by hilzoy
John McCain tried to explain his claim that the surge, which was announced in January 2007, began the surge (oops) Anbar Awakening, which began in the summer of 2006. Here’s video a link to video (actual video removed, since it was causing problems for some of our readers.) And here’s my transcription of the relevant part (it begins at about 2:40):
“McCain: First of all, a surge is really a counterinsurgency strategy, and it’s made up of a number of components. And this counterinsurgency was initiated to some degree by Colonel McFarland in Anbar province relatively on his own. When I visited with him in December of 2006, he had already initiated that strategy in Ramadi by going in and clearing and holding in certain places. That is a counterinsurgency. And he told me at that time that he believed that that strategy, which is, quote, the surge, part of the surge, would be successful. So then, of course, it was very clear that we needed additional troops in order to carry out this counterinsurgency.
Prior to that, they had been going into places, killing people or not killing people, and then withdrawing. And the new counterinsurgency — surge — entailed clearing and holding, which Colonel McFarland had already started doing. And then of course later on there were additional troops, and General Petraeus has said that the surge would not have worked and the Anbar Awakening would not have taken place successfully if they hadn’t had an increase in the number of troops. So I’m not sure, frankly, that people really understand that a surge is part of a counterinsurgency strategy, which means going in, clearing, holding, building a better life, providing services to the people, and then clearly a part of that, an important part of it, was additional troops to help ensure the safety of the sheikhs, to regain control of Ramadi, which was a very bloody fight, and then the surge continued to succeed, and that counterinsurgency.
Q: So when you say ‘surge’, then you’re not referring just to the one that President Bush initiated; you’re saying it goes back several months before that?
Yes, and again, because of my visits to Iraq, I was briefed by Colonel McFarland in December of 2006 where he outlined what was succeeding there in this counterinsurgency strategy which we all know of now as the surge.”
So, if I understand this: the surge is part of a counterinsurgency strategy. This strategy has a number of components. Since the surge is part of the counterinsurgency strategy, you’d think it might be one of these components, but no: while the additional troops were a mere part of the strategy, the surge is the counterinsurgency strategy, in its entirety. This “counterinsurgency strategy which we all know of now as the surge” obviously did not begin when the additional troops arrived; it had been going on for months before President Bush announced it.
McCain is arguing as follows: find some X, of which what we normally think of as the surge is a part. Define all of X as “the surge”. Argue that since X is responsible for some development Y, a development which preceded what we normally think of as the surge, “the surge”, understood to mean X, is responsible for Y. This is a delightful argument, and it yields all kinds of fun results. For instance:
The surge is part of American history, and American history has a number of components. And this American history was initiated in some sense by Captain John Smith, and when I visited with him in 1607, he had already initiated that history at Jamestown, by going in and clearing and holding in certain places. That is American history. And he told me at that time that he believed that that history, which is, quote, the surge, part of the surge, would be successful. [Ed. note: Did you catch that crucial move?] So then, of course, it was very clear that we needed additional troops in order to continue our history. And so I’m not sure, frankly, that people really understand that a surge is part of American history [Ed. note: there it is again!], which means the settlement at Jamestown, declaring independence, winning the Civil War, emancipating the slaves, the New Deal, deciding to invade Iraq, and then clearly a part of that, an important part of it, was additional troops to help ensure the safety of the sheikhs, to regain control of Ramadi, which was a very bloody fight, and then the surge continued to succeed, and that American history.
Q: So when you say ‘surge’, then you’re not referring just to the one that President Bush initiated; you’re saying it goes back several centuries before that?
Yes, and again, because of my visits to Virginia, I was briefed by Captain John Smith shortly after he established the settlement at Jamestown where he outlined what was happening there in American history which we all know of now as the surge.
I could go on and show that the surge is responsible for the invention of the calculus, the birth of Christ, the extinction of the dodo, and the hula hoop craze. After all, you can prove virtually anything once you adopt the Humpty Dumpty principle:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
“And this American history was initiated in some sense by Captain John Smith, and when I visited with him in 1607”
Nice way to raise the age issue hilzoy. ^.^
Drew: It could have been worse. At one point I was working on the surge having caused the fall of Rome.
I’m not a big McCain fan, and the dude is definitely prone to elderly gaffes and confusion. But I’m glad there was someone in DC who had the courage to support a strategy that aided in reducing violence in Iraq when there was so much domestic opposition to the war and the COIN strategy…including from ObWi. The world is a better place because Iraq is more stable than late 2006, despite the high costs of war.
Er, you mean the Sunni Awakening, right? Not the surge —> the surge.
MY bad. Didn’t watch the video first.
I’m glad there was someone in DC who had the courage to support a strategy that aided in reducing violence in Iraq when there was so much domestic opposition to the war and the COIN strategy
What does this even mean? Are you saying McCain had particular courage in pushing a policy that his constituents didn’t agree with? Why should Senators be proud of their refusal to listen to their constituents? I mean, if you think that the surge was a good idea, why does it take courage to advocate it…doesn’t that only make sense if you assume that everyone thought the surge was a good idea but didn’t want to do it?
Also, where is this domestic opposition to the COIN strategy? And do you really think domestic opposition to the COIN strategy was higher than military opposition to COIN? It seems that historically, the US military has been unbelievably good at failing to fight insurgencies properly and then failing to actually institutionalize knowledge of how to fight insurgencies after they learn the hard way. I suppose a decades long institutional tradition of failing to learn things while striving for ignorance might be a good idea…if you didn’t care about winning wars.
The world is a better place because Iraq is more stable than late 2006, despite the high costs of war.
So, are you saying that making Iraq more stable is worth any cost? Could we just nuke the whole country? I’ve been told that glass is extremely stable. Can’t get much more stable than that. Or maybe some costs are too high, which means we should analyze them in relation to the, um, benefits…like in some sort of cost-benefit analysis. Nah, that’s crazy talk. I think you should continue using your benefit-only analysis. Factoring in costs might alter the conclusions.
Do you think maybe there’s some little kid somewherte named Serge who keeps wondering why some old guy on T.V. is talking about him.
So wait, was it this counterinsurgency strategy that Obama was opposed to or the additional troops? Or the planting of this funny looking maize stuff?
I’m having a little trouble following this.
What McCain says is perfectly understandable and sensible.
Your attempt to deliberately misunderstand what he says (and, tellingly, your descent into ridicule) is obtuse and stupid.
“The Surge Caused Everything!”
Cross-posted at Andrew Sullivan.
So, let met get this straight. When hilzoy makes mincemeat out of the idiot’s logic and linguistic distortion McCain uses to try and explain why he got basic facts wrong, your defense is that she’s being “obtuse and stupid”? Please, please offer your services as a McCain volunteer without delay! You’re exactly the sort of syncophant who’d fit perfectly into his campaign.
“Why should Senators be proud of their refusal to listen to their constituents?”
They should be if their constituents are wrong.
If leaders can’t or don’t lead by telling people when they’re wrong, then what’s the point of having them? Why not just replace them with an answering machine and a poll?
“Your attempt to deliberately misunderstand what he says (and, tellingly, your descent into ridicule) is obtuse and stupid.”
Good example of the argument by assertion; thanks!
More here from McClatchy reporter Nancy Youssef:
Read the rest of the short interview.
What you’re looking for is a refutation; this is not one of those. If you think hilzoy is wrong, you might want to consider telling her exactly where and how.
“The world is a better place because Iraq is more stable than late 2006, despite the high costs of war. ”
How so? And that is a serious question. Iraq may be a better place, but why is the whole wide world a better place?
The world wasn’t any safer when Saddam fell, despite all the assertions otherwise, so why is this.
am, all hilzoy is pointing out is that if one chooses to define things in a distorted manner, totally ignoring reality, then anyone can make accurate statements that aren’t. Of course McCain is right, assuming you allow him to define terms and use timelines that aren’t correct.
Oh, and of course, McCain never points out that he was very critical of the “surge” at the beginning because it didn’t have enough troops and therefore couldn’t really have a great chance of success.
You are being very selective of facts there, hilzoy. You deride McCain for spelling out the sequence of events, and then accuse of him of parsing. That’s disingenuous on your part.
McCain was a critic of Rumsfeld’s approach all the way back to early 2004 – he repeatedly argued for increased troop levels and pointedly criticized Bush throughout. When the war critics were at a fever pitch during the Kerry run, McCain was just about the only Republican that had maintained the credibility to push for a more agressive strategy. The move to an explicit counterinsurgency strategy required the recognition on the part of the Pentagon that things were not going so well, and unfortunately that awaited Bush’s “thumping” in 2006 and Rumsfeld’s subsequent resignation (some 27 months after McCain had originally suggested “more troops on the ground”). But by late 2006, through the replacement of generals and modest successes (such as finally killing Zarqawi in June ’06), a surge of effort was already underway. The “troop level surge” was the most important piece of the political surge *to avoid defeat*. You fail to note that this was completely opposed by Obama and other liberal Democrats, and yet it passed Congressional muster anyway.
OT, but only a little. Apparently McCain is now saying that the recent drop in oil prices is due to Bush revoking the executive ban on off-shore drilling.
Even though both he and Bush have stated that would not affect prices, even though there is still aCongressional ban.
Please, can the major media outlets at some time in the future (but not too far in the future) start really coveing this guy. He is so much worse than I thought he would be.
The world is a safer place because Iraq is a safer place. Anytime violence is reduced in one place, it redounds to global security. If you don’t buy that premise, then you are *excusing* all sorts of terror. Do you not believe that the world would be a better place if Mugabe and his thug brigades were in prison, or if the warlords that are perpetrating genocide in Darfur were dead? The executions of Saddam, Uday and Qusay, and Zarqawi ABSOLUTELY made the world a safer place. Any claim to the contrary is, at the very least, “obtuse”.
Adrian WIld: “You are being very selective of facts there, hilzoy. You deride McCain for spelling out the sequence of events, and then accuse of him of parsing.”
No, I’m not accusing him of parsing. I’m accusing him of using a word to mean something it pretty plainly does not mean.
Plus, if the surge does mean “the counterinsurgency strategy”, I don’t know anyone who opposed it. In particular, Senator Obama did not.
Also, Adam: you were right. Thanks. I changed it.
The writer of this insipid piece said:
“So, if I understand this: the surge is part of a counterinsurgency strategy. This strategy has a number of components.”
Well, no, you DON’T understand it. Read the words. Try to understand them. If you can’t, go back to school and get an education.
What McCain said (this from your own article) was:
“McCain: First of all, a surge is really a counterinsurgency strategy, and … ”
Get it? a) “Part of”. b) “Is”. They’re DIFFERENT.
a) “Part of”. b) “Is”.
a) “Part of”. b) “Is”.
See? If you don’t, please go back and learn English before you write any more!
hilzoy’s argument is deeply flawed because it leaves untouched mccain’s central premise.
the central premise of mccain’s argument is that the “surge” was more than a mere increase in troops. according to mccain, the surge involved, among other things, an implemenation of new policing techniques as well as a redeployment of forces from some “secure” provinces to other less secure provinces. like it or not, there is some basis (slim though it may be) for this view, as troops were re-deployed to hot zones around the same time that additional troops were sent to iraq.
on the other hand, hilzoy’s argument simply hyperventilates with X’s and Y’s in an apparent attempt to make it seem like she is employing a higher form of logical reasoning, when the argument is, in fact, completely illogical.
that is the difference:
surge is entire counterinsurgency strategy=plausible (but perhaps doubtful),
surge is entirety of american history=implausible.
in sum, the post is craptastic and reveals the chief problem among obama bloggers– the idea that a witticism is a substitute for facts and reasoning.
thatemailname says “Well, no, you DON’T understand it. Read the words. Try to understand them. If you can’t, go back to school and get an education.
What McCain said (this from your own article) was:
“McCain: First of all, a surge is really a counterinsurgency strategy, and … ”
Get it? a) “Part of”. b) “Is”. They’re DIFFERENT.
did you miss the part in the second paragraph of McCain’s answer where he says “a surge is part of a counterinsurgency strategy”? Or does that not count?
this post is craptastic says: in sum, the post is craptastic and reveals the chief problem among obama bloggers– the idea that a witticism is a substitute for facts and reasoning.
It’s hard to use facts and reasoning when you’re arguing with Humpty Dumpty.
My mother’s life was saved by a heart operation, and clearly this would have been impossible without The Surge changing the conditions on all grounds everywhere and everywhen.
Put me with those who think that McCain is perfectly clear in what he said, and that Hilzoy’s criticisms are not persuasive. (Nor, obviously, do they become more persuasive by the mocking tone at the end of the piece.) “The Surge” — before, at the time, and after — has always included counterinsurgency tactics, including those used in Anbar. McCain was incorrect when he said the Surge caused the Anbar Awakening. But he is absolutely correct to link the two and his words here are perfectly clear.
I wonder if some of this is that you weren’t aware at the time (2006, 2007) of the changes in counterinsurgency strategy. This was reported on military blogs (Blackfive in particular), but it didn’t filter well into the general public.
N.b., also, that I was highly skeptical of the surge during the time it was being implemented, questioning whether it was too late in light of Rumsfelds’ mismangement, and also questioning Bush’s ability to put the people or a strategy in place capable of pulling it off. I ended up opposing the Surge, despite having argued for more troops since the beginning. But note carefully my criticisms from that era. McCain’s points are not being made up after the fact.
So, yes, I feel for McCain and it is a bit personal. The really annoying part of all this is that he had real political courage when he stood up to Bush and Rumsfeld — taking all sorts of flack from the right — but when the strategy finally gets implemented, a lot of folks like me who were with him from the beginning had given up.
And then, seemingly against the odds, a little hope appears. McCain deserves credit for it. If the surge turns out to have turned around Iraq — and the jury is still way, way out on that — he deserves credit for that as well.
Adrien, if McCain was a supporter of more troops for so long, why did he even vote for the war in the first place, when it was obvious that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. were going to invade Iraq with far too few troops to properly secure the country? Why did he vote to send our troops in when he knew they weren’t going to go in prepared, and the Administration had made no kinds of planning an occupation?
In other words, if he was saying even back then that the Bush Administration was completely bungling the invasion, why did he vote to approve the bunglers invasion?
Plus, if the surge does mean “the counterinsurgency strategy”, I don’t know anyone who opposed it. In particular, Senator Obama did not.
No, but Obama opposed providing the troops to take the counterinsurgency strategy that was succeeding in Anbar to the rest of Iraq.
I still think that a lot of Obama bloggers are missing a key weakness in their argument: Yes, Anbar preceeded the Surge and was successful before the Surge. But the Surge was about taking a successful strategy in Anbar countrywide (albeit, as That Left Turn pointed out on a different thread, with different tactics). Your argument seems to be “Anbar was successful before the Surge and that was a reason to oppose the Surge.” But the opposite was in fact true.
Now, I’m not going to ding Obama too much for opposing the Surge; heck, I did too. Bush had screwed so much up I simply had no faith in him or his team to implement even a good strategy. But I recognized then, and now, that it was a good strategy.
von: I’m fine with giving McCain credit for supporting the surge — that is to say, the increase in troops announced by the President in Jan. 2007.
I am not fine with using the word ‘surge’ to mean whatever you want it to mean, or to rewrite history so that it becomes responsible for all good things.
McCain made a stupid mistake when he said it was responsible for the Anbar Awakening. He is now trying not to admit he made that mistake by expanding the word ‘surge’ to include the entire counterinsurgency. If that is what we now mean by “surge”, then I supported the surge, despite my opposition to the increase in troops, and so did Senator Obama. And in that case, we all deserve credit for supporting the surge.
Personally, I’m happier saying that the surge is the increase in troops, that Sen. McCain supported it while neither I nor Sen. Obama did, and that it was one of several causes that led to the decrease in violence. I’m also happier with people who can just fess up to their mistakes when they make them.
>>”Why should Senators be proud of their refusal to listen to their constituents?”
>They should be if their constituents are wrong.
But when their constituents are NOT wrong…
cf. Proverbs 16:18: Pride, haughty spirit, etc.
Adrien, if McCain was a supporter of more troops for so long, why did he even vote for the war in the first place, when it was obvious that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. were going to invade Iraq with far too few troops to properly secure the country?
Nate, this wasn’t “obvious” to most of the Democratic members of Congress. So the criticism, aside from being unfair, is untrue.
von: “Your argument seems to be “Anbar was successful before the Surge and that was a reason to oppose the Surge.””
My argument, at least, is just: Anbar was successful before the surge, and that’s a reason not to say that it was caused by the surge.
von: I’m fine with giving McCain credit for supporting the surge — that is to say, the increase in troops announced by the President in Jan. 2007.
I am not fine with using the word ‘surge’ to mean whatever you want it to mean, or to rewrite history so that it becomes responsible for all good things.
Hilzoy, it’s you who are inadvertently rewriting history because you don’t know the history. Read Adrien’s post. Follow the links. Go back to posts from the era. “More troops” was just the headline — and an inaccurate one at that.
My argument, at least, is just: Anbar was successful before the surge, and that’s a reason not to say that it was caused by the surge.
OK.
Plus, if the surge does mean “the counterinsurgency strategy”, I don’t know anyone who opposed it. In particular, Senator Obama did not.
Exactly.
Can someone point to Obama or any other Dem politician going on record opposing bringing COIN tactics to other parts of Iraq?
Can someone point to Obama arguing against Sadr calling a cease fire?
Did the extra troops wall off Baghdad?
Did the extra troops cleanse Baghdad neighborhoods?
This is misdirection. Sleight of hand. Ex post facto patchwork justification.
von: How am I rewriting history, exactly?
I’m fine with an argument like this: the surge was not a mere increase in troop strength. Sending troops to Iraq and having them just sit on a base all day would have been entirely counterproductive. The surge was an increase in troop strength in the service of a counterinsurgency strategy.
That’s great. I am not trying to argue that the surge was just any old increase in troops.
But the surge is not itself the counterinsurgency strategy in its entirety. Or at least it wasn’t before yesterday. And while it’s fine to say: no, the surge isn’t just an increase in troops — as though it would have been just as good to have them wander around in clown costumes doing cartwheels as carrying out a COIN strategy — it is not OK to try to pretend that “the surge” started in the summer of 2006, includes McFarland’s work during that summer in Anbar, etc.
Again, my interest in this is (a) that what McCain said the day before yesterday raises real questions about whether he knows why the violence went down, and (b) the fact that he cannot seem to admit error. It is not in arguing for or against the surge, claiming that it had no COIN component, etc.
Adrien, if McCain was a supporter of more troops for so long, why did he even vote for the war in the first place, when it was obvious that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. were going to invade Iraq with far too few troops to properly secure the country?
Nate, this wasn’t “obvious” to most of the Democratic members of Congress. So the criticism, aside from being unfair, is untrue.
Von, it was obvious to me, J. Nobody on the Internet. It was obvious to hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets to protest the Iraq war. If it was obvious to people who DON’T have staffs, and security breifings, and all the rest of the resources a congresscritter has, then they should have been able to figure it out too.
There are plenty of reasons for any congresscritter to have voted for the war even though they knew Bush was mishandling it and lying from the beginning. Hope that it’d work out despite Bush. Maybe they figured once things turned sour Bush would either leave or try and do things right, instead of making things worse and worse for years and years. Maybe they believed the lies, and were targeted with more lies and made up “facts” than J. Random Nobody, so thought Saddam really and truly had nukes targeted at New York. Or maybe they were just trying to make short term political calculations that voting against the war would hurt them politically, and didn’t figure Iraq would become the expensive disaster it has been. (Clinton?)
But John McCain’s not running on being a politican who made a bad decision as part of political calculation, he’s running on his support of more troops for “the surge” and his “maverickness” and “integrity”. So if he thought we needed more troops from the beginning, and isn’t afraid to break with the Republicans because of his integrity, why didn’t he oppose sending too few troops into Iraq?
Could it be that all of us, (well, OK, many of us), have gotten a little imprecise and sloppy with the term?
It’s fairly common to see The Surge used to refer to the “Petraeus Plan” in general, as implemented in Central Iraq (the new New Way Forward strategy with clear and hold and more focus on local political leaders and so on, per the General’s book). And it’s fairly common to see The Surge used to refer to the five brigade force buildup ordered by the President to support Petraeus’ effort in Baghdad.
McCain looks to be guilty of the same imprecision.
The Silly Season is nearly upon us. You can tell because the principle of charity has lost its lustre.
I wonder if some of this is that you weren’t aware at the time (2006, 2007) of the changes in counterinsurgency strategy.
Was that *changes* in counterinsurgency strategy, or belated *adoption* of counterinsurgency strategy?
Perhaps some of the defenders of OurJohn could actually…(I know I’m asking a lot)…document even one criticism he made of the stupidest strategy ever between Mar03 and Jan07. I have tried to find the quotes myself of his fierce denunciation of Rumsfeld or Bush for planning the minimalist invasion, disbanding Iraqi institutions and then planning to pull out in three months. Which was btw what they actually started doing. Orders were sent from CentCom to Baghdad for units to begin planning their move back to Kuwait. Then–as Rummy said–‘shit happened’.
Little advice for future Repub invaders: To fail to plan is to plan to fail.
Read that somewhere.
Hilzoy- Please check the email at obsidianinfo listed above.
“More troops” was just the headline — and an inaccurate one at that.
But Von, it wasn’t just a headline. That is how John McCain discussed it! He was not talking up COIN, he was talking about more troops. As the Surge.
A few pieces of evidence.
And when people opposed sending more troops to Iraq as the surge, they were not opposing using COIN tactics. Actually, many of the Surge opponents were calling for COIN tactics from the beginning (hearts and minds after all is COIN dogma).
And Surge opponents were not against Sadr calling for a cease fire. And they were not against Sunni outreach and collaboration vs. AQI. And they were not against the sectarian violence dying down (tragically, as a result of the sectarian cleansing already undertaken).
Obama opposed providing the troops to take the counterinsurgency strategy that was succeeding in Anbar to the rest of Iraq.
I’m pretty sure no one ever proposed that, because everyone recognized that we don’t have enough troops to practice COIN throughout Iraq. The surge sent enough troops to expand the effort in Anbar and start it in Baghdad, and I seem to recall McCain arguing at the time that we would need 50,000 extra troops to do even that.
I’ve concluded that John McCain must be reading NRO ..
A retraction. SenJohn joined Hegel, Collins, Schwarzkof & a few others in criticising Rummy in 04. Studiously avoided attacking Bush or calling for resignations.
McCain has repeated ad nauseum, for months and months now, the idea that Obama voted against and/or strongly opposed “the Surge”. If Von and others think he is being perfectly clear and consistent here in his definition of “a surge” (note, “a” not “the”, it seems to be a generic term now, one whose definition you’d expect to see in Websters), in which it is a collection of *tactics*, including but not limited to “clearing and holding” and “increasing troop numbers”, then they had best demonstrate Obama’s voting against and/or opposing the tactic, “clearing and holding”. Else, Obama can not be accused of opposing “the Surge”, but just one tactic, the troop increase, and one that was clearly not responsible for the Sunni Awakening.
Can’t have it both ways, folks. But of course this is all just ridiculous. Everyone in America understands the surge to be the surge (aka, increase) of troops. I can’t wait for McCain to explain his new definition in a debate.
Thatemailname, telling hilzoy to “go back to school and get an education” is a sorry reflection on your intelligence — and your manners.
Get some.
von: Nate, this wasn’t “obvious” to most of the Democratic members of Congress. So the criticism, aside from being unfair, is untrue.
More accurately, Von, what happened was that Eric Shinseki, then Chief of Staff of the Army, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a successful occupation of Iraq couldn’t be done without several hundred thousand troops – presumably, he had in mind U.S. Central Command OPLAN 1003-98, which specified 500,000.
Rumsfeld had already made clear his opposition to the military expert’s estimate of 500,000, and Shinseki did not want to appear in direct conflict with the President and the Secretary of Defense.
Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, said to the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2003:
It’s meiosis to claim that it wasn’t “obvious” to members of Congres “that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. were going to invade Iraq with far too few troops to properly secure the country”: say rather that it was deliberately obscured.
It’s probably not worth noting that hilzoy has a Ph.D in philosophy and teaches at a rather prestigious university, as well as having a whole lot more hard-to-understand evidence of her rather advanced education, including but certainly not limited to her body of work here.
So, our new friend may disagree with hilzoy, but the notion that she’s uneducated is so trivially easy to refute that one wonders about the level of perception of the guy who said it.
Perhaps we Obama supporters should simply give McCain his due on the Surge and acknowledge that he got it right.
That said, what else has he gotten right?
What else does he propose to do to make this country a better place?
What will he do to “Surge” the economy — other than a gas-tax holiday?
By the way, it’s nice to see that Sen. Obama doesn’t need Joe Lieberman or Lindsey Graham whispering answers into his ear during his overseas press conferences.
Slartibartfast, sorry but my perceptions can indeed be rather basic. It is what is.
I’m glad to see that the media is actually calling McCain on one of his mistakes.
However, I don’t rteally find this particular mistake all that important. To me the important issue is this: if the surge(however you define it) was successful, then why is McCain arguing that we should ignore the will of the people and Prime Minister of Iraq and stay? he equates staying with winning. He equates a planned withdrawal on a time table with losing. THAT’s what’s completely bogus. And that’s where I think he needs to be attacked.
Was that *changes* in counterinsurgency strategy, or belated *adoption* of counterinsurgency strategy?
Adoption is probably more precise.
But the surge is not itself the counterinsurgency strategy in its entirety. Or at least it wasn’t before yesterday.
No, the Surge was about bringing a counterinsurgency strategy that was succeeding in Anbar to the rest of Iraq.
And when people opposed sending more troops to Iraq as the surge, they were not opposing using COIN tactics. Actually, many of the Surge opponents were calling for COIN tactics from the beginning (hearts and minds after all is COIN dogma).
And Surge opponents were not against Sadr calling for a cease fire. And they were not against Sunni outreach and collaboration vs. AQI. And they were not against the sectarian violence dying down (tragically, as a result of the sectarian cleansing already undertaken).
No, but again, they were against providing the troops requested to support each of these endeavors.
And that’s the real rub: You’re right that no one was against these things. And perhaps the last year would have occurred without the surge, or despite an ongoing drawdown in troops (which many in Congress, including Obama, were demanding). But it doesn’t seem likely.
Yes, Anbar preceeded the Surge and was successful before the Surge.
Posted by: von | July 24, 2008 at 09:51 AM
Thanks. ’nuff said.
And that’s the real rub: You’re right that no one was against these things. And perhaps the last year would have occurred without the surge, or despite an ongoing drawdown in troops (which many in Congress, including Obama, were demanding). But it doesn’t seem likely.
That’s what it boils down to Von. That and this:
Let’s take the situation with the extra troops, the benefit that resulted and add in the costs.
Then take the situation without the extra troops, the benefit that would have resulted and add in the costs.
Compare.
This gets at a few points:
1. Now what? Literally. Are the gains permanent? Sustainable? If not, what was gained?
2. What people keep forgetting is that the Sunni sheiks that began to probe the alliance with the US in Anbar were heavily motivated by the Dem victory and the increasing likelihood of withdrawal.
That is, the specter of withdrawal motivated them to reach out to the US. They knew that the curtain was closing, and that were not going to be the long term occupier in need of targeting.
Or so they thought.
And that’s the real rub: You’re right that no one was against these things. And perhaps the last year would have occurred without the surge, or despite an ongoing drawdown in troops (which many in Congress, including Obama, were demanding). But it doesn’t seem likely.
Allow me to reiterate Von, this really is a fine distillation of the issues.
Well done.
It allows for the non-surge related occurences (Sadr cease fire, grisly peace gained by sectarian cleansing, walling off of Baghdad, Anbar Awakening (partially at least)) to be separated out.
Ultimately: I think the addition of troops did have an impact apart from those, and it did help somewhat. I just don’t think that it was it the main driver behind the positive trends, or that the positive trends will last unless we get to the real issues.
What the surge was supposed to deliver: long lasting, durable political comrpomises.
We associate “The Surge” with the deployment of extra troops to Iraq beginning around Jan 2007, but it was much more than that. It involved a change in overall strategy as well as implementation of new tactics at the ground level.
The strategy behind it was actually coalescing from various entrepreneurial approaches developed at the tactical level the preceding year.
Regardless, Obama had nothing to do with this success, the US Army and US Marines did. Without the surge, the new tactics would probably have been fruitless and the Anbar Awakening short-lived.
“Are the gains permanent? Sustainable?”
McCain must think they are not – or why else is he so hesistant to get on with a withdrawal?
I wasn’t referring to you so much as the person you were responding to you, btfb.
I never realized just how far synecdochic literalism could be taken.
If taking and holding an area, killing and not killing people in the process, are, according to John McCain, the beginning of counterinsurgency and thus the surge, then credit for the surge belongs to Rudy Giuliani. Plungers forever!
As far as the drop in violence in Al Anbar and elsewhere, first and most important was the Sunni tribes and their respective militants disgust with Al Quaeda and their bloody tactics.
There were only two brigades, I think, of Marines sent to Al Anbar, or about 6 or 7 thousand men. They would not have put a dent in the AQI murderous car bombings without local Iraqi’s cooperation in identifying and willingness in killing their former allies.
Even 60 thousand more US troops would not have worked. In fact, in several firefights the locals had with AQ, the US tried to help with extra firepower but couldn’t tell friend or foe and ended up killing friendly Sunni’s instead of AQ. Not surprisingly, they were asked to butt out.
Now maybe talk of the a surge by the US had some bearing on Sunni willingness to cooperate, but that is unlikely. More likely was a decision to stand down (temporarily) for reasons of internal Iraqi politics.
I always thought Surge was supposed to deliver a clean washload. Under the McCain synechdochic definition, if , upon Awakening, you feel a surge lasting more than four hours, see a doctor immediately.
Without the surge, the new tactics would probably have been fruitless and the Anbar Awakening short-lived.
This is an empirical question. We can’t know for sure what would have happened without the surge. But we do know that it’s not, in fact, a matter of “history” that the surge “began” the Anbar Awakening. That’s the point of this post. John McCain was wrong. And he was smugly deriding Obama at the time he was wrong. Which kinda makes him a Moran.
Von,
Not clear what you are debating. Once you agree to this:
“Yes, Anbar preceeded the Surge and was successful before the Surge.”
you have conceded hilzoy’s core point.
There were only two brigades, I think, of Marines sent to Al Anbar, or about 6 or 7 thousand men.
I read that number was closer to 4-5 thousand FWIW.
John McCain’s own words on January 5, 2007 (emphasis mine):
Later, he said…
So John McCain described the surge in FUTURE tense. He did not say we had been surging for 6 months, he spoke of what “we will need” and “we will give”. Therefore, his own definition of the surge at that time was a future event consisting of an increase in troops. Plain and unambiguous English. Hilzoy is 100% correct.
If anybody can’t grasp that, give up attempting to analyze anything. This one’s a slam dunk … a real one, not the Bush/CIA/WMD kind.
McCain did misspeak on timing, but not on the strategy. “Surge” is a term that has sloppily used, and too often it’s been interchanged with “surge strategy” or “COIN strategy”, etc.
But the Anbar Awakening was itself a COIN strategy, and Col. MacFarland wrote about it here. On the larger issue, McCain is accurate in making the point that Obama is denying that the surge strategy has contributed to the improvements in Iraq.
What bothers me about this whole debate is this. Obama was downtalking the Petraeus strategy, and one of the reasons Obama gave was that the Awakening movement started first, implying that the Petraeus strategy had nothing to do with said movement, as if the Awakenings and the surge strategy operated on separate and independent tracks. It’s a false and misleading notion that Obama was trotting out. The Petraeus strategy is the Anbar strategy is the Awakening strategy. McCain has been right for over four years that this was the course we should’ve been taking.
The plan that incented the sheiks to join in Anbar is virtually the same as what Petraeus implemented country-wide. Obama seemed agreeable to how the Awakening movement proceeded, which brings him to this obvious contradiction: If Obama approves of the Awakenings (and it sure looks like he does), then he must also be approving of the counterinsurgency strategy that birthed and grew it. Yet, Obama has outright rejected the same strategy when it was applied to a larger area of operations.
And here’s another contradiction. Obama outright rejected the troop increase AND strategy in Iraq, yet he favors a troop increase in Afghanistan and has said nothing about those troops would do when they get to Karzai country. If he proposes a proper COIN strategy, then he would look like a hypocrite, so I have serious doubts that he would recommend such a plan. For Obama, COIN is the strategy that must not be named. Or credited. For obviously political reasons.
Sen. Obama doesn’t need Joe Lieberman or Lindsey Graham whispering answers into his ear during his overseas press conferences.
Hell, Sens. Reed and Hagel are decorative background fixtures, apparently, at least while Obama with Obama in public. The Daily Show last night showed a clip of Hagel declining to join in on an answer to a press question even when invited by Sen. Obama.
Von,
Not clear what you are debating. Once you agree to this:
“Yes, Anbar preceeded the Surge and was successful before the Surge.”
you have conceded hilzoy’s core point.
No shit. And yet, why is that sooooo hard to grasp for some of these people here?
It’s as if these people have a Humpty Dumpty ability that complements McCain’s: He can make words mean anything, even if it’s patently absurd and just plain b.s., and these people can make themselves believe it, even if it’s patently absurd and just plain b.s.
Humpty McDumpty and his Bobble-Head Brigade. So much stupid it almost hurts.
I always thought Surge was supposed to deliver a clean washload. Under the McCain synechdochic definition, if , upon Awakening, you feel a surge lasting more than four hours, see a doctor immediately.
This raises a good point. When I hear the word Surge, I tend to think of something that is intended to prevent the situation under which an Awakening could occur. Well, perhaps that’s an unfair interpretation; one could also look at it as something intended to prolong an Awakening that had already occurred. That, and rot your Teeth.
But in either case, I suppose I’m livin’ in the past…
Obama is denying that the surge strategy has contributed to the improvements in Iraq.
False. In terms of Obama opposing COIN as a strategy, as oppose to opposing increasing the number of soldiers, can you explain why you believe that ? If your answer is just, as I perhaps mistakenly assume, that he favored withdrawal, that’s no basis at all for what you’re saying unless you define supporting COIN in general to mean believing that the best possible strategy for Iraq in 2007 was COIN.
No, the Surge was about bringing a counterinsurgency strategy that was succeeding in Anbar to the rest of Iraq.
von,
I hate to keep chewing on this same bone, but this just does not seem to me to be an accurate statement. The strategy used in Anbar was notably different from those employed later in central-eastern and southern Iraq, based on local differences peculiar to Anbar – the most salient of which being a local population which was alienated on ethnic and sectarian lines from the central govt. in Baghdad, and which we pacified by playing down those points of friction.
I just don’t see how you can claim that Anbar was some sort of prototype for the strategy employed in Baghdad and environs, when the differences between them are so obvious, and not in a trivial area but rather cutting right to the heart of why the Anbar Awakening worked so well to reduce violence and pacify the province.
I’ll ask again: where in the later areas which The Surge focused on, are the former insurgent groups which we’ve co-opted by training and in some cases arming them?
The closest analog to the Sunni leaders who switched from supporting the insurgency to being on our side as a result of the Anbar Awakening in central-eastern and southern Iraq would be Moqtada Al Sadr and his militia. When did we start training JAM in order to co-opt the Sadrist movement? I must have missed that somehow.
It seems to me that McCain is attempting to conflate (for obvious political purposes) something which Obama and a great many other people did not support: the sending of additional combat brigades to Iraq instead of making an attempt to implement the recommendations of the ISG, with something which neither Obama nor many (if any) of the people in opposition to the former policy were actually opposed to: better use of COIN doctrine to shift the tactical and strategic focus in Iraq so as to make better use of the troops we had in Iraq irrespective of their numbers. To claim that Obama or anyone else was opposed to doing this seems to me to be a grotesque distortion.
Now you can make a case that a shift in COIN strategy might not have succeeded without the additional brigades which were actually sent – but note that this then raises the question as to why the troops:population ratio stipulated in the COIN manual written by Gen. Petraeus was not used to determine the necessary troop levels for the Surge (the actual number was distinctly smaller than the ratios suggested by the book), and how it is that the correct troop level to make the new strategy work as well as it did was obtained by anything other than sheer dumb luck. IIRC the Surge was announced and implemented not with a lot of triumphal declarations that it would without question succeed, but rather with the declaration that amongst a variety of not very appealing options it was our best remaining shot. For those who supported it to now claim that it was obviously correct from the get-go and anyone who wasn’t onboard was a fool is to rewrite history.
In fact from my perspective the elephant in the room which nobody seems to want to discuss is that the success which the Surge has enjoyed to date has been purchased with the currency of an unofficial soft partition of Iraq. IMHO the reason why a great many more troops were not needed to implement a COIN strategy across the entire country is that both Anbar and northern Iraq were effectively taken “off the board” in terms of needing large numbers of troops to maintain adequate ratios vs. the population, by cutting deals with local Sunni and Kurdish elites which effectively undercut the authority of the central govt. to the point where the country has undergone an informal partition between the Shia, the Sunni tribes in Anbar, and the Kurdish north. We have in a quiet sneaky way implemented something akin the Biden plan, in order to economize on the amount of force needed to run COIN operations so we can concentrate on central-eastern and southern Iraq where the intra-Shia contest is still unresolved.
For now, this looks with benefit of hindsight like a good choice – we have obtained better results than would otherwise be the case, without committing a much larger force which an across the board COIN strategy would have demanded, and which was politically implausible in late 2006/2007. The question is, will there be a price to be paid later, which we may come to regret. What happens if this state of affairs is no longer acceptable to the central govt. in Baghdad? It seems to me that this issue is likely to come to a head with the struggle over the Kirkuk region and the regional elections in the north. If that struggle explodes into widespread violence, or the now trained and armed Sunni groups in Anbar rise in revolt against the Maliki govt., then on balance the Surge may not look like such a good decision after all.
IMHO, YMMV, etc.
False. In terms of Obama opposing COIN as a strategy, as oppose to opposing increasing the number of soldiers, can you explain why you believe that
Your link doesn’t say what you suggest, wd. Obama was crediting other factors for the improved conditions, then he gave the troops credit, all the while giving no credit for the strategy that the troops executed. Pretty slick maneuver. Obama’s own bill is a direct and completion rejection of the strategy, and like he’s been frequently saying, he’s been consistent about his position.
The Petraeus strategy is the Anbar strategy is the Awakening strategy. McCain has been right for over four years that this was the course we should’ve been taking.
McCain was saying for four years that we should be reaching out to Sunnis in Anbar to collaborate against AQI? Do you have any links that show McCain calling for this four years ago? Three? Two?
The plan that incented the sheiks to join in Anbar is virtually the same as what Petraeus implemented country-wide.
No it’s not. Can you provide the Southern, Shiite analogue?
Obama seemed agreeable to how the Awakening movement proceeded, which brings him to this obvious contradiction: If Obama approves of the Awakenings (and it sure looks like he does), then he must also be approving of the counterinsurgency strategy that birthed and grew it. Yet, Obama has outright rejected the same strategy when it was applied to a larger area of operations.
No. He rejected the troop increase but did not reject the COIN strategy and/or the Sunni outreach. This is false, and your link does not prove what you claim: that Obama opposed employing COIN and Sunni outreach.
You know Charles, for someone that admits that McCain might have mispoke, you seem to be getting spun around yourself a bit.
CB, wrong. Obama has clearly said that the increase in the number of troops played a role, rigyhtly, IMO, saying that other factors were as important or more important. Even the Iraqi government doesn’t give the Surge any credit.
Secondly, throughout this thread, people have referred to the Anbar Awakening as being an example of COIN succeeding. Baloney.
We lucked into the Awakening. COIN involves reaching out to the local population, bringing them into your fold, then working with them against an insurgency.
The sheiks came to us, not because of anything we did, but because they were getting fed up with al Qaeda in Iraq and saw that as an excellent way to get money from us. Sure we embraced their actions, but to call it COIN is ridiculous.
We did not win the hearts and minds of the sheiks, only their pocketbooks.
To clarify:
If Obama approves of the Awakenings (and it sure looks like he does), then he must also be approving of the counterinsurgency strategy that birthed and grew it.
Are you saying that the surge of troops gave birth to the Awakenings?
I thought we established already that this is metaphysically impossible.
If not, what was the COIN strategy that gave birth to the Awakenings, and where is the evidence that Obama opposed that strategy?
OMG, now I know. It wasn’t the dog that ate my homework…it was the SURGE.
At this point, this argument is getting ridiculous. OK–the ridiculous started with McCain’s new and unimproved surge definition, but now we’re beyond ridiculous.
He rejected the troop increase but did not reject the COIN strategy and/or the Sunni outreach.
Eric, show me where Obama has embraced COIN doctrine, or even given it credit. His own bill is titled the Iraq War De-Escalation Act. The COIN that Petraeus implemented was an escalation, and that’s exactly what you liberals called it last Jan-Feb of 2007. Petraeus took soldiers out FOBs and put ’em on the streets and in combat outposts, just like MacFarland did in Anbar. Had you bothered to read MacFarland’s account, you would’ve seen that.
Oh, and I didn’t say that Obama opposed Sunni outreach. I don’t doubt that Obama likes to reach out, with or without preconditions. I said Obama opposed the strategy that caused the Sunni outreach to succeed.
Since November 2003, McCain has called for both more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy. See the timeline for yourself. Quote:
At that time McCain, COIN had been well established doctrine for decades, utilized primarily by the Marines, per their Small Wars Manual.
Charles Bird:
“McCain has been right for over four years that this was the course we should’ve been taking.”
The policy was
a) military aggression against a nation that posed no threat
b) decreasing the welfare of an Iraqi populace already reeling from sanctions and a brutal dictator:
b1) causing the deaths of many 10s of thousannds of Iraqi civlians
b2) causing the internal displacement and exile of millions of Iraqis
b3) lowering the general health of Iraqis
b4) creating an opportunity for terrorists, criminals, and religous extremists to intimidate and prey upon the Iraqi populace
b5) reversing the progressive social mobility of women in Iraqi society
c) creating numerous war crimes, including the imprisonment and torture of innocent civilians
d) causing the deaths of over 4,000 US military personel
e) throwing away hundreds of billions of dollars in an effort that gives the US no percievable economic, miliatary, or strategic benefit
f) emotionally and economically damaging thousands of American lives
g) undermining US democracy by starting a war based on numerous half-truths, misleading statements, and lies to the American populace
g) harming the United States image in the world
h) harming the United States diplomatically
i) weakening and over-stretching the US military
j) potentially missing an opportunity to pursue Islamic radical threats in Afghanistan
k) increasing anti-US terrorist recruitement in Western & Central Asia and elsewhere
Amidst this foreign policy disaster, the likes of which we have not seen since Vietnam and which may yet shadow Vietnam, the Republican party offers “the Surge”, one of many factors to have reduced the violence in current Iraq.
This surge itself has failed on its own terms to accomplish this goal.
You are grasping at one tiny blade of yellow green grass amidst a lawn that has throroughly deterioated into a patch of weed-strewn crusty soil.
Pathetic.
“McCain was a critic of Rumsfeld’s approach all the way back to early 2004 – he repeatedly argued for increased troop levels and pointedly criticized Bush throughout.”
That’s what McCain has claimed in recent times. The facts are less black and white. (I include some other salient quotes.)
Second link:
Washingtonpost.com:
I believe the link provided by Charles Bird nicely sums up how wrong McCain was. The “tipping point”, per that document, occurred prior to the arrival of surge troops and troops were being pulled out of Ramadi before the surge troops were in place.
Moreover, the document states precisely when the Awakening began, and it had little relation with any purported change in strategy.
The surge was a specific component of an overall strategy. The idea that the surge = the whole of that strategy, as is being argued by McCain is nonsense.
He was demonstrably wrong. The fact that he cannot simply admit as such is very telling.
Obama supporters and leftists: the talking points are as follows,
McCain doesn’t understand the basic facts of an issue that supposedly defines his expertise and unique competence.
Obama voted against the war, McCain voted for it. Thus McCain takes responsibility for the foreign policy disaster more so than the recent leveling off of violence in Iraq, whereas the supposedly “naive and inexperienced” Obama showed judgement and wisdom well beyond his years.
Had we voted against the surge, we would have saved lives and treasure, we may have seen the same reduction in violence.
Had we voted aginst the war, we would have avoided this monumental 5 1/2 year foreign policy disaster.
Eric, show me where Obama has embraced COIN doctrine, or even given it credit. His own bill is titled the Iraq War De-Escalation Act.
Wait a minute, you said that Obama opposed COIN doctrine. Thus, it is incumbent on you to show me where he opposed it. I don’t prove the negative. His own bill is silent as to COIN doctrine. That is a non-sequitur.
The COIN that Petraeus implemented was an escalation, and that’s exactly what you liberals called it last Jan-Feb of 2007.
See, this is where you and McCain get tripped up. You want to count the Sunni outreach/COIN under the surge umbrella, and then use that as a cudgel to beat anyone that opposed the troop increase. The Sunni outreach was NOT an escalation. That is wrong.
Petraeus took soldiers out FOBs and put ’em on the streets and in combat outposts, just like MacFarland did in Anbar. Had you bothered to read MacFarland’s account, you would’ve seen that.
I have read MacFarland’s account. But that is not an escalation, that is just a different posture for the same troops. Movement, not increase.
Oh, and I didn’t say that Obama opposed Sunni outreach. I don’t doubt that Obama likes to reach out, with or without preconditions. I said Obama opposed the strategy that caused the Sunni outreach to succeed.
But that’s not even what MacFarland said. Had you bothered to read his account, you would know that. MacFarland said that what the Democrats’ victory in the midterms enabled his approach to succeed. And he didn’t have extra troops from the surge because he did what he did before those extra troops arrived.
According to MacFarland:
“A growing concern that the U.S. would leave Iraq and leave the Sunnis defenseless against Al-Qaeda and Iranian-supported militias made these younger [tribal] leaders [who led the Awakening] open to our overtures.”
As for your McCain quote, it says nothing about the Awakenings strategy that you said he has been calling for for years. You said:
The Petraeus strategy is the Anbar strategy is the Awakening strategy. McCain has been right for over four years that this was the course we should’ve been taking.
Do you have any links to McCain calling for the Awakening strategy four years ago? Three? Two?
The NYT settles the issue by going to an independent expert–Michael O’Hanlon. Sigh
von said… No, the Surge was about bringing a counterinsurgency strategy that was succeeding in Anbar to the rest of Iraq.
Charles Bird said… The plan that incented the sheiks to join in Anbar is virtually the same as what Petraeus implemented country-wide.
False. The plan for the Anbar Awakening was to arm Sunni militias and have them turn on Al Qaeda. This would have been impossible to “implement country-wide” since AQ hid amongst the Sunnis, not the Shiites, because THEY ARE SUNNI.
It appears that several people still have the same problems that McCain does in differentiating Sunni, Shiite, and AQ.
So everybody is getting after McCain about the chronology, yet not a thing has been said about Barack Obama saying the Anbar Awakening happened in part as a result of the Novemnber 2006 elections. Of course, it started months before the November 2006 elections.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/2008_Dems_Facebook_War_+_Peace.htm
McCain has clearly explained that he is using the phrase “the surge” to encompass the larger counterinsurgent strategy. It’s shorthand. A little confusing, maybe, but it holds together fine.
Amazingly, I see people here pointing out that the surge was NOT the entire strategy, and then condemnding McCain. If they’d read what’s being said, they’d notice that this is precisely what McCain is saying: the SURGE in troops was part of a larger overall strategy. He calls this strategy “the surge” for the sake of brevity, and because for better or worse that’s what it’s come to be known as. As confusing as this may be, it’d be far more confusing to try to give it a new name synonymous enough with recent progress so as to avoid explaining it every time.
This is a really, really poor blog entry. Half of it is obtuse misunderstand, the other is juvenile mocking. Someone should buzz Andrew Sullivan and tell him what’s happenening to his blog while he’s off.
“The world is a safer place because Iraq is a safer place. Anytime violence is reduced in one place, it redounds to global security. If you don’t buy that premise, then you are *excusing* all sorts of terror.”
Indeed, Stalin’s reduction of violence in the Soviet Union rebounded to global security, then. If you don’t buy that premise, then you are *excusing* all sorts of terror.”
Another great step forward in global security:
And so the world was made a safer place because China was a safer place. Anytime violence is reduced in one place, it redounds to global security. No excuses if you deny this!
“I wonder if some of this is that you weren’t aware at the time (2006, 2007) of the changes in counterinsurgency strategy.”
Gee, I well remember trying to explain to some folks on this blog even earlier that there hadn’t been a counter-insurgency strategy, and being told that there sure was, because we were fighting insurgents, and there was a strategy, so Q.E.D. and how stupid was anyone who disagreed?
To be sure, such comments came from some lifelong Republican longtime contributors here. I’ll not embarrass anyone with quotes unless necessary.
But the rightwingosphere was, back then, filled with denunciations of anyone who criticized The Winning Bush Strategy and of anyone who claimed that there was an insurgency at all, let alone that We Weren’t Winning. Does the term “loser-defeatists” being applied to those who said there was no counter-insurgency strategy, and that the Bush/Rumsfeld approach wasn’t working, ring a bell?
“Hilzoy, it’s you who are inadvertently rewriting history because you don’t know the history.”
Mindreading foul: 3 points.
“No, the Surge was about bringing a counterinsurgency strategy that was succeeding in Anbar to the rest of Iraq.”
This is twisting English beyond usefulness. The “surge” was the surge: sending more brigades of troops. That’s all. If you want to talk about other changes in strategy, fine. Retroactive changes in meaning don’t fly.
But by “fly,” I mean, and have always meant “I put on a batsuit every night and fight crime, because criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot.”
“Regardless, Obama had nothing to do with this success, the US Army and US Marines did.”
As usual from so many American commentators, Iraqis are invisible as regards what happens in Iraq. They are never actors: only Americans, and particularly the American military, are.
And down the memory hole goes the huge popularity on sites such as Protein Wisdom, and so many others, that the actual problem was that we were “fighting with one hand tied behind our back” and that the actual solution was to kill as many Iraqis as possible, because violence is all they understand, and thus they’d be intimidated and thus We’d Win.
And anyone who objected to this, and called for winning hearts and minds with a traditional counter-insurgency approach, was a terrorist-sympathizing, mush-headed, liberal who wanted to apply therapy and wimpiness, thus proving that Democrats/liberals could never be trusted with national security/military issues.
Your link doesn’t say what you suggest, wd. Obama was crediting other factors for the improved conditions, then he gave the troops credit, all the while giving no credit for the strategy that the troops executed.
Your claim, the one I said was false, was that “Obama is denying that the surge strategy has contributed to the improvements in Iraq.” You now want to differentiate between him saying that the increased number of soldiers (which he opposed) contributed to the improvements in Iraq, which he says in my link, and him saying that the increased number of soldiers using a counter-insurgency strategy (which he didn’t oppose) contributed to the improvements in Iraq, and further hold that by not saying the latter he is denying that the surge strategy (the one to escalate the number of soldiers in Iraq) contributed? to the improvements?
If that’s the case we’ve clarified our differences; I’m somewhat doubtful that you’ve consistently used the words “surge strategy” to mean something other than the increased number of soldiers, and you would still have no support for your claim that Obama is denying that the surge strategy contributed to improvements.
Jeepers, we need a counter-insurgency strategy against open tags.
Mr F.:
The confusion arises because McCain uses the Surge to mean only the increase in troops (when he criticizes Obama for “opposing the surge”) and then uses the surge to mean everything that has gone our way over the past 12-18 months (when he tries to tie Obama’s opposition to a troop increase to mean opposition to Awakenings, common sense COIN and what has resulted from other unrelated factors (Sadr cease fire, sectarian cleansing, walling off of Baghdad, etc)).
“The world is a safer place because Iraq is a safer place. Anytime violence is reduced in one place, it redounds to global security. If you don’t buy that premise, then you are *excusing* all sorts of terror. Do you not believe that the world would be a better place if Mugabe and his thug brigades were in prison, or if the warlords that are perpetrating genocide in Darfur were dead? The executions of Saddam, Uday and Qusay, and Zarqawi ABSOLUTELY made the world a safer place. Any claim to the contrary is, at the very least, “obtuse”.”
This is an incomplete analysis at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.
First, Iraq may be a safer place than it was in say, mid-2006, but it’s not a safer place than it was in 2002.
Second, this analysis ignores opportunity costs. Namely, that without ANY Iraq invasion whatsoever, and with a proper focus on Afghanistan, the world would be safer than 1) it was in early 2001 2) it was before any *surge* or *surge-related-programs-activities*, and especially 3) it is now.
So if you’re going to bring all kinds of other examples of evil in the world to the calculus, you need to make a case for why invading Iraq and the time we did, and when we did, maximized anti-evil utility. That’s a very hard case.
So McCain uses the “Surge” for brevity…I guess that means COIN was too short?
Anytime violence is reduced in one place, it redounds to global security.
So the world was a safer place after the fall of France in 1940 than it was during the invasion of Poland in 1939, because the violence had stopped. Got it.
“And here’s another contradiction. Obama outright rejected the troop increase AND strategy in Iraq, yet he favors a troop increase in Afghanistan and has said nothing about those troops would do when they get to Karzai country. If he proposes a proper COIN strategy, then he would look like a hypocrite, so I have serious doubts that he would recommend such a plan.”
So your assertion, then, Charles, is that even now there is no proper counter-insurgency strategy being run in Afghanistan by President Bush and his appointees? Have you been posting about this loser-defeatist failure anywhere?
“Since November 2003, McCain has called for both more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy.”
Fascinating, Charles: how about a recap of your positions on how well Bush’s strategies were doing in 2003 and 2004? Did, you, too, always criticize them as obvious failures?
“I believe we must have in place another full division, giving us the necessary manpower to conduct a focused counterinsurgency campaign across the Sunni triangle that seals off enemy operating areas, conducts search and destroy operations and holds territory.”
It’s your claim then, that military operations in which U.S. troops engaged in search and destroy operations against Sunni insurgents is what has led to a lessening of violence in Anbar province? That “search and destroy” is the heart of COIN, and that such military operations are the primary tool that has lessened violence in Anbar? Also fascinating, if so.
“This is a really, really poor blog entry. Half of it is obtuse misunderstand, the other is juvenile mocking. Someone should buzz Andrew Sullivan and tell him what’s happenening to his blog while he’s off.”
Your sense of understanding of things does seem rather consistent, fella. This isn’t Andrew Sullivan’s blog.
P.S. You also ignored the knock-on effect of additional terror recruitment enhanced by our invasion of Iraq, per the 2006 NIE.
The international perception of Afghanistan being a far more just intervention than Iraq meant it entailed far fewer unintended consequences like that.
So like I said, that’s a very hard case.
Jay, I followed your link and assume you mean this statement by Obama, “Sunni tribes, who started to see, after the Democrats were elected in 2006, the Americans may be leaving soon. We should start negotiating now.”
Here’s what Col. McFarland (the guy who John McCain likes to cite to, I’m sure you remember him) had to say about that:
Why We Succeeded
learly, a combination of factors, some of which we may not yet fully understand, contributed to this pivotal success. As mentioned before, the enemy overplayed its hand and the people were tired of Al-Qaeda. A series of assassinations had elevated younger, more aggressive tribal leaders to positions of influence. A growing concern that the U.S. would leave Iraq and leave the Sunnis defenseless against Al-Qaeda and Iranian-supported militias made these younger leaders open to our overtures.
I think Eric Martin at 3:02 PM put his finger on the problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_equivocation
“The Surge” — before, at the time, and after — has always included counterinsurgency tactics, including those used in Anbar.
This is flat out false. The surge was, is, and always has been, an increase in the number of troops. That’s what it when it was announced — you can’t go back in time and make it something it never was.
That’s called lying. von, McCain LIED about what the surge is, and you’re trying to find ANY excuse to cover that. Cognative dissonence much?
Could it be that all of us, (well, OK, many of us), have gotten a little imprecise and sloppy with the term?
No. Because
And it’s fairly common to see The Surge used to refer to the five brigade force buildup ordered by the President to support Petraeus’ effort in Baghdad.
is the only meaning of “surge” (which is why progressives called it “escalation”. Referring to anything else and saying it’s part of the surge is pretty ill-informed.
================
“More troops” was just the headline — and an
inaccurate one at that.Fixt! That was what Bush asked for when he announced the surge. He didn’t go to Congress and ask to pay insurgents the year before.
==================
the Surge was about bringing a counterinsurgency strategy that was succeeding in Anbar to the rest of Iraq.
It wasn’t until Your Hero goofed and needed to change the definition of “surge”.
I bet if we go in the Way-Back to the start of the troop escaltion, we won’t find any von posts or comments saying that the surge is already underway. Any takers?
========================
The sheiks came to us, not because of anything we did, but because they were getting fed up with al Qaeda in Iraq and saw that as an excellent way to get money from us.
And guns. For when we do leave, to force the Shi’ites into preserving their autonomy.
==========================
The COIN that Petraeus implemented was an escalation, and that’s exactly what you liberals called it last Jan-Feb of 2007.
No, that was the surge. Do try and keep up. I know if you’re as brain-dead as mcCain, it’s tough, but COIN and the surge/escalation are NOT the same no matter how loudly you now claim they are.
=======================
McCain has clearly explained that he is using the phrase “the surge” to encompass the larger counterinsurgent strategy. It’s shorthand. A little confusing, maybe, but it holds together fine.
Funny, where I come from pointing to a moose and calling it a horse isn’t “shorthand” or “confusing”, it’s either dumb-@$$ stupid or a lie. take your pick.
Thank you, Gary, but as I said in a quite similar (yet oddly parallel) context, the pain makes me a better person.
Charles said:
“Obama outright rejected the troop increase AND strategy in Iraq, yet he favors a troop increase in Afghanistan and has said nothing about those troops would do when they get to Karzai country. If he proposes a proper COIN strategy, then he would look like a hypocrite, so I have serious doubts that he would recommend such a plan.”
Lets set aside the fact that no one can offer quotes as to Obama rejecting COIN strategy.
Let’s focus on the alleged contradiction–if one believes, as Obama did, that it was a mistake to invade Iraq to the detriment of Afghanistan, how is hypocritical to reject (allegedly) a particular strategy that would prolong said mistake while advocating a similar policy in what he considers to be the more important theater of operations?
Wait a minute, you said that Obama opposed COIN doctrine. Thus, it is incumbent on you to show me where he opposed it.
I looked for evidence that Obama supported COIN doctrine, Eric, and came up empty. I can’t show you something that either does not exist or is beyond my ability to find. But be that as it may, the bill is prima facie evidence of Obama’s opposition to the strategy. It is in diametric opposition to the plan that Petraeus proposed and put into practice. Obama’s 16-month timetable is in direct opposition to Petraeus, who favors a conditions based approach. Logic would dictate that if a politician puts forward a bill and makes proposals that accomplishes the precise opposite of what the general intends, then it’s fair to say that said politician is opposed to what the general intends to do. I will conclude that your refusal to find evidence of Obama’s support of COIN doctrine is because you can’t find it. Obama’s emphasis from the beginning of the surge (read strategy) has been troop withdrawals, with nary a comment whatsoever on the strategy actually proposed and in place.
BTW, when you put more troops at risk and in harm’s way, you are escalating. It isn’t merely placement decision, especially in Anbar 2006. You can call it a “Sunni outreach”, but the fact of the matter is that this outreach involved the application of a comprehensive COIN strategy in Ramadi, which then spread to Anbar and other provinces. Ironic that you’re accusing me of spinning.
Do you have any links to McCain calling for the Awakening strategy four years ago? Three? Two?
What a disingenuous question, Eric. The fact of the matter is that McCain has been calling for implementation of a COIN strategy for several years, and the Awakening strategy used by the Marines in Anbar is a COIN strategy.
Check out juancole.com. His latest post is on the surge, noting that:
-the reduction in violence in Baghdad from the troop increase was directly related to an uptick in ethnic cleansing of Sunni’s from the city this winter and spring.
-Iraq remains as violent as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and recent Somalia.
-political reconciliation has not been acheived.
-the success of the Anbar Awakening was likely related to a lack of US troops. Too many troops would have led to Iraqi support for guerrillas that would have made it difficult for Sunni leaders to call on the Americans for help.
Juan Cole is definitely an authority; his take is based on an intricate and ongoing study of the region, as is displayed in the above mentioned post.
I see that each time Charles Bird is asked to supply specifics, he falls back on “what he knows”. No wonder he likes McCain. They’re two low information peas in a pod.
Charles: “The fact of the matter is that […] the Awakening strategy used by the Marines in Anbar is a COIN strategy.”
Charles: “If [Obama] proposes a proper COIN strategy [in Afghanistan], then he would look like a hypocrite, so I have serious doubts that he would recommend such a plan.”
So it’s your contention, Charles, that Obama should propose what’s already being done?
“Logic would dictate that if a politician puts forward a bill and makes proposals that accomplishes the precise opposite of what the general intends, then it’s fair to say that said politician is opposed to what the general intends to do.”
Charles, as always, Iraqis are invisible in your plans and determinations about Iraq. It’s nice that the occupying general has various thoughts. What is it that Iraqis think, and why do you more or less never mention them, when, you know, discussing Iraq?
then it’s fair to say that said politician is opposed to what the general intends to do. I will conclude that your refusal to find evidence of Obama’s support of COIN doctrine is because you can’t find it.
Try as you might, Charles, you can’t reduce the meaning of “COIN doctrine” to “what the general intends to do”. As such, your conclusion is without merit.
So your assertion, then, Charles, is that even now there is no proper counter-insurgency strategy being run in Afghanistan by President Bush and his appointees?
The Afghanistan operation is run by NATO, Gary, so there are different lines of command and the different nations will only do certain things. Germany refuses to go to the “hot” areas in southern Afghanistan, for example. As it stands now, we don’t have a proper COIN strategy there because we don’t have the force projection necessary. The Marines in Helmand province are a notable exception. They’re taking the principles that they learned and applied in Anbar, and they’re putting them to good use in Helmand.
Fascinating, Charles: how about a recap of your positions on how well Bush’s strategies were doing in 2003 and 2004? Did, you, too, always criticize them as obvious failures?
Since I know you read this post, I conclude that your questions are rhetorical.
It’s your claim then, that military operations in which U.S. troops engaged in search and destroy operations against Sunni insurgents is what has led to a lessening of violence in Anbar province?
COIN is not search and destroy, Gary, as I’m sure you already know. I don’t understand why you’re saying that I claimed that our troops were engaged in search-and-destroy when I claimed no such thing.
similar, yet oddly similar, I guess. I think I meant different, yet oddly parallel, but bad writing either way.
Getting worse by the minute, probably. When’s quitting time?
“As it stands now, we don’t have a proper COIN strategy there because we don’t have the force projection necessary.”
Interesting. Why is that?
“COIN is not search and destroy, Gary, as I’m sure you already know. I don’t understand why you’re saying that I claimed that our troops were engaged in search-and-destroy when I claimed no such thing.”
You wrote:
So McCain wasn’t calling for a “counterinsurgency strategy” when he “called for both more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy,” the “new” counterinsurgency strategy of search and destroy replacing the counterinsurgency strategy that didn’t exist, until he called for a “new” counterinsurgency by called for something that wasn’t a counterinsurgency strategy.
I see. Thank you for clarifying that so well.
I don’t memorize your posts, to be sure. Thanks for the link reminding me of some of your observations. So now you’re praising McCain for alleged positions you denounced at the time? Ok.
I looked for evidence that Obama supported COIN doctrine, Eric, and came up empty.
Just so I have this straight:
1. Charles says Obama opposed COIN in Iraq
2. Eric asked Charles for evidence
3. Charles says, do you have evidence that he supported it…
4. ?
5. Therefore Obama opposed COIN.
Neat!
But be that as it may, the bill is prima facie evidence of Obama’s opposition to the strategy. It is in diametric opposition to the plan that Petraeus proposed and put into practice.
This is the perfect example of the perniciousness of the conflation that McCain, and now you, are attempting to pull off.
Petraues and others were pursuing many different strategies. One of those strategies was to work with (fund, support, arm) Sunni tribal elements and other former insurgents in an effort to turn against AQI. The “Awakenings strategy” to use YOUR term.
This began before the surge of troops.
This was not the surge of troops.
This was something different.
Yet you claim that Obama opposed this because he opposed the surge of troops.
No.
BTW, when you put more troops at risk and in harm’s way, you are escalating. It isn’t merely placement decision, especially in Anbar 2006.
But you’re saying that people were calling this shift an escalation which isn’t true! The complaints were about the surge of troops, which was being called an escalation. No one was claiming that we were escalating because we were moving soldiers out of FOBs and into the neighborhoods.
The fact of the matter is that McCain has been calling for implementation of a COIN strategy for several years, and the Awakening strategy used by the Marines in Anbar is a COIN strategy.
Again, conflation with a little reductio ad absurdum thrown in for flavor.
You specifically said that McCain was calling for the Awakenings strategy for four years. I called BS. I was right. You can only bolster your point by claiming that McCain called for COIN vaguely, and the Awakenings strategy is arguably COIN, thus McCain called for the Awakenings strategy. Thin gruel.
Further, it contradicts your central thesis. Recall:
1. You argue that Obama opposes COIN in Iraq
2. You argue that the Awakenings strategy is COIN
3. You argue that Obama favors the Awakenings strategy
4. But then Obama favors COIN!!!!
Charles Bird:
Oh, and I didn’t say that Obama opposed Sunni outreach. I don’t doubt that Obama likes to reach out, with or without preconditions.
Thus, you would argue that Obama favors COIN in Iraq.
Your spun about my good man.
I agree that what McCain said was incorrect, but I think there is too much effort going on here to separate “surge” from “COIN”. It was very clear that the surge was not just about putting more boots on the ground to continue with the same old failed strategy. The surge was explicitly in support of the strategic shift to COIN.
2007 SOTU:
In order to make progress toward this goal, the Iraqi government must stop the sectarian violence in its capital. But the Iraqis are not yet ready to do this on their own. So we’re deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq. The vast majority will go to Baghdad, where they will help Iraqi forces to clear and secure neighborhoods, and serve as advisers embedded in Iraqi Army units. With Iraqis in the lead, our forces will help secure the city by chasing down the terrorists, insurgents, and the roaming death squads. And in Anbar Province, where al Qaeda terrorists have gathered and local forces have begun showing a willingness to fight them, we’re sending an additional 4,000 United States Marines, with orders to find the terrorists and clear them out.
The two terms/concepts were explicitly linked from the first. I don’t think it’s unusual that many or even most people/reporters/pundits/politicians took to just calling it “the surge”. I supported the shift to COIN, but I did not support sending an additional 20,000 troops. But it’s certainly not clear to me that there is any way possible it would have been successful without them.
Obama doesn’t like to run off tackle on third and eight. Thus I have proven that Obama is opposed to playing offense.
I supported the shift to COIN, but I did not support sending an additional 20,000 troops. But it’s certainly not clear to me that there is any way possible it would have been successful without them.
To the extent it was “successful.”
I mean, the whole point was to usher in an era of political reconciliation.
Bush said that in the same speech.
And Bush and Petraeus both said without that political deal, there would be no solution to the violence.
Reduced levels of violence are a good thing. To some extent, the extra troops helped with that. But unless there is meaningful and lasting rapprochement, then this will be a temporary and fleeting downturn in violence as often occurs in long lasting civil wars.
Mind you: The reduced levels of violence are considered reduced even though between 500-1000 Iraqi civilians and ISF are dying each month. So, “reduced” is relative.
By definition.
Obama doesn’t like to run off tackle on third and eight. Thus I have proven that Obama is opposed to playing offense.
For Herm Edwards at least.
Damn you slarti!
Turb said (way up there): “So, are you saying that making Iraq more stable is worth any cost? Could we just nuke the whole country? I’ve been told that glass is extremely stable.”
Hard-De-Har-Har. I’m sure the Iraqis would find your commenting act hilarious.
And do you really think domestic opposition to the COIN strategy was higher than military opposition to COIN? It seems that historically, the US military has been unbelievably good at failing to fight insurgencies properly and then failing to actually institutionalize knowledge of how to fight insurgencies after they learn the hard way.
Always looking for the jab at the military. Are you familiar with Small War Journal. It has many civilian and military writers that were looking for solutions to violence in Iraq, when the majority of people in America wanted an irresponsible withdrawal.
Violence has been reduced from the appalling levels of 2006 to the merely unacceptable levels of 2004. Why can’t we just accept that?
And anyone who objected to this (COIN), and called for winning hearts and minds with a traditional counter-insurgency approach, was a terrorist-sympathizing, mush-headed, liberal who wanted to apply therapy and wimpiness, thus proving that Democrats/liberals could never be trusted with national security/military issues.
I can’t vouch for what the rightwingosphere was saying back in early 2007, but the leftwingosphere was critical of COIN as late as 2008. See Ygleisas post here on the new “imperial reality”. FWIW, I think liberals are right about lots of issues (gay rights, abolishing capital punisment, anti-torture, etc.), but the American Left was totally wrong about Iraq in 2007. Their big narrative on Iraq was continuous and futile pushing for a haphazard withdrawal.
I dunno. I think it’s more accurate to say (at least for me) that many of these same folks were pushing for COIN on a much earlier and much more effective basis. Pushing for it it now seems more haphazard than anything else, because it will be of limited effectiveness (particularly compared to when it could have been implemented earlier).
But LT, what has changed in a fundamental way? I repeat:
the whole point was to usher in an era of political reconciliation.
Bush said that in the same speech.
And Bush and Petraeus both said without that political deal, there would be no solution to the violence.
Reduced levels of violence are a good thing. To some extent, the extra troops helped with that. But unless there is meaningful and lasting rapprochement, then this will be a temporary and fleeting downturn in violence as often occurs in long lasting civil wars.
Mind you: The reduced levels of violence are considered reduced even though between 500-1000 Iraqi civilians and ISF are dying each month. So, “reduced” is relative.
The withdrawal crowd argued that even under ideal circumstances, we would continue to blow 10 billion a month, thousands of lives, tens of thousands of injuries, and a host of other vital costs to achieve an uncertain and unlikely outcome.
Even now, Petraeus doesn’t give the odds for success as very high.
Even now.
Hard-De-Har-Har. I’m sure the Iraqis would find your commenting act hilarious.
So, just to be clear, does that mean that you are going to stick with your benefit-only analysis while eschewing the more traditional cost-benefit analysis?
Also, are we only allowed to consider immediate short-term benefits? Because while paying off people that were killing our soldiers might reduce violence in the short term, I think that systematically reducing the power of the Iraqi state (by equipping and training non-state military forces) might have problematic consequences for Iraq in the long term.
Always looking for the jab at the military.
Not really. I think the US military is a lot like most large American organizations; it does some spectacularly good work and some incredibly bad acts and while it is staffed by many simply outstanding human beings, its behavior has a lot more to do with institutional structure than all those outstanding people’s wishes and virtues.
I raised the issue of the military because you alleged significant civilian opposition to COIN and that strikes me as hilarious given how much institutional hostility the military has long had towards COIN.
Are you familiar with Small War Journal. It has many civilian and military writers that were looking for solutions to violence in Iraq
Yes, I am. I stop by and read things posted there on occasion although I prefer Abu Muqawama. SWJ is a great resource; what a pity that the people writing there don’t actually control how the US military spends its money or develops its doctrine.
So, are you now ready to substantiate your claim that there was significant domestic opposition to the COIN strategy? That is what I actually asked you about, but if you’d prefer to discuss what I read, we can do that too. Seems like it would bore most people though.
Also, does this mean that you’re not questioning my claims that the US military has traditionally ignored counterinsurgency and then worked hard to forget any institutional knowledge of it when forced to learn?
when the majority of people in America wanted an irresponsible withdrawal.
Phrases like this simply confound me.
the leftwingosphere was critical of COIN as late as 2008. See Ygleisas post here on the new “imperial reality”
Can you explain exactly how Yglesias was critical of COIN? I read his post as saying that most Americans would be extremely unhappy if they awoke to suddenly find their towns administered by a 20-something year old foreigner who did not speak their language, knew nothing of their history, and had the ability to call on awesome amounts of firepower from the sky on a whim. Do you disagree with that?
In general, criticizing the way we do COIN is not the same as criticizing that we do COIN. If you think that any discussion of problems implementing a strategy are equivalent to criticisms of that strategy, then um, Yglesias did indeed criticize COIN.
Note again that there is no reason to believe that COIN in Iraq will be successful. The best of bad options is not the same thing as a good option.
… the American Left was totally wrong about Iraq in 2007.
And the American Right has been totally wrong about Iraq for the majority of this millenium.
The current wingnut spin is that Obama should acknowledge he was wrong about ‘the surge’ — it worked brilliantly, just like McCain said it would. It worked so brilliantly that Obama is wrong to even PLAN on leaving. Mission, the wingnuts fondly hope, accomplished.
— TP
Turb,
In your reply you forgot to click on the link to a poll in March 2007 that says:
Twenty-one percent of responders support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and 37 percent said troops should come home within a year.
That’s a majority of Americans saying we need to bail on Iraq right when the COIN strategy was shaping up countrywide. Isn’t it safe to say that most Americans weren’t interested in this strategy in Iraq when it was initially implemented?
What do you want me to say about COIN and the military? Petraeus is pretty well-respected inside the service and he’s a big COIN advocate. I dunno, I’m some lowly junior officer, but I thought it was a good idea.
That is what I actually asked you about, but if you’d prefer to discuss what I read, we can do that too. Seems like it would bore most people though.
Your smug comments are really entertaining, BTW.
Safe, but incomplete.
Reduced levels of violence are a good thing. To some extent, the extra troops helped with that. But unless there is meaningful and lasting rapprochement, then this will be a temporary and fleeting downturn in violence as often occurs in long lasting civil wars.
Eric, I agree that long-lasting stability is incumbent upon the Iraqis and it is political, and “The Surge”/COIN is not some end all strategy. But I think the dismantling of terrorist networks by US/Iraqi forces, like the ones that bombed the Askari Mosque in 2006 and escalated sectarian strife, is a necessary component to stability. COIN was instrumental in allowing their terrorist networks to lose their safe-haven and tribal support. Once the government can establish legitamate law and order country wide, that will greatly enable a functioning government.
LTNixon: this is not meant in a snarky way at all, but: I’m having trouble categorizing myself. Insofar as I understand COIN doctrine, I think it’s appropriate to any situation not involving very traditional battles between conventional armies. And even in such battles, if there are civilians around, I would think that trying to use some lessons from COIN would have to be a good idea, inasmuch as having the surrounding population on your side is a good thing.
I thought from very early on that we were not doing nearly enough of this. Obviously, I wasn’t in a position to judge a lot of our tactics, but there seemed to be a lot of things that might have been calculated to alienate the population — starting with allowing the looting to proceed, at latest — that were needless.
(Nb: I do not particularly blame the troops for this, generally. I suspect, for instance, that a fair amount of the problem was troop strength — at least, I assume that when you have enough troops, you’re less likely to need to protect yourself in ways that alienate the people around you. And obviously not having enough troops is not something the troops themselves are responsible for.)
So: I’ve thought pretty much from the get-go that if we had to be in Iraq at all, then we should have paid a lot more attention to trying to deprive the insurgency of support from the population, which presumably means, in part, trying to do things ourselves in such a way that we have as much support as an occupying army could reasonably expect to have.
This means that I pretty clearly did support COIN strategies during the period in which I thought we should be in Iraq, meaning: from right after the invasion through, oh, maybe the fall of 2005, if memory serves. (I opposed the invasion, but after we had invaded, I opposed withdrawal, on the grounds that we had to try to make it right. Then, in fall 2005 (iirc), I lost hope that we could.)
But what about the rest of the time? After I decided we should leave, I still thought: well, if we have to be there, far better we pursue a COIN strategy than not. But I would have preferred that we leave.
I’m just not sure how to categorize myself, here.
That’s a majority of Americans saying we need to bail on Iraq right when the COIN strategy was shaping up countrywide. Isn’t it safe to say that most Americans weren’t interested in this strategy in Iraq when it was initially implemented?
I don’t know what you mean by “weren’t interested”. One interpretation is that many Americans were familiar with both the principles of COIN and the economic concept of opportunity costs and concluded that without a draft, there was no way we could ever get enough soldiers into Iraq to implement a proper COIN strategy consistent with the force to population ratios described in FM 3-24. Also, they might have concluded that given how badly we screwed up in Iraq during the first 5 years, a perfect COIN strategy was unlikely to succeed (note that we were not planning anything like a perfect COIN strategy). Alternatively, they might have concluded that stationing hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Iraq for years and years would not benefit the national security of the United States. Or they might have assumed that Afghanistan was a higher priority and continuing the Iraq debacle made it impossible to devote enough resources to Afghanistan to keep the Taliban at bay.
Petraeus is pretty well-respected inside the service and he’s a big COIN advocate.
If you think that the fact that Petraeus is a general who is respected means that the US military is serious about COIN, then maybe you should read this; it was linked from SWJ. Note also that I’m talking about the US military and not only the US Army.
Finally, I have no idea how to determine whether or not Petraeus is well-respected inside the service; is there polling? He wasn’t well respected enough to have his COIN ideas taken seriously throughout most of his career. Certainly, other officers who focused on counterinsurgency have not fared nearly so well, despite Petraeus’ position on the promotions board. How are things working out for H.R. McMaster or John Nagle career wise? Are they well respected too, or just not enough to ever get promoted?
I dunno, I’m some lowly junior officer, but I thought it was a good idea.
I’m glad you thought it was a good idea. Did you ever ask how likely it was to succeed? Because according to Petraeus and what FM 3-24 says, success is very unlikely given what force levels the US military can sustain. So, do you think Petraeus was wrong in saying and writing that or do you think the US should engage in efforts doomed to failure at a vast cost in money and lives?
Claiming that the “surge” (as defined as starting the Awakening) had ANYTHING to do with Petraeus or COIN is just flat-out wrong:
From the San Diego Union-Tribune, a VERY conservative paper (via Ballon Juice:
Either Petraeus has a time-machine or McCain (and his supporters) are so far off on what the “surge” what the surge is and is not as to be completely embarassing.
I seem to remember that in July of 2007 we were being told that we couldn’t blame the roaming death squads or the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad on the surge, because the surge hadn’t really started yet.
@CB et al
I said Obama opposed the strategy that caused the Sunni outreach to succeed.
To all who’ve asserted that the Awakening movement would have failed but for the Surge: might you deign to provide any evidence of this whatever beyond your intuition and unsupported assertions? Please?
And assuming that you can’t prove this counterfactual, or that you wouldn’t want to deprive me of the character-building experience of proving it for you, would y’all kindly do one of the following things:
1) Cease to make this claim.
or
2) Buy a very lovely tiger-repelling rock from me.
I want to see von explain how “The Surge” started in November 2005. This should be fun.
Popcorn, anyone?
The entire focus on the surge and how we can succeed is a republican frame.
The correct frame is: the war was an illegal act of aggression that currently saps our resources with more geopolitical cost than benefit. We need to get out as soon as possible.
The “surge” debate, though it further reveals the ill-informed, dogmatic, and desperate spin cyling of the right, is a distraction: another attempt for the imperialists to blow oxygen on a fire that needs to be put out.
US out of Iraq, no blood for oil.
Chuck Hagel as quoted in Time:”Quit talking about, ‘Did the surge work or not work,’ or, ‘Did you vote for this or support this,'” Hagel said Thursday on a conference call with reporters.
“Get out of that. We’re done with that. How are we going to project forward?” the Nebraska senator said. “What are we going to do for the next four years to protect the interest of America and our allies and restructure a new order in the world. … That’s what America needs to hear from these two candidates. And that’s where I am.”
SO, Sen. McCAin, if the surge is working why can’t we set up a timeline for our departure?
Also, since the Iraqis want us out, why is it a defeat to set up a timeline for departure?
The whole surge debate is a diversionary tactic to keep McCAin from having to explain his irrational and contractory statements about iraq.
I’m glad you thought it was a good idea. Did you ever ask how likely it was to succeed?
I volunteered to be part of it…er, sort of. I guess the Surge could be defined as the 5 additional combat brigades, and I’m no soldier.
Finally, I have no idea how to determine whether or not Petraeus is well-respected inside the service; is there polling?
We don’t really have polls for stuff like that, so my evidence is based on casual observation and discussions. Do you read a lot of milblogs? Most of them are pretty supportive too. A lot of that may have to do with people in the military respecting flag officers by nature of rank, but I think people are glad that stability has improved in Iraq.
But what about the rest of the time? After I decided we should leave, I still thought: well, if we have to be there, far better we pursue a COIN strategy than not. But I would have preferred that we leave.
I’m just not sure how to categorize myself, here.
Thanks for clarifying. Iraq is a pretty complex issue and it’s hard to pigeonhole yourself into the “left” or the “right” camp on it.
On 9/20/07, NPR interviewed the colonel McCain invoked in his surge=counterinsurgency=surge remarks Wednesday. Here’s a link …
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14566803
At 25:58 in the NPR audio, there’s this exchange …
CALLER: My question for the colonel is the following: The Petraeus Report used Anbar as an example of success. But my question is did what happened in Anbar really have anything to do with the surge or was it the adoption of classical counterinsurgency techniques which have been proven to work elsewhere, rather than the buildup of troops?
NPR: Col. McFarland?
MCFARLAND: I think it had to do with both. We did adopt classic counterinsurgency tactics, although the manual wasn’t out at the time so we did a little bit of trial and error there …
NPR: That’s the new manual written by Gen. Petraeus.
MCFARLAND: That’s right. But the addition of some two battalions worth of Marines to Al Anbar along with a Marine expeditionary unit, almost a brigade’s worth of combat power went to Al Anbar as part of the surge. And that gave the Marine expeditionary force out there a great deal more tactical and operational flexibility. They were able to exploit success. And rather than just play whack-a-mole and just chase the enemy around Al Anbar, they were able to put enough pressure at enough pressure points to drive the enemy completely out of the province.
NPR: That breakthrough, the political breakthrough we were talking about earlier, that really happened before the surge.
MCFARLAND: It did. The Tribal Awakening began in September 2006. And we were seeing steady progress, really a decline in enemy attacks, began really right after Ramadan in November of 2006 and continued on a steady downward trend. But that trend, normally in the springtime, you’d begin to see a turnaround and the enemy comes back in strength. But that never happened. You continued to see a downward trend. And I think the surge was the reason for that.
***********
So, basically, McFarland can make an articulate case for the helpfulness of the surge. But McCain’s surge=counterinsurgency=surge formulation is utter nonsense. I want to believe McCain was spinning, but I’m concerned he may actually think that counterinsurgency is synonymous with the surge. A scary thought.
wonkie: thanks for the Hegelian remarks.
The way forward is clear: US out of Iraq, no blood for oil.
We’ve seen what Iraq was like as a failed state. Geopolitically, it was not a threat to the intergity of the United States or the safety and prosperity of its citizens.
Of course, our coopeation in the violence there not only killed and maimed innocent as well as criminal Iraqi’s, it killed and maimed US soldiers and cost us a lot of money.
Iraq is not an insolvable problem. We solve our problem in Iraq by leaving. Pakistan, Afghanistan. Now that might be a problem.
As a citizen with a conscience greater than some vicarious joy in watching the Empire struggle for its existence, I see our support for Israeli occupation, our nuclear escalation, and our failure to engage the international consensus on climate change as national security priorities ranking higher than the destiny of Iraq.
“The way forward is clear: US out of Iraq, no blood for oil.”
I’m not sure that, in the end, I disagree, but I have to say that reducing one’s argument to a cliche bumper sticker, while succinct, isn’t necessarily the most persuasive argument.
I’d venture to suggest that, in fact, by reducing it to a cliche, you likely turn off a lot of wavering people who might give consideration to a formulation that they haven’t already heard ten zillion times before.
Have you read Politics And The English Language?
(Everyone should, of course.)
I agree that what McCain said was incorrect, but
A wiser man would have stopped here.
Gary,
When you were talking about “search and destroy”, I thought you were taking us back to the days of Westmoreland and his failed big unit warfare operations. In the context of clear-hold-build, search and destroy takes on a different meaning because those operations are much more limited and are conducted within the overall context of the strategy. S&D is one component, whereas for Westmoreland it was a major activity.
Just a brief comment on why Obama was and is opposed to COIN. His policies and statements speak for themselves. His Jan-2007 bill required the removal of all combat brigades in around 12 months. There’s no way a military force can clear and hold areas when they’re so busily and quickly bugging out, and there’s nothing they could build because they’re already gone. His bill was the anti-COIN.
Second, if Obama really approved of a COIN strategy, he would’ve been in the forefront with McCain and others, calling for an increase in troops. Using the FM3-24 guidelines, the civilian-to-military ratios were already strained, even with 30,000 extra personnel. Those ratios work a little better when you add contractors, Iraqi troops, police, Kurdish forces, Sons of Iraq, etc., but the troops levels were still troublingly light. To conduct a proper strategy, you need sufficient numbers on the ground in order to provide sufficient security to the populace. In the Petraeus plan, the idea was to keep forces where they were and add additional troops to secure Baghdad. As it turned out, Anbar also got extra reinforcements.
Third, Petraeus needed those forces to execute the strategy, so the added forces were inextricably linked to the plan. Since increased force levels were an integral part of the strategy, if you oppose the increase you also oppose the strategy. Calling for a de-escalation like what Obama did would undermine and gut the strategy.
Just because Obama didn’t say it doesn’t mean a damn thing. His words and actions spoke–and continue to speak–volumes.
As for McCain, the older version of McCain’s website clearly showed support for for more troops and implementatin of a COIN strategy. For example, this: “McCain agrees with retired Army General Jack Keane that there are simply not enough American forces in Iraq,” and McCain recommended that we “implement a new counterinsurgency strategy”, so it pre-dated the confirmation of Petraeus. General Keane is a huge COIN proponent and he was one of the guys who persuaded Bush to change to this course. I wish I had more than some snippets, but McCain updated his webpage a few weeks ago.
Petraues and others were pursuing many different strategies.
No, Eric, Petraeus and others were pursuing many tactics under the umbrella of one strategy.
You specifically said that McCain was calling for the Awakenings strategy for four years.
No, I didn’t. I said McCain had been calling for COIN strategy for several year, and awakening strategy is a COIN strategy. You’re still stuck on nomenclature while ignoring the underlying concepts.
Gary Farber:
“I’d venture to suggest that, in fact, by reducing it to a cliche, you likely turn off a lot of wavering people who might give consideration to a formulation that they haven’t already heard ten zillion times before.”
Perhaps, but perhaps people are convinced by strength and confidence. If something is simple – and opposition to careerist wars of choice is fundamentally simple, not simplistic- then we ought to keep opposing.
Being against the Iraq war, today’s Iraq war, is only slightly less important than being against it was in February ’03.
Nevertheless, I take your point so let me try a more sophisticated formulation.
The “success” of the surge, which is still fundamentally hypothetical, is at its best a success that requires thousands of US troops and billions of dollars to try and keep a polity half way around the world from redescending into the chaos we created for it.
This “success” continues to cost us very much as a society; concrete costs. They are not academic. The benefits are entirely hypothetical and might, just as hypothetically, accrue to us without any cost.
On a more meta-level, we can’t possibly hope to make domestic progress in constructing a democratic republic while we tolerate these unnecessary foreign entanglements whose immediate, tangible benefits go to economically inefficient and unproductive agents.
These ideas, the backbone concepts of the anti-war majority who flexed muscle in the mid-terms, are being diverted and drowned out by the “surge” debate that takes it as a given that “we must win” and Iraq poses a “grave strategic threat”.
As a small r republican, its the war itself that is the grave strategic threat.
Johnny Pez: A wiser man would have stopped here.
A wiser man would not have spent the time to make the comment, not on this thread, on this blog.
So there you go…
“Nevertheless, I take your point so let me try a more sophisticated formulation.”
I wasn’t arguing against your position. I merely abjure cliche.
LT:
COIN was instrumental in allowing their terrorist networks to lose their safe-haven and tribal support. Once the government can establish legitamate law and order country wide, that will greatly enable a functioning government.
I agree with this in a general sense, but unfortunately for us all, the problems of Iraq are larger than “terrorist networks.” The real violence has not been committed by terrorists, but by sectarian rivals. Many of those practitioners are in the Iraqi government itself. Those combatants are not done fighting, even if they’re taking a pause for the moment and consolidating gains.
Without political reconciliation, they will fight again. Soon. Some still are of course, and the body count is still quite grisly.
Charles,
No, I didn’t. I said McCain had been calling for COIN strategy for several year, and awakening strategy is a COIN strategy. You’re still stuck on nomenclature while ignoring the underlying concepts.
To quote you, verbatim:
The Petraeus strategy is the Anbar strategy is the Awakening strategy. McCain has been right for over four years that this was the course we should’ve been taking.
You claim that McCain has been calling for the Anbar strategy and Awakening strategy for four years. Those are your words. I’m not stuck on nomenclature. I’m just quoting you. If you would like to clarify, feel free, but you can’t simply pretend that you didn’t say what you…said.
Further, the problem for you is that you claim the Awakenings strategy was COIN, but you admit that Obama never opposed that and likely supported it. Thus, using your metrics, Obama supported COIN.
After all, COIN is a multifaceted doctrine and it has many interpretations and contextual nuances. Even an army that is withdrawing could practice COIN.