New Iraqi Strategy Effecting Changes

Retired Colonel Ralph Peters (via NY Post, HT:RCP) gives us some more on the change in strategy within Iraq, where General Petraeus has gotten the locals involved in fighting al-Queda and rebuilding the country.

"Instead of backing mammoth, hyper-expensive construction projects designed in Washington, our new approach prods Iraqis to fix their existing infrastructure. Iraq's utilities won't be state-of-the-art, but they're beginning to work again: Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems. Sounds like a no-brainer, but it took a profound change of mindset for us to get there.

Nor will Iraqi democracy mimic our own. Petraeus works systematically with Iraq's time-honored social structures, exploiting the levels of trust and control already in place. Instead of trying to replace tribal leaders with out-of-towners, we now focus on developing mutually supporting relationships between respected local authority figures and the feds from Baghdad.

The general's recognition that locally recruited security forces have the immediate trust of the local population has been critical to the entire effort. Even with the surge, we lacked the forces to do it all ourselves. Petraeus recognized that, yes, all politics is local - and so is security. So he pushed hard for reconciliation programs to engage former enemies who now want to work with us to drive out al Qaeda."

The changes have been profound, and it's my belief that we are finally on to a winning strategy. If Anbar province can change for the better (and it most definitely has), then there is a more than just a glimmer of hope that the security being provided due to the American troop surge can be sustained by the Iraqis security forces themselves at some point in the near future, and give the national government an impetus to finally hammer out the compromises necessary for a truly lasting peace between the rival political forces in the nation.