It is nice to see that such a group of experts confirm what many of us already felt has happened.

Here are a couple of articles that ran recently in the DC Examiner:

Iraq surge may be extended
http://www.examiner....

New Army theme "persistent combat"
http://www.examiner....

And then there was Zinni on Meet the Press last Sunday, saying that no we can't withdraw, and we are going to be in Iraq for 5-7 more years.

I recall President Clinton giving a speech a couple of years ago, talking about the war on terror, and he made the point that "you can't kill'em all.  So eventually you are going to have to make a deal."

Now we have news like this:

BAGHDAD -- The chairman of Fallujah's city council, an outspoken critic of al-Qaida who took the job in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold after his three predecessors were assassinated, was killed in a drive-by shooting on Saturday, police said. The assassination of Sami Abdul-Amir came as insurgents target Sunnis willing to cooperate with the U.S. and its Iraqi partners, particularly in Anbar, the volatile province that includes Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. Police said the 65-year-old sheik was shot to death by attackers in a passing car as he was walking outside his home.

http://www.newsday.c...

And people like Richard Perle are still running around justifying their actions (Oh, if only we'd given the Iraqis governmental authority sooner, he's saying . . .) http://www.washingto...

This aspect Iraq is very similar to Vietnam. The United States can actually extend for a long time a conflict that strategically is lost because we can afford it. It then becomes an issue of how much we can bear the financial costs and the deaths of our soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

So it then becomes a political point to end these long-term military dead ends.

 

claims being pushed by the White House in an effort to offset the statements by these experts and also Senator Reid's recent blunt assessment that the Iraq War is "lost." Even Gen. David Patreaus' comments in Sunday Washington Post, cautiously optimistic about Baghdad, were much less positive about the rest of the country.  This was especially noticeable in an accompanying report on a patrol in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad.  The general conclusion is that the insurgents and the Al Qaeda in Iraq have learned how to deal with America's high tech high firepower tactics in a sort of guerrilla judo which negates that firepower.  Patreaus seems to be trying to adapt our tactics in response through placing numerous outposts in neighborhoods, which worked on a smaller scale in his original regional command.  But clearly McPeak and Scheur doubt this can work long term over a much larger area, even if we had a million troops in country,

The current situation seems to be a vicious circle, in which our military presence creates an increasing insurgency, but we cannot leave because of the geopolitical consequences of leaving behind a failed state.  Well, since we are doing the surge anyway for the indefinite future, like it or not, how about this for a new strategy:

In addition to the military surge, do a second surge of construction battalions and oil field contractors (with security as necessary) to raise the production of Iraqi oil at least tenfold.  With a huge increase of oil revenue, the economic pie will become so big in Iraq that the major factions will be able to make a deal without being afraid of being left out in the economic cold.  More recalcitrant sheiks can simply be bought off.  When every single family in Iraq is quickly becoming wealthy, anybody who upsets the apple cart is going to get whacked.  Sooner or later, you end up with a relatively stable government in Iraq, and then we can withdraw.  They don't even have to sell the oil to the U.S. Sell it to China and India, or whomever.  Oil is a fungible commodity, and as long as it goes on the market somewhere, it is going to create a downward pressure on our oil prices.

One problem with this approach is that it would be painfully obvious that we are expending American blood and treasure to create another set of Middle Eastern oil sheiks.  However, as long as the final result is political stability in Iraq, in the long run the verdict of history will be that it is a victory.