Iraq 2007 is not post-WWII Germany

Why does following the model of post-WWII Germany not help the rebuilding effort in current-day Iraq?  What about US troop levels, stabilization, and rebuilding?

After the fall of the Nazi Regime, the main players of the Original Coalition of the Willing: England, the US and the USSR, who had pulled together to defeat the Nazi Regime – ensured the stability needed for Germany and other European countries to rebuild.  For Germany, rebuilding required the input of funding and resources, which could be distributed without fighting an insurgency or negotiating internal ethnic tensions.  There was the occasional action by the Nazi Werwolf units, but the vast amount of troops from England, the US, and Russia more or less kept the country stable.

Iraq-2007 is so unstable that rebuilding can’t even start yet.  Iraq is a menagerie of different city-level battles without defined enemy armies and milestones for victory.  If a town is taken by insurgent armies, it can be retaken by coalition forces, but retaken again by a new insurgent army the very next month (after the US forces move out).

I don’t think that the insurgents can be mentally beaten the way the German and Japanese armies were defeated.  Those armies were commanded by Hitler and the Japanese Emperor respectively, while the insurgents are not fighting under one specific destructible entity.

Should the US troop levels of post-WWII Germany be used as an indication of a successful military strategy in current-day Iraq?

Why were a number of US military bases built in Germany after WWII?  To ensure stability and rebuild the country?  Was this the only reason?  Well, maybe also because those military bases were the first line of defense against a Soviet expansion across Europe.  Such an expansion would have included the traditional infantry-Army-Air Force attack and the US Army and Air Force bases were in place to repel such aggression from beyond the Iron Curtain.

Pumping more money into Iraq and sustaining troop levels is pointless without a real strategy.  Using the analogy of post-WWII to validate the current US strategy in Iraq will not lead to the stabilization of the county or of the region – which was the only real reason the war was fought in the first place.  A similar strategy won’t work because the facts and events surrounding the US occupation of Iraq are very different from the US occupation of Germany.

Oh, well – I mean, the US could build Army bases to prevent an invasion from Iran.  That sounds logical, no?

Thinking outside the political box is required to fix Iraq-2007, because simply falling back on old success stories without considering the differences to the current situation is not going to lead to a solution.

So if lessons don’t exist in the rebuilding of post-WWII Germany, where does one look to for lessons on how the current Iraq War can be ended?

First, in my view, you need to consider the lessons of the US-USSR Cold War and the battle field of Afghanistan.

Coming up Next:

A bed-time story of how the US is Ignoring History and Inviting Disaster in Iraq