We forget now that the 'shock and awe' war to oust Saddam's regime was a resounding success. The high cost cited by critics has mostly occurred in the post-war occupation, ie, the security and stabilization, nation-building, and transition phases. In the immediate post-war, however, there was a 'golden hour' when our leverage and control in Iraq were at their maximum and the Iraqi people hoped for and expected us to deliver on our promises of liberal reform. But we fumbled away the opportunity, the enemy seized the initiative, and we lost the 'golden hour'. Then with the COIN 'surge', we paid dearly to open another window of opportunity. We won a second-chance 'golden hour' to win the post-war in Iraq, only for Obama to fumble it away due to incompetence.
As Walter Russell Mead notes, it's unseemly, even shameless, for the Obama campaign to tout our Iraq withdrawal as a foreign policy success when it is actually a failure with long-term consequences. Gordon's report of Obama's poor leadership with the Iraq mission contrasts sharply with Gordon's report of historic leadership by President Bush with the COIN 'surge'.
I've wondered what difference would have been made if the COIN 'surge' had been implemented immediately in post-war Iraq. Michael Gordon says that a faction of officers and diplomats pushed for a rudimentary COIN strategy years before the COIN 'surge', but were rejected in favor of giving more time to the Bremer-led Coalition Provisional Authority. Counterinsurgency was the emergency back-up plan when it should have been the starting strategy for the post-war. Gordon previously has reported that when Bush eventually decided for the COIN 'surge', he did so against strong voices within the military and his administration that opposed COIN. Today, several leading voices in the military continue to vehemently oppose COIN.
Eric
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