In several places, I've made the case that a proper counterinsurgency needs to be implemented in Afghanistan, along the lines of what is being done in Iraq. Because of differences in geography, culture, urbanization and other factors, the tactics in will be assuredly different in Afghanistan, but the general principles of clear-hold-build should apply. Am I absolutely sure about this? No, but I've seen some materials that are persuasive. The Atlantic is one .

September was another month of declining violence in Iraq, both for civilians and military personnel. Below are the pictures, and I'm guessing that Barack Obama would prefer that you don't see them.

Once the progress in Iraq became all too obvious, even to Obama, he credited the success to the increase in troops, the troops themselves, the Sunni Awakening movements, and Muqtada al Sadr, but I haven't heard him say a single word about the actual strategy that helped turn Iraq around. The surge in troop levels was only part of the overall plan.

"Maliki Suggests Bush Pushed To Extend U.S. Presence In Iraq To Help McCain"

According to Maliki:

Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.

If what Maliki claims is true, would that not be more than solid grounds to impeach and swiftly remove the POTUS?

I missed out on some otherwise excellent conversation about the Georgia-Russia conflict because I was in the middle of settling down in my new home, but I wanted to take a few minutes to weigh in on some issues related to American foreign policy, perceptions of Russia and perceived Russian imperialism, and the impact on the current presidential race. I couldn't agree more with John's diary on the matter, but I wanted to flesh out some of the political issues that are currently important to the region, as well as discuss some historical parallels that may be uncomfortable to revisit, but are nonetheless instructive.

Part of this is motivated by a roundtable discussion I attended this week on this very issue: the panel included historians, political scientists, and former NATO advisers. The most controversial statement was made by a political scientist who has lived and worked in Georgia, and who has no hesitation in comparing the current situation in Georgia to the Serbian conflict - although I disagree on some of the specifics and implications, which I'll note below.

In light of the New Surge of US troops being deployed to Afghanistan to finish the mission and what appears to be a long term presence in Iraq. The US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have some similarities to past military blunders and miscalculations.

Last week, B Rational had a set of questions concerning Obama's position on Iraq might be if his opinion on Iraq; specifically, what Obama would do if he changed his mind regarding the state of Iraqi capability. My return questions concern the apparent contradictory nature of Senator's McCain's position.

For some background, here are several statements that McCain has made:

Every picture tells a story, don't it. The following graphs don't tell the whole story of the surge strategy because Iraq is a big and old and complex place, but they do provide some measures of how the strategy is going, and it's going quite well. Civilian casualties are way down, to historic lows.

So are U.S. military casualties.

Someone once described courage as not never being afraid, but going on in spite of the fear. As a nation and as elected officials we seem to be running dangerously low on courage. Oh we have the tough talk down, we have the posturing, but do we really have true courage? Since 9/11 when at least 2,985 people died from the terrorists attacks I think that what has been lost in all the hype is some perspective. While this was surely a tragedy, the population of the United States in the year 2001 was somewhere around 290 million people. Based on those numbers the terrorist attacks killed less than .02% of the population, yet since the attack we have responded by invading sovereign nations, torturing our fellow human beings, and gutting our Constitutional protections.

During student protests in 1999 Iran, Ahmed Batebi was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He waved a bloody shirt to discourage other students from going outside to march. The Economist captured the image, and it both changed his life and saved it.

It's still working. There wasn't much coverage of General Petraeus when he appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee last Thursday. Even C-SPAN didn't show it live. Petraeus reported that violence is at a 4-year low and that he will likely reduce troop levels this September after the 45-day pause. His comments were more upbeat than six weeks ago, when the Basra offensive was in full flux, but he is still cautionary about the political situation.

Editorial columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote an interesting piece discussing the true cost of the Iraq War. According to a Nobel prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz and the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, Robert Hormats the Iraq War will cost at least 3 trillion dollars. This figure includes cost which are never reported by the media or discussed by politicians. The truth is that the cost of a war is more than the money spent on men and material, as if it were some business venture that can be tallied with a nice spreadsheet and budget. In today’s world, war is packaged like a corporate enterprise complete with sanitized videos and reporting to make it more palatable to the disinterested masses.

Promoted for discussion by Brendan

I know, believe me I know...

but if they were I think they could make a withdrawl from Iraq a winning national security issue. Right now our ability to react to any world events in a military manner is severely constrained by having our resources tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last January, I wrote that I would give the surge 'til November (later changed to year end), and if there was no discernible progress, I would opt for Plan B, which would be an orderly, phased unilateral withdrawal of American forces.  From what I've seen, I think we should stick with Plan A.  December was another month of low civilian casualties...

...and the three month moving average also illustrates this favorable trend.

More below the fold...

There are clearer signs that Iraq is becoming less violent, perhaps sustainably so.  Civilian casualties are one measure for gauging the success or failure of a counterinsurgency operation, and they have dropped for the third consecutive month.

More below the fold...

When I hear about a terrorist bombing in Iraq, my first inclination is to find out whether it was a suicide bombing. After all, suicide bombings are the trademark of al Qaeda and its affiliates. Because Iraq is a complex place, it's important to know the nature of the attacks. Who was responsible? Who are the targets? Why?

Those questions came fully into play with last Friday's bombing of a Baghdad pet market, which killed 15 and injured 56. It was the worst terrorist bombing in Baghdad in months, and it immediately raised questions (at least, in my mind) that al Qaeda was trying to reassert itself. The target was a predominantly Shiite area and it has been attacked in the past. Stephen Farrell of the New York Times made the initial report on the blast, but it was too preliminary to identify the culprits.

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Even the New York Times is recognizing it:

The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.

As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city. In more than 50 interviews across Baghdad, it became clear that while there were still no-go zones, more Iraqis now drive between Sunni and Shiite areas for work, shopping or school, a few even after dark. In the most stable neighborhoods of Baghdad, some secular women are also dressing as they wish. Wedding bands are playing in public again, and at a handful of once shuttered liquor stores customers now line up outside in a collective rebuke to religious vigilantes from the Shiite Mahdi Army.

Iraqis are clearly surprised and relieved to see commerce and movement finally increase, five months after an extra 30,000 American troops arrived in the country. But the depth and sustainability of the changes remain open to question.

It will be important to see how the flow of poeple goes in the coming months. If more are returning to their homes than leaving, then that is another measure of success for the current strategy.

More below the fold...

This morning's New York Times carries a detailed account of how the U.S. relied on an Iraqi to distribute U.S.-supplied weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles, Glock pistols and heavy machine guns, to Iraqi police forces. Needless to say, the Iraqi "turned the armory into his own private arms bazaar with the seeming approval of some American officials and executives..."

Moving east to west from Pakistan through Iraq, the word that keeps coming to mind is volatile.

Pakistan. When lawyers take to the streets, you know something interesting is happening, especially when the deposed chief justice is the one urging them on. At the very least, Musharraf's attentions are going to be divided between holding his government together and dealing with the increasingly radicalized frontier provinces. So far, Musharraf is continuing to give ground :

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To start with, let's look at the numbers (courtesy of Engram ), and they are based on data from the Iraqi Coalition Casualty Count.  To be consistent, they're from the same source as the ones I used during a tough month .  In September, civilian casualties plummeted, and the October figures are even lower.

Why is this statistic relevant?  Because it is a measure of how well the counterinsurgency operation is working.  One of the main precepts for COIN doctrine is to create a stable environment--thus enabling economic and political progress--so the reductions in civilian deaths are a solid indicator.  The numbers also indicate that this is a trend, not a one-off.   See the 3-month moving average.

More below...

In this month's New York Review of Books, Peter W. Galbraith's "The Victor? " gives a preponderance of evidence of who actually won (or is winning) the Iraq war. The United States? Al-Qaeda in Iraq and by extension bin Laden? The native Iraqi insurgents?

Wrong.

Iran is the ultimate victor as the Iranian-influenced Shiites continue to gain predominance over the country. One of the better-known examples is of course al-Sadr's Mahdi army, but the reach of Iran extends much further than this: