Please, do not exaggerate in any direction. Although soviet doctrine isn't in any way disabled it ain't perfect either.
Lets look how long it took them to subdue Chechenya - two costly campaigns with the first one totally lost.
Anyway - I think both Chechenya and Iraq affairs shows how difficult is to win assimetric, total conflicts for modern, total war orientet armies. Funny is that both Americans and Soviet found very similar solution to be the most efficient - to exploit enemy's internal conflicts and to convince some parties to join army's side.