Bush’s Democrat and Republican critics have repeated the same canard now over and over again for years: Bush has no plan, no coherent strategy for Iraq. It’s all hit or miss, etc.
Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan even quotes Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel reiterating the notion and praises him for having the guts to speak out–even if a quick stroll through the Small Wars Journal could have shown her that his supposedly gutsy move was based on a false assumption.
Some of the journal’s counterinsurgeny strategists, at least, have done their homework and concluded that there not only is a plan, and a coherent strategy, in Bush’s "surge," with its focus on securing the population of Bahgdad and al-Anbar, but that it has a track record of success:
"The new strategy reflects counterinsurgency best practice as demonstrated over dozens of campaigns in the last several decades: enemy-centric approaches that focus on the enemy, assuming that killing insurgents is the key task, rarely succeed. Population-centric approaches, that center on protecting local people and gaining their support, succeed more often…in the new strategy what matters is providing security and order for the population, rather than directly targeting the enemy – though this strategy will effectively marginalize them."
It’s also significant that the Army’s guru of counterinsurgency, Gen. David Petreaus, will be the one to implement the new approach. Read it all here.