Go Big, Go Long, or Go Home

The Washington Post is reporting that three basic strategies for Iraq were being debated by the Pentagon and that military leaders have settled on a hybrid plan, combining "Go Big" and "Go Long.":

The group has devised a hybrid plan that combines part of the first option with the second one -- "Go Long" -- and calls for cutting the U.S. combat presence in favor of a long-term expansion of the training and advisory efforts. Under this mixture of options, which is gaining favor inside the military, the U.S. presence in Iraq, currently about 140,000 troops, would be boosted by 20,000 to 30,000 for a short period, the officials said.

The purpose of the temporary but notable increase, they said, would be twofold: To do as much as possible to curtail sectarian violence, and also to signal to the Iraqi government and public that the shift to a "Go Long" option that aims to eventually cut the U.S. presence is not a disguised form of withdrawal.

Unmentioned in the Post article, of course, is that the strategy must be workable in light of a hostile, grossly biased American media that is focused on political advantage for the Democratic party. To that end, the major media outlets have imposed a virtual embargo on any news out of Iraq that isn't bad for American interests. Anyone who doubts that need only go to CENTCOM and check the press releases.

The MSM uses CENTCOM only for American body counts, they never report on the daily successful operations, which militate against Democratic defeatism. That's the real reason for the rejection of the "Go Big" option, not the lack of US troops, as the Post claims.