Thursday, January 11, 2007

The President's Speech

As with all of his addresses, the speech reads better than he speaks it.

A very quick perusal of its contents shows a lot of substance on a very wide array of subjects, from Iran to the US military's size and force structure. The key short term element, however, is this:

Now let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations -- conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.

This is a strong commitment. But for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help. So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them -- five brigades -- will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

This is where the rubber hits the road, and where we'll be most vulnerable. If I were Moqtada Sadr, I'd do my best to alienate the Iraqi forces and US troops. A couple of suicide attacks or "friendly fire" incidents involving embedded US personnel would likely unravel this whole approach. Surely Sadr and other Shia extremists have enough infiltrators to accomplish that.

As for Iran, I will address later today after some more thought.

Oh, and the sop to Lieberman was soooooooo unnecessary....

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