Correct interpretation?

cafetero23

To help with my studies, I am reading books to practice some of the things taught in the V.2 curriculum. I am reading a book called Political Tribes by Amy Chua. On page 91 it states the following " Experts today agree that merely deploying twenty thousand additional troops would not have been sufficient had American commanders not "stopped fighting Iraq's tribal structure and instead started to cooperate with it..."

I think this sentence is similar to PT 64.1.18.

The way I would translate to a conditional would be

If not "stopped fighting Iraq's tribal structure and instead started to cooperate with it.." then, deploying 20k would have not been sufficient

                                                                                or 

If it was sufficient then they stopped fighting or started to cooperate with it

Any insight on this would be great!