At 1:34 PM -0500 2/28/06, Communications at cfr.org wrote:
>IN THE MARCH/APRIL 2006 ISSUE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS:
>
><http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85201/stephen-biddle/seeing-baghdad-thinking-saigon.html>Is
>Iraq Heading For Civil War?
>
>
>Last week, insurgents in Iraq redoubled their efforts to stoke a
>civil war between the country's Shiite and Sunni populations. In
>doing so, the insurgents have demonstrated that they understand the
>situation in Iraq better than the White House. For months, the Bush
>administration has tried to recruit an Iraqi army that would
>eventually replace U.S. forces, like the Nixon administration's
>policy of "Vietnamization." But such a strategy is more likely to
>fuel the conflict than to douse it, argues
><http://www.cfr.org/bios/2603/stephen_biddle.html>Stephen Biddle,
>now Senior Fellow in Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign
>Relations. Turning over the responsibility for internal security to
>an Iraqi army mainly comprised of ethnically homogeneous units is a
>recipe for disaster-and removing the United States from the scene
>means eliminating the player most loyal to the idea of a stable,
>heterogeneous Iraq.
>
>
>"The problem with recycling the Vietnam playbook in Iraq is that the
>strategies devised to win a people's war are either useless or
>counterproductive in a communal one. Winning hearts and minds, for
>example, is crucial to defeating a people's rebellion that promises
>good governance, but in a communal civil war such as that in Iraq,
>it is a lost cause."
>
>"The biggest problem with treating Iraq like Vietnam is
>Iraqization-the main component of the current U.S. military
>strategy. In a people's war, handing the fighting off to local
>forces makes sense because it undermines the nationalist component
>of insurgent resistance, improves the quality of local intelligence,
>and boosts troop strength. But in a communal civil war, it throws
>gasoline on the fire. Iraq's Sunnis perceive the 'national' army and
>police force as a Shiite-Kurdish militia on steroids."
>
>Full text of Biddle's article (now public on foreignaffairs.org):
><http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85201/stephen-biddle/seeing-baghdad-thinking-saigon.html>