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■"As Calls for an Iraq Pullout Rise, 2 Political Calendars Loom Large," by David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 28 November 2005, pulled from web.
■"Shiite Urges U.S. to Give Iraqis Leeway In Rebel Fight: Americans Have Blocked Tougher Tactics, Cleric Says," by Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post, 27 November 2005, p. A1.
There is a clock that starts whenever the Leviathan enters a country. It is the local society's clock that says, "If you wage war, this is how long before we'll expect the benefits of peace."
Meet that timetable with your SysAdmin, second-half effort, or pay the consequences, which right now stand at about 2,000 killed for the U.S.
Think SysAdmin work is for pussies? Think again. Get it right and we're nowhere near 2k. Get it wrong and other timetables take over.
There is the political timetable here in the U.S.: Bush needs to start the withdrawal by the fall elections. Easy enough, as the rotational crisis within the ground forces will force that decision for him.
Then there is the internal political timetable in Iraq: various factions and leaderships want to endgame this dynamic, getting what they can in the process.
Those three dynamics push all sides to make the Iraqi security forces as strong as possible as soon as possible.
We have learned the utility of SysAdmin work, whether we wanted to or not.
And yes, speeding that process will get Iraq closer to the point where we end up letting Kurds and Shiites take care of the Sunni-based rebellion along their preferred lines of attack. Won't be pretty, but this whole process was never about avoiding killing, just speeding it up to its logical conclusion.
Lincoln wanted Grant because he could do the "terrible math" calculations that said the far more populated North could crush the far less populated South if it simply got nasty enough.
Well, the Kurds and Shiites have their Grants ready, believe you me.
Timetables all around, with good SysAdmin work being mostly about the proper sequencing of security, stability, recovery, empowerment and development.
Put that all in a box successfully and you'll have your SysAdmin force, you'll shrink the Gap, and you'll end armed conflict just like we ended great-power wars and state-on-state wars.
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