PDA

View Full Version : General is first a scholar



thedrifter
09-03-07, 05:56 AM
General is first a scholar
By Philip R. O'Connor
The Chicago Tribune
September 2, 2007

I arrived in Baghdad in mid-March to work on electricity issues, just as Gen. David Petraeus returned to Iraq to lead the "surge," of which he is the prime architect. But my sense of identification with the commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq goes beyond that. To most people Petraeus is a four-star general, an experienced combat veteran and the consummate military officer. But when I pass him in a hallway of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, I have to catch myself from blurting, "Good morning, Dr. Petraeus."

Like me, Petraeus has a doctorate in political science, his from Princeton, mine from Northwestern. I see Petraeus as a political scientist and former professor in the department of social science at West Point who just happens to be an Army ranger and general. It's his persona as a scholar that is key to understanding what the surge is and why it seems to be working.

Author of the "Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual," Petraeus has literally written the book on 21st Century real-world application of a well-established political science theory on defanging armed insurgencies. David Kilcullen, the Australian adviser to Petraeus, has said that counterinsurgency is 100 percent military, 100 percent political, 100 percent economic and 100 percent social.

Petraeus, acting hand in glove with Ryan Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is moving on all four fronts. Progress in these four areas will not be even or simultaneous. To the contrary, sequencing is crucial. Establishment of security, area by area, must be followed by such things as improved services, job creation assistance and local governance and policing.

The objective in counterinsurgency is not to destroy the enemy directly but to deprive him of the ability to intimidate the population and thereby displace the legitimate government.

Leadership "pheremones" seem to be permeating the air in the embassy and the Green Zone. One wakes up every morning knowing that whatever one's job is that day, it's contributing to a large counterinsurgency mosaic. Now I have an idea what it must have been like to play for the Green Bay Packers when Vince Lombardi was running the show. You are confident that there is a game plan and you understand how you fit in.

The politics that Petraeus confronts is not politics writ large as reported every day from Washington. It is the kind of street-level, precinct captain, bottom-up politics that Chicagoans intuitively appreciate. Big decisions by the Iraqi Parliament or at the UN may matter less than local village leaders and coalition forces delivering new water wells. And when young Iraqi men feel confident enough to apply for service in the Iraqi army or local police, rather than hide at home or join the insurgents, you know that things are turning around.

Petraeus' theory is playing out in real life.

Initiative: The coalition and the Iraqi army, rather than waiting to be attacked, are identifying and attacking enemy enclaves. This means that insurgent causalities are increasingly being suffered in engagements initiated by Iraqis and the coalition forces rather than by insurgents.

Co-optation: In the Anbar province, the Sunni area west of Baghdad once thought lost, previously unimagined levels of normality and security are in evidence. Coalition forces and Sunni tribal leaders have made common cause against Al Qaeda. The sheiks realize now that Osama bin Laden's surrogate gang of foreign cadres and local thugs trash local traditions in favor of their bizarre interpretation of Islam. The coalition's arming of local Sunni self-defense groups has been criticized as support for militias. But the Petraeus plan appreciates the distinction between good and bad groups of armed locals -- sort of like the distinction between good and bad cholesterol, with the good flushing out the bad.

Intelligence: Intelligence is from the ground up, including a local census, new identity cards and widespread, street-level information gathering. Among the goals is to identify and root out "sleeper" agents left behind to intimidate the local population.

Ground game: Insurgents can make promises they never intend to keep. Coalition forces and the Iraqi government cannot afford to fall short on promises. A key component of the surge is deployment of Provincial Reconstruction Teams into Baghdad neighborhoods and outlying provinces to work with local officials and community leaders on the small, but essential, aspects of daily life. These brave people work in tandem with military combat teams, both taking up residence in neighborhood encampments. Message: The new security is for real and tangible benefits flow from maintaining security.

Insurgent reaction: News of rocket or mortar attacks on the Green Zone or a spectacular truck bombing is actually evidence that the insurgents are trying to inflate perceptions of their capabilities as an antidote to the reality that their fingers are being pried from their grip on the throat of the Iraqi people. As more areas are secured, the insurgents must rely on high-profile attacks to sway public opinion, especially in the United States. Counterinsurgency theory tells us that this is as certain as night following day.

It is not counterinsurgency theory that's new. What's new is that Dr. Petraeus has shaped an old theory with new experience and Gen. Petraeus has taken it out of the classroom and into the battle space.

---Philip R. O'Connor, currently working on reconstructing electricity production in Iraq, is a Chicago energy executive and a former chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission.

Ellie