The President's Address: Counterinsurgency in Iraq/Countering Iran

By Aaron Mannes

In war movies (and occasionally in actual battles) last minute rallies carrying the day, just as things look most desperate, are a frequent plot device. This is roughly President Bush’s play with the troop surge he announced in his speech earlier this evening.

Counterinsurgency however is not a sprint - it is a marathon.

Dr. David Kilcullen, an Australian Lt. Colonel advising the U.S. government has described the goal of counterinsurgency as returning “the insurgency’s parent society to its normal mode of interaction, on terms favorable to us.” The means are, in Kilcullen’s words, “armed social work.”* Other experts have variously described counterinsurgency as establishing legitimate authority by providing basic services, most notably ensuring the personal security – the first priority of any government. This would be an enormous challenge in any circumstance, but in an insurgency an adaptive foe is devoting all of its energies to undermining the re-establishment of lawful order.

This is not a task that is accomplished quickly. Campaigns are measured at best in years and frequently in decades. While 20,000 troops dedicated to securing Baghdad may help on the ground it may hurt in that other crucial front – the information war.

As international communication has become faster, counter-insurgency has become more difficult. Even successful counterinsurgency will include many setbacks. To citizens at home the news of these continual setbacks can create the image of an endless morass of violence and undermine public support for the war. The surge, along with more assertive confrontations with militias and terrorists, could actually lead to increased U.S. casualties. Ironically, in counterinsurgency sometimes that can be a good sign (casualties can indicate that the insurgents – who prefer to avoid direct combat – are being forced into it or that the counterinsurgent forces are operating deep in the insurgents’ territory). While the President noted that violence would continue for some time, American support for the Iraqi endeavor and confidence that the President knows how to turn the situation around are very low. Consequently, even if the surge of troops does improve the situation on the ground, it will probably not lead to a perception of improvement among the U.S. public. Most importantly, it must be understood that the insurgents know this too, and are consciously trying to increase the perception that American troops are powerless to impose order in Iraq.

Many of the President’s specific comments were pragmatic – but years late. Distributing at least part of Iraq’s oil revenues would have been an effective means of building support for the central government and been an incentive for Iraqis to turn against insurgents. Engaging Turkey should have been done from day one. Now Turkey faces a renewed threat from the PKK based in northern Iraq. When the President spoke of Iraqi PM Maliki’s green light to go after sectarian militias, that almost certainly referred to Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Assuming this happens, it would be prudent to continue pressure on Sunni militias, otherwise many Shia – even those who don’t support al-Sadr – will perceive the attacks as the U.S. formally siding against them and with the Sunnis.

The most interesting part of the speech related to Iran, which the President specifically named, along with Syria, as abetting violence in Iraq. He charted out the beginnings of a strategy to counter Iranian influence in the region, including deploying Patriot missiles and a carrier battle group to reassure the Gulf states. Here, the Administration’s seriousness is bolstered by its imposing sanctions on Iran’s fifth largest bank. (This bank also plays in integral role in Iran’s missile procurement network.)

While countering the Iranian-Syrian axis is important, it is not a panacea for reducing the violence in Iraq. Iran and Syria may be throwing gasoline on the fire, but much of the violence is now driven by internal dynamics. Keeping the U.S. tied down in Iraq serves the interests of Damascus and Tehran, and with their long borders with Iraq – as well as cross-border tribal and sectarian affiliations - reducing the flow of support via Iran and Syria will be difficult.

Ultimately, there are three crucial questions about the U.S. role in Iraq:

1. Will the surge of troops allow coalition forces to break the forces fomenting civil war?
2. Has the U.S. military developed a sufficient understanding of Iraqi society and experience at counterinsurgency to maintain some level of order in Iraq?
3. Will the American public tolerate for a decade of U.S. casualties in Iraq?

For the United States to succeed in Iraq all of these questions need to be answered in the affirmative.

*For a snapshot introduction to counterinsurgency read this scholar-soldier’s article “Twenty-Eight Articles”: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency published in the May-June edition of Military Review. For more in-depth reads see Kilcullen’s Countering Global Insurgency or the new U.S. Army & Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual. For many more books, articles, and links see the Marine Corps’ Small Wars Center of Excellence.

Cross posted to ProfilesinTerror

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