At the moment we are assisting the government of Iraq fight challengers to their authority.
Major wars typically consist of three stages: First you have the war against the governing power (which took all of three weeks). International rules of war state that if the invader wins they become the authority on the ground and is responsible for the operation and security of the state, so during the period between governments we were fighting whoever was challenging our authority (Al Qaeda, the Ba'athist holdouts, the Iranian-backed theocrats, whoever); this was the Paul Bremer period essentially. For the past couple of years, Iraq has had a democratically elected parliamentary government that is recognized by the UN and everybody else, so they are now responsible for the operation and security of the state, and we are assisting them.
The enemy is instability. When Saddam was removed from power, everyone went nuts. We had a particular "group" that we thought was best to be in power, but the Iraqis did hold an election - their government is a mis-mash of Sunni/Shiite/Kurd/Shia?
We will only stay there until the government is stabilized and they can defend/secure/police themselves against those who wish for anarchy, instability and/or "wild west" type law - i.e., me and my buddies have lots of guns, you'll listen to us and what we say or we'll shoot you and your family.
I actually agree with you guys here! :shocked: The mission in Iraq is to stabilize it to the point where the government can take over full operations. As far as the enemy is concerned, it is anyone who is attempting to destabilize the Iraqi government like Nickel said.
The question then becomes how stable do they have to be before we withdraw? Stable like the US or stable like any other third world shit hole but doesn't pose a threat to the rest of the surrounding area. The other grey area is the question of who is trying to destabilize the government and who is just an opposing party critical of the current regime? Violence is an indicator for this factor, but not proof positive.
Take for example the Mahdi Army. Is it a political organization or a destabilizing movement attempting to stop democracy in Iraq? It's both, and that's where things get really complicated as far as US strategy is concerned. They have elected members of Parliament (quite a few actually) and hold extreme influence over the dominant religious majority in Iraq. That being said, they have a militant wing that conducts criminal operations and close ties to one of our enemies: Iran. So do we actively engage them to reduce their operational capabilities and influence? If you say yes, then the Iraqi's will view that as an attempt by the US to silence a political organization that doesn't agree with us and an affront on the sovereignty of the Iraqi political process, which reduces Joe Iraqi's faith in Democracy. If you say no, then they continue to kill American's, and that is unsat as well.
It's complicated and these types of situations play out differently from neighborhood to neighborhood all across Iraq.
IMHO, the longer we stay the more we are actually hindering the Iraqi government's progress. They are at a point now to where they will be about as stable as any other third world shit hole. It is an unreasonable goal to think that they will ever reach the stability of the US or Europe. As it stood when my unit left, the more we challenged the Iraqi government the more they rose to the challenge. Small example of this: The Iraqi Police would use our fuel to fill their trucks instead of pursuing a steady fuel supply through their higher HQ supply chain. Finally, we said no, piss off, get your own gas. After much bitching and moaning, two weeks later they had a steady supply of fuel. There are many more examples of this I could talk about, but whatever. I'm sure people will disagree, it's impossible for Nickel and Hall to agree with me on Iraq, but this is where I see it.
