After all that talk about the Iraqi army replacing our troops, the claims that Iraqi forces were just about ready, the tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops "trained" and fully capable, it turns out, well, not so much:
Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.No no NO! Our troops in Iraq have neither the manpower nor the strategic direction necessary to crush the insurgency. Every expert worth talking to, including top military officials, say that the conflict in Iraq won't end without a political solution. The more we try counterinsurgency, the more the population hates us, the more Iraqis are mobilized and trained in what has become Terrorism University, and the more likely we are to stay bogged down indefinitely. And once again, we have a complete and total reversal from what the administration has been claiming for years.
There is no strategy. Dumping in more troops isn't a strategy. Clapping harder isn't a strategy. Pretending things are the way you want them to be isn't a strategy. So what is the plan? According to a quoted State Department official, "Our strategy now is to basically hold on and wait for the Iraqis to do something." Oh. My. God.
But fear not! Apparently the decision that Iraqi forces can't help so we're just going to pacify the entire nation starting now -- because I guess we just weren't really trying before, or something -- isn't such a big deal. "We are just adding another leg to our mission," [Col. Gary] Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake." That's right, a switch from turning over security to Iraqis to trying once again to crush the entire (growing, expanding, learning) insurgency by ourselves is just "another leg" of the mission. Well, then.
The mind reels.
