Wampum

As doctrine, the selection of David Petraeus to replace George Casey is an improvement. It also drives a wicked big stake through the heart of former SecDef Rumsfeld's transformation of the Army from stable military commands and their training institutions, reflecting the (BRAC-modified) spending authorizations of the Congress, to fluid situational commands in which those authorizations are fungible, at the whim of a bellicose and erratic executive, for which a Congress is not a co-equal branch of government.

I really enjoyed my time at CGSC / CAC. The men and women I met there were vastly different from the flag rank officers who've been the face of the Army for the past several years. Non-droolers. Not smell-of-napalm-in-the-morning afficionados. Not smarmy liars repeating the worst of the 5 o'clock follies.

Unfortunately, the "river to peace" still has the optional oxbow through the Occupied Oval, and the best counter-insurgency doctrine for a colonial power is surrender, in the form of transforming the operational posture of the military forces of the insurgency -- the opfors -- from situational initiative to station keeping and political, civil, or simply overlapping no-fire or limited fire operations. The political goal is peace and co-habitation with shared power. The military means to that end is not "search and destroy".

Short of a pair of impeachments, or the sudden re-discovery that officers, all of them, even those in the 5th ring of the Pentagon, took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not an Executive, there is no way David Petraeus can order the re-constitution of the regular Iraqi Army, in Anbar and Baghdad, about a third of the area of operations, and put former staff officers and senior NCOs as embeds in and liasons to US units, replacing the costumed militiamen of Bremer's fictional "Iraqi Army", who now have the monopoly of American firepower, and use the Army to provide support for political operations -- the liquidation of their factional rivals.

There is one thing the new Congress can do that isn't part of the stale rumba of up-40k-or-down-40k-or-same-140k.

The root cause, after foreign occupation, for political violence, is this:

Iraq's Sunday elections will be held against a backdrop of deep division between the country's ethnic groups, with an overwhelming majority of Sunni Arabs refusing to vote in the January 30 elections, a new Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International poll finds. The poll also finds majorities of both Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis calling for a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from their soil. Zogby International polled 805 Iraqi adults from January 19 to 23, 2005 on behalf of television broadcaster Abu Dhabi TV. The margin of error is +/- 3.6 percentage points.

The survey, to be released at 5 p.m. ET on Abu Dhabi Television, found three-quarters (76%) of Sunni Arabs say they definitely will not vote in the January 30 elections, while just 9% say they are likely to vote. A majority of Shiites (80%) say they are likely to vote or definitely will vote, as are a smaller majority of Kurds (57%).

Majorities of both Sunni Arabs (82%) and Shiites (69%) also favor U.S. forces withdrawing either immediately or after an elected government is in place.

The poll also found that of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups, only the Kurds believe the U.S. will "help" Iraq over the next five years, while half (49%) of Shiites and a majority (64%) of Sunni Arabs believe the U.S. will "hurt" Iraq.

"There are deep divisions that exist -- divisions that are so deep and pronounced that this election, instead of bringing people together, may very well tear them apart," said Dr. James Zogby, an analyst for Zogby International and host of Abu Dhabi TV's "Viewpoint". "The closest thing to this in America isn't red and blue states. It's probably the election of 1860."

The poll also finds that, while a majority of Shiites (84%) and Kurds (64%) wish to hold the elections Sunday as planned, Sunni Arabs overwhelmingly favor delaying the vote (62%).

"What's truly alarming isn't the number of Sunni Arabs who want to delay Sunday's vote," Zogby said. "What's alarming is that more than half -- 53% in this survey -- believe that ongoing attacks in Iraq are a legitimate form of resistance. With this group already boycotting the election, this makes for a very violent combination."

"Only the Kurds seem to favor a continued U.S. presence, and are likely to outright reject violent resistance," Zogby added.

The survey also asked Iraqis which nations they believed it was possible to foster improved relations with. While a majority of Iraqis believe relations can be improved between Iraq and neighbors Kuwait, Turkey, and Iran, all ethnic and religious groups overwhelmingly rejected improving relations with the State of Israel.

Iraqis do not desire to remake their country in the image of neighboring Iran, however. Three-in-five (59%) favor a system where citizens are allowed to practice their own religion, while one-in-three (34%) would prefer an Islamic government.

The survey was conducted throughout Iraq, including the cities of Baghdad, Hilla, Karbala and Kirkuk, as well as the Mohafazat (provinces) of Diala and Anbar.

Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International conducted interviews of 805 Iraqis. Field work dates were from 1/19/05 thru 1/23/05. The margin of error is +/- 3.6 percentage points. Slight weights were added to education, ethnicity, religion, gender to more accurately reflect the population. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

The "political balance of forces" put in place by the Occupation, first by Bremer in 2003, then re-costumed in 2004, and re-costumed again in 2005, reflects a series of determinations made externally, not organically. And the percentage of Sunni Arabs who now believe that ongoing attacks in Iraq are a legitimate form of resistance is so close to 100% as to make no difference.

Congress can appropriate funds for a new election, and it can appropriate funds to protect the ballot box, and to protect the persons contesting the election, particularly where those persons are in the custody of the United States, or are presently under arms, and opposed to the occupation of Iraq by the forces of the United States.

If Zogby can do a poll in four days covering Baghdad, Hilla, Karbala and Kirkuk, as well as the provinces of Diala and Anbar, and get 805 interviews, and attempt to adjust for education, ethnicity, religion, gender to more accurately reflect the population, on a television station's nickle, and get results that a year later look better than gold, so can Congress.

Then we won't have to worry about when the "head" of a gang of gangs of Iranian carpetbagger cultists (Dawa and SCIRI), criminal organizations (Chalabi, etc), and revolutionary expats will authorize Congress to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

We'll have a better authority.