thedrifter
09-03-08, 08:08 AM
THE ANBAR LESSON
Posted: 4:15 am
September 3, 2008
A remarkable military turnaround came full-circle this week, as Coalition forces officially turned over responsibility for Iraq's once-tortured and now (relatively) tranquil Anbar province to the central government.
Needless to say, this was not the outcome al Qaeda had anticipated.
Nor was it something that congressional Democrats dreamed was possible (or, seemingly for some, even desirable).
Anbar quickly became the center of the Sunni insurgency after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 - eventually morphing into a prime base for Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The combat that followed was intense and deadly - more than 1,000 US soldiers and Marines have died there since the war began. At one point, the battle for Anbar seemed close to being lost.
Had it been, Iraq - and perhaps beyond - would have descended into bloodshed and chaos.
But that never happened.
Instead, there was the Surge.
Gen. David Petraeus, using combat reinforcements proposed and supported by President Bush, applied an innovative new counterinsurgency strategy in support of local tribal militias - the so-called Awakening Councils.
The result: the rout of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
This is not to say that victory in Anbar is any guarantee of peace and stability throughout Iraq, which is still plagued by troubling sectarian and partisan divisions. (A key test may well be how the largely Shiite Iraqi army interacts with the Sunni Awakening fighters now under its authority.)
But had Bush and Petraeus declined to double down with the Surge, there would be no reconciliation of any sort.
As it is, al Qaeda has met the enemy on a battlefield of its own choosing, fully expecting to lay the "crusader" low.
Instead, it suffered humiliation and defeat - a lesson that won't be lost on the Islamic world.
Anbar, indeed, offers a near-perfect example of how flexibility and perseverance in response to the inevitable reversals of war - indeed, in response to one's own blunders - can turn the tide and secure victory.
It's a lesson America's leaders - especially those who just one year ago were counseling surrender and defeat - must not be allowed to forget.
Ellie
Posted: 4:15 am
September 3, 2008
A remarkable military turnaround came full-circle this week, as Coalition forces officially turned over responsibility for Iraq's once-tortured and now (relatively) tranquil Anbar province to the central government.
Needless to say, this was not the outcome al Qaeda had anticipated.
Nor was it something that congressional Democrats dreamed was possible (or, seemingly for some, even desirable).
Anbar quickly became the center of the Sunni insurgency after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 - eventually morphing into a prime base for Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The combat that followed was intense and deadly - more than 1,000 US soldiers and Marines have died there since the war began. At one point, the battle for Anbar seemed close to being lost.
Had it been, Iraq - and perhaps beyond - would have descended into bloodshed and chaos.
But that never happened.
Instead, there was the Surge.
Gen. David Petraeus, using combat reinforcements proposed and supported by President Bush, applied an innovative new counterinsurgency strategy in support of local tribal militias - the so-called Awakening Councils.
The result: the rout of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
This is not to say that victory in Anbar is any guarantee of peace and stability throughout Iraq, which is still plagued by troubling sectarian and partisan divisions. (A key test may well be how the largely Shiite Iraqi army interacts with the Sunni Awakening fighters now under its authority.)
But had Bush and Petraeus declined to double down with the Surge, there would be no reconciliation of any sort.
As it is, al Qaeda has met the enemy on a battlefield of its own choosing, fully expecting to lay the "crusader" low.
Instead, it suffered humiliation and defeat - a lesson that won't be lost on the Islamic world.
Anbar, indeed, offers a near-perfect example of how flexibility and perseverance in response to the inevitable reversals of war - indeed, in response to one's own blunders - can turn the tide and secure victory.
It's a lesson America's leaders - especially those who just one year ago were counseling surrender and defeat - must not be allowed to forget.
Ellie