Every now and then I’ll write a piece I’m particularly proud of. Today’s one of those days. For my COIN series at the Washington Independent, I got ahold of a draft of a forthcoming strategy-level counterinsurgency handbook that Dave Kilcullen, an architect of Petraeus’ COIN strategy in Iraq, is principally authoring. For "The Cricketer’s Handbook," I excerpt from this never-before-published document, which aims to instruct cabinet secretaries in when to — and, importantly, when not to — intervene in foreign counterinsurgencies; and got Dave to talk a bit about how he feels about the Iraq war:

Asked for comment, the handbook’s chief author, David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer who is now an adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, explained that it tells policy-makers to "think very, very carefully before intervening." More bluntly, Kilcullen, who helped Petraeus design his 2007 counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid" — in fact, he said "fucking stupid" — and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual’s lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future.

"The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place."

Kilcullen explained that the handbook will not apply to future operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. "We try not to forge doctrine around an example," he said. Instead, it frames questions about supporting counterinsurgencies in partner or potential-partner countries through the prisms of national interest; graduated levels of commitment, and cost/benefit analysis. It offers numerous warnings about how arduous counterinsurgency is. In a paragraph about the "characteristics" of counterinsurgency, Kilcullen bolds the words "complex," "violent," "difficult," "controversial," "ambiguous," "long-duration" and "high-cost."