At the Huffington Post, Gabe Ledeen, who is a marine vet with two tours in Iraq and who understands the reasons for our success there like few others do, has a vital article on how the “Anbar Awakening” actually happened and what that portends for Afghanistan. (As Rich has reported in a pair of important articles from Afghanistan this week — here and here — we are trying to implement there, in much more difficult conditions, the counter-insurgency methods that succeeded in Iraq.)

I take Gabe’s two main conclusions to be these. First, the Sunni uprising in Iraq was not a spontaneous “awakening.” It was, decidedly, a case of Sunnis being awakened by the U.S. military, which had a well-crafted plan to win over the population by convincing Iraqis of our determination to win the security battle, and then rigorously implemented that plan. Here’s Gabe:

The popular consensus regarding Al Anbar contends that the tribal movement known as the “Awakening” was an impromptu rejection by Sunnis of Al Qaeda in Iraq’s (AQI) brutal methods and radical rule. This consensus is wrong, or at best, only partially right…. The Anbar Awakening was not a spontaneous uprising against the horrible brutality of the insurgents. Rather, it occurred and succeeded due to the conditions created by U.S. forces who steadily built the foundation for Anbar’s stability. Through dynamic security operations, complex relationships with tribal leaders, and consistent moral authority, we successfully separated the population from the insurgency, demonstrated our potential for victory, and earned the support of Iraqis yearning for peace. It was only after we established these conditions that the Sunni sheiks could urge their tribes to awaken and stand together with U.S. forces against the AQI terrorists.

The second point is this: this is very hard work, work that will require an extraordinary toughness and commitment, and which, in Afghanistan, will take a very long time even with an adequate commitment of resources.

I have been wrestling, and continue to wrestle, with the question whether this is worth the cost. Since I proceed, as I have from the beginning, from the premise that I would not deploy the United States military unless it was, first and very clearly foremost, to protect American national security, I find this to be a very difficult question because of the limitations that we have put on ourselves.

That is, if we were really going after al Qaeda, its affiliates, and its state sponsors — which I would enthusiastically support — we would go after them everywhere, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan. If it is important not to let al Qaeda have safe-havens in Afghanistan, it seems to me equally important not to let them have safe-havens in Pakistan, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, and elsewhere. I want to see the Taliban crushed not because I particularly care what kind of government Afghanistan has, but because the Taliban gives succor to al Qaeda and therefore increase the risk of another 9/11. But if we are only going after the Taliban in Afghanistan, and we are not so much decimating al Qaeda as driving it out of one location while allowing it safely to trot off to others, I have a hard time seeing the point in that. If that is the strategy (stated or unstated), it becomes, to me, more like a nation-building exercise in Afghanistan than a protection of American lives – no one having yet convinced me that building sharia-democracies in a couple of Islamic countries materially lowers the risk of terrorist attacks against the United States.

In any event, Gabe and Rich are doing a great service in opening everyone’s eyes about the reality of the challenge. Again, given the restrictions we have put on ourselves, I don’t know if the effort is worth the cost. But I do know we have to decide that based on real facts, not dreamy hopes.