What defines a win in Iraq?

Below is an email sent to me by a very wise, connected and informed friend in the military, responding to the question: "What defines a win in Iraq?"  He has some VERY insightful information about why things are improving there (mostly due to Al Qaida's idiocy and brutality rather than this Administration's "surge", but also due to Gen. Petreus's better strategy).  It is painful to read about the depravity our brave soldiers have had to fight against:

Al Qaida began to institute Sharia Law in the cities where it had critical mass.  This did not go down well with the Sunni and perhaps Iraq alone gave us this opportunity because Iraqi society is about as secular as you'll find through the Middle East.  In order to impose its will, Al Qaida began to do what it always does -- whether Chechyna or Afghanistan or Somalia or pick your place: they set out to terrorize and brutalize the population into cowed fear and ultimate submition.  Immediate Sharia Law is imposed with bans on dancing and sexual intermingling and radios and TVs and any contact with the outside world.  It is all Allah, all the time, 24/7.  Any violators or resistance is brutally and very publicly crushed.  The Sunni tribal chiefs told us later of how the children of the transgressors would be publicly tortured and then beheaded with the populace forced to come out and watch.  Everywhere that Al Qaida had a sizeable presence we have later found torture houses with bodies piled in the back....  drilling into the skull... hacked limbs.... cut off noses, ears, penises, testicles, breasts, hands, arms, legs, feet.... everything imaginable.  Public disembowelments.....  or cutting open the chest cavity with heart still beating.... then final beheading.  If you've ever watched the Al Qaida video where they are walking around the bodies of our two captured soldiers then you'll see what I mean - chest cavity - open.... disembowled... heart in open view....then beheaded...  This is the world of Al Qaida.....

Here's his conclusion on what a good (and likely) outcome will be:

10.  I think this is what will happen in Iraq -- eventually....  We will have a central government much like Bosnia.... with silly quotas for Sunni, Shia, and Kurd....  it will have an Islamic flavor to it....  it will be weak.... and we will be out of sight but present -- much as we are in Bosnia....  Once the citizenry stares into that abyss of chaos there is a strong rational urge to not go back....

4) Speaking of brave soldiers, this is very poignant: one of our soldiers in Iraq was blogging about the experience and wrote a final entry to be published only if he was killed -- and he was.  This is very powerful.  Here's an excerpt from the NYT article about it:

While bloggers have died in war zones before, several prominent military bloggers said they could not recall any previous instances of posthumous blog entries. Major Olmsted’s final post interspersed quotes from Plato and the movie “Team America” with reflections on his life and requests from his readers. He specifically asked that his death not be used for political purposes.

“We’re all going to die of something,” Major Olmsted wrote in his final post. “I died doing a job I loved. When your time comes, I hope you are as fortunate as I was.”

The ending of the post was almost uncomfortably personal, with a message to his wife of 10 years, concluding with “I love you.”

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What defines a "WIN" or victory?  Here is how I see it and this comes after talking to many of my friends who have been on the ground -- some having dedicated several years of their lives to the quest, some of whom have been largely responsible for training the Iraqi Army from its nascent embrionic stages to what we have today.

1.  First the security situation.  It's not perfect.  It will NEVER be perfect.  But it has become stable enough to where normal life in the street can occur over most of Iraq.  That stability was brought about through the US Army surge campaign and the results have surprised even a skeptic like me.  I never thought we could stabilize the country with 150,000 troops.  The surge was a lot more about a complete change in strategy than it was a surge in numbers.  Under Gen. Casey we were tied to our large bases and would send out patrols and do "Thunder runs" to create force presence.  This to me (and many of my peers) is a cowardly strategy and an abject failure to adapt to reality.  Gen. Petraeus has pushed us out of our enclaves and deep into the city of Baghdad in particular, but also Ramadi (the self proclaimed capital of Al Qaida in Iraq) and other major cities.  We are now honeycombed and interlinked all over the place.  

2.  The objective of any counter-insurgency campaign is to remove the enemy's freedom of maneuver which is largely derived by his popular support.  If he can move about the people then he has ingress and egress to either attack you or to attack the societal institutions of import.  There was a marriage of sorts between Al Qaida and the Sunni on one side vs. the U.S. and moderate Shia on the other, with Al Sadr a dangerous splinter faction undercutting the legitimacy of the ruling government (largely Shia). 

3. During this phase Al Qaida and Zarkawi had total freedom of maneuver.  They could attack at will.  Our actions under Gen. Casey became the famous "whack a mole" phrase that pretty much describes it.  And as an outside "occupier" we had no legitimacy with the people -- compounded by actions on our part that are typical of any large Army sitting on top of a volatile situation.  Go back through history and there are thousands of examples -- to include our own horrific failed strategies from Vietnam.  To include the French experience in Algeria.  To include the Russian experience in Chechyna.  To include the Japanese in Indochina.  To include the Germans in the Balkans.  On and on and on.....  we should read our own history!!  We were actually doing reasonably well in Vietnam when Kennedy first put in the special Forces in the large programs of "pacification".... but once regular American Army forces insisted on large combat operations we "lost the bubble" so to speak and we did the same damn thing in Iraq -- large fire bases.  Search and Destroy operations.  Heavy handedness.  All with a weak central government with no legitimacy and factionalized almost tribal lines.

4.  Al Qaida began to institute Sharia Law in the cities where it had critical mass.  This did not go down well with the Sunni and perhaps Iraq alone gave us this opportunity because Iraqi society is about as secular as you'll find through the Middle East.  In order to impose its will, Al Qaida began to do what it always does -- whether Chechyna or Afghanistan or Somalia or pick your place: they set out to terrorize and brutalize the population into cowed fear and ultimate submition.  Immediate Sharia Law is imposed with bans on dancing and sexual intermingling and radios and TVs and any contact with the outside world.  It is all Allah, all the time, 24/7.  Any violators or resistance is brutally and very publicly crushed.  The Sunni tribal chiefs told us later of how the children of the transgressors would be publicly tortured and then beheaded with the populace forced to come out and watch.  Everywhere that Al Qaida had a sizeable presence we have later found torture houses with bodies piled in the back....  drilling into the skull... hacked limbs.... cut off noses, ears, penises, testicles, breasts, hands, arms, legs, feet.... everything imaginable.  Public disembowelments.....  or cutting open the chest cavity with heart still beating.... then final beheading.  If you've ever watched the Al Qaida video where they are walking around the bodies of our two captured soldiers then you'll see what I mean - chest cavity - open.... disembowled... heart in open view....then beheaded...  This is the world of Al Qaida.....

5.  We began to counter Al Qaida IO campaigns with our own -- advertising their brutality (and I wish that we would do this on a strategic level so that people would know what we're up against)...  we reached out to the Sunni tribal chiefs...  One by one by one by one we began to turn them and appeal to their own SELF INTEREST (Munger might have an opinion on this!).... Al Qaida had over-played its hand by brutalizing the Sunni.... by violating tribal culture... by challenging the powerbase of Sunni society and trying to replace it with the above...  The Sunni then took matters into their own hands.  They stopped attacking us and put the word out to help the Americans.  And in many nights of the long knives the Sunni turned on Al Qaida with a murderous vengeance -- slaughtering them wherever they were found.  Turning them in.  Revealing their whereabouts.  Al Qaida was on the run...

6.  Then about this time began The Surge where we honeycombed through Iraq....  further limiting the enemy's freedom of movement -- whether Al Qaida, disparate Sunni radicals, or Shia factions...  Americans are very visible... we have undergone a cultural transformation in the US Army that is beyond the scope of this email but it is both fascinating on one hand and unbelievable on the other - more mental than anything else.  How do you teach the kid from rural Iowa how to win hearts and minds?  That was the challenge and still is, but we have made enormous progress...   

7.  Al Sadr was also marginalized with our overtures to Al Sistani...  not to mention the fact that when Al Sadr decided to take on 1st Armored Division and LTG Dempsey that he lost 80 of his guys for every one of ours.  He has never directly challenged us since...  

8.  And through all of the above we have now arrived at our somewhat transient state of affairs where we have enough stability for society to function.  However, during this same timeframe the Iraqi Army gets bigger and bigger and more capable... They are very much on board with our current strategy.  The Sunni tribal chiefs have been given a lot of local power and autonomy....  police are locals rather than some silly experiment at a multi-cultural force that is always suspect....  The Army is more inter-mixed of course but the local police it's different.  And exiles are now returning in some size... 

9.  What happens next.  Now we get to the crux I suppose -- political reconciliation at the national level.  8 months ago I was probably the biggest skeptic on this and to some degree still am -- there is a LONG way to go and perhaps we go down the tempting yet dangerous path of breaking Iraq along tribal lines and thus establish precedent for tribal factions across the globe -- from Turkey to Hungary to Spain to Serbia to Bulgaria to Greece to Syria to Saudi Arabia to Pakistan to India...... Partition I have always thought was the way out of this.... then pack up our toys and unass the shithole....  but think of the consequences above for EVERY ethnic minority that has critical mass around the globe...  very very VERY dangerous... and perhaps in that context it is understandable why we have not gone down Biden's path....  It is also true that in some key places (Bosnia, Kosovo) we have tried to impose a multi-ethnic society from above that we have failed -- defeated by uncontrollable forces of hate and division on the ground...  BUT.... absent the sniping of a few kids.... a few slit throats in the night.... or a land mine laid in a farmer's field, Albanians and Serbs are not slaughtering each other by the thousands in Kosovo anymore....  the ethnic division occurred under NATO and UN noses while our political class slap themselves silly and smile for the cameras -- such a fine display of accomplishment.... the Albanians have "won" ....and now they push for independence... it's volatile....but stable....  I've walked through Mitrovica which is the Serb side of the Ibar river and you can feel the tension -- a discernible tension -- everywhere....  but life goes on...     

10.  I think this is what will happen in Iraq -- eventually....  We will have a central government much like Bosnia.... with silly quotas for Sunni, Shia, and Kurd....  it will have an Islamic flavor to it....  it will be weak.... and we will be out of sight but present -- much as we are in Bosnia....  Once the citizenry stares into that abyss of chaos there is a strong rational urge to not go back....

11.  Last....  there are patterns here.  I strongly urge folks to read Niall Ferguson's "War of the World" where he examines conflict of last century and the nature of man.... He's exploring ethnic and cultural divides and WHY mankind devolves into this hatred of himself.  It is absolutely fascinating...  and I might add ties in very nicely with "The Black Swan" and those out of left field events that shock the world...  we've all been here before....  Europe in major parts of her history was just as Iraq is now....  Jews being run down in the streets of Hungary and Romania and Russia and Poland.... looted, raped, burned.... the Germans are what we know today after the Nazi period but it all happened long before Hitler -- he just perfected the means to slaughter....  or perhaps the Armenian example serves...  this is mankind's albatross - himself.    

Go Obama!!!  Wanna know one big reason why I so fear Huckabee and Edwards??  Look no further than populism as one of the root causes of #11......   populism.....  group identity.....tribalism.... where "Jew" in Nazi Germany became a synonym for "Capitalist" and a way to find a scapegoat for all of the problems which befell German society.... then that society turned on them in a viscous rampage and orgy of death... rather than blame itself or the "system", it becomes all too tempting for government to find its scapegoats.  The rule of thumb - NEVER never NEVER under any circumstance allow a populist to seize the reins of power....  even harmless looking ones with $400 haircuts.