Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Listening to the experts, I'm now convinced that either the whole place is going to degenerate into a bloody civil war within weeks, or a new government and feelings of empowerment will guide the Iraqis into creating a new, stable society.
One or the other.
At this point, I don't know.
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Well, we're here to help.
My thoughts: the contrast between relative success in Afghanistan and relative failure in Iraq is very revealing.
In Afghanistan, our troops have expended more "Civil Affairs" effort than combat effort. While there have been a couple of points in time when troops were pulled back into combat-only roles or where issues arose over how to execute CA missions (e.g., in uniform or out of uniform, with other aid groups or separately), the military, both ours and the allies, has spent a lot of time engineering new bridges, rebuilding the ring roads, repairing schools, and even helping plant crops.
In Iraq, it's too dangerous and we're unwilling to take the risks to engage in the same level of CA activity. And the aid groups are reluctant to wander too far from protection.
In Iraq, we did not have a solid national base leading the charge, outside of Kurdistan. In Afghanistan, we knew who the Northern Alliance was and had a good sense of how to work the local alliances.
In Iraq, there was a premium on rapid victory, and we let our tactics rule. In Afghanistan, the rapid victory almost took us by surprise - we had prepared for and were preparing the Nothern Alliance for a much more protracted battle, and had thought the battle through in a strategic rather than a tactical manner.
So, now that we've learned something, should we be trying to figure out how to do it in a way similar to Afghanistan? Unfortunately, the process of building a local base when signing up with us gets you a free ride to power doesn't necessarily encourage the idealists we need to come to the fore.
