Iraq War: Go Big, Go Long, or Go Home?

[Ripsnort]

Per the latest Pentagon report, we have have 3 options. Post which option we should take, or post your option.


Mine: Go long.

"Go Big," the first option, originally contemplated a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq to try to break the cycle of sectarian and insurgent violence. A classic counterinsurgency campaign, though, would require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police. That option has been all but rejected by the study group, which concluded that there are not enough troops in the U.S. military and not enough effective Iraqi forces, said sources who have been informally briefed on the review.



"Go Long" -- calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence in favor of a long-term expansion of the training and advisory efforts. Under this mixture of options, which is gaining favor inside the military, the U.S. presence in Iraq, currently about 140,000 troops, would be boosted by 20,000 to 30,000 for a short period, the officials said.

The purpose of the temporary but notable increase, they said, would be twofold: To do as much as possible to curtail sectarian violence, and also to signal to the Iraqi government and public that the shift to a "Go Long" option that aims to eventually cut the U.S. presence is not a disguised form of withdrawal.



"Go Home", the third option, calls for a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops. It was rejected by the Pentagon group as likely to push Iraq directly into a full-blown and bloody civil war.

Full story here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111901249_pf.html

[Mickey1992]

Go long, definitely.  Although with the current rate of sectarian murders the locals might wipe themselves out before that plan is fully implemented.

[Elfie]

Go long. Get our men and women out of Iraq asap. We have taken down Sadaam and given the Iraqis the opportunity to choose thier own gov't. The final thing we need to do imo is to give them the ability to police and defend themselves, then our job is done.

[john9001]

i vote for full-blown and bloody civil war, then the USA can sit back with the rest of the world and say how terrible it all is and that somebody should do something to stop the killing of innocent women and childern.

maybe the great and wonderful UN can help?

[mosgood]

I vote GO FOR THE OIL!

[Charon]

I like "Go Big" best of all in concept, except I wonder if you could ever go big enough. With a fairly unified country and resistance, go big could work. But there are too many factions with to much internal drive and too much outside support to be comfortable with final success. Of course, that also porks the whole "Go Long" thing.

IMO, the only way to keep the unnatural and artificial creation that is Iraq together involves: "Back to the Future." We install a cruel dictator with perhaps a Baathist flavor and turn a blind eye while he cleans house.

Making more sense, is the old but often ignored concept of "Divide and Conquer," where we slice up Iraq into three common sense parts and try to work out some resource sharing scheme. For a downside, the Turks would hate it and the Iranians would influence most of the wealth and stability could not be assured.

Cut and run may make the most sense, unfortunately, especially if we focus those resources on Afghanistan, which has fewer divisions and may still be winnable.

Charon

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by john9001
i vote for full-blown and bloody civil war, then the USA can sit back with the rest of the world and say how terrible it all is and that somebody should do something to stop the killing of innocent women and childern.

maybe the great and wonderful UN can help?

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Go big, then Go long.

[Nashwan]

Go big has a chance of working, go long doesn't. Go long puts most of the onus on the Iraqis, and they are not loyal to Iraq, but to various tribal and religious affiliations.

Go long will end up exactly the same as go home, except with better trained death squads.

[john9001]

Originally posted by Nilsen

sorry, the "mission accomplished" refered to the ship which had just finished it's tour of duty in the ME and was comming back to it's home port for refiting and retraining.

[Horn]

^^^hehe, right. Notice that the banner is removed on the whitehouse web site now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2ITs4yIAE&eurl


So, options one and three rejected by the group.

That leaves: Go Long--which sounds like "cut and run" camouflaged by saying "Oh we didn't really pull out, we left advisors!! Last gasp by a failing administration. Gets the guys out of there without sounding like a Democrat. Pathetic.

There are several other better options out there, we should look at them rather than this thinly veiled cut and run strategy.

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by john9001
sorry, the "mission accomplished" refered to the ship which had just finished it's tour of duty in the ME and was comming back to it's home port for refiting and retraining.

I know.. but its still funny.

Did you know the whitehouse made the poster for the navy?

[Sandman]

Go home.

[lukster]

Go Home then after the radicals take over Go Nucular

[Sandman]

During the Vietnam conflict, they used the same warnings. Failure meant dire consequences for the USA.

It wasn't true then and I doubt that it is true now.