Stratfor and Gerecht Clarify the Iraq Choices

How did we get into this mess, or this part of it, in which we either have too many troops in Iraq because foreigners alienate Iraqi sensitivities (never mind the sensitivities of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis murdered and tortured by Saddam et. al., or a neighboring state invaded, or WMD’s capacities), or too few troops in Iraq because the U.S. is supposed to quickly bring Iraq (a medieval state’s peoples many of whom relish their religious hatreds or seek self-aggrandizing power) into the 21st, or at least the 20th, century?

Conspiracy theories and Monday-morning quarterbacking abound. But, the simplest truth was spoken by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about going to war with the military you have. And what we had, and still largely have, is a military denuded and shrunk in Republican and Democrat post-Cold War enthusiasm for spending elsewhere in the budget and by self-delusions that the world was entering an era in which this was OK.

George Friedman, chief executive officer of Strategic Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor.com), specializing in global intelligence assessments, writes the essential truths. Excerpts below (but read it all). Reuel Marc Geracht, however, provides an essential corrective (also read it all): This probable American redeployment will be thin tissue. Recommitment, instead, is necessary, but unlikely, and we’ll be paying the price for the future. At least, one can hope, then we’ll have a more prepared military, if our politicians don’t go on another “peace dividend” spending binge.

I must add that I still hope for a kernel of sense in Washington, including from Democrats, that will not abandon its responsibilities, for us to pay again and again to increased threats from emboldened enemies. But, that's not the way to bet, just pray, and demand.

George Friedman writes:

The center of gravity in the American strategic problem is the need to rebuild the country's military option, particularly its ground combat capability. The decline in this area is the frame around the window of opportunity. In order to rebuild its military option, the United States must address the problem of Iraq, along with the secondary issue of Afghanistan. The Americans either must dramatically increase the capability of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps or else decrease their commitment in Iraq. If the United States does neither, its ability to control and influence events in other regions will decline, even if the internal political crisis is resolved. If that crisis is not resolved – and Iraq continues to soak up resources – the outcome will be strategic gridlock for the United States.

The U.S. Army is the heart of the matter. Today's Army was designed in the 1990s, on the assumption that the need for extended combat operations was a thing of the past. Not only was the Army reduced in size, but many of the key components of combat divisions and critical specialties, such as civil affairs, were shifted to the Army Reserve and National Guard. The administration's expectation for Iraq was that there would be a buildup of forces for several months, a short, intense period of combat operations, then a drawdown in forces in a pacified country. The 1990s force was designed just for these types of conflicts. The Reserve and National Guard components were mobilized to join and backfill for units deploying to the combat zone. By the end of the year, it was expected, the force would return to peacetime operations.

Iraq didn't work out that way. The drawdown never took place because major combat operations were followed by a major insurgency. The expectation of the administration was that the insurgency would be dealt with in a reasonable time, so the Army was not reconfigured for extended warfare. At any point, proposals for dealing with the fundamental problem – that the force was too small – were rejected, with the thinking that there was no need for a significant overhaul to deal with a problem that would be under control in a matter of months. This expectation turned into hope, and the hope into dogma. Thus, the 1990s Army continued to fight a multi-year insurgency with a multi-divisional force, while also fighting a second war in Afghanistan and having to stand by for the unexpected.

Having learned from Vietnam that constantly rotating individuals into units for one-year tours undermines unit cohesion, the Army shifted to rotating entire divisions into and out of Iraq after roughly one year. Had the conflict ended in two years, that might have worked. But it now has been more than three years and divisions are doing their second tours, mobilizing Reserve and National Guard units as they go. Consider this example: The 1st Cavalry Division is now deploying on its second tour to take control of the Baghdad region from the 4th Infantry Division. For the coming year, the 1st Cav is going to be locked down in Iraq, but the 4th ID will not be available for operations elsewhere. Upon arriving back in the United States, it will need to rest, repair and integrate new equipment and integrate new recruits to replace veterans leaving the Army. The 4th ID will not be available to deploy anywhere for many months. In effect, for every division in Iraq, one division is being overhauled. Add to this the weakness in the Reserves and National Guard and the phrase “the force is broken” begins to make sense.

In other words, Iraq is eating up U.S. geopolitical options by eating up the Army. This is the first major, extended ground war the United States has fought in a century without dramatically increasing the size of the Army. World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam all brought massive increases in military size, mostly through conscription. The Bush administration did not view Iraq as a potentially multi-year, multi-divisional combat operation. It maintained the force roughly as it started, and now that force is broken.
It now is becoming clear that the administration understands this.

Two important things happened during the past week. First, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, long an opponent of expanding the Army's budget, agreed to allow the Army to plead its case for more money to Congress. In the past, Rumsfeld wanted the Army to find more efficient ways to run counterinsurgency operations, relying more on technology than manpower. That's a good idea, and might happen some day, but it didn't happen for this war. It is now obviously pretty late in the game to cut the Army loose for funding – plus, any new funding it does get won't impact the battlefield for a couple of years at best. But Rumsfeld's move does signal recognition that the basic assumption up to this point was flawed.

More important is the second thing: James Baker, a former secretary of state and a close adviser for both President Bushes, has been chairing a genuinely bipartisan committee called the Iraq Study Group (ISG), which has been conducting a bottom-up review of the war. Over the weekend, Baker spoke to the media, hinting at the parameters of the recommendations the ISG will make once the elections have been held. He made it clear that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq is impossible, since that would create a massive vacuum in which Iran and Syria would move. At the same time, he made it clear that the country will have to adopt a new strategy.

At the center of the problem is the fact that the United States has been trying to create a coherent government in Baghdad that is made up of hostile and competing parties. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps have been given the assignment of creating a secure environment in which this can be accomplished. To do this, they must suppress the militias and insurgent groups that want to block the political process. The United States has been trying to do this militarily since the summer of 2003. Its forces have failed for a host of reasons – ranging from the number of troops, the quality of intelligence, the impossibility of engaging combatants while simultaneously protecting noncombatants (who are themselves frequently hostile to U.S. forces), and so on.

So long as the United States continues to regard suppression of militias and insurgents as the precondition for creating a government – and the creation of such a government remains the strategic goal of the United States – the Army and Marine Corps will continue to be sucked up by Iraq, and countries such as North Korea will be free to maneuver. Therefore, it follows that the ISG either will recommend that the administration abandon its goal of creating a unified government in Iraq or that the establishment of such a government should not depend on the United States creating a secure environment.

In short, we expect the ISG to recommend that the mission of U.S. forces be shifted away from responsibility for day-to-day security, allowing the United States to act instead as a general guarantor of Iraq's independence from Iranian control, and as a block against the expansion of Iranian power in the Arabian Peninsula. This would mean a withdrawal of U.S. forces from populated areas to enclaves that are close to the cities, and to the south and west of the Euphrates River. It has been suggested by some that U.S. forces be based primarily in northern Iraq, but this would depend on Turkey's willingness to allow those forces to be supplied through Turkish ports, which is far from certain.

Thus, regardless of the results of the November elections, we expect a change in strategy by the Bush administration. First, there will be a rebuilding of the ground forces. Second, there will have to be a redefinition of U.S. strategy in Iraq so that American goals match capabilities. Third, the U.S. ground capability outside of Iraq will have to be regenerated rapidly so that forces can be available for insertion in unexpected trouble spots – such as the Korean Peninsula – if needed.

What the United States has learned with North Korea is that, when a window of opportunity opens, other countries quite reasonably step through it. Diplomacy without a realistic threat of significant action, in the event that diplomacy fails, is just empty chatter. Multilateralism without the option for unilateral action leads to paralysis. In other words, the principles the Bush administration has argued for are incompatible with the reality that Iraq has created. If the principles are correct, U.S. strategy in Iraq must shift and the mission must be brought in line with the force.

Reuel Marc Gerecht points out that,

[A] consensus is growing in Washington. There isn't really much difference between left and right: While Democrats Howard Dean, John Kerry, and John Murtha all wish for a rapid departure, former Republican Secretary of State James Baker will soon release his centrist "alternative," reportedly announcing that victory is impossible and our best bet amounts to "cut, pause, talk to the neighbors, and run." Conservative writers like George Will and William F. Buckley long ago gave up on the idea that the United States could help build a democratic government in Iraq. Fewer and fewer among the nation's political and intellectual elites believe that "staying the course" in Iraq advances the war against terrorism and our national interests in the Middle East.

Concluding his review of the many elements involved in jihadist thinking and actions, and misconceptions of it, Gerecht reminds us:

This contest is not what the Bush administration foresaw when it espoused democracy in the Middle East as part of the solution to the evil that struck us on 9/11. But the president's democratic reflex was correct. And as faithful Muslims decide how much of Western political thought to incorporate into their own, anti-Americanism will skyrocket. Indeed, rising anti-Americanism will be a pretty good barometer of how serious the democratic-religious debates are in the Muslim Middle East. The more serious the debates, the more furious the flailing out against America by the hard-core militant Muslims will be.

The complexity of this picture suggests, among other things, how shallow the discussion has been among those who see our mistakes in Iraq as the epicenter of our terrorist problem. Discussion of what will happen if the United States pulls out of Iraq has been similarly thin.

Gerecht then lays out the stark alternatives:

We are certainly not beyond the chance that the Iraqis can govern themselves more humanely than they were governed under Saddam Hussein. Whoever thinks Iraq is hell on earth now is suffering from a failure of imagination. If we leave, it will, in all probability, get vastly worse.

And for those who are concerned about the geostrategic stability of the Middle East or the growth of Sunni jihadism and terrorism against the United States, staying in Iraq ought to be a compelling choice. We don't need to "stay the course" that Rumsfeld and Abizaid have designed. Instead, we should follow the road map offered in these pages by the military historian Frederick W. Kagan. It's the best plan out there for winning. We--not the Iraqis--need to lead a major effort to break the Sunni insurgency. We--not the Iraqis--must police the Shiite-dominated security services to ensure they don't slaughter the Sunnis, especially as we and a Shiite-dominated army with an important Kurdish contingent make a more serious effort to control Baghdad, Ramadi, and the centers of Sunni resistance. We need to keep building up a Shiite-dominated Iraqi army and slowly deploying it in ways that it can handle--with integral American involvement, as at Tal Afar. We should expect a few Iraqi governments to collapse before we start seeing real progress. Yet our presence in Iraq is the key to ensuring that Shiite-led governments don't collapse into a radical hard core.

This may be too much for the United States now. It certainly appears to be too much for the Democrats. We would have all been better off if President Bush and his team had done what Senator John McCain advised back in 2004, when the insurgency started to rip: Tell everyone that the war would be long and hard, and pour in more troops. If we no longer have the stomach for this fight--and it's going to be ugly, with few sterling VIP Iraqis who will make us proud--then we should at least be honest with ourselves. Leaving Iraq will not make our world better. We will be a defeated nation. Our holy-warrior and our more mundane enemies will know it. And we can rest assured that they will make us pay. Over and over and over again.