Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

Iraq, Iran and What To Do?

The following posts were made at Right Wing Nut House concerning the way ahead in Iraq.

mannning Said:
3:27 pm

This Islamophobe is weary of rehashing the whys and wherefores of our most excellent yet flawed Iraqi enterprise. It is boring to enumerate the mistakes we have made from the beginning, just to once again tar Bush with the outcome.

Suppose, however, we stepped back and looked at the situation with fresh eyes with the idea of winning this fight at as little cost in lives and treasure as possible.

We should have a roadmap of all the tribes, their names, locations, and roles available to use. We should know how they are positioned politically and in the government. Not just Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd, but all of the factions should be highly visible to us and their views, pictures, and actions publicized. Let there be light on the factions; know thy friends and thy enemies.

We should publicly award our friends with significant largess, and deny our enemies. Those that by their words and actions show their hostility should not be rewarded.

We are not going to win their hearts and minds until they are desperate, out of ammo, being denied safe havens, and see the rewards they are missing, if ever.

We need to disarm Iraq, starting with our enemies, but progressing through all of the provinces eventually.

We need to occupy Iraq completely; every corner and every street should be under surveillance and able to be responded to when insurgents show. We need to seal the borders effectively, and shoot all that try to enter without permission. We need to shoot every man that has a weapon in his possession, who is not uniformed and authorized to have one.

Martial Law should be declared, and curfews instituted such that night wanderers can be shot on sight. The central part of the cities should be auto-free zones, except for official vehicles. In other words, to cut down on this potentially long list of shoulds, we should clamp down hard and stay that way for a while.

All of this takes troop power, lots of it, and lots of the new armored vehicles too, that are better able to survive the IED. It would take lots of airborne equipment to keep key areas of this large land under surveillance 24/7, and able to open up with heavy firepower on any group that shows up illegally.

We should ourselves take control of the oil in Iraq, with the purpose of eventually distributing the revenues equitably, and meanwhile to use these assets to help pay expenses all around and provide rewards of a tangible nature to those who support us.

All of this would take perhaps a total of 500 thousand troops and support people, with a similar Iraqi force sharing the load.

What a pity we don’t have that kind of troop power. Perhaps we should draft and train men and let them take over stateside slots, thus freeing up volunteers for combat.

So far, it has been guns and butter, with no sacrifice asked of the people beyond the casualties we have suffered. I believe that the US citizen wants victory in Iraq, and would respond favorably to an all out push.

But then we have the Democrats in control of Congress, who have shown their passive approach very clearly, never mind the true feelings of the public. We won’t be allowed to “Go Heavy”, as we should have done up front.

When the Islamofacists start actions here on our home soil, they will face some very determined opposition, since we are an armed nation. I hope the lessons of the impending UK and European submergence into partial Sharia will be warning enough, but I doubt even that.

For those who speak of armchair soldiers, etc., willing to let others fight, the answer is yes, that is so. I fought my war overseas, now it is time for others to fight their war. What a shameful way to portray veterans of our wars; true armchair warriors, unable physically to endure combat yet

mannning Said:
10:24 pm

There was a time when we had sufficient manpower to fight two wars simultaneously on different continents and have a reserve for a third smaller conflict, as well as a home force sufficient to discourage attacks here. This sized force was not a particular strain on our economy and wouldn’t be so now. It would have given us the means, however, to saturate Iraq for long enough to set up a more stable situation in the four years we have been there.

But, we were thinking about starting over, rethinking the strategy and tactics, and trying to find a way forward. What I missed, of course, was someone taking the Go High approach, instead of any of the lesser routes to appeasement and defeat, which is the course we are on, it seems.

Everyone appears to be trying hard to back away from Go High, or at least denigrating the idea out of hand, possibly because they have convinced themselves that the public and Congress won’t support it, so they don’t either. Really prescient thinking! Or, perhaps it is the sheer complexity of the conflict and the number of parties to the brawl that make it so hard to see a way through this mess. So I am from the old school that has a few maxims to go by:

1. You start a brawl, you finish it.
2. If you have the power, use it.
3. Use overbearing power if you go in at all. War on the cheap will not win.
4. Always fight to win, not to send signals or other nuanced behaviors some leaders have been fond of.
5. The only good enemy is a totally defeated enemy, so go for the total win by knocking out every possible enemy combatant.
6. Forget about this hearts and minds stuff until after victory has been achieved. Time enough to mend and reconstruct when the shooting and bombing is over. Why reconstruct in the midst of bombings?
7. Maintain control of the entire situation until it is stable (in this current case, regain control). Might be five or ten years.
8. Isolate the area from outside interference as far as possible. Use your power to ensure this. Block the borders.
9. Go after a bite at a time (defeat in detail), use reward and punishment to convince groups of their best choice. Continue to expand the area of control and acceptance. control the power supply, water, and food sources. Good guys get the goods; bad guys don’t.
10. Take and hold the ground. Use troop power to deny the enemy his strongholds, and go after the leaders particularly.
11. Flatten any resistance, any militias, and build up some large concentration camps for the captured terrorists.
12. Always deal from strength when facing Islamics.
13. Be prepared to govern the nation from the grassroots up for some number of years.
14. Turn out thousands of men trained in the languages of importance.

...................
Oh well! This could go on and on, but the idea is to Dominate, and only then show the velvet glove. Today, this means a Supersurge within some months from now, or perhaps a year. It also means a draft, and a number of years of deployments.

Otherwise…you have earned a mess, so deal with it as best you can.
You want to fold, then fold, and take what comes after. I, for one, will feel far less secure about Islamofascists in America if we do fold.

mannning Said:
1:45 pm

Drongo; For your info, our census shows that there are over 6 million Muslims in the US. Care to guess how many of those can be radicalized instantly by the right approach? The 10,000 mosques here are hotbeds of shouting that the US should go Sharia, Muslims should have separate facilities, etc. etc, and our FBI states that more than 10% of them are fully indoctrinated into Islamofascism right now. We have a massive internal Muslim problem today, and it is only growing worse. All the same signs as the UK has been having are here, but somewhat more muted for the moment. Nothing good can come of this—nothing.

Our lovely MSM tries mightily to keep the lid on the events that can be linked to Islamic vengeance and terror so as not to alarm the masses. But the number of killings in the US that are indeed linked to Muslims is growing in every state.

I am all for using brains when solving problems. Somehow the wrong brains use the wrong philosophy when speaking of Islam and the West. They refuse to accept the fact that we are at war with Islam, not terror, per se. They refuse to believe that Muslims are serious about conquering the world by hook or crook, and they take a long view of how to do this. Thus, some people simply refuse to believe that the Iraqi situation is critically important to the battle against Islam, when it is actually the chief engagement.

Here we have a religious sect that believes in their ultimate victory against the infidel, they believe the infidels are beneath human and can be dealt with as they please when they have the power to do so, as we have seen often on TV. The 1.5 billion Muslims in the world can become a potent force for a new Islamic Caliphate.

Are we not using our heads today to see this threat in all of its manifestations? Are we not concerned as we watch Europe being Muslimed to death, one bite at a time?

I think most people are assuming the posture of an ostrich regarding the threat, and definitely not using their brains. Demographics in Europe are frighteningly in favor of a Muslin dominance by mid-century, and no one over there is doing a thing to stop it; they are all hung up on the liberty and freedom of deadly enemies to subvert the government and reorganize the state to their liking.

Some brainpower in Europe! Perhaps they should spend less time on their vaunted cultural pursuits and more time looking around them as the place crumbles.

mannning Said:
1:02 pm

‘Though I have to admit the general regional war is a very possible scenario as well. We’re all guessing here really”—Drango

An understatement of classic proportions! If we are guessing, then I will take the current situation, where we are running the Insurgents out of ammo, our nation is not being attacked directly, and there is some hope of controlling Iraq, and putting Iran on notice that we aren’t far away with a goodly force and airbases. Withdraw and it is indeed anyone’s guess as to the ultimate outcome. Reinforce our troops and it makes things a lot more difficult for the insurgents all around. Further, I like the idea of having a strong force next to Syria, just in case they get ambitious in the near term. I also like the idea of putting it to the Iraqi by saying you can have your government and your oil, but only if you comply fully with our agreements. Otherwise we will indeed turn things around into a full occupation and seize the oil fields.

Benevolence does not work with Islamists, but force does. I agree that the current Islamist government is playing a friendly charade with us, just waiting till they can gain sufficient power to throw us out. We should disabuse them of this notion by declaring that we will be in Iraq until we deem it fit for us to leave, so you have the choice of insurrection or full cooperation; take your pick. We put a delay in their sovereignty for our purposes, not theirs.

The whole strategic idea is to split the ME Islamic nations geographically, isolate Iran, and kill as many Islamofascists as show up for the war—over there—and with Iraqi help. The terrorists should have to battle their way into Iraq, not stream through the porous borders with Syria and Iran. As someone said, insurgents get tired of war, their base dwindles, and their opposition grows, given enough time. We need a few years with the illusion strongly built that we can stay as long as necessary.

Obviously, the nation needs to get behind this push, or it will not succeed. We, as a people, have not been put to the question properly, but I believe it could happen, if not right now, then after the 2008 elections. The people do not know what the real stakes are in Iraq, nor do they remember the commitments we have made to the Iraqi.

Perhaps it is true that only one of two things could mobilize the nation behind the war: 1) another attack of serious proportions in the US; or an Iranian adventure that becomes a cause for war, like their attempt to capture some of our troops once more.

There is a third possibility, which has many ramifications. We suddenly attack Iran’s air defenses and communications/command and control points, and then their nuclear facilities from the air. This has been expected by some, including me, in early 2008. The “Surge” fits that pattern closely, as more and more troops are eased into Iraq under that rubric, not only to further subdue Iraq, to cover for the loss of Brits in Basra, but also to face Iran with significant additional forces.

Given that Iran retaliates, we are launched into yet another, much larger, phase of the ME war. We then must look to our backs in Iraq!

That is one reason for not executing this attack until 08. We need the time to build up our forces, both at home and in Iraq, with stocks of weapons, vehicles, and the training of new troops. There might be an urgent campaign this Summer/Fall to prepare the public for this new phase of the war, as well as a call for mobilization of reserves and a draft.

The other reason to wait might be to give the opposition in Iran a year or so to do something significant.

This would present the new President, from whichever party, with an on-going war, but after major damage to the Iranian’s nuclear capability has been accomplished. The Bush saga ends there.

So I am guessing too!

Labels: GWOT, Iran, Iraq

# posted by Mannning @ 2:49 PM