Matt Sherman

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MundoOriente Próximo,

Two wars, two surges of U.S. forces — and two vastly different outcomes. Why the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan?

The troop surge in Iraq, which began in 2007, succeeded for a simple reason: The various players (Sunnis, Shiites and Americans) had become desperate. And this collective desperation, even more so than troop levels and strategies, influenced the decisions and actions that ultimately turned the conflict around.

The war in Afghanistan will not be decided solely by troop levels, either. For all the debate it elicited, President Obama’s announcement Wednesday that he will withdraw the 33,000 American surge forces there by September 2012 — including 10,000 by the end of this year — will not determine the outcome of the conflict.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

While the recent fighting in Basra and Baghdad has alerted many Americans to the danger that Shiite-on-Shiite violence poses to our goals in Iraq, it should not divert our focus from another looming threat: that the Sunni tribesmen who have sided with the American-led coalition may turn against us.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the drop in violence during the second half of 2007 was the coalition’s hiring of some 90,000 men, mostly Sunnis, to protect critical government properties like pipelines and to take part in neighborhood-watch systems. The decision to support these so-called Sons of Iraq — armed, many times, with the same AK-47’s that had been pointed at our troops just months earlier — was always viewed as risky, but few options were available to us at the time to reduce violence.…  Seguir leyendo »