by Col. Patrick Lang (Ret.)
This area could — if substantial Iraqi forces are not added, or if U.S. forces are trimmed during a pullout — foretell a future where Sunni tribes with ties to the insurgency rule large parts of Iraq. Antonio Castaneda for the AP (PDF)
If you read this carefully, you will hear the marines telling you that what we are doing along the Syrian border is necessary but inconclusive in terms of the ultimate outcome in the war.
There have to be IRAQI troops who can hold the towns, especially the towns in this western beduin-descended Sunni Arab part of Iraq. Without that, we can do this kind of thing forever.
The administration is now considering further action against Syria in the evident belief that the Syrian government is more than a passive actor in the also beduin-descended area of eastern Syria. Evidently Elliot Abrams and his NSC crew wuold liek the air forces to bomb a group of towns inside Syria.
Both DIA and CIA have told the NSC that the evidence is inconclusive concerning Syrian government involvement in cross-border infiltration but, no matter.
Maybe they can come up with another Office of Special Plans (OSP) to do “better analysis.”
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Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)
“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
