Anthony Cordesman:

It is becoming clearer and clearer that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s offensive in Basra is more of a power struggle with Sadr than an effort to deal with security, “militias,” and “criminals.” What is far less clear is how this power struggle will play out, and what its implication will be for the US and Iraq as a whole.

There are three options and none of them have a predictable outcome: First, Maliki can win, defeat Sadr’s militia—the Mahdi Army, or Jaish al Mahdi (JAM)—and marginalize the Sadr movement. Second, Maliki can provoke Sadr into open violence and a new form of insurgency. Or, both sides become locked in a lingering intra-Shi’ite power struggle that mixes violence with political power plays.

The Shi’ite Gamble: Rolling the Dice for Iraq’s Future

Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.

American soldiers scanned roofs in Sadr City on Thursday after shots were fired near their base.

The construction, which began Tuesday night, is intended to turn the southern quarter of Sadr City near the international Green Zone into a protected enclave, secured by Iraqi and American forces, where the Iraqi government can undertake reconstruction efforts.

“You can’t really repair anything that is broken until you establish security,” said Lt. Col. Dan Barnett, commander of the First Squadron, Second Stryker Cavalry Regiment. “A wall that isolates those who would continue to attack the Iraqi Army and coalition forces can create security conditions that they can go in and rebuild.”

US Begins Erecting Wall in Sadr City

Steven Simon, in Foreign Affairs:

The Bush administration's new strategy in Iraq has helped reduce violence. But the surge is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state and may even have made such an outcome less likely -- by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni tribes and pitting them against the central government. The recent short-term gains have thus come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

The Price of the Surge

To date, the war in Iraq is a classic case of failure to adopt and adapt prudent courses of action that balance ends, ways, and means. After the major combat operation, U.S. policy has been insolvent, with inadequate means for pursuing ambitious ends. It is also a case where the perceived illegitimacy of our policy has led the United States to bear a disproportionate share of the war’s burden. U.S. efforts in Iraq stand in stark contrast to the war in Afghanistan, where, to the surprise of many, U.S. friends and allies have recently taken up a larger share of the burden of that conflict. Afghanistan has become the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) war, but the war in Iraq has increasingly become only a U.S. and Iraqi struggle. The British drawdown in Basra in the summer of 2007 heightened the isolation of the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

The goal of this case study is to outline how the United States chose to go to war in Iraq, how its decisionmaking process functioned, and what can be done to improve that process. The central finding of this study is that U.S. efforts in Iraq were hobbled by a set of faulty assumptions, a flawed planning effort, and a continuing inability to create security conditions in Iraq that could have fostered meaningful advances in stabilization, reconstruction, and governance. It is arguable whether the Iraqis will develop the wherewithal to create ethnic reconciliation and build a coherent national government. It is clear, however, that the United States and its partners have not done enough to create conditions in which such a development could take place. With the best of intentions, the United States toppled a vile, dangerous regime but has been unable to replace it with a stable entity. Mistakes in the Iraq operation cry out for improvements in the U.S. decisionmaking and policy execution systems. In turn, these improvements will require major changes in the legislative and executive branches, as well as in interagency processes.

Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath

Recently declassified documents reveal a little-known side of the network: an internal culture that has been surprisingly bureaucratic and persistently fractious.

Penalty for crossing an Al Qaeda boss? A nasty memo

A slide show.

Five Years of War in Iraq - Council on Foreign Relations

The United States has not met its national security goals to destroy terrorist threats and close the safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA. Since 2002, the United States relied principally on the Pakistan military to address U.S. national security goals. Of the approximately $5.8 billion the United States provided for efforts in the FATA and border region from 2002 through 2007, about 96 percent reimbursed Pakistan for military operations there. According to the Department of State, Pakistan deployed 120,000 military and paramilitary forces in the FATA and helped kill and capture hundreds of suspected al Qaeda operatives; these efforts cost the lives of approximately 1,400 members of Pakistan’s security forces. However, GAO found broad agreement, as documented in the National Intelligence Estimate, State, and embassy documents, as well as Defense officials in Pakistan, that al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven in Pakistan’s FATA.

The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas

Key Findings

The ”original” Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden accounts for a mere fraction of jihadist media production.

Virtual media production and distribution entities (MPDEs) link varied groups under the general ideological rubric of the global jihadist movement. The same media entities that “brand” jihadist media also create virtual links between the various armed groups that fall into the general category of Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements.

Three key entities connect Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements to the outside world through the internet. These three media entities — Fajr, the Global Islamic Media Front, and Sahab — receive materials from more than one armed group and post those materials to the internet.

Information operations intended to disrupt or undermine the effectiveness of jihadist media can and should target the media entities that brand these media and act as the virtual connective tissue of the global movement.

While video is an important component of jihadist media, text products comprise the bulk of the daily media flow. Within text products, periodicals focused on specific “fronts” of the jihad are an important genre that deserves more attention from researchers.

The vast majority of jihadist media products focus on conflict zones: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

The priorities of the global jihadist movement, as represented by its media arm, are operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Africa.

Jihadist media are attempting to mimic a “traditional” structure in order to boost credibility and facilitate message control. While conventional wisdom holds that jihadist media have been quick to exploit technological innovations to advance their cause, they are moving toward a more structured approach based on consistent branding and quasi-official media entities. Their reasons for doing so appear to be a desire to boost the credibility of their products and ensure message control.

In line with this strategy, the daily flow of jihadist media that appears on the internet is consistently and systematically branded.

Al-Qaeda Media Nexus: The Virtual Network Behind the Global Message

It was late July, and hot. The temperature rose above fifty degrees during the day. The steel doorknobs on the latrine and shower trailers were hot to the touch. I spent a lot of time in the latrine trailers, reading the graffiti I found there because I had nothing better to do. Much of it was arcane, full of military acronyms and slang that only soldiers could understand. But one main theme stood out: soldiers were being stretched to the limits of endurance.

A few months earlier, in April 2007, the U.S. Department of Defense had extended combat tours from twelve to fifteen months. In the graffiti, soldiers expressed their growing fatigue and anger—mostly with each other. When they weren’t scribbling Chuck Norris jokes or questioning the fighting ability of other units, they were slamming soldiers who dared give voice to their dissatisfaction.

Latrine Graffiti

Anthony Cordesman:

If there is any clear message that emerges out of the events of the last few weeks, it is that the risks in Iraq remain high enough so that no one can yet say whether the odds of any kind of US success are better than even. The fact remains, however, that there is still a marginally better case for staying than for leaving.

Moreover, no one in the America should forget that US decisions affect the lives of some 28 million Iraqis, or the responsibility the US bears for its failure to prepare for stability operations and nation-building in going to war, its failure to deploy adequate troops to secure the country, its empowerment of Shi’ite exile movements and its support of de-Baathification and the disbandment of the Iraqi military forces.

Iraq and the Crocker-Petraeus Testimony: The Risks that Only Time and a Sustained US Presence Can Deal With