This surge is a sham

I think even by Washington standards, the upcoming Petraeus Report is more about political theater and less about any sort of genuine deliberative process. I know it's shocking to see such skepticism directed towards our elected leaders and political process, but bear with me.

Point 1: Bush is a stubborn cuss and will not be told what to do.

Was it not inevitable that when the Iraq Study Group reported back with its recommendations that Bush could be expected to do just the opposite? According to form, when the ISG called for a gradual pull back of the 15 combat brigades in Iraq (at the time the report was released), Bush carefully considered the advice and responded by announcing an INCREASE of 5 brigades.

So now the "stubborn cuss" part has moved into a protective posture around the surge. Even though I don't think he genuinely wanted a surge in the first place, i.e., it was only a contrary reaction to the ISG, once he started it, he wasn't going to be told when to end it. How long can he be stubborn in the face of mounting casualties and public opposition? Well, he only needs to be stubborn another 500 days (the length of his Presidency) and really, he doesn't even need to string it along that far because the gravitational pull of the 2008 election will begin to provide cover before that.

Point 2: The surge itself is contradictory

We've heard Bush and administration supporters saying things like "...Petraeus' strategy", "...give his strategy a chance", and "...let's wait to hear what he has to say."

One curious thing is that some people -- like General Shinseki -- get rebuked publicly when we hear what they have to say.

Another curious thing is the timing of listening to what people have to say. Let's assume for a moment that the Surge is, in fact, the brainchild of General Petraeus. Why did the surge start when it did?

Bush has repeatedly asserted that the sectarian violence in Iraq was sparked by the Samarra bombing on February 22, 2006 . Personally, I see this as an attempt to cover up incompetence and dismal planning by the administration, i.e., "We had everything under control until Al-Qaeda blew up the mosque." But, for the moment, let's assume that the Samarra bombing was a primary factor in destabilizing the country. Why was the surge not launched until almost a YEAR later?

Another curious thing is that even when we say we're listening to what people have to say, we appear not to be. General Petraeus was tasked with reformulating the official counterinsurgency doctrine of the U.S. Military; the result was Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3-24.

The manual recommends force ratios of up to 20 combat troops for every 1,000 members of the general population. A fully realized counterinsurgency campaign would then require approximately 120,000 combat troops for Bagdhad (population 6 million) alone. The rest of Iraq (population 20 million) would require an additional 400,000 combat troops. To be fair, every region of Iraq is not equally destabilized and in need of full counterinsurgency troop staffing levels. Excepting Iraqi Kurdistan and its 6 million inhabitants from the estimates would bring the overall national troop staffing requirements to 400,000. It also should be noted that the population of combat troops need not be entirely comprised of American troops, i.e., Iraqi security forces and those of the coalition of the willing.

Incidentally, I'd like to take a quick moment to ridicule the phrase 'coalition of the willing.' I know that the administration was making token efforts to deflect accusations that it was acting unilaterally. But didn't the phrase mostly serve to highlight the absurdity of the situation? Are there other kinds of coalitions? Coalition of the coerced? And while honoring the contributions of individual soldiers, diplomats, etc... I must also wonder what difference the inclusion of such Geopolitical heavyweights as Estonia and Nicaragua made in the grand scheme of things. But I digress...

At the high-end, Patraeus' own strategy called for 520,000 combat troops to wage counterinsurgency in Iraq. Let's be magnanimous and assume that for various reasons (some provinces are relatively stable, we have help from others, we're really good at it), we can fully execute Patraeus' strategy with only 33% of the high-end requirements. So now we're down to 6.66 troops per 1,000 members of the general population. Heck, let's just call it 6. Now, we just need to deploy 156,000 combat troops and we can pacify and rebuild the whole country. There's just one problem. We can't. There aren't enough troops. You see, even under our optimistic calculations here, we need 156,000 COMBAT troops. The actual real-life surge features a peak of 20 brigades which, using a figure of 4,000 per brigade, amounts to only 80,000 combat troops. And even THAT amount cannot be sustained beyond next Summer.

(Could it be that we are finally down to one Friedman Unit or so? And I really REALLY mean it this time!)

As I understand it, we're tapped out. We simply don't have a large enough military to execute our own official counterinsurgency doctrine in a country the size of Iraq. Not even CLOSE. Never mind Iraq for the moment, how has the tempo of ground force deployments to Iraq affected the readiness of our military to respond to other threats in the region (or globally)? According to this article, CENTCOM commander Admiral Fallon is concerned enough that he has started to develop plans that will "...radically draw down American troops." which has contributed to poor relations between Fallon and Patraues.

So the troop numbers look bleak. What about other highlights of FM 3-24?

Well, the doctrine holds that "political objectives must retain primacy." To buttress this point, the manual includes a quote from General Chang Ting-chen of Mao Zedong's Central Committee that revolutionary war was 80 percent political and only 20 percent military.

So when General Petraeus expressed disappointment in the lack of progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq in an open letter released last Friday, I'm surprised it did not receive more emphasis. If 80% of the overall strategy isn't succeeding, I think that's a big deal. There's more; here's a quote from the letter:

Up front, my sense is that we have achieved tactical momentum and wrested the initiative from our enemies in a number of areas of Iraq. The result has been progress in the security arena, although it has, as you know, been uneven.

Alas, the FM 3-24 warns us starkly about emphasizing tactical results. Under the heading 'Tactical Success Guarantees Nothing', FM 3-24 includes the apocryphal exchange in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Colonel Harry Summers (US Army) said to a North Vietnamese colonel, "Remember, you never defeated us on the battlefield." The NVA officer considered for a moment. "That may be so," he said, "but it is also irrelevant."

Point 3: Fool me once... Fool me twice...

This is under reported in the media, but we actually already had a Petraeus Report in September of 2004. This was long enough after the invasion for things to start going to heck, but not so long that the Bush Administration's credibility wasn't totally shot. So who knows what difference Petraeus' happy talk made in the run-up to a very consequential 2004 election. Actually, upon consideration, I don't think an Op-Ed in the Washington Post swung the election (perhaps in Bethesda or Falls Church?) but it still makes me angry to read a puff piece with sections like this:

The institutions that oversee [Iraqi security forces] are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq.

What a great relief! With good news like this all the way back in the Fall of '04, think what kind of shape we'll be in three years later in the Fall of '07. Golly, maybe the boys will be home by Christmas.

So I conclude the surge is a sham. But, in spite of myself, I have to give credit to the Bush adminstration for steering the debate masterfully.

The 2006 elections were widely viewed as a repudiation of Bush and his war policies. But somehow the debate shifted...

Should we be in the war?
How long should we be in the war?
How long should we sustain the surge?
Then, ABSURDLY, to should we remove ONE Brigade!?

Well played Mr. President, well played. I just wish you weren't playing with our country and theirs.