Dan,

I don't mean to sound pessimistic here, and I do actually believe the US may yet prevail in Iraq-- but these suggestions here just sound too damn rosy and aren't looking in the right places. There are some things that I suspect will work, and point #1 (on higher education) is reasonable enough, but #2 and #3 miss the point.

Sealing the border with Syria??? C'mon. That would be a horrible waste of scarce resources and would accomplish very little. First of all, the vast, vast majority of insurgents are native Iraqis-- over 90%, consistently, as shown by stats like the nationality of insurgent prisoners in US and Iraqi detention centers, for example. Yes, a disproportionate number of the suicide bombers are non-Iraqis streaming in from foreign countries. But even if we *could* seal the vast Iraqi-Syrian border, then they'd just shift around to enter into Iraq from Saudi Arabia (which also shares a vast border), Jordan or Turkey. Some of the foreign fighters have even been Kuwaiti, so we can't rule out Kuwait as a source of entry, either. And then there's Iran...

In short, Iraq, being almost a landlocked country, has an enormous number of borders with hostile countries, and you can't seal them all off-- you'd bankrupt the country in the process. Paul Staniland's suggestion would not work even for Syria-- there are smuggling routes between the two countries that are thousands of years old, and you can't just seal off trade in general between them.

Besides, the idea of sealing off the border between Iraq and Syria (to shut down the flow of foreign fighters) sort of goes against the idea of Operation Flytrap, that oft-quoted suggestion by Bush, Rumsfeld and others that Iraq provides a magnet for foreign terrorists that allows them to be killed by troops in Iraq, rather than blowing themselves up on the streets of New York. If they're truly blocked from entering Iraq, that would just provide them with all the more incentive to attack targets in the US instead. Whether or not Operation Flytrap actually works to a significant extent, it's a contradiction to claim "we're fighting them over there so they won't hit us here in the US," then turn around and block them from being able to enter "over there" to be targeted.

As for Point 2-- I'm sorry, but that's just being Panglossian. They've been doing polls throughout Iraq which show that the vast majority of Iraqis, Sunni and Shia, want us out. Most may not be *actively supporting* the insurgency, but that doesn't mean that they don't support the guerrillas, at least to an extent. Besides, the term "insurgency" is sort of a blanket description for a wide array of people with overlapping but sometimes competing interests there. The Iraqis probably don't sympathize with the insurgents who blow up other Iraqis at cafes, but they may well support the insurgents who are fighting to expel the occupying troops. And the central provinces, even if they are "just 6 or 7" out of Iraq's 18, carry about half Iraq's total population. (Sprawling Anbar, moreover, is the largest in absolute size, by far.)

There are some steps that might be fruitful, but thus far we've failed to take them:
#1 Get the Brits, Poles and Australians in there to *actually do some fighting, dammit*! I don't care if this sounds a bit impolite-- but the British, Polish and Australian soldiers really aren't doing a whole lot there by just hanging out in their bases in relatively peaceful regions. They're little more than window dressing that way, and are accomplishing little-- the US is having to pull 99+% of the weight. I've met some returning Iraq veterans, and most of them have not had kind things to say about the Brits, Poles and Australians (though they have been more praising of the Salvadorans and even the Italians, who've been out fighting a bit more).

The British, Polish and Australian soldiers, and the rest of the Coalition, can make a decent contribution in one of two ways. Either they go into the Sunni triangle, Triangle of Death and Baghdad, and help the American troops fight the Sunni-led arm of the insurgency, accompanying us on our raids and daily operations to root out the guerrillas.

Or, the second (and perhaps better) option-- they actually get serious about taking on and crushing the Shiite militias. I suspect that these militias-- chiefly the remnants of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades-- are responsible for a lot more of the anti-US insurgency than we've yet realized, particularly the Badr Brigades, which are essentially Iran's military wing in Iraq and Iran's forward force in staving off a US attack on Iran. Furthermore, by infiltrating the Iraqi security forces and using them to settle scores or terrorize the civilian population (both Sunni and Shia, especially the secular members of the population), the Shiite militias are eroding whatever modicum of trust the Iraqi people have in their own security forces, making them a political tool and ruining their potential viability, as well as any hope of a US withdrawal within the next decade. The Shiite militias must be aggressively attacked and broken, and this may be where the Brits, Poles and Australians can make their best contribution.

#2 For God's sake, please put an emphasis on having the US troops, administrators and contractors learn Arabic!!! When historians look back on America's performance in the Iraq War, one thing they'll almost certainly remark on is our woefully deficient effort to have our forces and administrators actually learn the language and culture of the country under occupation. One of the most surefire ways to lose a war like this is to neglect the importance of direct communication with the people being occupied. Practically every single military and political strategist of note throughout history has pointed out how you have to learn the language and mores of an occupied people, or you quickly lose their loyalty, increase the extent to which they turn against you, and fail to understand what the enemy is up to. Furthermore, you rely-- as we do-- on in-country interpreters who are often themselves agents of the insurgency!!!

We had a similar problem in Vietnam (although not quite to the same degree-- we actually did have a decent number of soldiers who learned Vietnamese!) and it did us a lot of damage. We seem to be stuck in this dumb mindset of how "everyone speaks English"-- well, they don't, not even close. Especially in Iraq. It's almost a guarantee that we'll lose, and lose badly, in Iraq unless we place a greater emphasis on learning Arabic and becoming more familiar with Iraqi cultural issues. This problem hasn't gotten nearly enough press, but it's killing us in Iraq, literally. Solving this problem would be one of the most cost-effective ways we could help ourselves there.

Scott Cooper says al Qaeda hasn't the capability of taking over even one country in the region. Quite right. But nor did it have this capability before the invasion of Iraq.
Cooper says Iraq no longer represents a threat to the region or the world. Well, surely it never was a threat to the world. And if its forces were so quickly routed in 1991, why suppose that, weakened by years of sanctions and situated in a country whose airspace was not its own, Iraq was a significant threat to the region in 2003? Except, of course, as a training base and future launching pad for terrorists--but then that's what Iraq is now and wasn't then.

"So far, many Americans who opposed the war have not extended a helping hand to the Iraqi people in its aftermath."

Gee, as I recall the biggest problem with the war -- and the reason why so many people oppose it now -- has been because the guys actually running the war haven't done enough to help the Iraqi people in the aftermath of the "major combat operations". But I guess I'm just stuck in the politics of the past.

"So far, many Americans who opposed the war have not extended a helping hand to the Iraqi people in its aftermath."

Is there some Iraq-war sales tax (only payable in Red States) that I'm unaware of???

You and Andrew Erdmann are just a teensy bit out of date, since the Washington Post has just revealed that the Administration intends to cut off ALL reconstruction money for Iraq this year:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010200370.html

Suckers!

I agree-I think having the troops and administrators learn Arabic would create a much better repport.

Since the administration is not asking for more reconstruction money, funds for education, inkblotting and walls seem unlikely.

Hoagland's the guy who wrote a pre-war editorial mocking the CIA for allegedly underestimating the threat from Sadddam. After the invasion, when the 'vast stockpiles of WMD's' turned out to be a mirage, he wrote a follow-up editorial, blaming the CIA for overestimating the threat from Saddam, and leading the administration into the war.

I wouldn't trust any item originating him, or which passed through his hands.

Hoagland's the guy who wrote a pre-war editorial mocking the CIA for allegedly underestimating the threat from Sadddam. After the invasion, when the 'vast stockpiles of WMD's' turned out to be a mirage, he wrote a follow-up editorial, blaming the CIA for overestimating the threat from Saddam, and leading the administration into the war.

I wouldn't trust any item originating him, or which passed through his hands.