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Can Iraq work out like Korea?
So, there's the proposition: after the war, Americans were able to cut their force to 30,000, stuck it out for 50 years and more, and Korea is now a big modern success story. All we have to do to be successful again is repeat the experience in Iraq.
Do you see this happening? I don't see this as any reasonable basis for strategy. In Korea, we were fighting big enemy armies, whose target was our army, and they were on one side of the front line and we were on the other. In Iraq, we're fighting an insurgency, and there is no front, and there is not even an enemy army. In Korea, the local people were on our side, and we could count on the local goverment; in Iraq, the people generally hate us for being there, while half the government is stealing from us and the other half is running a guerilla war against its own people. Thinking the Korea story can turn into the Iraq story seems like wishful thinking to me.
Who sees this as the recipe for victory? How do we get from where we are now, to the point where we can cut forces to three brigades and be a friendly supporting force?
And if you agree that it won't work, what else can we do to pull a satisfactory conclusion out of that sandbox?