Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Stop Training Iraqi Troops?

That's a headline that caught my eye. On Defense Tech, this post cites a recent article in Foreign Affairs that is precient, given the sectarian divisions fanned by the Sunni insurgency:
Stop Training Iraqi Troops?

The problem is that “Iraqization” is a Vietnam-era solution. And “the current struggle is not a Maoist 'people's war' of national liberation [like Vietnam]; it is a communal civil war with very different dynamics,” Biddle writes in an amazingly timely article for the new issue of Foreign Affairs. "Turning over the responsibility for fighting the insurgents to local forces, in particular, is likely to make matters worse."
That immediately begs the quesiton, if we can't manage to erect a viable Iraqi military, how do we get out? As bad as recent events have become, I still don't see how we can simply pull up stakes and vanish. I'm reminded of many articles about our occupation of Iraq warning that time is running out and the options are dwindling the longer we are there. What happens when there are no options?

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