But you're just another wimpy, unpatriotic Cassandra, right ? And your refusal to call the war a shining success, with brightly painted schools, colorful flowers and smiling Iraqis everywhere is to be decried by the self-proclaimed guardians of the Temple Of All That Is Right And Truly Republi--American, excuse me. Furthermore, Our Holy Administration and Leadership have not failed in Iraq; no, they have been betrayed by the evil, godless liberals who want to sap Americans' Will and Strength and --insert manly, ubermensch trait here.

Seriously, it's interesting to compare some of the recommendations made in the COIN manual to what has actually been done in Iraq. For example, did our military forces and civilian organizations carry out Successful Practices, as defined by the manual ?

-Focus on the population, their needs, and security.

We're still very unfocused in this area. Not enough men, not enough money, and the situation was ruined by a totally inefficient CPA, populated with Administration cronies and various folks brought on the ride simply because they were certifiably pure Republicans: 20-somethings straight out of college, with no professional resumes whatsoever, in charge of allocating billions of dollars; businessmen with ties to the GOP; a few diplomats, and people who went for the salary bonus. They locked themselves up in the Green Zone and proceeded to ignore less ideologically-tainted assessments and local information, preferring their ideal, theoretical plan for success: debaathification, dissolution of the army and massive economic reforms (think Russian-style shock therapy, which almost destroyed Russia back in the early 90s); a lethal combination of social upheavals that created a vast pool of malcontent Sunni former officers, former government employees, etc., all potential recruits for the insurgency...
This kick-started the insurgency, which then expanded very quickly, because a soldier to civilian ratio of 150:1 at best renders impossible the daunting task of securing civilian population centers. And without proper COIN tactics, military operations were often counterproductive, and conducive to increasing resentment. Add Abu Ghraib and a few other collateral damage incidents to the mix, and you're already bracing yourself for the train wreck.

-Establish and expand secure areas.

This failed early on: remember the widespread looting as soon as we entered Baghdad ? And with so few soldiers, clear, hold, build and ink blot strategies were unworkable from the start.

-Isolate insurgents from the population (population control).

Again, there never were enough troops to implement such a program on a large scale. Anyway, this quadrillage strategy--the French plan Challe in Algeria, American strategic hamlets in Vietnam--isn't necessarily successful even with the right amount of manpower.

-Appoint a single authority, usually a dynamic, charismatic leader.

This is where the tragedy becomes a farce: before the invasion, the neocons had envisioned Chalabi as Iraq's future charismatic leader... Of course, the man was a complete fraud, and his charisma went unappreciated by those ungrateful Iraqis, apparently. In light of this unfolding drama, the neocons gave up on him and turned to Allawi, the so-called moderate Shiite, who most logically proceeded to lose the elections, and found himself at the head of a pro-American minority party. The leaders of Iraq are now to be found in the Dawa Party, in SCIRI and in the Sadrist faction.

-Conduct effective, pervasive psychological operations.

Unfortunately, psy ops rarely seem to work--it's not as easy as in that famous sequence in Apocalypse Now, where soldiers charge into battle blaring Ride of the Valkyries over their helicopter stereos...

-Provide amnesty and rehabilitation for insurgents.

Well, when one of the major reasons of the insurgency's growth is debaathification, "amnesty and rehabilitation" are definitely not on the menu. We're tentatively promoting a revision of that vengeful and fanatical policy, without making much headway:

WASHINGTON — Serious new divisions have emerged between the Bush administration and its Iraqi allies over the Baghdad government's refusal to enact a reform that the White House considers crucial to its new strategy for bringing the country's violence under control.

In spite of a commitment by Iraq's prime minister to its passage, legislation that would ease rules barring former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from government service has been blocked by the country's Shiite-dominated parliament.

U.S. officials repeatedly have expressed confidence that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki would work for passage of "de-Baathification" reform. However, they have begun to express disappointment over the Iraqi stalemate, saying that the reform remains a top political priority and is essential to convince the country's Sunni minority that it can receive fair treatment in the new system.

(...)

Officially, the government has reversed course on the policy of purging Baathists from the public sector. But little actual change has been brought about. Shiite political parties have only deepened their hold on the civil service and the security forces.

*********

-Place police in the lead with military support.

-Expand and diversify the police force.

The police forces are overwhelmingly controlled by Shiite militias. You can't establish a legitimate and stable rule of law in Sunni areas with a sectarian police force. This situation only has a political solution, not a military one.

-Train military forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations.

-Embed special operations forces and advisors with indigenous forces.

But Iraqi military forces have been infiltrated by Shiite sectarian militias, hence we're basically training them to take on the Sunnis, and involuntarily facilitating the ethnic cleansing. And I'm sure you have a couple of old hands from the CIA's glory days in South America training a few special units in the "dark arts"--assassinations and the like--which is also very probably counterproductive in the long run. As always, we're giving too much power to the Shiites, and face inevitable blowback from this arrangement, but at the same time we're unable to improve the political landscape, since we can't realistically turn against our Shiite allies.

-Deny the insurgents sanctuary.

This works in isolated border cities like Tal Afar, near Syria, but can't succeed countrywide because of the lack of troops. Anyway, this strategy has almost never worked--not in Algeria, not in Vietnam, not in Lebanon.



So the Army isn't even following its own Counterinsurgency doctrine. Petraeus promises a change of direction, but as the situation has degenerated so badly, it's probably too late. Moreover, there just isn't enough manpower to actually implement any effective Counterinsurgency tactics, so whatever half-assed redirection gets under way is very likely to be a waste of our resources.