http://english.alarabonline.org/display.asp?fname=2006%5C12%5C12-18%5Czopinionz%5C960.htm&dismode=x&ts=18/12/2006%2002:41:21%20%C3%A3The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III in a Tragedy of Many Parts
<snip>The idea that sending in more troops would provide stability and improve the situation in Iraq ignores the fact that the U.S. is the main source of violence and instability. More troops breed both more opposition and more sectarian violence. Observes Michael Schwartz, "Instead of entering a violent city and restoring order,
enter a relatively peaceful city and create violence. The accurate portrait of this situationis that the most hostile anti-American cities like Tal Afar and Ramadi have generally been reasonably peaceful when U.S. troops are not there." Even the ISG notes that Operation Together Forward II, which redeployed thousands of U.S. troops to Baghdad in August 2006, achieved the opposite of its stated goal: "Violence in Baghdad-already at high levels-jumped more than 43 percent between the summer and October 2006." Schwartz also explains the way in which the higher presence of U.S. combat troops exacerbates sectarian violence:
American patrols in Shia neighborhoods immobilize the local defenses and make the community vulnerable to jihadist attack; while American invasions of Sunni communities are even more damaging. They not only immobilize the local defense forces, but almost always involve the introduction of Iraqi Army units, made up mainly of Shia soldiers (since the army being stood up by the Americans is largely a Shia one). What results is violence in the form of battles between a Shia military (as well as militia-infiltrated Shia police forces) and Sunni resistance fighters defending their communities. These attacks generate immense bitterness among Sunni, who see them as part of a Shia attempt to use the American military to conquer and pacify Sunni cities. The result is a wealth of new jihadists anxious to retaliate by sacrificing their lives in terrorist or death-squad-style attacks on Shia communities-which, in their turn, energize the Shia death squads in an escalating cycle of brutalizing violence.
The U.S, in addition, cannot add more troops without straining an already badly overtaxed military and relying on greater use of backdoor draft measures that are provoking more opposition at home and within the military to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, another failing occupation.
We'll stand down as they stand up
The idea that training Iraqi troops can be improved, a major recommendation of the ISG report, suggests that there's a technical solution that the U.S. faces in Iraq. But the root of resistance to U.S occupation is political. As long as the U.S. remains an occupying power, the police and military will continue to be seen as collaborators and illegitimate. Resistance groups in Iraq, meanwhile, face no such training problems, and are carrying out increasingly sophisticated operations, including direct military battles with U.S. troops, because their fighters are politically motivated and have a defined goal that has widespread support.
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