A history lesson: this sounds remarkably familiar!

Westmoreland outlined a three point plan to win the war:
Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. (and other free world) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.

Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would be concluded when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas.

Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas."
[Wikpedia entry, Vietnam War]

We know how well this worked.

Note: I'm not a big fan of Vietnam/Iraq analogies, but there are some striking similarities in the military strategies employed. [My preferred analogy for U.S. occupation of Iraq is the '80s Soviet invasion/occupation of Afghanistan... and it's less-than-perfect comparison... but we know how well that went!]

U.S. Boosts Its Use of Airstrikes In Iraq
Strategy Supports Troop Increase
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 17, 2008; Page A01
The U.S. military conducted more than five times as many airstrikes in Iraq last year as it did in 2006, targeting al-Qaeda safe houses, insurgent bombmaking facilities and weapons stockpiles in an aggressive strategy aimed at supporting the U.S. troop increase by overwhelming enemies with air power.

Top commanders said that better intelligence-gathering allows them to identify and hit extremist strongholds with bombs and missiles, and they predicted that extensive airstrikes will continue this year as the United States seeks to flush insurgents out of havens in and around Baghdad and to the north in Diyala province.
...
Counterinsurgency experts said the greater use of airstrikes meshes with U.S. strategy, which calls for coalition troops to clear hostile areas before holding and then rebuilding them. U.S. forces have put the new counterinsurgency efforts into play by using their increased numbers to home in on insurgent strongholds.

I'll note that we have been saying "clear-hold-build" since at least 2005. I stopped counting the number of times we've cleared insurgents from Samarra. The hard truth: we've insufficient troops to meaningfully hold/control territory. We don't even control Baghdad in any reasonable sense of the word - the very existence of the Green Zone bears witness to our lack of control.

Anyone want to bet on success of the new strategy?