In testimony before the senate Foreign Relations Committee last week Newt Gingrich offered an 18 point plan to insure victory in Iraq.

The Cost of Defeat in Iraq and the Cost of Victory in Iraq - 18 Points

Point 6 is particularly interesting:

"Establish three plans: one for achieving victory with the help of the Iraqi government, one for achieving victory with the passive acquiescence of the Iraqi government, one for achieving victory even if the current Iraqi government is unhappy. The third plan may involve very significant shifts in troops and resources away from Baghdad and a process of allowing the Iraqi central government to fend for itself if it refuses to cooperate."


To bolster the above ideas he says:

There are three fundamental weaknesses in the current strategy.


First, the strategy relies on the Iraqis somehow magically improving their performance in a very short time period. Yet the argument for staying in Iraq is that it is a vital AMERICAN interest. If we are seeking victory in Iraq because it is vital to America then we need a strategy which will win even if our Iraqi allies are inadequate. We did not rely on the Free French to defeat Nazi Germany. We did not rely on the South Koreans to stop North Korea and China during the Korean War. When it mattered to American vital interests we accepted all the help we could get but we made sure we had enough strength to win on our own if need be......The inherent contradiction in the administration strategy is simple. If Iraq matters as much as the President says it does (and here I agree with the President on the supreme importance of victory) then the United States must not design and rely on a strategy which relies on the Iraqis to win.

The second weakness is that the current strategy debate once again focuses too much on the military and too little on everything that has not been working.....The great failures in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have been in non-combat power. Intelligence, diplomacy, economic aid, information operations, support from the civilian elements of national power. These have been the great centers of failure in America’s recent conflicts.....No military leader I have talked with believes military force is adequate to win in Iraq. Every one of them insists that the civilian instruments of power are more important than the combat elements. They all assert that they can hold the line for a while with force but that holding the line will ultimately fail if we are not using that time to achieve progress in non-military areas.

The third weakness in the current strategy is its inability to impose war time decision making and accountability in Washington.

On a lighter note Ali G interviews Newt:



Tags: Newt, newt gingrich, iraq war, troop surge, ali g