Winning in Iraq

In today's New York Times columnist David Brooks summarizes Andy Krepinevich's approach to winning in Iraq. The basic idea is to build up areas of safety for civilians rather than going after the insurgents. Sound an awful lot like Lewis Sorley's description of Gen. Abram's strategy in Vietnam. If Sorley is to believed, the strategy worked in Vietnam - in the short term, but fell apart when America neglected its role in the peace (and the North ignored the treaty it had made). If the Vietnam war - which, it is claimed, we lost - was part of a larger war against communism - which we won, then surely when we look at Iraq we must see it in context of a larger war. We still live with the loss in Vietnam (which was more a political loss than a military loss); if Iraq is lost - whether in reality or in the perception of the people - it will be with us a long time also.