February 26, 2008,

Lessons on the Long War
Understanding the stakes and strategy in Iraq.

By Pete Hegseth

Baghdad, Iraq — The Democratic leadership in Congress haven’t got their facts straight on Iraq. They continue in failing to account for the surge’s dramatic success here, and persist in using a public rhetoric stubbornly suited to conditions in the past. This week, Democrats will bring two bills to the Senate floor whose aim is to immediately redeploy U.S. troops out of Iraq under the mistaken notion that doing so will serve our broader (and presumably, legitimate) fight against al-Qaeda. If success against al-Qaeda is the goal, Senators Russell Feingold, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama need to catch up on their reading and acquire all the relevant facts. I know two important books that are a good place to start.

While traveling to Baghdad, I had plenty of downtime to re-read large portions of House to House, Staff Sergeant David Bellavia’s memoir of urban combat in Fallujah, and the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual authored by General David Petraeus and (new Vets for Freedom board member) Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl. The two books highlight fundamental aspects of the Iraq war today — and are must-reads for anyone who wants to understand the enemy we face and the strategy we’re currently employing against them, with great success.

Congressional Medal of Honor nominee David Bellavia’s first-person account of deadly hand-to-hand combat in Iraq paints a realistic and detailed picture of the enemy he faced in Fallujah — what he called “an insurgent global all-star team” that included “Chechen snipers, Filipino machine gunners, Pakistani mortar men, and Saudi suicide bombers.” The insurgents were not ordinary Iraqis fighting for their freedom against an invading power — but international Islamic militants supported by al-Qaeda. “They seek not only to destroy us here in Iraq, but to destroy American power and influence everywhere. They revile our culture and want it swept clear, replaced with Sharia law.” If only certain U.S. Senators truly understood the global nature of our vicious enemy in Iraq.

The second book outlines the military doctrine behind our counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq — and is a testament to military adaptation and leadership. In the military theater, Petraeus’s manual calls for “securing and controlling the local populace,” but also for “providing essential services” and “supporting government reforms and reconstruction projects” — all of which requires “a high ratio of security forces to the protected population” (i.e., enough troops). Meanwhile, on the home front, the manual warns that “protracted counterinsurgency operations are hard to sustain. The effort requires a firm political will and substantial patience by the government, its people, and the countries providing support.” In light of today’s Senate fights, these words are painfully prescient.

The extent to which our military and government can internalize and implement the lessons these books provide will determine whether or not we succeed in Iraq and in the broader war on terror. On this score, the Democratic leadership in Congress doesn’t seem to have done their homework.

Later today, Senators Feingold and Reid will introduce two bills whose ostensible goal is to force the administration to “re-focus on our top national-security threat — al-Qaeda and its affiliates.” Senator Obama — the Democrats’ leading man — will vote “yes” on both bills.

The first bill would mandate that national-security leaders create “a comprehensive strategy to combat and defeat al Qaeda globally.” An excellent idea: We all want to defeat al-Qaeda wherever they exist — Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, everywhere. America needs a more comprehensive military, political, and cultural strategy to deal with modern Islamic radicalism, which promises to be a Long War (as Maj. Gen. John Batiste and I have argued in the Washington Post).

But it’s not 2003 anymore. Given the fact that today we are facing a determined al-Qaeda effort to destabilize Iraq, wouldn’t any rational person include Iraq in their list of places where al-Qaeda must be defeated? Not Obama, Feingold, and Reid, who believe “we need to safely [i.e., immediately] redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq.” Whatever misgivings these senators may have felt about the invasion of Iraq in the first place, today we are there. And so is al-Qaeda. Any “strategy to combat and defeat al Qaeda globally” must begin there.

The second bill entails an immediate timeline for troop withdrawal, regardless of conditions on the ground. The supporting evidence for this approach is thin — “the key to ending [the violence] is political reconciliation, not a huge U.S. troop presence.” When Senate Democrats refuse to recognize the gains we’ve already made, it’s impossible for them to understand the way counterinsurgency warfare develops.

Contrary to Senator Obama’s assertion that Sunni sheiks in Anbar Province rose up against al-Qaeda because of the Democrats’ midterm election victory (yes, he actually said that), the reason for the “Sunni Awakening” was a commitment of troops in patrol bases throughout Ramadi (reported first by Wade Zirkle and Sgt. Bellavia in July of 2006 — months before the midterm elections), followed by an increase in troops and sustained commitment throughout Anbar and Iraq in 2007.

In fact, the recipe for success in Iraq can be found in the pages of the manual authored by the general commanding Baghdad today. We’ve committed more troops, protected the population, and helped restore basic services. The result: local and national political reconciliation that eventually means a quicker redeployment of U.S. forces and a more stable and friendly Iraqi state.

We should all want this. But immediate withdrawal would mean the former (redeployment), without the latter (stability) — leaving behind a failed and bitter Iraqi state, vulnerable to coercion from outside groups, and ripe for radicalization. Read the manual, it’s all there.

For Obama, Feingold, and Reid to support such dangerous legislation requires a “willing suspension of disbelief” that ignores facts on the ground, and the progress the surge has enabled. They continue to sing off of last year’s song sheet.

As for “victory” in Iraq, which most Democratic senators (and even some Republicans) callously dismiss, I once again cite the Counterinsurgency Field Manual: “Victory [in any counterinsurgency] is achieved when the populace consents to the government’s legitimacy and stops actively and passively supporting the insurgency.”

I’ll leave it to you to decide where passive support for al-Qaeda still persists.

— Captain Pete Hegseth, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division from 2005 to 2006, is executive director of Vets for Freedom. He’s back in Iraq for the next week to cover the surge for NRO.

As posted today on National Review Online:

Golden Moments
One bombing hastened a widespread rejection of al-Qaeda.

By Pete Hegseth

Two years ago today, the city of Samarra awoke to an enormous “boom,” as al-Qaeda gunmen stormed the Al Askariya Shrine and blew up it’s revered golden dome. With one barbaric act, the “Golden Mosque” was destroyed, along with its nonsectarian tradition.

Al-Qaeda perpetrated the bombing — on a universally revered Shiite mosque in a Sunni town — to stoke sectarian hatred and incite reprisals. Their twisted scheme worked; and within hours, violence spread throughout Iraq. On February 22, 2006, an already fragile Iraq burst at the seams.

Shia militias exploited the event to target Sunni mosques, and sic their death squads on Sunni innocents. Al-Qaeda, posing as defenders of Sunnis (and the faith?), retaliated with attacks on Shia groups, killing thousands of innocents with suicide bombers. Full-fledged civil war ensued.

Ill prepared, both strategically and tactically, the American military had no comprehensive plan to stem the violence. The mosque bombing, more than any other event during my time in Iraq, underscored this fact.

I was one of four Americans in the Samarra mayor’s office the night of the bombing, as city leaders, elders, and religious leaders gathered to discuss the tragic event. City leaders came prepared to reach out in cooperation, knowing full well that such an egregious offense against Islam — perpetrated by al-Qaeda criminals — could be a unifying event in all-Sunni Samarra.

Caught off guard by this approach, the American leadership in the room stubbornly continued to insist on “finding the bad guys.” Oh, the missed opportunity.

In that office, and in the months to come throughout Iraq, unconventional and asymmetrical warfare proved too much for America’s conventional “kill and capture” approach. The insurgency used human bombs and chopped off heads, while the American military continued to hunker down on large bases, deploying only for large-scale maneuvers that netted few insurgents.

The violence, and the environment that allowed it, persisted well beyond my time in Baghdad and Samarra, and by early 2007, Iraq was on the brink of total collapse. American casualties were at near-record levels, dozens of disfigured Iraqi bodies appeared on the streets of Baghdad every morning, and substantial political progress — locally and nationally — was almost nonexistent.

Two years later — recalling that time, everything from the terror on people’s faces, to the scent in the air — the lessons we learned then are lessons we must remember now, on the second anniversary of the attack.

The bombing of the Golden Mosque brought down the dome of an ancient shrine but, in a twisted way, it also hastened a widespread rejection of al-Qaeda that ultimately led to the lowering of barriers between the U.S. and local leaders, thus providing the building blocks of our current progress in Iraq. The seeds of success are sometimes sown in the darkest moments.

The counterinsurgency strategy we are using with great success in Iraq today should have been implemented from the beginning of the war — or at least by 2006. Doing so would have saved countless American and Iraqi lives.

That said, the Samarra mosque bombing fully exposed the ugly underbelly of al-Qaeda and radical Shia militias to the Iraqi people, providing a frightening glimpse into what a fanatical post-American regime might look like. Saddam was ruthless, but al-Qaeda is soulless.

This post-bombing realization — combined with General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy and an additional 30,000 troops — created a dynamic on the ground that changed the war. The Iraqi people stood up against violent extremists, and the Americans were finally able to support them by substantively improving conditions at the street level.

This combination has proved lethal for al-Qaeda, as well as radical Shia elements, namely Moqtada Al Sadr who today extended his ceasefire for another six months, more out of weakness than strategic value — his top lieutenants and militia leaders are dead.

Over the past year, violent attacks throughout Iraq are down over 65 percent, sectarian violence is down over 90 percent, Iraqi security forces are truly taking the lead in operations, and — thank God — American casualties are near all-time lows.

These dramatic security improvements have — as intended — created an environment in which Iraqi political leaders can reconcile. The result: De-Baathification law — passed. Provincial election law — passed. Amnesty law — passed. $50 billion budget — passed. With much more in the pipeline.

More importantly, at the local level, Iraqis have banded together to protect their neighborhoods and start the process of truly rebuilding Iraq. Markets are flourishing, shops have reopened, and in former al-Qaeda strongholds, girls are going back to school.

This is the story of Iraq two years after the Samarra bombing.

2006 was the year of al-Qaeda and civil war, 2007 the year of America’s “re-liberation” of Iraq, and 2008 promises to be the year of Iraqi progress. Make no mistake about it, there will be more setbacks — some dramatic — but a continued American commitment in Iraq has incredible potential.

But don’t just take my word for it today. For the next ten days I will be back in Iraq to cover these developments firsthand. I will walk the same streets I walked as an infantry platoon leader in 2005, and will report back on National Review Online. Stay tuned.

Pete Hegseth, who served in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division from 2005 to 2006, is executive director of Vets for Freedom.

Two Winnable Wars
By Anthony H. Cordesman
Sunday, February 24, 2008; B07

No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that can still be won. They are also clearly wars that can still be lost, but visits to the battlefield show that these conflicts are very different from the wars being described in American political campaigns and most of the debates outside the United States.

These conflicts involve far more than combat between the United States and its allies against insurgent movements such as al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban. Meaningful victory can come only if tactical military victories end in ideological and political victories and in successful governance and development. Dollars are as important as bullets, and so are political accommodation, effective government services and clear demonstrations that there is a future that does not need to be built on Islamist extremism.

The military situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are very different. The United States and its allies are winning virtually every tactical clash in both countries. In Iraq, however, al-Qaeda is clearly losing in every province. It is being reduced to a losing struggle for control of Nineveh and Mosul. There is a very real prospect of coalition forces bringing a reasonable degree of security if decisions such as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s announcement Friday to extend his militia’s cease-fire six months continue over a period of years.

Military victory is far more marginal in Afghanistan. NATO and international troops can still win tactically, but the Taliban is sharply expanding its support areas as well as its political and economic influence and control in Afghanistan. It has scored major gains in Pakistan, which is clearly the more important prize for al-Qaeda and has more Pashtuns than Afghanistan. U.S. commanders privately warn that victory cannot be attained without more troops, without all members of NATO and the International Security Assistance Force fully committing their troops to combat, and without a much stronger and consistent effort by the Pakistani army in both the federally administered tribal areas in western Pakistan and the Baluchi area in the south.

What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war. Any American political debate that ignores or denies the fact that these are long wars is dishonest and will ensure defeat. There are good reasons that the briefing slides in U.S. military and aid presentations for both battlefields don’t end in 2008 or with some aid compact that expires in 2009. They go well beyond 2012 and often to 2020.

If the next president, Congress and the American people cannot face this reality, we will lose. Years of false promises about the speed with which we can create effective army, police and criminal justice capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot disguise the fact that mature, effective local forces and structures will not be available until 2012 and probably well beyond. This does not mean that U.S. and allied force levels cannot be cut over time, but a serious military and advisory presence will probably be needed for at least that long, and rushed reductions in forces or providing inadequate forces will lead to a collapse at the military level.

The most serious problems, however, are governance and development. Both countries face critical internal divisions and levels of poverty and unemployment that will require patience. These troubles can be worked out, but only over a period of years. Both central governments are corrupt and ineffective, and they cannot bring development and services without years of additional aid at far higher levels than the Bush administration now budgets. Blaming weak governments or trying to rush them into effective action by threatening to leave will undercut them long before they are strong enough to act.

Any American political leader who cannot face these realities, now or in the future, will ensure defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Any Congress that insists on instant victory or success will do the same. We either need long-term commitments, effective long-term resources and strategic patience — or we do not need enemies. We will defeat ourselves.

The writer holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He recently returned from the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq.

GERECHT: Iraq may yet become America’s victory over al-Qaida

Among Democrats and even many Republicans, it is by now accepted wisdom that the war in Iraq brought huge numbers of holy warriors to the anti-American cause. But is it true? I don’t think so.

Regarding the Iraq war and jihadism, two facts stand out. First, if we make a comparison with the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-89, which was the baptismal font for al-Qaida, what’s most striking is how few foreign holy warriors have gone to Mesopotamia since the U.S. invasion.

Admittedly, we don’t have a perfect grasp of the numbers involved in either conflict. But the figure of 25,000 Arab mujaheddin is probably a decent figure for those who went to Pakistan to fight the Red Army.

Most probably did so in the last four years of the war, when the recruitment organizations and logistics became well developed. In Iraq, we see nothing of this magnitude, even though Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is in the Arab heartland and at the center of Islamic history.

According to the CIA and the U.S. military, we are now seeing at most only dozens of Arab Sunni holy warriors entering Iraq each month. Even at the height of the insurgency in 2006-07, the figure might have been just a few hundred (and may have been much smaller).

In the 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and most well-organized Islamist movement, was at the center of the anti-Soviet jihadist recruitment effort. But in the case of Iraq, the Brotherhood has largely sat out the war.

Even in Saudi Arabia, the mother ship of virulently anti-American, anti-Shiite, anti-moderate Muslim Wahhabism, the lack of commitment has been striking.

A second striking fact about Islamism and the Iraq war is that the arrival of foreign holy warriors is deradicalizing the local population — the exact opposite of what happened in Afghanistan.

In the Soviet war, the “Arab Afghans” arrived white-hot — their radicalization had occurred at home in the 1960s and 1970s, when Islamic fundamentalism replaced secular Arab nationalism as the driving intellectual force.

Arab holy warriors accelerated extreme Islamism among both Afghans and Pakistanis. We are still living with the results.

In Iraq, as we have seen with the anti-al-Qaida, Sunni Arab “Awakenings,” Sunni extremism is now in retreat. More important, the gruesome anti-Shiite tactics of extremist groups, combined with the much-quoted statements made by former Sunni insurgents about the positive actions of the United States in Iraq, have caused a great deal of intellectual turbulence in the Arab world.

It’s way too soon to call Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida spiritual outcasts among Arab Muslims, but they have in fact sustained enormous damage throughout the region because of Iraq.

If bin Ladenism is now on the decline — and it may well be among Arabs — then Iraq has played an essential part in battering the movement’s spiritual appeal.

Iraq could still fall apart (and if an American president starts withdrawing troops haphazardly, it probably will). But it is certainly not too soon to suggest that Iraq could well become America’s decisive victory over Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and all those Muslims who believe that God has sanctified violence against the United States.

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former case officer for the CIA.