politic_analyst

It appears that the tactics of the military is to secure 3 or 4 points and perhaps collapsing the points into baghdad. With yesterdays news on more casualties happening in baghdad, I wonder why they decided to implement this strategy instead of first going door to door in baghdad and securing the perimeter, their home base instead of splitting the forces in 3 or 4 sections. Once secured then they can start thinking of securing the areas close to baghdad and eventually pushing what the military claim as their enemies, out of the region.

With the deadline for status fast approaching and no good news to report how do you view the strategy of the surge from what information you currently know.

VTA

That's a good question.
How do we define success? Casualties? To the 14-16 American soldiers killed in action, according to yesterdays news, today they say 68 militants have been killed in the last four days.

Is that winning?

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-VTA

Volker

There are people going from door to door in Baghdad, but these are not Americans. These are Shia militias members who tell Sunni families to leave a mostly Shia quarter within like 48 hours or Sunni militia members which do the same in quarters with mostly Sunni population.

People who take a taxi through the quarters can be stopped by militias. If your passport says your name is Omar and you are in Shia quarter, it's possible, they shoot you. The same can happen to someone with the name Ali in a Sunni quarter.

The American military does not control Baghdad.

Maybe it can secure the Green Zone with the surge and with much luck for a while.

Tashah

Personally, I have a tactical problem with the surge strategy and no matter how I look at it, it just doesn't go away. The problem is enemy resupply. As long as the borders of Iraq are porous, the surge strategy can at best be successful only for a finite period and only at select locations.

This implies to me that the surge is not a coherent strategy with long-term attainable goals. Rather, it is a decidedly short-term device implimented to purchase time. In simple terms, I consider the surge to be cosmetic rather than therapeutic.

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Khayembii Communique

There's no way in hell that that few troops will make that big of a difference.

Iriemon

Is the current surge working?

I'm not even sure what the hell it was supposed to accomplish.

"Working" to me means that Iraq has been stablized, the Iraqi government has the popular support to stand on its own, and we withdraw our forces like we said we were going to do.

I haven't heard anyone in the Govt talking about withdrawing the forces, and guys like Patreous are talking about deployments lasting for many more years or decades.

Based on that criteria; the escalation has thus been a complete failure.

Iriemon

The problem, in IMO, is that there is a widespread perception that the United States bombed, invaded, and occupied Iraq based on a "mistake" and had no ligitimate justification to do so, and that those who are resisting the invaders are pursuing a legitimate defense against unjustified, foreign occupiers.

The problem is far larger because that perception is both rational and logical.

This implies to me that the entire attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq was not and is not a coherent strategy with long term attainable goals.

Unless our goal is to encourage more Muslims to support the jihadis.

Khayembii Communique

Not only that, but the recent bombing of that Shi'ite mosque (which many Iraqis consider to be their "9/11" but much more serious) has caused the Sadr movement to suspend its participation in parliament, effectively suspending any progress in the country.

Tashah

Probably well over a year ago, I posted my belief Iraq will ultimately trifurcate. I have seen nothing to date which would influence me to alter that analysis.

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Khayembii Communique

If that happened it would certainly be a disaster for not only the Iraqi people but the entire region, as that would only foment intolerance and violence, although that is ultimately what the Bush administration is pushing for, as is evident in the Hydrocarbon Law.