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Although securing Green Zone targets as well key national infrastructure and previously secured areas should be the military's first priority, the four unsecured provinces cannot simply be abandoned to the insurgents. Small, extended patrols of U.S. (and, with time, Iraqi) Special Operations forces in the Red Zone should be undertaken to provide intelligence and early warning of significant insurgent activities, while denying insurgents sanctuary and limiting their ability to rest, refit, and plan. If the insurgents attempt to occupy a major town or city, as they did in Fallujah, U.S. and Iraqi forces should mount a punitive expedition to drive them out. Such operations, however, must always remain subordinate to the overall oil-spot strategy, focused on protecting the population, not pursuing insurgent forces.

An important advantage to the oil-spot strategy, given growing concerns over U.S. Army recruiting problems and declining U.S. public support, is that it should be possible to execute the strategy, including the Baghdad and Mosul offensives, with fewer than the 140,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq -- 120,000 might be sufficient. This 20,000 troop reduction would be possible for several reasons. Substantially increasing the number of U.S. advisers in newly formed Iraqi units would enable these units to become more capable more quickly, and curtailing ill-advised sweep operations would enable U.S. forces to be employed more productively. Retaining capable senior U.S. generals in Iraq for extended periods, meanwhile, would dramatically enhance military effectiveness, even at somewhat lower force levels.


THE GRAND BARGAIN

Lieutenant General Sir Gerald Templer, Britain's high commissioner and director of operations during the Malayan insurgency in the 1950s, observed that the political and military sides of counterinsurgency must be "completely and utterly interrelated." So, too, must they be in Iraq. While U.S. military operations take the form of the oil-spot campaign, political efforts should aim to strike a grand bargain with the Iraqi people. This grand bargain would lay the foundation for the gradual development of the broad base needed to sustain an Iraqi democracy.

The grand bargain would cut across key Iraqi religious and ethnic groups and across key tribal and familial units. Its underlying assumptions would be that there are significant elements of each major ethnic and religious group willing to support a democratic, unified Iraq; that a sufficiently broad coalition can be formed, over time, to achieve this end; and that the United States is willing to undertake a long-term effort, lasting a decade or longer, to ensure the grand bargain's success. The Kurds would likely be the easiest to win over. They want the insurgency defeated and a long-term U.S. presence to protect them against Shiite dominance or a Sunni restoration, as well as against external threats from Iran and Turkey. A small, but significant, Sunni element may also want the insurgency defeated, if it can be assured of a long-term U.S. presence to hedge against both Shiite domination (and retribution) and Iranian domination of a Shiite-led government. Like the Kurds, most Shiites want the insurgency defeated. Some are also wary of Iranian attempts to subvert Iraqi independence. These Shiites may also accept a long-term U.S. presence to guard against Iranian subversion and to minimize the risks of a civil war that would threaten their natural advantage in numbers in an Iraqi democracy.

This grand bargain would not seek to win over any one of the principal Iraqi groups entirely, only a substantial portion of each, which combined would provide a critical mass in support of the common objectives mentioned above. Since defeating the insurgency is but one step toward achieving these objectives, each group would have an incentive to have Iraq retain some U.S. forces beyond the insurgency's defeat -- something critical to achieving the United States' broader security objectives. Under the grand bargain, in short, Iraqis may find that although having U.S. "occupiers" offends their sense of nationalism, with the existence of a sovereign Iraqi regime they are willing to tolerate a much smaller force as "guests."

Stitching this coalition together would require a good understanding of Iraqi tribal politics. In many areas of Iraq, the tribe and the extended family are the foundation of society, and they represent a sort of alternative to the government. (Saddam deftly manipulated these tribal and familial relationships to sustain his rule.) There are roughly 150 tribes in Iraq of varying size and influence, and at least 75 percent of Iraqis are members of a tribe. Creating a coalition out of these groups would require systematically mapping tribal structures, loyalties, and blood feuds within and among tribal groups; identifying unresolved feuds; detecting the political inclinations of dominant tribes and their sources of power and legitimacy; and determining their ties to tribes in other countries, particularly in Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

To this end, the United States should help the Iraqi government establish an Iraqi Information Service to gather intelligence on the insurgents and penetrate their infrastructure. The service should divide Iraq into regions, sectors, and local grids to focus their efforts, with priority going to those areas that have been secured by or targeted for oil-spot operations. Although U.S. and other coalition forces should monitor and support this effort, the Iraqis themselves, given their superior understanding of local culture, must lead it. Given the unsettled state of Iraqi politics, however, American "Iraqi affairs officers" should also be embedded in Iraqi Information Service units to monitor their activities.

Accurate tribal mapping could guide the formation of alliances between the new Iraqi government and certain tribes and families, improve the vetting of military recruits and civil servants, and enhance intelligence sources on the insurgency's organization and infrastructure. Most important, it would facilitate achieving the grand bargain by identifying the Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite tribes that would be most likely to support a unified, independent, and democratic Iraqi state. In return, tribal allies should receive more immediate benefits, such as priority in security and reconstruction operations.

There are risks in making allies of tribal groups. Tribal alliances are often ephemeral, and the coalition must be prepared to shift its allegiance back and forth between rival tribes rapidly. There is also the risk of tribes emerging as alternatives to the government. Taking on one tribe as an ally may make enemies out of rival tribes that heretofore were neutral. It will take diligence and expert diplomacy to make this element of the strategy work.

As progress is made in crafting the grand bargain and the first oil-spot offensives are concluded, the strategy would enter its second phase. Phase II would see a significant reduction in U.S. force levels -- perhaps to as few as 60,000 -- reflecting the growing strength of the Iraqi government and security forces and the declining strength of the insurgents. U.S. advisers would begin to be phased out of the most capable Iraqi units. Over time, as the insurgent threat shrank to an insignificant problem, the third phase of the strategy would be implemented: the withdrawal of the U.S. military units and most advisers, save for a residual U.S. military presence numbering perhaps 20,000 troops to deter predators such as Iran and Syria. This U.S. security umbrella would also eliminate Baghdad's need to pursue costly nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs. In addition, a residual U.S. presence would discourage any internal Iraqi faction from attempting to overthrow the government.