REALISTICALLY THOUGH...:

Petraeus's Iraq (ROBERT H. SCALES, November 21, 2007, Wall Street Journal)

I've just returned from a week in Iraq with Gen. David Petraeus and his operational commanders. My intent was to look at events from an operational perspective and assess the surge. What I got was a soldier's sense of what's happening on the ground and, although the jury is still out on the surge, I came to the conclusion that we may now be reaching the "culminating point" in this war.

The culminating point marks the shift in advantage from one side to the other, when the outcome becomes irreversible: The potential loser can inflict casualties, but has lost all chance of victory. The only issue is how much longer the war will last, and what the butcher's bill will be. [...]

Culminating points are psychological, not physical, happenings. The commanders I spoke to in Iraq all said that there had been a remarkable change of mood in February when Gen. Petraeus announced that they were taking the fight to the enemy by taking Baghdad from al Qaeda. He pushed soldiers out of the big (and relatively safe) forward operating bases and scattered them among really bad neighborhoods. These joint security stations and combat outposts attracted locals and encouraged them to pass on intelligence about the enemy.

To bolster local security within Baghdad, Gen. Petraeus pushed the security perimeter beyond the city's limits. In May, he began arraying combat units in four successive "belts" around Baghdad. These units painfully ejected al Qaeda influence from the suburbs and satellite cities, effectively choking off reinforcements.

In early June, the enemy miscalculated. Sensing that they were losing inside Baghdad, al Qaeda's leaders pulled out and relocated to Baquba, long an insurgent haven on the outskirts of the city. Al Qaeda propaganda refers to Baquba as the capital of "The Islamic State of Iraq." It's central to our story, because it was the last contested urban battle ground al Qaeda had within greater Baghdad. Once ejected from Baquba, al Qaeda's connection to Baghdad -- the center of gravity of the coalition's campaign -- would be broken.

...there was just never a chance that America, the Iraqi Shi'a and Iran were going to tolerate a Sunni Baghdad.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 21, 2007 1:17 PM