The strategy, after all, is caught in the crosshairs of contradiction: Congressional Democrats demand a miraculous turnaround--a Red Sea to swallow terrorists and sectarian killers like Pharaoh's soldiers and chariots--while even successful counterinsurgencies can take years to yield clear results. This paradox escaped no one on a Heritage Foundation panel last week discussing "When Do You Know You're Winning? Combating Insurgencies--Past, Present, and Future."
Among the panelists was Conrad Crane of the U.S. Army War College, handpicked by Gen. Petraeus in 2005 to co-write the new Army-Marine Corps manual on counterinsurgency whose efficacy Gen. Petraeus is now trying to prove in the field. Military people--Mr. Crane taught at West Point as an Army officer before leaving the service for the War College--had to resurrect buried literature from the Vietnam War in order to create the manual, which stresses that in a war like Iraq aid and reconstruction are the keys to success, while the chief point of military force is to keep the enemy from disrupting the "hearts-and-minds" program.
That the Pentagon dismissed those lessons of just 40 years ago--hardly arcana from the Peloponnesian War--and for three years fought the wrong war is bad. Just as outrageous is its civilian leadership's out-of-hand rejection of a 2003 Crane monograph--finished two months before the invasion--that warned of the chaos and civil war now engulfing Iraq.
Recently, coalition forces in Iraq have scored successes, notably the rallying of many Sunni sheiks to the government's side in Anbar Province. But as another panelist, Richard Stewart (U.S. Army Center of Military History), pointed out, "At least three to four years of data collection" are needed to confidently gauge overall progress in a counterinsurgency. In South Vietnam, he noted, 20,000 Americans working in Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support boosted pacification, in tandem with 8 million South Vietnamese. "Where are the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?" asked Mr. Stewart. "The data collected are not even close to the Vietnam level."
Mr. Crane believes, however, that two categories will provide a good guide to the Petraeus Doctrine's chances--"deaths due to sectarian violence" and "sectarian displacement." Low numbers under those headings mean that Muslim-on-Muslim violence is ebbing, suggesting that the country can hold together. That would simplify the job in Iraq to a hunt for al-Qaida and Ba'athist diehards.
But will Democrats give the surge a fair chance? "The military victories are just episodic," Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., told The Washington Times, which quoted Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Ohio, as demanding "monumental proof" of American success right away. And these two Democrats are considered
hawks
.The stalwart stupidity of the Bush administration during the three years that Iraq became a predator's paradise is unfathomable. Diddling at bloodsport instead of waging by-God war has brought tears to two countries and drained Mr. Bush's political capital. Democrats would match that disservice to this nation, and more than match it to Iraq, by scuffing out the first flames of true hope for victory.