Jason Sigger has a good response to LTC John Nagl's Washington Post op-ed on the future of counter-insurgency in Iraq:
I am surprised that LTC Nagl can't see the larger picture - that without a commitment to a regional strategy that includes getting Israel to work with the Palestinian Authority (instead of ignoring the illegal settlements), dealing rationally with Iran's nuclear ambitions, and backing off from giving every country in the Middle East billions in arms deals - the US government isn't going to be successful in Iraq.This is the problem; there is no end. The Surge succeeded in reducing violence in Iraq, but not eliminating it, and even those reduction have now hit a plateau. At the same time, the "awakening" strategy undercut the possibility of any real state-building, and consequently the possibility of a withdrawal of U.S. forces. This has left us in a situation where we have potentially achievable tactical and operational goals, yet are as far (perhaps farther) as ever from accomplishing our strategic and political goals. And we're spending $12 billion a month to tread water. This is, to put it as simply as possible, not a winning formula.
It's good to be suspicious of claims made about "the threat of China," or "the resurgence of Russia" in the defense community; more often than not these claims are simply efforts to maintain or increase funding for pet projects. At the same time, it's the part of the Pentagon that spends its time thinking about China and Russia that should be (and anecdotally is) most skeptical about continuing the mission in Iraq. Money spent in Iraq is money that doesn't go to new weapons, doesn't go to social programs, doesn't go to reducing the deficit, and finally doesn't go back into the pocket of the taxpayer. The United States is capable of sustaining this level of spending indefinitely, but "capable of sustaining" doesn't mean that such spending is a good idea.
-- Robert Farley
