One Utah

In a January 5th letter to President Bush Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi outlined the Democrats’ plan for Iraq:

“We believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror.”

The same day White House spokesman Tony Snow indicated that new views were welcomed by the administration:

We want to hear what their ideas are. But that’s — our view at this point is that we are in a — we are in a period right now where we’re listening to members of Congress and we not only want to hear what they have to say, but if they have alternative plans and views, we’re interested in hearing that, as well.

Then, five days later, President Bush announced yet another variation of “stay the course,” promising nothing except a “bloody and violent” year to come and more American casualties. Thank you for listening!

The Bush administration’s plan for the continued occupation of Iraq is based on the disproven assumption that American military force can bring security to Baghdad and the Iraqi provinces. That’s why it’s already a failure in the early stages.

Well, as Tony Snow might say, it’s easy to sit back and criticize and be an armchair general (my wife says armchair lieutenant is more like it). What’s your plan for Iraq? You mean, besides listening to the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader? Well, I haven’t got one– but one of my two favorite strategists, Edward Luttwak, does. (In case you’re interested, my other favorite strategist is the late B.H. Liddell-Hart.)

Here is Luttwak’s plan in brief, from today’s New York Times:

Fortunately, there is a promising, long-term policy ready and waiting for President Bush whenever he decides to call off the good old college try of his surge: disengagement. By this, I don’t mean a phased withdrawal, let alone the leap in the dark of total abandonment. Rather, it would start with a tactical change: American soldiers would no longer patrol towns and villages, conduct cordon-and-search operations, or man outposts and checkpoints. An end to these tasks would allow the greatest part of the troops in Iraq to head home, starting with overburdened reservists and National Guard units.

The remaining American forces, including ground units, would hole up within safe and mostly remote bases in Iraq — to support the elected government, deter foreign invasion, dissuade visible foreign intrusions, and strike at any large concentration of jihadis should it emerge. This would mean, contrary to most plans being considered now, that United States military personnel could not remain embedded in large numbers within the Iraqi Army and police forces. At most, the Americans would operate training programs within safe bases.

It should be noted that this is a political-military strategy suited to the circumstances. About 60 percent of the attacks are now aimed at patrolling Coalition forces and their supply lines. Disengagement will reduce the level of violence by making these targets less accessible.

Another feature of this plan is that all Iraqis will be forced to provide their own local security, as the Kurds do already. Americans have utterly failed at that task:

The total number of American troops in Iraq — even including any surge — is so small, and their linguistic skills so limited, that they have little effect on day-to-day security. Nor have they really protected Iraqis from one another. At most, the presence of American soldiers in any one place merely diverts attacks elsewhere (unless they themselves are attacked, which is a sad way indeed of reducing Iraqi casualties).

Luttwak has advocated disengagement for at least two years. His article in the January/February 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs (PDF) is worth reading if you’re interested in a more thorough explanation. The Bush administration ought to be paying attention to this. If they don’t, there could be two or three more violent and bloody years leading to the evacuation of an exhausted Army and Marine Corps– with a total loss of America’s power in Iraq.

UPDATE: Commentary from Josh Marshall:

One can agree or disagree with whether or not we should ‘disengage’ or withdraw entirely. But Luttwak hits on the key point that our current national debate seems to ignore entirely: Namely, that Iraq is in a state of civil war which we our combat forces are not in a position to stop. We cannot stop it. But our presence is dragging it out, arguably making it even more deadly by making it more protracted.

This entry was posted Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Disaster, George W. Bush, Iraq, National Politics, This Blog, War. Both comments and pings are currently closed.