Reconstructing Iraq

There is a danger in attempting to extrapolate counterinsurgency wisdom from this analogy between the American Reconstruction and the current situation in Iraq. First, no analogy is perfect, especially one that spans 140 years. Second, great caution must be applied particularly when the original counterinsurgency effort was unsuccessful, as was the Reconstruction effort in our past. It is difficult to point to one or several factors, and definitively state that a change or two there would have resulted in a successful venture. It is pure conjecture. Indeed, other counterinsurgency efforts, such as by the British in the Malayan Emergency in 1948 or the U.S. in the Philippines in 1899, were successful and would possibly make more fruitful comparisons.

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