From the NYT: U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq – Time ‘to Go Home’

Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum details Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure. Extending the American military presence beyond August 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling growing resentment of Americans.

…

“We now have an Iraqi government that has gained its balance and thinks it knows how to ride the bike in the race,” Colonel Reese wrote. “And in fact they probably do know how to ride, at least well enough for the road they are on against their current competitors. Our hand on the back of the seat is holding them back and causing resentment. We need to let go before we both tumble to the ground.”

The last part of that is significant.  There is absolutely no reason to believe that the  Iraqi government is currently vulnerable to being overthrown by radical groups — indeed, the notion that al Qaeda or a similar group could seize power in Iraq was always fanciful.  More than ever, the difference between the best case and the worst case in Iraq is small, and the strategic costs of our presence unquestionably exceed any likely benefits.

Yes, things could turn bad in Iraq… but lots of bad things could happen in various places in the world.  We don’t have a doctrine of preempting instability everywhere in the world.  And while some argue we have a special obligation in Iraq, the fact is that the main factor keeping us there is not the strategic consequences of instability in Iraq, but rather the domestic political consequences.  People complain about $5 million pork projects, but in Iraq at this point we have a $100 billion pork project which is designed solely to provide ass cover domestically.

Also from Afghanistan: UN: Civilian deaths up 24 percent in Afghanistan

I like this quote:

The United States and Western powers have become more deadly, too, partly because insurgent groups are taking cover in residential areas or luring U.S.-led forces into unintentionally killing civilians, the U.N. said.

The Taliban and others are “basing themselves in civilian areas so as to deliberately blur the distinction between combatants and civilians, and as part of what appears to be an active policy aimed at drawing a military response to areas where there is a high likelihood that civilians will be killed or injured.”

Um… yeah… because the enemy gets a vote.  One of the key problems with current counter-insurgency orthodoxy is that it sort of abstracts away the adversary.  We didn’t face a very savvy adversary in Iraq — too many foreign fanatics combined with unpopular former elites.

Defeating the current “population security” focused COIN approach is not that hard conceptually.  All the insurgents have to do is reverse the dynamic, by making a U.S. presence synonymous with increased violence.  The logic of population security then forces the counter-insurgent to move the population into more secure locations — minimally with checkpoints and controls over movement, but historically often also into fortified camps or villages (which quickly take on the characteristics of a prison).  Either way, the costs of the American provided “security” begins to look worse than the risks from the insurgents, who — if they are smart — are looking for little other than tolerance from the population.

Our approach to counter-insurgency — like the TSA’s approach to transportation security — is designed to thwart incompetent adversaries.  Let’s hope we get as lucky in Afghanistan as we did in Iraq in this regard.