THE IRAQI ARMY GAMBIT. Meanwhile, I would add to Spencer's critique of Major Connable's NYT op-ed (about the on-the-ground consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq) and note that the major's account of the collapse of institutions upon U.S. redeployment leaves an unanswered question; if local institutions cannot survive without the presence of U.S. forces, precisely what good are U.S. troops doing? Even if we accept that the consequences of withdrawal will be dire (and I don't fully concede this) there has to be some account of how the presence of U.S. forces improves the situation, rather than simply allowing the maintenance of a hopeless status quo. U.S. troops will leave someday. If the U.S. presence is simply delaying the inevitable, then it's hard to see the point of a continued, bloody occupation.
The magic bullet that Connable (and, incidentally, the ISG) presents is a well trained and effective Iraqi military, one capable of overcoming sectarian division and carrying out a competent and efficiently executed counter-insurgency doctrine without resorting to genocidal bloodshed or fratricidal civil war. In other words, the expectation is that forces inevitably less capable than the units already deployed will be able to solve the problem and prevent insurgent control, bloodletting, brutality, etc. Right. This expectation itself depends on the assumption that an Army which has never been good at counter-insurgency will be able to train, in a remarkably short period of time (as the founding of armies goes) an Iraqi force up to the level of competence it will require to operate without substantial U.S. support. I also wonder if anyone who expects the Iraqi Army to solve this problem has read Kenneth Pollack's first book, in which he expresses deep skepticism about the effectiveness of modern Arab military organizations.
--Robert Farley
