limited and using the time to regroup, or they are waiting to see which way the political winds will blow. Or, perhaps, they are receiving orders from...

3) Iran. Contrary to popular belief, the administration has in fact been talking quietly with the Iranians, through intermediaries and directly. No solution in Iraq will be complete without giving the Iranians a stake in it. It is likely that the Iranians have slowed the flow of weapons and cash over the Iranian border into the hands of Iraqi militants (mostly Shi'a but at one point also Sunni). Some circumstantial evidence of this is the drop in the number of EFPs relative to other IEDs, as the technology for EFPs was said to have come from Iran (although more recently, US military have uncovered a number of small plants producing EFP linings inside of Iraq).

4) The completion of ethnic cleansing. Iraqi neighborhoods - particularly in urban areas like Baghdad that were once quite mixed - have been cleansed to a horrific degree. This is what most of the violence in the 2005-2006 period was about. Once these neighborhoods had been 'cleaned', the violence was likely to drop because many of the country's urban areas were now broken into little Sunni or Shia enclaves controlled by armed teenagers and thugs with makeshift checkpoints.

It is true that Falluja, Anbar, and other locations have been almost completely pacified, and that is a success story that I don't mean to diminish. At the same time, it is frustrating to see that when the insurgency is eliminated in one area, more often than not it simply moves somewhere else (currently, Diyala province).

Another thing to consider is the shape of the new Iraq that is emerging under the surge. While more pacified, it is farther away, not closer, to the image of a stable, democratic Iraq that has been our goal. One has to consider, then, that while it is certainly worth a sigh of relief that the sheer brutal violence has dropped, it is not clear that we are any closer to being out of the woods because the surge has not succeeded in bringing political reconciliation (which was one of its original goals).

This means that when we leave, one or both of the following are likely to happen:

1 - Enemies that have been laying low (e.g. Sadr's Mahdi army) will re-emerge in force.
2 - Our erstwhile allies will turn on each other because there is no political consensus yet (I cannot overstate this point. The Kurds are a breath away from leaving. Urban areas in the center and south are broken into sectarian enclaves controlled by gangs, except where the US has a strong presence. The prevailing political situation in Iraq is characterized by anarchy.)

Could this form an argument against withdrawal from Iraq? Perhaps. An argument against the effectiveness of the surge? Perhaps. You can make of it what you will, but it is my honest (and, I think, fairly accurate) assessment of where Iraq is right now.

02-07-2008, 09:15 AM	#32 (permalink)
hiredgun Addict	This is a big question and deserves serious answers, many of which I've glimpsed above. That the number of casualties - including both civilians and US/Iraqi military - has dropped very significantly in the last year is beyond doubt. I will grab more stats on this later if I get a chance after work, as I recall seeing some nice graphs. The number of attack videos released by the insurgent groups' various media arms has also decreased dramatically... from one or two a day to a handful per week. That said, there are a lot of reasons why we might have seen this happen. 1) The surge - not so much the increase in troops, but the tactical shift on the ground and the implementation of the Petraeus strategy. I will admit straight away that we probably owe some portion of the drop in violence to this plan. 2) Sadr sitting out - the Mahdi army has been in a unilateral ceasefire and has been sitting on the sidelines, for reasons that are not a hundred percent clear at this point. Most likely they are either tired and resource-limited and using the time to regroup, or they are waiting to see which way the political winds will blow. Or, perhaps, they are receiving orders from... 3) Iran. Contrary to popular belief, the administration has in fact been talking quietly with the Iranians, through intermediaries and directly. No solution in Iraq will be complete without giving the Iranians a stake in it. It is likely that the Iranians have slowed the flow of weapons and cash over the Iranian border into the hands of Iraqi militants (mostly Shi'a but at one point also Sunni). Some circumstantial evidence of this is the drop in the number of EFPs relative to other IEDs, as the technology for EFPs was said to have come from Iran (although more recently, US military have uncovered a number of small plants producing EFP linings inside of Iraq). 4) The completion of ethnic cleansing. Iraqi neighborhoods - particularly in urban areas like Baghdad that were once quite mixed - have been cleansed to a horrific degree. This is what most of the violence in the 2005-2006 period was about. Once these neighborhoods had been 'cleaned', the violence was likely to drop because many of the country's urban areas were now broken into little Sunni or Shia enclaves controlled by armed teenagers and thugs with makeshift checkpoints. It is true that Falluja, Anbar, and other locations have been almost completely pacified, and that is a success story that I don't mean to diminish. At the same time, it is frustrating to see that when the insurgency is eliminated in one area, more often than not it simply moves somewhere else (currently, Diyala province). Another thing to consider is the shape of the new Iraq that is emerging under the surge. While more pacified, it is farther away, not closer, to the image of a stable, democratic Iraq that has been our goal. One has to consider, then, that while it is certainly worth a sigh of relief that the sheer brutal violence has dropped, it is not clear that we are any closer to being out of the woods because the surge has not succeeded in bringing political reconciliation (which was one of its original goals). This means that when we leave, one or both of the following are likely to happen: 1 - Enemies that have been laying low (e.g. Sadr's Mahdi army) will re-emerge in force. 2 - Our erstwhile allies will turn on each other because there is no political consensus yet (I cannot overstate this point. The Kurds are a breath away from leaving. Urban areas in the center and south are broken into sectarian enclaves controlled by gangs, except where the US has a strong presence. The prevailing political situation in Iraq is characterized by anarchy.) Could this form an argument against withdrawal from Iraq? Perhaps. An argument against the effectiveness of the surge? Perhaps. You can make of it what you will, but it is my honest (and, I think, fairly accurate) assessment of where Iraq is right now.