The Anbar Anomaly
First of all, the surge had nothing to do with the success in Anbar. US troops are . They are surging in Baghdad and now Diyala, with between little and no success. Even so, the Administration thinks they can use the developments in Anbar as an example of a strategy to implement elsewhere. But as points out, the political success in Anbar is truly unique, and there was lots of tactical "luck" involved:
It is a little startling that the Sunnis, whom the U.S. tossed frompower in 2003, are being showcased by Washington as its favorite newallies. Bush and Petraeus have trumpeted the fact that Sunni insurgentsin western Iraq who were once allied with al-Qaeda against the U.S.have joined forces with the Americans against the terrorists. These newalliances were in part the result of luck. Al-Qaeda violentlyoverplayed its hand and started randomly killing Sunnis who refused toally themselves with the terrorist organization. And in some places,America won the Sunnis over the old-fashioned way: by paying them. Thequestion is how widely the Anbar model can be applied elsewhere. It iseasy to forget that Anbar is the one part of Iraq that is largely Sunniand thus doesn't suffer from the same kind of civil strife that upendsorder in other parts of the country. And if Anbar was truly secure andready for a handover, Bush might be able to pull out the more than20,000 Marines stationed in the province and send them elsewhere. Inreality, no one thinks that is possible.
Therefore, it would be flawed to take the lessons learned in an all-Sunni era of the country and think you can apply them to Shiite or mixed areas with the same success.
The only universal lesson in Anbar is that political stability causes military stability, not the other way around.
Comments