- Is the surge strategy about to be shelved?
- Is this the final strategy we'll try?
- Why has it taken almost two years and who knows how many deaths and injuries to adopt a proven counter-insurgency strategy?
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
It's Wednesday. Time for a new strategy.
Today's Washington Post reports that a new plan for Iraq is in the works. It has elements of the 'oil spot' strategy that Andrew Krepinevich proposed almost two years ago. It begins by trying to provide true security while building an effective and roughly honest government. All this raises a couple of questions:
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Krepinevich's proposal relies entirely on winning hearts and minds. An admirable idea thrown away by the bull-headed US military tactics that have been a constant in this war. You can't win the hearts and minds of ordinary civilians by treating them as the enemy. The US military has done exactly that for four years. Arabs are hospitable people, but they have long memories. They won't forget the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and others, or how they've been turned out of their beds in the middle of the night at gunpoint, frightened half to death by US soldiers. No, America's blown this one wide open. It may subjugate them for a while, but they'll never be America's friend. I believe the surge was meant to implement Krepinevich's 'oil-spot' plan. It may have worked once, but it's too late now.
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