Surge provided important lessons in region

BERNE, Switzerland, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- The counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq was successful in securing the nation and providing valuable insight into the campaign in Afghanistan, experts say.

John A. Nagl, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and co-author of the U.S. military's Counterinsurgency Field Manual, spoke to the Swiss daily Die Weltwoche about the counterinsurgency strategy employed by U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq.

"Victory has a thousand fathers, and the success of the surge has a thousand causes," he said.

Nagl credited the success of the counterinsurgency strategy with its focus on bottom-up mechanisms to protect the local population and employ local leaders in the management of defense.

He also credited the success in Iraq to the ability to "learn and adapt," adding Petraeus understood the need to exploit changing conditions on the ground in a way his predecessors could not.

Though the security situation in Iraq is much better, Nagl said, there are still critical elements of al-Qaida in Iraq holed up in Mosul and much-needed political gains from Iraqi lawmakers were not matched by the security gains.

"Ultimately, defeating any insurgency requires the support of a capable host nation government and its own security forces. This is the long-term answer in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, as well as in Iraq," he said.