True, removing forces would take away an excuse for Sadr. But if history has taught us anything it's that the people in these situations who pretend to have grievances always come up with a way to make the grievance continuously relevant. “You see, the Iraqi regime is still just a puppet of the American imperialist infidels!” etc.

You say that “for years” you've argued that bringing the troops home would be the way to marginalize the radicals. But that's not really what Mansoor is saying. In fact, his argument (and mine) is that the new COIN strategy over the past 2 years has marginalized him to the point where he cannot achieve his political goals using his militia. It was the security implemented by the Americans that made this happen. Had the US withdrawn a while back, you'd still have the conditions of insecurity. Remember, al Qaeda's longer-standing grievances are against the apostate governments of Muslim countries. Attacking the US was primarily to stop us from propping up those governments. As such,you'd still have al Qaeda in Iraq doing their best to overthrow a Shi'a-dominated government, with no American troops there to stop them. The Iraqi army was, and still is, in no way ready to create that security.

If we withdrew years back, civil war would have still ensued, AQI would still be active. When AQI hit Samarra in early 2006, the Americans essentially became bystanders. You had radical militias and death squads going after Sunnis and AQI hitting back. The Iraqi Army would be completely helpless in all of this. Mansoor is arguing that American withdrawal will further hurt an already damaged Sadr. But what happened in the last two years was necessary to get to this point.

True, removing forces would take away an excuse for Sadr. But if history has taught us anything it's that the people in these situations who pretend to have grievances always come up with a way to make the grievance continuously relevant. “You see, the Iraqi regime is still just a puppet of the American imperialist infidels!” etc.

You say that “for years” you've argued that bringing the troops home would be the way to marginalize the radicals. But that's not really what Mansoor is saying. In fact, his argument (and mine) is that the new COIN strategy over the past 2 years has marginalized him to the point where he cannot achieve his political goals using his militia. It was the security implemented by the Americans that made this happen. Had the US withdrawn a while back, you'd still have the conditions of insecurity. Remember, al Qaeda's longer-standing grievances are against the apostate governments of Muslim countries. Attacking the US was primarily to stop us from propping up those governments. As such,you'd still have al Qaeda in Iraq doing their best to overthrow a Shi'a-dominated government, with no American troops there to stop them. The Iraqi army was, and still is, in no way ready to create that security.

If we withdrew years back, civil war would have still ensued, AQI would still be active. When AQI hit Samarra in early 2006, the Americans essentially became bystanders. You had radical militias and death squads going after Sunnis and AQI hitting back. The Iraqi Army would be completely helpless in all of this. Mansoor is arguing that American withdrawal will further hurt an already damaged Sadr. But what happened in the last two years was necessary to get to this point.