When General David Petraeus reports to Washington next week, the most important question he'll have to answer is, What happens in Iraq after the surge? With all but the most die-hard defeatists--that is, the congressional Democratic leadership--convinced that the surge has improved the security situation in Iraq, there seems ever less chance that Congress will force an American withdrawal. Instead, the war will continue through at least the remainder of the Bush presidency.
As a result, U.S. policy in Iraq will enter into an extended "post-surge" period. The surge brigades began to arrive in Iraq in January. Therefore, around April the arithmetic of the Army's 15-month rotation policy will begin to kick in. And as NBC's Tim Russert stated on Meet the Press on August 26, "We do not have the capacity to continue the surge because of the strain on our military." Or so the conventional wisdom in Washington goes.
But is it true? The fact is, even our overstretched U.S. land forces are capable of continuing the surge without extending the tour of units currently in Iraq beyond 15 months. As Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, deputy commander in Iraq, pointed out in a news conference earlier this month, the current surge can be pushed until next August. And there are a number of ways to sustain a larger force even longer. To begin with, Marine rotations for combat forces, now seven months long, could be extended. Additional forces are also available from the Army National Guard. Six full Army National
Guard brigades have been on alert since July in anticipation of deployment in 2008; their deployment could be accelerated. To be sure, there would be questions about the wisdom of such decisions, but it is simply not the case that the capacity to extend the surge doesn't exist.
If General Petraeus wanted to extend the surge in Iraq at its present force level of 165,000, there are enough soldiers and Marines to take it through this time next year and possibly longer. Of course, the real question is, Should he request this? The answer is not simply a matter of stress on the force, but the strategic value of the potential gains in Iraq. And one clear fact worth considering is that the Petraeus surge has regained the initiative that was slowly and painfully lost from 2003 to 2006.
Militarily, the surge has three goals. The first is to drive a wedge between Al Qaeda In Iraq and the Sunni population. Though not complete, that effort has succeeded more rapidly and more decisively than anyone imagined to be possible, as the "Anbar Awakening" and similar movements have taken hold.
The second is to drive a similar wedge between the Shia extremists, particularly those in the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia of Moktada al-Sadr, and the broader Iraqi Shia community. There is now clear progress on that front, too; whatever Sadr means by his order to "suspend" Jaysh al-Mahdi actions for six months, it's not a message of strength.
A third goal of the surge is to limit the influence of outside powers, especially Iran. This is where maintaining or increasing troop strength is crucial. The main lines for Iranian infiltration and supply are relatively few, but they pass through areas of Iraq, particularly south of Baghdad, where coalition forces have long been few and inactive. Only now is this problem being attacked seriously, not only by U.S. forces, but also, for example, by the newly deployed troops from the Republic of Georgia and, most crucially, by Iraqi army units.
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