Trapped in the Dead Ground: US Counter-Insurgency Strategy in Iraq

This article reassesses US counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and argues that its relative lack of success has been due to limited intelligence, a failure to secure political conditions which enhance counter-insurgency and an over-reliance on Israeli counter-insurgency methods. The article suggests that this failure of strategy has been in part due to the high political visibility of neoconservative ideology during the first Bush administration. It has led to a situation in Iraq where the outcome remains far from certain and the article suggests that the increasing escalation of insurgency contains the potential to lead to a revolutionary transformation of Iraqi politics and society.