Mission indeterminate

ARTICLE: "Bush ties pullback to success in Iraq," by David Jackson, USA Today, 14 September 2007, p. 1A.

EDITORIAL: "In for the long term? Maybe. But not with a blank check," USA Today, 14 September 2007, p. 14A.

Bush's open-ended pass is sort of stunning, just saying troops "return on success" and that such success "will require U.S. political, economic and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency," is just so weak. I mean, the guy's got 16 months and that's all he can say about the biggest commitment of U.S. troops in a generation?

On where to shift troops, the Dems lean north and south: toward Kurdistan (Clinton) and Kuwait (Edwards), with much smaller amounts in southern Iraq (primarily focused on hunting AQI and doing mil-mil training and advising).

"Cut and run" to the strategically immature, but it's how you get a sustainable casualty rate for actually staying as long as it takes to fix Bush's many mistakes to date.

As the editorial states:

Americans might be persuaded to accept a sustained presence, as they have in stationing U.S. forces in Europe and South Korea. But those deployments have claimed fewer U.S. lives in several decades than Iraq claims in a few weeks.

90-plus deaths per month with the surge, and this administration clearly redirecting its efforts to Iran

The Democrats should be nervous that they're being set up for an unsustainable presence in the region, with Bush leaving them with a tapped out military, unaddressed issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan with al-Qaeda's clear resurgence (you just know the GOP will accept blame for the next strike once a Dem lands in the White House), and a welcome-to-the-White-House war with Iran as Bush's parting gift.

If the Dems don't start paying attention, that's the legacy Bush is going to leave them, along with Kim's nukes, a pissed-off Putin, and a China that's no more of a "stakeholder" than when Bush entered office.

That is going to be a huge foreign policy agenda, bestowed upon a newly-minted presidency facing a ton of anti-Americanism all over the world (frankly, I was amazed how down Australian officials were two weeks ago).

In a parliamentary system, we've got a new PM already and we're moving on. It's only at times like this (Bush's early post-presidency is a Carter-plus-plus) when you reach for such straws, but with vague speeches like Bush's last night, it's hard not to.

No clear benchmarks.
No firm deadlines.
No commitments on troop levels.

One big "I dunno" by the Decider-in-Chief who's outsourced the political leadership of his administration-defining war to a general.

I know, I know, thank God for small favors. But I still find this near complete abdication of political responsibility absolutely stunning.

Bush is just playing out the clock, and it shows.

Head-on! Apply directly to my forehead!

I have to apologize more often.

I do so to Ted O'Connor and I get this gem from Christopher Thompson as a result:

It is difficult to have to endure the time consuming process of COIN. It is equally difficult to endure the lack of 5GW to start limiting our exposure to 4GW.

That, in a nutshell, is a brilliant definition of 5GW--at least in function.

Fifth-generation warfare is designed primarily to limit one's exposure to Fourth-Generation Warfare.

KISS, baby!

No, I wouldn't see 5GW preventing earlier generations. That's easy enough to figure out and be obvious about (hell, being really obvious about it is much of the delivery).

But 5GW should be a leap-frogging of the bloody-nose strategy of the 4GWers.

How achieved?

It ain't about not caring how much you bleed, but figuring out how not to bleed whatsoever.

You are self-healing, real-time.

That's why I'm with Enterra.

The nature of my frustration on Iraq revolves around the opportunity that Petraeus represents

ARTICLE: "Brainiac Brigade: Some of the military's finest minds helped craft the strategy that has produced some signs of good news out of Iraq. But even they don't know if it will work," by Babak Dehghanpisheh and John Barry, Newsweek, 17 September 2007, p. 38.

I like Petraeus a lot, just like I like Jim Mattis. These guys aren't perfect, and although they're making a huge effort to change things around them, they don't always succeed and they can easily succumb to the what-I-say-depends-on-where-I-sit-right-now syndrome.

But guys like these not only have their heads in the right places, their hearts are attached.

I met Mattis first time in Quantico for the Rumsfeld piece. He told me about reading the original Esquire "Pentagon's New Map" in his tent the night before leading his troops into Iraq. Naturally, we bonded.

Mattis is an amazing guy who so impressed me in that F2F that I knew I wanted to profile him somewhere down the road.

Later, in the late summer of 2005, he invited me down to Quantico to address the class of Marine Corps University (I remember that gig because I got lost on the way there from Art Cebrowski's funeral and showed up a bit late and out of it, but it was a great and rowdy crowd; it was also the first time Jenn Posda saw me live).

Somewhere in the same time frame I got an email from Petraeus, who knew me from the blog. He invited me to speak to the class of the Command & General Staff College study body, which I did in December 2005.

Taking advantage of both trips, I pitched Esquire (meaning, Mark Warren) on the idea of doing a piece on these two, plus Wallace, Abizaid and Schoomaker. Abizaid's commanders advisory group (originally begun by McMaster, I believe) had brought me down to Tampa in the fall of 2005 (resulting in the pic used by WaPo later), and Schoomaker (whom I briefed in 1999 at SOCOM on Y2K and whom I interviewed in the PNT in the spring of 2005 on Rumsfeld) had me down to TX to brief a senior group of Army 3-stars he hosted in a special retreat.

That piece became "The Monks of War" (with Abizaid and Schoomaker trimmed for length, unfortunately, as my first draft was 16k).

I give this recap simply to make what I say next seem reasonable.

I know there's a ton of frustration within the U.S. military about the pace of change (some want it much faster and express that desire for speed in a "war footing" argument, and some want it obviated by a return to a big war focus on China--or Iran--in the meantime). I know there's a lot of frustration with the top leaders.

But I've been in this business for just over 17 years as a paid professional, and I have to tell you, this cohort of top generals is awfully good--in fact the best I've worked with over the years by far.

Are they enough? Nobody's ever enough for a bureaucracy as large as DoD, but they're definitely moving the pile.

Yes, there are a lot of obvious obstacles that could be removed more rapidly, and it's sad to say that a lot of pain must be registered in this system before it reforms itself or allows a shifting of power and resources from office to office.

Having said all that, what Petraeus and this cohort (to include the brainiacs cited in this article: Kilcullen, Newton, Meese, McMaster and Mansoor--and let's not forget Nagl or Chiarelli) are doing right now to reposition the U.S. military on COIN and to make the next best effort at it in Iraq right now is nothing less than amazing.

Yes, they were dealt a truly shitty hand by a political leadership that continues--in my opinion--to work against their best interests strategically. There is only so much they can do in Iraq, given these profound limits, but they're doing plenty with what they've got, and best of all, they're accumulating seriously good operational experience. Instead of just jerking around the troops, there seems to be real purpose and focus to our operations in Iraq right now, and like a good drive for a football team, each play inspires more confidence.

And so there's no question but you support this military in this effort at this time, and you understand their request to stay in the game and finish it out to the best of their troops' ability. This is important not just for Iraq, or the region, or America. It's hugely important for our military as we move ahead.

Iraq as easy-takedown-win-segueing-into-disastrous-insurgency-pulled-back-into-semi-stable-postwar-recovering-situation-where-the-fake-state-bottoms-out-and-begins-the-long-slow-climb-from-chaos is a difficult story for many Americans to swallow, especially since we were sold a complete fantasy on Iraq's rebuild into a stable democracy on a 6-12-18 month basis (I can pull the articles on that one from PNM, if you like), and when that didn't happen, public opinion and Bush's opposition backtracked and retro-actively made the WMD thing THE SINGLE SALE (which it never was, but when you f--k up that bad, you deserve what you get in criticism from any and all corners).

But truth be told, from my angle, this trajectory is about as good as my pessimistic soul could muster right from the beginning.

Here's what I wrote in the original PNM article:

The Middle East has long been a neighborhood of bullies eager to pick on the weak. Israel is still around because it has become—sadly—one of the toughest bullies on the block. The only thing that will change that nasty environment and open the floodgates for change is if some external power steps in and plays Leviathan full-time. Taking down Saddam, the region’s bully-in-chief, will force the U.S. into playing that role far more fully than it has over the past several decades, primarily because Iraq is the Yugoslavia of the Middle East—a crossroads of civilizations that has historically required a dictatorship to keep the peace. As baby-sitting jobs go, this one will be a doozy, making our lengthy efforts in postwar Germany and Japan look simple in retrospect.

What I meant by "look simple in retrospect," being someone focused on institutional change, was that the U.S. military that defeated Germany and Japan in WWII and then immediately segued into effective occupation forces was a force/defense establishment/political leadership that was quite prepared for the necessary transition. You have to remember, that generation had mobilized to deal with the Great Depression, then the war, and by this time was quite comfortable and confident in its nation-building mode. The U.S. had gone majority urban around 1920, and the closing of the Western frontier had been only 30 years before that. These were not alien concepts. There was no institutional or ideological bias against this sort of work. We had people who knew how to do it, had done it, and were fully committed to doing it well after WWII because they didn't want to have to go back for a third round in their lifetimes.

The force/defense establishment/political leadership that went into Iraq was none of those things, had none of that bias or confidence or realistic expectations (my column this weekend). We had spent the previous quarter century running away from that experience in Vietnam (where we came very close to learning what we needed to learn just before the bottom fell out). Given enough time, the changes would have come, however painfully, back then. But that was just not meant to be, given the strategic environment. Frankly, Vietnam was meaningless in the grand scheme of things. In retrospect, detente with the USSR and the opening up of China were the big tasks of that age, with the rise of OPEC and the Middle East the great harbinger of what would come next.

But Vietnam was huge in our pysche, and in terms of the U.S. military's lessons learned. A generation of officers led that battered and insecure force out of the jungle and resurrected it into the massive Leviathan that loomed over the planet at Cold War's end.

Unfortunately, as I and others argue, that Leviathan was essentially mismatched for the world that followed. The realists were dead wrong: no great power sought to balance our military. Instead, they chose to trust it, and how we'd use it.

Across the 1990s, that trust seemed reasonably rewarded. When the emergent Core saw something bad enough (in their calculations), they dealt with it, like the Balkans. Many things didn't register, but when the response was made, it was pretty good (the origins, in my argument, of the A-to-Z rule set on processing politically bankrupt states).

We were beginning to learn how to run this system in terms of failed states, awkwardly but getting smarter over time.

Bush and Co. come in with a disdain for all that. Don't want to do failed states. Don't want to nation-build. Want to go long on the high-tech Leivathan and gear up for one sexy war with China (the EP-3 as preview).

By the time 9/11 rolled around, "transformation" was in full mode and the Bush administration had successfully begun alienating much of the world.

Then we got the boost from 9/11, used it to srtike fast at the Taliban, and then Bush pulled the trigger on Saddam, while the iron was still hot.

As my clip from above proves, I was all for making that call.

I had no illusions about how hard it would be in the postwar.

In many ways, I was counting on it as a trigger for change I believed was necessary--to include my note in that article that we'd eventually have to tackle the task of creating a regional security regime/dialogue (just like the Iraq Study Group argued three years later).

You got to remember, back at the beginning of 2000 I did a thought piece on a 9/11-like strike called "Life After DoDth, or: How the Evernet Changes Everything.". In that piece, on a dare from Art Cebrowski (who felt we weren't learning what we needed to learn about the future of national security from the Y2K experience, largely because we had the luxury of scheduling that test in advance), I imagined a 9/11-like disaster that made the Pentagon look completely irrelevant to the threat at hand. In the article, I went with the electronic Pearl Harbor, because that was a hot concept then and it made a truly weird article easier to get published (remember, I'm slipping this past the editorial board of Proceedings), but frankly, I wasn't interested in what would cause the disruptive system perturbation, I was just interested in how we'd response.

One of the big responses I predicted was a bifurcation of the national security establishment into a Leviathan-like entity (Department of Global Deterrence) and a SysAdmin-like entity (Department of Network Security).

My argument went like this:

The result? DoD will be broken into two separate organizations:

-->The Department of Global Deterrence (DGD), to focus on preventing and, if necessary, fighting large-scale conventional and/or weapons-of-mass-destruction-enhanced warfare among nation-states

-->The Department of Network Security (DNS), to focus on maintaining the United States' vast electronic and commercial connectivity with the outside world, including protection and large-scale emergency reconstitution of the Evernet, and to perform all the standard crisis-response activity short of war (with a ballooning portfolio in medical).
In effect, we will split DoD into a warfighting force (DGD) and a global emergency-response force (DNS), with the latter aspiring to as much global collaboration as possible (ultimately disintermediating the United Nations) and the former to virtually none. To put it another way, DGD is deterrence; DNS is assurance.

Who gets the "kids" in this divorce?

DGD includes:

U.S. Army (ground & armored)
U.S. Air Force (combat)
U.S. Navy (strategic)
DNS includes:

U.S. Army (airborne)
U.S. Air Force (mobility and space)
U.S. Marine Corps
U.S. Navy (rest)
Air/Army National Guards.[21]
DNS also picks up the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Information Agency, U.S. Customs, and a host of other specialized units from other federal agencies (e.g., Justice, Treasury).

DNS will discard the traditional notion of military service separate from civilian life. For most personnel, it will adopt a consultancy model, whereby the agency rents career time versus buying entire lifetimes (essentially the National Guard model). DNS's officer corps will remain career managers, but with frequent real-world tours of duty in technology, industrial, and business fields. This organization will be networked in the extreme, because networks will be what it is all about. This means no separate legal system and the end to posse comitatus restrictions.

But when 9/11 happened and then we got the anthrax strikes (still the great mystery we all now forget), the political system zigged when it should have zagged. Instead of creating the US-outward-security-network force, it created the firewall-stop-them-at-the-border force.

Frankly, I was stunned at the choice. At the great dawning of the age of connectivity, we looked completely inward instead of outward.

So when Iraq is teed up, not only am I attracted to the "big bang" argument (Peters made a gloriously forceful argument for that view yesterday at Leavenworth), I see the tipping point on my bifurcated force. If 9/11 wouldn't do it, this would.

And I believe it has, as evidenced by my "The Americans Have Landed" description of the naturally-arrived-at bifurcation between Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa and Special Operations Command-Central Command.

But that's the experimental, off-grid version.

The real bifurcation of the U.S. military comes as a result of the rise of the SysAdmin package in response to immense failure. Bush and Co. provided that failure in their horrific mismanagement of Iraq's postwar, but as I point out in this week's column, that political leadership plus the military's institutional bias against such stuff was a match made in hell.

Into that void steps Petraeus, Chiarelli, Mattis, Nagl, McMaster, Kilcullen et. al. This gap in capabilities was no news to any of them, and they sure as hell didn't need to read my stuff to catch up. They were already there, mostly on the basis of experience in places like Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans and Afghanistan.

My stuff wasn't ahead of its time for these guys. It was right on time. Most grand strategy and futurology is just that: helping you figure out today and getting you caught up. It's the old bit about running as fast as you can just to stay in place.

So we blow the "lost year," and Bush and Co. diddle through 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and then finally we see some serious monks of war get their chance to try out their just-published COIN in Iraq.

And you know what? Most people (like Peters) think only about half of that manual is being applied or is useful and the other half is being learned rapidly in theater, meaning it was an awfully good first cut.

Part of me wants that learning process to continue, even at the relatively high cost in personnel (by today's standards). But another part of me knows that Bush and Co. have teed up Iran, and so I fear this great tipping-point experience is going to get lost in the shuffle toward what I think will be a bad war that's badly waged and gets us bad outcomes. Plus, I just think it's a stupid war because:

1) there's no need to go all wobbly over Iran getting WMD, like we've never processed a scary state before on that score (like Mao's f--king insane China of the early-mid-late 1960s);

2) you've just got to find a place for Iran in this Shia revival we both triggered and need to succeed on several levels if pluralism going to come about in the region;

3) it's just the wrong fight with the wrong nation at the wrong time (Iran's regime is plenty ripe for a soft kill, if only we didn't have such unimaginative people at the helm who can only spout the same self-deluding truisms every time you raise the subject);

4) you simply won't get the acquiescence of the New Core on Iran like you did on Iraq, partly because you screwed up Iraq so bad and partly because Iran's oil and gas is too important to this crew; and

5) if you think Bush and Co. screwed up the postwar in Iraq, I guarantee you, whatever the level of strikes we bring to Iran, they'll screw it up even worse, if for only the reason that no one will help us and we're already stretched to the limits in our isolation in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Besides fearing this solid effort by our military in Iraq will be swept aside by a war with Iran, I know that even if the Bush administration does not take that feared plunge, it'll nonetheless send America back into the arms of both Tel Aviv's and Riyadh's hardliners in their shared anti-Shia fears, meaning the sum total effect of 8 years of Bush will be to return us to the same, grotesquely dysfunctional dynamics that defined the Middle East prior to 9/11: we unblinkingly back Israel and Sunni dictatorships and--by doing so--keep the Shia down throughout the region by encouraging authoritarianism aligned with U.S. interests, and that only gets you back in the business of supporting the decrepit regimes that--in turn--implicitly support al Qaeda.

If we go down that path, it won't matter what my military learns in Iraq. It won't matter what Petraeus and Co. achieve. All of that will be jettisoned eventually by an American public that you can't fool all of the time.

I know some would like just such an outcome (better to make the Middle East a "blip" in our long-term preparations for our brilliant wars of the future with China), but I think it would be a complete disaster, capable of killing this era's globalization.

So yeah, I get the anti-war effort. They want Bush and Co. stopped.

I do too, because I think they are still capable of screwing up a whole lot more than just Iraq (and believe me, there are multitudes of people within the USG working to prevent just such an outcome, because they'll all still be there once Bush and the neocons move out). I just don't think it's a matter of stopping this administration on Iraq any more, because they've outsourced their political leadership to Petraeus and company (which I approve of) and because they've basically "moved on," if I can borrow that phrase, to their next target. Problem is, as I've stated many times, this crew just has no idea what a match they'd be lighting on this one.

I used to wave off comparisons of today's globalization to that of pre-WWI Europe, but I can't any more, or at least not as long as Bush remains in office.

I believe we are capable of that level of strategic stupidity and self-destruction.

But putting all that larger fear aside, I also worry that a somewhat imbalanced, way-too-religious leader of a nuclear power might just do something incredibly dangerous before leaving office in 2009.

Okay, I'm still talking about Bush because Ahmadinejad doesn't hold any of those levers in Iran.

Bottom line to wrap up this long post: if enough forces rise up to keep Bush on the defensive until the end of his term and we prevent Cheney's desired war with Iran, I think Petraeus and company will forge something approaching a realistic "win" in Iraq by the time the next president emerges.

By that I don't mean some resurrected Iraqi unitary state, much less any democracy.

I mean only a loosely tri-federated Iraq where economic connectivity is blossoming (a sure thing in Kurdistan absent some complete security collapse) distant from the capital and Baghdad is kept from turning into some 21st century Beirut.

Believe it or not, that's always been my definition of an acceptable and realistic "win." Better versions seemed possible at points in the past, but we simply didn't take advantage of them. Now, this is as good as it gets, and in that respect, it ends up looking an awful lot like a Balkans-done-backwards.

We run that scenario down to the point where we've achieved the Vietnam-in-reverse (from kinetics to advising) and we might just end up locking in the SysAdmin evolution one helluva lot faster than I ever hoped could be achieved.

So you see my back-and-forth: I want Iraq to unfold much as Bush says he wants it to unfold, but I also don't want to let him off that hook because I fear where he'll take us next, a scenario that I think will lay waste all our previous effort on Iraq plus quite possibly destroy both the evolution of the Army toward the SysAdmin function and this era of globalization itself.

So I agree with Ted O'Connor. We are 300 million desperately in search of leadership. Petraeus fills a big hole, but far larger ones exist.

My apologies to Ted O'Connor

Ted made a comment in a post below, where I was admittedly venting and he decided to as well, as did 8 other commenters.

Sean, my webmaster, sent me the comment to consider and I--without much thinking and not feeling well last night (always a mistake I find)--fired back at Ted in a subsequent comment.

My reply was uncalled for and inconsiderate.

Ted's obviously feeling a lot of frustration, as am I. When I take the opportunity to vent mine, he's certainly free to join in on my blog.

So my apologies to Ted.

So much for "selling off Taiwan"

SPEECH: A Strong and Moderate Taiwan, By Thomas J. Christensen, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Speech to U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, Defense Industry Conference, Annapolis, Maryland, September 11, 2007

Reality is, Taiwan's got to accommodate China's rise just like the rest of us.

(Thanks: Tom Wade)

Since a tripartite Iraq is inevitable ...

ARTICLE: Compromise on Oil Law in Iraq Seems to Be Collapsing, By JAMES GLANZ, New York Times, September 13, 2007

Further sad proof that Iraq's dissolution is accelerating.

Still, if, like me, you saw this as inevitable, then the faster we get there, the faster the individual regions can stand up on their own economically, which to me is a precondition for later political re-integration--thus the strategic tool that is Development-in-a-Box™.

(Thanks: Dan Hare)

Dispensational premillennialism

The end times core teaching of Protestant fundamentalism.

"Dispensational" refers to dividing the faith's sacred history into distinct periods, called dispensations.

"Premillennialism" is the view that Jesus will soon return, defeat the Antichrist and establish a thousand-year reign of peace.

Put together, you have a package quite similar to the Shia faith concept of the 12th or "hidden imam" whose return signals a similar and universal period of violence followed by salvation.

Dispensational premillennialism was developed by the British theologian John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) and spread across the U.S. after the bloody Civil War (go figure). The incredibly popular Left Behind book series underscore how today dispensational premillennialism "is the most popular form of prophecy belief in the United States, informing (among other things) conservative Christian support for the state of Israel."

From Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy.

Remember that when you're being sold the war with Iran: some are more predisposed for this sale than others, meaning Ahmandinejad's brand of religious determinism is matched by plenty on our side.

Which side is mere "belief" and which side is frightening "irrationality"?

Well, that depends now doesn't it?

Speech today was sub-par

Audience was dead after third full day of being talked to. They were engaged okay and asked good questions, but lifeless on the laugh scale, and I desperately needed the energy as I succumb (I suspect) to a cold. As always, I only give what I get, so my delivery was unusually mumbly-mouthed and full of awkward syntax. Just never located a sweet spot over 75 minutes and 15 Q&A.

Met some great officers, though, and got to see the mammoth new Lewis & Clark Center on the base.

Peters cites Mattis

"Probably the greatest Marine general from Chesty Puller. He talks about the democracy of tribes."

Point: accept the tribal identities, and make pluralism work within that context.

Peter's talk

By far the best I've heard from him.

We agree on a lot of things. He just sees a more intractably conflict-ridden world. I just see globalization moving much faster, meaning I'm much closer to Tom Friedman.

Best bit? "Democracy is not an ideology; it's a tactic. In the right hands? A wonder drug. In the wrong hands? A loaded gun."

Those who learn from history ...

'The Ottoman Swede,' By ROGER COHEN, International Herald Tribune, September 13, 2007

Fab piece by Cohen.

What I've been saying for a long time.

The Balkans taught us much, if we bother to learn.

Petraeus did.

(Thanks: Dan Hare)

Move or get left behind

POST: How to Measure Insurgencies, By J. Eli Margolis, Small Wars Journal Blog

Interesting and worth a read. The hunt for measures is almost as important as what they say.

You either get smarter or--by default--dumber vis-a-vis the enemy. So move or get left behind.

Big Bang status

ANALYSIS: Petraeus Returns to War That Is Now His Own, By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, September 13, 2007; Page A01

I agree with the assessment that the White House wants Iraq to be "Petraeus' War," but to say that the "surge" plan wasn't Petraeus' is misleading.

Petraeus didn't plan the surge but the surge in and of itself isn't the difference in what success we've had.

Flipping the Sunnis reflects Petraeus' COIN approach, and that was accomplished by a change in tactics, not bodies (most of whom took long into 2007 to arrive anyway, much like the MRAPs). The numbers surge sustained those gains somewhat, but wouldn't have accomplished much on their own (much like the surge in general accomplishes little absent any diplomatic and reconstruction surge, which is just more evidence that this White House has effectively passed Iraq on to the next administration, with Petraeus as "czar" until such time ... And given their mismanagement to date, I'm happy to see the general in charge).

The flipping of the Sunnis was, in turn, a gift from AQI, which overreached in its crazy violence, which made clear their desire to fight America to the last Iraqi standing. Al-Qaeda simply blew it, like they always do, going overboard.

Petraeus took advantage of such mistakes, and did a fair share of likewise taming the insurgency--albeit at higher casualty rates (04-06 we averaged 70 a month, and the surge kicked it up above 90 across 07).

Now, with the continued surge, Petraeus hopes to do so similar good things with the Shia (reducing their infighting, limiting their tangling with Sunni as they consolidate power, and curtailing their arms connectivity with Iran). None will be easy, but Petraeus is pursuing a sober goal: not trying to stop the Shia ascendancy, but just keep it from being too nasty during his time.

Problem is, of course, Iran ain't going anywhere and has plenty of time--assuming the political system back home prevents Bush and Cheney from starting a war with them.

To me, the opposition should logically focus its attention there. Bush and State have given up on Iraq (whose effective dissolution is a done deal, meaning it's closer to a Lebanon than we were aiming for, but Tehran's more than okay with that), and they're fairly open to people about that. Everything regarding Iraq is now really about setting up Iran (thus the continued surge's refocusing on the Shia fits well with the long-standing push to Iranify the Long War), and again, this crew is fairly open about that.

So expect the war-with-Iran storyline continues to get a lot of airplay. I don't expect Bush & Co. to ever abandon this dream until the next president is sworn in (and I will admit, Podhoretz just about kills Rudy's appeal to me on that score, which is sad, because I don't get the sense Giuliani realizes how selling that line will make him seem too "out there" to voters following Bush-Cheney). I think it can only be prevented with sufficient backpressure from all concerned and responsible parties (again, either you fight the Long War sequentially or accumulatively, with the WWIV crowd favoring the take-on-everybody-now! approach). Me? I respect the long,hard slog reality of the Long War, and want an America than can finish instead of one that's finished from fatigue.

In short, if you want to "end this war" (a goal that, in my mind, is really all about reducing casualties, since six more months of surge likely gets us 5-600 more dead by spring--sad to say), focus on Iran for the rest of this term because Iraq's been passed along.

Leavenworth sights

Grant statue at end of Grant Avenue at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

I speak at non-state actors warfare conference today, after Rep. Ike Skleton and Ralph Peters.

Buffalo Soldier Monument, main sculpture, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Monument includes display of busts commemoration first African-American paratrooper, etc. Beautiful park.

My tenth and eleventh articles in Esquire are out!

Bought at airport today in Indy, so they're everywhere now.

Not sure of order, but longer one is "The 55th State" (yes, I secretly polled you all for ideas way back when, and you responded magnificently (30 comments), confirming some ideas and discounting others) and the shorter one is "Sea-Traffic Control" (based on my time with ADM Harry Ulrich at Naples, I failed to get this into "The Americans Have Landed, but then Mark and I repurposed as stand-alone here, which works better).

Score two for Beinart

My wife had already talked me out of Michael Ledeen's "Iranian Time Bomb," but if she hadn't, Peter Beinart scathing review in last Sunday NYTBR (p. 15) would have.

Beinart also dismember's Norman Podhoretz's "World War IV," to my immense pleasure.

Petraeus is the de facto war czar

ARTICLE: 'Bush to Endorse Petraeus Plan: Democrats, Some Republicans Seek a Faster Withdrawal,' By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post, September 12, 2007; Page A01

There is an odd sort of passivity here with Bush: Crocker and Petraeus running the most important foreign policy issue, with Gates and Rice and the NSC nowhere to be seen. No Cheney, and Bush just saying he's following orders. It's weird, but we finally have our "czar" and it's Petraeus, because Bush's entire foreign policy seems to have shrunk to that.

It's sort of sad to see the presidency reduced to that, but I guess it beats the alternative. But hell, even Carter left more intact than Bush will.

I mean, what can Congress oppose right now in Bush's foreign policy other than attack Petraeus head-on? There's virtually nothing left, except the administration's ratifying other countries' nukes (India, NK, arguably Iran).

I see why Newt wants to rewrite history ...

Only a few months' difference

ARTICLE: Battle of the Generals?, By Frederick W. Kagan, AEI, September 10, 2007

Sensible explanation of what I sought to describe in my "the un-uncertainty of troop levels." Everyone in the system is arguing about a few months here--that's all.

As all the articles on the reality of the soft partition indicate, that difference will not change any strategic realities but merely codify them.

What would Dick do?

OP-ED: 'The Partitioning of Iraq,' By Charles Krauthammer, New York Times, September 7, 2007

Another good piece on the reality of the soft partition. In this one, you basically get the argument that the surge to date has been mostly about settling the Sunni region and Baghdad, whereas now Petraeus basically hopes to do an American do-over vis-a-vis the Shia over the next six months.

That's going to be trickier because of the Iranian tie-in, so it'll be interesting to see how the Congress and the public acquiesce in the surge's next stage, seeing that it ups the potential for conflict with Iran just as our troops pass what most experts see as the breaking point on rotations.

Do I think this administration is still looking for war with Iran?

I think they'll take what they can get.

I may think any extension of the surge rules out a serious intervention, but I'm not Dick Cheney.

(Thanks: Michael Bussio)

No strategic change, but validated COIN

OP-ED: 'The Road To Partition,' By David Brooks, New York Times, September 11, 2007

Great piece. I agree with Brooks: the ethnic cleansing is far more consummated than left hanging, so the genocide fears seem both OBE and premature. They're largely OBE in that they either continued or were locked in by the surge. They're premature in the sense that if the fighting is destined to resume, it won't matter how long we maintain the surge, that fight can reassert itself whenever desired, being easily postponed for as long as required.

In fact, it's certainly better for the Shia to put it off for as long as feasible, given their numbers and nearby support (Iran, which has backed all horses in the Shia race to date, just to be sure).

Iraq's soft partition is thus a fait accompli to all but the most unrealistic.

Nothing changes strategically with the surge (meaning Iran is still Iran, and it ain't going anywhere), except the U.S. Military validates its new COIN and the relevant operational experienced is further stockpiled, which serves many purposes in the future.

Petraeus' successes will weigh heavily against the historical record of the Bush Administration. 85 percent of our casualties have come after the "lost year" of May 03-Mar04. A COIN effectively employed coming right on the heels of the war would have made for a very different experience. The White House found religion all right; it just took inexcusably long to do so.

But, truth be told, there was no chance that either this administration nor this military could have or would have changed absent the initial failures, so the neocons' incompetence--as willful as it was--serves an ironic historical purpose: getting us the military they never wanted but which we've desperately needed.

(Thanks: Tyler Durden)