George Will adds a little ice to the cold water:
Under a "Laird-Abrams" approach, winning would be the "direct goal" of Iraqi units. There is, however, this sobering arithmetic: Based on experience in the Balkans, an assumption among experts is that to maintain order in a context of sectarian strife requires one competent soldier or police officer for every 50 people. For the Baghdad metropolitan area (population: 6.5 million), that means 130,000 security personnel.
There are 120,000 now, but 66,000 of them are Iraqi police, many – perhaps most – of whom are worse than incompetent. Because their allegiances are to sectarian factions, they are not responsive to legitimate central authority. They are part of the problem. Therefore even a surge of, say, 30,000 U.S. forces would leave Baghdad that many short, and could be a recipe for protracting failure.
Wayne White – for 26 years with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, now with the Middle East Institute – calls Baghdad "a Shiite-Sunni Stalingrad." Imagine a third nation’s army operating between (and against) both German and Russian forces in Stalingrad. That might be akin to the mission of troops sent in any surge.
The main argument against getting further enmeshed in Iraq’s civil war is that we will find ourselves allying with one part of it. No American should die defending the sectarian claims of Sunnis or Shia. And certainly not to give any failed politician political cover.
The Dish 