No denying that Paul Bremer's administration did a terrible job putting the pieces back together, but that was fomented by the Rumsfeld Doctrine which touted a small ground force component, which was consequently unable to establish rule of law.
Additionally I would point to the case of post-WW2 Germany, in which the occupying forces left the Nazi Party in charge as administrators. This is directly in contrast to Iraq where we outlawed the Ba'ath Party entirely. And of course the whole war was fought on a lie, so there's that...
There are lots of cases throughout history where counterinsurgency doctrine has worked, and at it's core it comes down to presence and rule of law. For a good read I recommend War in the Shadows: http://www.amazon.com/War-Shadows-Guerrilla-Robert-Asprey/dp...
No denying that Paul Bremer's administration did a terrible job putting the pieces back together, but that was fomented by the Rumsfeld Doctrine which touted a small ground force component, which was consequently unable to establish rule of law.
Additionally I would point to the case of post-WW2 Germany, in which the occupying forces left the Nazi Party in charge as administrators. This is directly in contrast to Iraq where we outlawed the Ba'ath Party entirely. And of course the whole war was fought on a lie, so there's that...
There are lots of cases throughout history where counterinsurgency doctrine has worked, and at it's core it comes down to presence and rule of law. For a good read I recommend War in the Shadows: http://www.amazon.com/War-Shadows-Guerrilla-Robert-Asprey/dp...