Getting Out of Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle

Joel Achenbach asked for our opinions on the "Surge." Today, Zbignview Brezezinski offered his opinon on the surge. Here is mine.

The paralells to Viet Nam are striking. However, this situation is worse. In both cases, we started the civil war that destabilized the country. In Viet Nam, we supported Diem and the South against Ho Chi Mihn. In Iraq, we supported Iraqi rebel factions after the first Gulf War, and I suspect even before that.

In Viet Nam we lost, or rather we withdrew and the South fell. If we were to leave, many fear a protracted civil war. I disagree. Many see us as occupiers rather than liberators, especially in the areas where the surge is about to take place. In the Sunni Triangle, we will never be seen as anything other than their tribal chieftan's murderers. You can't recover from that.

Baghdad is worse. If I were still working at DoD, what I am writing would have to be classified, since it reveals publicly a strategic weakness which could be exploited by the enemy - although they likely already know this and will do it anyway. We are about to go into neigborhoods shoulder to shoulder with the Iraqi Army and Police to attach the Mahdi Army. There is only one problem with that. The Iraqi Army and Police are heavily infiltrated by the Mahdi Army. The most effective way to kill an enemy is to surround it and butcher it. That is what will happen to our forces if they carry our this strategy. Iraqi forces are likely to hold back, possibly simultaneously on all patrols, and when the Mahdi Army ambushes them, the American forces will draw fire from both sides and it will be killed. Not forced to withdrawl or retreat. That is not the victory the insurgents want. They want to utterly defeat the American forces and we are playing into their hands. We have never lost a war because of utter defeat, although this will soon change.

How do we stop this madness. If the Democrats had any courage, they would immediately impeach the President and Vice President. More than cutting off funding, this will be a sure fire way to end the conflict.

The military can also stop this, particularly the officer corps. The answer is to resign in masse. The alternative is to go into a battle where defeat is certain. The only way to win this battle is not to fight it and the only way to do that is to refuse what is likely the worst order ever given by the commander in chief.

Do I advocate complete withdrawl? No, of course not. I don't even advocate partition. What I do advocate is an admission that we started the Iraqi civil war, which should be followed by the deployment of an Arab force to take over in the Sunni Triangle and Baghdad (primarily Jordan and Syria) with a witdrawl of American forces to Kurdistan and the south. This will stabilize the nation and end the river of American and Iraqi blood.