Count Me As Being "Overly Cautious" Too
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in War — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Comme d'habitude, I'm with Petraeus. Too much has been gained since the surge was announced and since it was fully implemented in mid-June to allow for precipitous troop cuts to undermine the advances made. Even if we contemplate the withdrawal of one brigade--as Petraeus appears to be doing--we would have to consider that we will lose the equivalent of the troop allocation we have in al Anbar. Maybe we could have a gradual pullout, all the while training Iraqi units to do the job and thus lessen the impact of an American withdrawal. But the situation needs exceedingly careful handling and absent that handling, we will indeed see a reversion to pre-surge chaos. The renewed violence in Basra in the aftermath of the British withdrawal there should teach us the dangers of moving our troops out too early. I wonder if we will indeed pay heed to the lessons of Basra as we work to decide what our next move will be with our own troop deployments.