Looking at the Surge From the Other Side

Policy Memo From the Planning Directorate, Mahdi Army:

We have completed a review of the new American surge strategy announced by their president. In analyzing possible courses of action, we must make two key assumptions:

First, it represents their administration's last chance to change course given the reported mood of the American public and their legislature. For us, this presents both opportunity and danger. We have to assume that we are the primary Shiite target of this plan. How we respond will largely determine how we position ourselves for operations after the Americans are gone.

Second, our Sunni adversaries will not be able to react in a coordinated manner; they are expected to remain divided in their actions and motivations.

Our first potential course of action would be to openly resist government and American efforts to gain control over Sadr City and other predominately Shiite neighborhoods. Potential advantage: Waging a stand-up battle could create such chaos and so many disturbing images of casualties -- American and Iraqi -- that the American public and Congress will demand an immediate withdrawal.

The disadvantages here are that such a battle would weaken us by causing attrition to our best fighters. We are just now recovering from the casualties that we sustained in the 2004 fighting with the occupiers. We must keep in mind (and be prepared for) the inevitable post-American battles with the Sunnis and the Badr Organization.

A second potential course of action is classic insurgent strategy: going to ground when confronted by enemy strength. The object here would be to lull the enemy into a false sense of security, perhaps enough for him to begin decreasing his strength early. Once the Americans have carried out a significant drawdown, we could openly challenge the government forces and attempt to push them out of our areas of influence. It is very likely this would have the effect of the Vietnamese Tet Offensive in convincing the Americans that nothing they do will work. It is also unlikely that their administration could get support for reinforcing Baghdad once they have begun to reduce troop levels.

Potential drawbacks:

First, there is always the chance that the Americans and the Maliki government will use this period to significantly increase the capability of the security forces and actually gain public support through increasing public service and employment, rendering us far less useful to Maliki. Given their performance to date, this is a remote possibility, but it cannot be totally discounted.

More likely is that some of our more enthusiastic fighters will resist on their own authority. Given the decentralized nature of our command-and-control system, this possibility must be considered. One solution would be to create training camps outside of Baghdad where we could hone their skills for urban combat (necessary if we are to succeed in the future). This would keep them occupied and out of the way.

A third course would be to avoid challenging the Americans and government forces directly but continue to attack them with IEDs and snipers. There will be many more American targets on the street, and a continuing stream of casualties would further undermine American public support. This has the advantage of keeping our fingerprints off such operations because the Sunnis will probably do this regardless of what we do. This also conserves our combat power. It shares the potential disadvantage that the American "hearts and minds" strategy may actually work and that the security forces will increase in capability. Again, we think this is unlikely.

Consequently, this final course seems to be the one most likely to serve our long-term interests by preserving our capabilities and allowing the Sunnis to bear the brunt and take the blame for most anti-government action. Clearly, America's time here is limited. Hurrying its exit at the cost of weakening our position does not make sense. We have been patient for a thousand years; another year or so is nothing.

If God wills it, we will be successful.

The writer, a defense consultant, has been an opposition player in many war games regarding Iraq and Afghanistan.