by hilzoy
Timothy Garton Ash in the LATimes, via Atrios:
“So Iraq is over. But Iraq has not yet begun. Not yet begun in terms of the consequences for Iraq itself, the Middle East, the United States’ own foreign policy and its reputation in the world. The most probable consequence of rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in its present condition is a further bloodbath, with even larger refugee flows and the effective dismemberment of the country. Already, about 2 million Iraqis have fled across the borders, and more than 2 million are internally displaced. (…)
In an article for the Web magazine Open Democracy, Middle East specialist Fred Halliday spells out some regional consequences. Besides the effective destruction of the Iraqi state, these include the revitalizing of militant Islamism and enhancement of the international appeal of the Al Qaeda brand; the eruption, for the first time in modern history, of internecine war between Sunni and Shiite, “a trend that reverberates in other states of mixed confessional composition”; the alienation of most sectors of Turkish politics from the West and the stimulation of authoritarian nationalism there; the strengthening of a nuclear-hungry Iran; and a new regional rivalry pitting the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies, including Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, against Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
For the United States, the world is now, as a result of the Iraq war, a more dangerous place. At the end of 2002, what is sometimes tagged “Al Qaeda Central” in Afghanistan had been virtually destroyed, and there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2007, there is an Al Qaeda in Iraq, parts of the old Al Qaeda are creeping back into Afghanistan and there are Al Qaeda emulators spawning elsewhere, notably in Europe.
Osama bin Laden’s plan was to get the U.S. to overreact and overreach itself. With the invasion of Iraq, Bush fell slap-bang into that trap. The U.S. government’s own latest National Intelligence Estimate, released this week, suggests that Al Qaeda in Iraq is now among the most significant threats to the security of the American homeland.
The U.S. has probably not yet fully woken up to the appalling fact that, after a long period in which the first motto of its military was “no more Vietnams,” it faces another Vietnam. There are many important differences, but the basic result is similar: The mightiest military in the world fails to achieve its strategic goals and is, in the end, politically defeated by an economically and technologically inferior adversary.
Even if there are no scenes of helicopters evacuating Americans from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, there will surely be some totemic photographic image of national humiliation as the U.S. struggles to extract its troops.
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have done terrible damage to the U.S. reputation for being humane; this defeat will convince more people around the world that it is not even that powerful. And Bin Laden, still alive, will claim another victory over the death-fearing weaklings of the West.
In history, the most important consequences are often the unintended ones. We do not yet know the longer-term unintended consequences of Iraq. Maybe there is a silver lining hidden somewhere in this cloud. But as far as the human eye can see, the likely consequences of Iraq range from the bad to the catastrophic.
Looking back over a quarter of a century of chronicling current affairs, I cannot recall a more comprehensive and avoidable man-made disaster.”
Discussion below the fold.
I listened to some of the all-night debate about Iraq. For some reason, whenever I turned on CSPAN, Republicans were speaking, and they talked about a whole range of horrors that would happen if we withdraw. Some seem to me less likely: I think there’s a good chance that al Qaeda in Iraq will not gain a permanent base of operations within Iraq, at least not one that will outlast the chaos there. But others are quite likely. There will be horrific violence. Families will be driven into internal or external exile. Al Qaeda will claim victory. And there could well be a regional war.
I think about this, and about the absolutely puerile debate that preceded our decision whether to go to war, and I ask myself: how did it happen that everyone who actually predicted these sorts of consequences was successfully portrayed as a defeatist, a person who just didn’t care about the children who died at Halabja or their parents who vanished into Abu Ghraib and were never heard from again, a wimp who preferred staying on the good side of the French (quel horreur!) to facing down bin Laden, or a traitor who must have secretly welcomed 9/11, if indeed s/he had noticed it at all?
The consequences Timothy Garton Ash describes — or at least, consequences broadly like them — were predictable at the time. Of course a war against Iran’s deadliest enemy in the region would strengthen Iran, especially if it kept American troops pinned down within handy reach of Iranian operatives. Of course a democracy would be hard to build in Iraq, not because “Arabs are not suited for democracy”, but because the habits of mind that constitute respect for the rule of law and a willingness to work within an established political system do not spring into being overnight after being crushed for decades. Of course this would play into bin Laden’s hands, both by diverting resources and attention away from Afghanistan and by making the story he had been telling about America and its designs on the Muslim world come true.
So why were the people who warned us about this — James Webb, Brent Scowcroft, and others — at best ignored, and at worst mocked by people without a fraction either of their experience or of their judgment? Why did so many people choose to listen instead to the likes of Michael Ledeen and Jonah Goldberg? I don’t really know, but here are a few lessons I hope we learn.
(1) It seems to me that our country went slightly crazy after 9/11, and one of the manifestations of that craziness was a tendency to say, about anyone who suggested stopping to think about much of anything, that that person just hadn’t absorbed the lessons of 9/11, hadn’t been there, hadn’t fully grasped how horrific it was. Anyone who has even the slightest iota of this tendency should, I think, engrave on his or her forehead: When something truly awful happens, and you find yourself in the presence of real danger, it is more important than ever to stop and think clearly about what you are about to do. The temptations to do something stupid are much greater than usual, and the risks are much higher. Going with the flow and doing what comes naturally might be winning strategies at a party; they are profoundly dangerous when considering going to war. Since the people who do stop and think are likely to be rarer than usual, in moments of national crisis they should be cherished, not abused or slandered.
(2) Never substitute impugning someone’s character for impugning his or her argument. This was, if memory serves, a pretty standard move back in 2002: the fact of someone’s opposition to the war was taken to be conclusive evidence that that person was not serious about the war on terror, and their supposed lack of seriousness meant that their arguments did not have to be taken seriously. There were, in addition, less obviously circular versions: I recall in particular the right-wing dismissal of Richard Clarke on the grounds that he was obviously a closet liberal after book royalties. The closet liberal made me laugh — the guy seemed to me to have “Republican: subcategory, national security hawk” written all over him. And the book royalties part was just dumb: it amounts to the idea that no one who ever writes a book can ever be taken seriously again, since whatever they say, it could be that they are saying it to jack up their royalties. The possibility that people sometimes both write books and speak out publicly because they have something they think it’s important to communicate, apparently, doesn’t need to be taken seriously.
(3) One of the greatest strengths of our country is the fact that we allow debate and dissent. This means that if we choose to do so, we can debate policies before we adopt them, rather than first adopting them and only then, when it is too late, discovering the problems that a real debate might have made apparent. Before we went to war, there were people who were trying to shut debate down by marginalizing or slandering or, in some cases, threatening those who disagreed with them. (Dixie Chicks, anyone?) This is, of course, a hateful thing to do to those people. But it should now be obvious that it is also a profound disservice to our country. We would have been a lot better off if we had stayed true to our ideals of open debate and free speech.
(4) When the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy, it’s worth entertaining the possibility that they might be right. We should not defer to their judgment mindlessly, but we should have what Jefferson called “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.”
(5) Beware of movements built on contempt. Many of the people who pushed for war had spent decades expressing their contempt for what you might call standard foreign policy — the kind in which diplomacy is taken to be a useful instrument, not a snare for the weak-minded, and force is a last resort, not an all-purpose tool. Their own views had never been seriously tested (and no, Reagan doesn’t count), and many of their spokesmen lacked any serious experience conducting foreign policy. Sometimes, groups of people who spend years muttering about how different things would be if they were in charge are right. Often, however, they are not. Absent a real track record on which to evaluate them, they should be approached with caution.
(6) Think very hard about the lessons of history. For every case like Munich, in which failing to confront a dictator more forcefully led to disaster, there is a Cuban Missile Crisis, in which a leader’s unwillingness to make the most hawkish response to a dictator’s provocation averted disaster. Trotting out Munich at every possible opportunity only ensures that the next time you find yourself in a Cuban Missile Crisis, your country will be turned to radioactive glass.
(7) Be very wary of extrapolating from the last few wars. The Gulf War, for instance, looked effortless. But that appearance had to be deceiving, like the way a ballerina seems to fly effortlessly several feet into the air, when in fact she is performing an extraordinarily strenuous feat of athleticism. Our success in the Gulf War took tremendous amounts of training, discipline, and technology; but it also took a real appreciation for the limits of military power. Kicking an invading army out of a country in which it is not wanted is something that a good army can do. But there are things that no army, however superbly trained and equipped, can possibly do. One of them is creating a democracy. As Matt Yglesias once wrote:
“There are actual limits to what our troops can accomplish. They’re soldiers, not magicians. They can’t conjure up a sense of national identity or widespread social support for liberalism.”
If the people who argued for war have any forehead left after point (1) above, they should engrave “They’re soldiers, not magicians” on it as well.
(8) Never underestimate the value of an exit strategy. By an exit strategy I do not mean the military plans for how, exactly, we might extricate our troops from Iraq, but a way of disengaging without seeming to have been beaten. (In this case, without allowing bin Laden and the Iraqi insurgents to claim victory.) There are times when it’s worth going to war without any clear idea of how to explain disengagement as anything other than defeat. (World War II leaps to mind.) There are also cases in which we can get away with assuming that we will not need one. (Grenada.) But in many cases, like Iraq, the possibilities of failure are real enough that we should consider how to deal with them, and the interests at stake are small enough that they are not worth gambling with our reputation for sticking it out until we win. Anyone who watched the last years of the war in Vietnam unfold — years during which it seemed plain that we were not going to win, and that our leaders knew that, but in which we lost tens of thousands of our soldiers’ lives, and God alone knows how many Vietnamese lives in an unsuccessful attempt to figure out how to leave without sacrificing our credibility — will find the present rhetoric about not handing our opponents a victory familiar.
Far better, when vital national interests are not at stake, just not to get into wars that do not have a clear and achievable outcome. The Gulf War did; we achieved it, and our credibility was enhanced. This war does not, and, as Republicans are fond of reminding us, when we withdraw, al Qaeda and any number of other Islamists will take it as a victory, and will conclude that we can be outlasted. But that outcome is inevitable, unless we are willing to stay in Iraq forever, watching the men and women in our military die, along with more and more Iraqis.
This administration should have avoided it when it was avoidable, either by not invading in the first place or by moving heaven and earth to make our invasion successful. Bush was not sufficiently worried about this prospect when he could have prevented it. He did not seem to notice that we had no plan for the occupation, or that we didn’t even have enough troops to guard the WMD sites that the war was supposedly all about, let alone to provide basic security for the Iraqis. He didn’t bother to ask whether we were finding the very best people we had to staff the CPA, rather than raiding the Heritage intern pool. That can only mean that he never bothered to ask the most basic questions a President has to ask when success matters so much, both to us and to the Iraqis. Not having bothered to take the most elementary steps to secure success when he might have had it, I find his present insistence on the horrific consequences of defeat galling; and I think that everyone who hears them should think: Mr. President, this is your failure.
(9) In wars, there are very few do-overs, and in occupations there are almost none. Occupations, in particular, are not like, say, Photoshop, where the handy “Undo” feature covers a multitude of sins. They are more like relationships. When I used to work at the battered women’s shelter, I heard a lot of stories about husbands who apparently believed that it was possible to undo the past: that having (for instance) cracked a woman’s skull against a concrete wall, it was possible to “just start over.” (Similarly, many believed that it was possible to cancel out such episodes with a sufficiently large quantity of gifts, romantic dinners, diamonds, and so forth, as though a relationship was like a sum, and breaking your partner’s bones was just a very large negative number that required a lot of positive numbers to make up for it.) I always found this attitude puzzling: there are some things that just cannot be erased, though they might be built over, the way a new city can be built on the ruined foundations of an old one.
Similarly, the success or failure of an occupation has a lot to do with the attitudes of the people you are occupying, and there are ways of damaging those attitudes that are very hard to undo. The looting of Baghdad, for instance, probably destroyed for good the idea that America was powerful enough to provide security to the Iraqi people. That idea might have been true had it not been so visibly falsified: after all, if enough people believe that it’s not a good idea to break the law while you’re watching, lawlessness is much easier to contain. But once it was gone, it was gone. Likewise, a lot of the tactics that we seem to have used early on probably alienated a lot of Iraqis who might have believed in our good faith, and destroyed it permanently. And the damage done by Abu Ghraib was incalculable.
So when I read, say, Victor Davis Hanson, who writes: “While few would believe there is any good news from Iraq, in fact, there is. Finally, we are mastering counter-insurgency”, I think: it’s great that we are mastering counterinsurgency. It’s wonderful that we will henceforth proceed in a way that will not unnecessarily increase the amount of support for insurgents. But to suppose that this will turn things around not just here and there, but in the country as a whole, is to make the mistake of thinking that we can have a do-over. We can’t. In war, I think, you don’t normally have the luxury of doing and redoing things until you get them right, unless your adversary is either willing to sit still while you experiment or somehow devoid of options. Neither is true here.
We need to get it right the first time. Eventually isn’t good enough. If we don’t have confidence that a President can do this, we shouldn’t go to war.
(10) Just because we’re going to war doesn’t mean we don’t need diplomacy. In the specific case of Iraq, negotiations with Iran and Syria could have been very useful, if only because, had we been smart about it, we could have made clear to those countries that we had no plans to invade them, thereby depriving them of any reason to keep us bogged down in Iraq. (Obviously, we would first have had to get rid of any such plans. If we were going to invade Iraq, we should have: giving neighbors a reason to keep us bogged down is not a good thing.) We could probably have done a lot more, for instance to get their cooperation in securing their borders; but just removing their obvious interest in our having to stay in Iraq indefinitely would have helped immensely.
There are always reasons to engage other countries when one is thinking of going to war. There are neighbors with borders, countries who supply the country one is thinking of going to war with, and all sorts of people who can either help or harm us in innumerable ways. For this reason, we should be doubly skeptical about any war that would be waged by a President whose administration takes the attitude that they just don’t do diplomacy.
***
Offhand, these are the lessons I can think of — the ones we might use if, God forbid, we ever find ourselves in a similar situation. Do you have others? Any thoughts?
wow.
as usual, you’ve summed it up perfectly.
“Why did so many people choose to listen instead to the likes of Michael Ledeen and Jonah Goldberg?”
That’s pretty unfair. Condemn them as you wish, but plenty more people listened to Ken Pollack and Bill Clinton and Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke and Thomas Friedman and the WashPo editorial staff and Paul Berman and Kanan Makiya and a long list of Democratic Senators, and the like, who all favored the war, or at the very least kept any opposition silent for a very long time. I sure haven’t forgotten that Bill Clinton overtly and repeatedly supported the invasion, and that was a significant factor in muting my misgivings to the point of staying on the fence for far too long.
That may be far worse — I think a pretty good case can be made that these sort of more mainstream or even liberal hawks were responsible for the war than the extreme loonies, and that their guilt is therefore far greater than the Goldbergs and Ledeens — but I believe it’s far more accurate than asserting that most Americans were taking their personal counsel from the ilk of Goldberg and Ledeen.
The indictment for the responsibility for the war goes much more to much of the mainstream midlle-of-the-road establishment than it does towards the fringe right. Anyone want to argue that?
“This was, if memory serves, a pretty standard move back in 2002: the fact of someone’s opposition to the war was taken to be conclusive evidence that that person was not serious about the war on terror, and their supposed lack of seriousness meant that their arguments did not have to be taken seriously.”
I also have to argue with the passive voice conclusion here: this makes invisible a huge number of people who thought that there were good arguments on both sides, and that it wasn’t an easy call either way. Call us idiots and condemn us, if you like — I see an excellent case for agreeing — but dismissing us as non-existent just gets it seriously wrong.
There were a huge number of people doing what you say: those comfortably and thoroughly on the right, or those who comfortably or thoroughly aligned with them — but lots of people who weren’t in convinced opposition to the war before it began did no such thing. There’s a huge excluded middle in your presentation, Hilzoy.
cleek: “as usual, you’ve summed it up perfectly.”
So I have to disagree with that. On the other hand, as usual, I agree with everything else Hilzoy said so admirably.
Interesting, but the word ‘media’ does not appear in this post. I agree with Gary’s point that it wasn’t just the usual idiots, there were a number of people who we should have counted on to raise an alarm, and I certainly accepted the notion of WMD but thought that the invasion would be followed up by actual competent nation building activities and I have to think that the media’s complicity in all this is an important factor. It certainly makes discussions of ‘fairness’ in mass media have a little more edge.
Gary: true enough about the politicians. I was thinking of pundits. I don’t think of Goldberg as a member of the fringe right, just as someone who’s in way, way over his head and says a ot of dumb things.
The passive in the next point you made was because I really was relying on memory. And I didn’t mean to dismiss the people who thought there were arguments on both sides; though I do think that the scorn heaped on those who predicted that bad things would come of this — on such fools as Scowcroft and Webb — made their views easier to dismiss or discount across the board.
So I have to disagree with that.
as you wish.
as one of the people who didn’t believe any of it, for a second, and didn’t believe that even if it was true that Iraq deserved invasion for it (an act which i, an ignorant civilian informed only by watching and listening to the arguments BushCo was making, correctly predicted would lead to civil war, increased anti-American sentiment and thousands of new al-Q recruits), i find Hilzoy sums up the period quite nicely. it is as it was.
i was called all those names for questioning the rationale and wisdom of invading Iraq, when we hadn’t finished the job in Afghanistan and didn’t really look like we were going to. i was called all those names for thinking the evidence was absurdly thin. i made all the standard anti-war arguments, and was called all the standard names in return. hooray for dissent! (which i was told needed to be turned down is such serious times)
i wrote my senators and congresspeople and got boilerplate in return. i wrote letters to the editor and got anonymous threats in return. i posted on forums and blogs and was mocked by all those well-spoken, completely wrong fence-sitters and bloodthirsty idiots.
Hilzoy did a fine job of summing it up for the people who were right, and who are still mocked, to this day, by the people who were completely wrong then, and every fncking day since.
i wish to a god i don’t believe in that i could make a living being completely fncking wrong, every day, for 7 solid years, like Hanson and Goldberg. decent arguments? they’re making the same idiotic arguments today that they made back in 2002! what does it take to get on that bus?
/rant
(not necessarily directed to you personally, Gary)
Got to agree with Gary here. There has to be a price for cowardly complicity. Put more succinctly: Obama ’08.
I tend to agree with both cleek and Gary on this one. The problem, in terms of what Gary said, is that most of the voices that were raised up to question what was happening were condemned pretty loudly, and those condemnations were spread more prominently by the media.
I was personlly dismayed by what was coming from the mouths of people like Clinton, and I lost a lot of my respect for him at that time.
My next comment isn’t a quibble but more of an addition. You wrote, “The looting of Baghdad, for instance, probably destroyed for good the idea that America was powerful enough to provide security to the Iraqi people.”
That may well be true, but I have heard from a couple sources I very much trust, who have had contact with Iraqi civilians, that the looting, particulalrly of the museum, indicated to the Iraqis that we really didn’t care about them or their culture. That was the moment that disillusionment started to set in.
It was also at that point that Sadr stepped up and offered rewards for the return of the stolen items, which was an act that endeared him to many Iraqis. It was alos what we should have done.
Otherwise, you have pretty well hit the jackpot.
i wish to a god i don’t believe in that i could make a living being completely fncking wrong, every day, for 7 solid years, like Hanson and Goldberg. decent arguments? they’re making the same idiotic arguments today that they made back in 2002! what does it take to get on that bus?
You’ve got to serve the right interests.
Gary – OK, really I am going to sleep. But not before I say your comments here are spot on and I agree with you 100%.
Ahhh. That is so much more pleasant than disagreeing with you. Now I can sleep restfully. 😉
It’s a pretty good, thought-provoking list. It would have been even better without #3. There is this mythology that “free speech was banished,” … a point usually made in juxtaposition with comments about the vast numbers of people here who demonstrated against the war. Is Sean Penn in jail or anything? You mention the Dixie Chicks; I’d never heard of them, before they were “silenced.”
Nope.
Otherwise, your points are well-taken and worth remembering.
Do you have others?
Never get involved in a land war in (near) Asia (Minor)?
Hilzoy,
When you wrote:
“When the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy, it’s worth entertaining the possibility that they might be right. We should not defer to their judgment mindlessly, but we should have what Jefferson called “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind…
It seems to me that our country went slightly crazy after 9/11, and one of the manifestations of that craziness was a tendency to say, about anyone who suggested stopping to think about much of anything, that that person just hadn’t absorbed the lessons of 9/11, hadn’t been there, hadn’t fully grasped how horrific it was. Anyone who has even the slightest iota of this tendency should, I think, engrave on his or her forehead: When something truly awful happens, and you find yourself in the presence of real danger, it is more important than ever to stop and think clearly about what you are about to do. The temptations to do something stupid are much greater than usual, and the risks are much higher.”
it was as if you had taken the words right out of my mouth. But sadly, you had really taken the words from the mouth of someone who wrote them over 230 years ago, Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist 63:
“An attention to the judgment of other nations is important to every government for two reasons: the one is, that, independently of the merits of any particular plan or measure, it is desirable, on various accounts, that it should appear to other nations as the offspring of a wise and honorable policy; the second is, that in doubtful cases, particularly where the national councils may be warped by some strong passion or momentary interest, the presumed or known opinion of the impartial world may be the best guide that can be followed. What has not America lost by her want of character with foreign nations; and how many errors and follies would she not have avoided, if the justice and propriety of her measures had, in every instance, been previously tried by the light in which they would probably appear to the unbiased part of mankind?”
While I’m sometimes embarrassed by the fetishization of the founders of our nation, I’m often struck by just how wise they really were. How tragic that that wisdom wasn’t heeded in this case.
And on your point #5, this is at least the SECOND time these people have been shown to be completely wrong. Remember Team B and the Committe on the Present Danger?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_the_Present_Danger
Well, fortunately that time, as you allude to, their views were not *seriously tested*, inasmuch as they weren’t acted upon to actually start a hot war. Nevertheless, their pronouncements bore about as much resemblance to reality as their predictions about Iraq this time around.
Since hilzoy asks, let me propose a lesson: who is in charge of our government (and hence our military forces) is important. This is perhaps implicit in hilzoy’s other points but I think it’s worth making explicit. I recall Rudy Giuliani, for example, once saying (in reference to 9/11) something like “thank God George W. Bush is President.” In my view this is one more example of his poor judgement.
Events since 9/11 have spurred me to become more politically active. My voice is small and unlikely to have much influence but I feel it’s necessary, even vital, to do what little I can.
As for being on the fence about Iraq, I was close to it because I believed the portrait of Saddam Hussein as a monster was likely true. James Fallows’ article in the Atlantic was quite vivid, and there was plenty of other corroborating material. I came down on the anti-war side (and marched in the SF protest) because I didn’t trust the Bush administration to handle the aftermath. Little did I know at the time how right that was.
If I had to pick one lesson as most important I would say it’s hilzoy’s (1). In particular,
Let me add that in my experience those who panic in a crisis are often the very ones who most loudly condemn those who stay calm.
“i was called all those names for questioning the rationale and wisdom of invading Iraq”
I wasn’t and wouldn’t in the least deny it.
The Commissar:
However, Hilzoy didn’t engage in that mythology here, so your response is misdirected (it’s fairly directed at others, I agree).
What she wrote in 3 was:
This is an accurate statement of fact. Hilzoy did not write “Before we went to war, there were people who shut debate down by marginalizing or slandering or, in some cases, threatening those who disagreed with them.”
If she’d written that, your criticism would be applicable. But she didn’t, so it isn’t. People did try to discourage/shut down debate — but Hilzoy didn’t assert that they succeeded.
hilzoy —
Great post. The one thing I think you’ve left out in your analysis is the “Hulk smash!” dynamic, which would probably fall generally under bullet point (1).
Many folks were just happy to blow something up, and were less interested in exactly what that was, or what relationship it had to 9/11.
Republicans were speaking, and they talked about a whole range of horrors that would happen if we withdraw.
Here’s the funny thing.
I was opposed, strongly, to the invasion, for the usual reasons. Crappy evidence, no credible threat, other fish to fry. I’m putting it somewhat cavalierly because to state it with my true feeling would involve either crying, puking, or yelling at people who probably don’t really deserve it.
In spite of all of that, I’d be in favor of remaining in Iraq if we would commit to what it would take to bring about a reasonably good result. I make that to be something like putting two to three times the current troop levels in country, get the armed private contractors the hell out, and plan on staying there for a 5 to 10 year occupation until a basic level of security can be established. Move concretely toward handing over all control of oil contracts and revenues to the Iraqis. Give development contracts to Iraqi businesses.
We broke their country, sorry as it was to begin with. We owe them.
That would mean a draft, a lot of money, handing over significant control of Iraqi development (and Iraqi oil) to the Iraqis, and pissing off the oil companies, for starters.
Any takers? The sound you hear is the sound of crickets chirping.
When one member of government or the punditry is willing to step up and call for what it will actually cost to make whatever pony is still possible appear, I’ll listen to their crying about all the bad things that will undoubtedly happen when we leave. Short of that, they can talk to the hand as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks –
Actually, I’m going to add one a little more seriously:
Don’t assume that anybody is going to view you or your country as virtuous no matter how pure your motives are.
This may just be a restatement of Hilzoy’s point about abusive spouses. During this occupation, I’ve heard a lot of puzzled bitterness how, well, resentful the Iraqis are, as if they didn’t realize how much we’re trying to help them. And a lot of anger at how, well, mean the rest of the world is being about Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and so forth, as if they didn’t realize that these were necessary evils or at worst missteps by basically good people.
Guess what? They don’t. They don’t give us the benefit of the doubt, they don’t assume we are trying to do good, they don’t forgive us as quickly as we forgive ourselves — and there is no earthly reason to imagine that they would. Even if we really were as wonderful as we like to imagine, nobody else is going to take our word for it, and most people will never notice it. And frankly, we’re not even close to that wonderful, judged on our DEEDS. Not our words, not our oh-so-beautiful souls, but our deeds. That is all anybody is going to look at, and we’re lucky if they even go that far.
Shorter version: don’t think you’re going to be able to piss on people and tell them it’s raining. People other than the voters in this country, anyhow.
trilobite: agreed.
russell: “In spite of all of that, I’d be in favor of remaining in Iraq if we would commit to what it would take to bring about a reasonably good result.”
— I would too, if I thought that there was such a thing at this point. I think that we have let things get bad enough that I honestly don’t see a way out, though I do see ways of ameliorating particular problems. (Fixing this bridge, training that group of non-corrupt, non-militia police officers.) But in general I think that the civil war has gone way too far, and we spent much too long doing things that just alienated people whose support we need.
I would too, if I thought that there was such a thing at this point.
My immediate reaction to this was, “then we should step back and let somebody else step in who can get the job done”.
The problem is I don’t think there is any such entity. And I agree, even if we were willing to mount our best effort, it’s probably beyond our grasp as well at this point.
Some folks think it will take a generation before the true genius of George W Bush is revealed. IMO it will take a generation to understand how deeply he has harmed this country, and the world.
Thanks –
“Be very wary of extrapolating from the last few wars”
While this is a fair point, if we had actually extrapolated from Kosovo, we might have realised that we needed a hell of a lot more troops to prevent disorder and maintain a 40-1 civilian/peacekeeper ratio or thereabouts.
Um, did this administration take ANYTHING from past powers, other than how to use military power to destroy objectives?
For all hilzoy’s list of lessons that should be learned, I can bet pretty well they won’t be. I figure we’re in for another round of Republican “Stab in the back” hysteria, and 20 years from now we’ll have “Conservative” hawks who avoided Iraq trying to get into office and invade some other country just to prove how tough they are.
I marched in DC twice, even though I knew at the time it was largely pointless. Because George W. Bush wanted his war, and no matter how many people said it was stupid or opposed it, no matter how they said it, he was gonna get it.
Nobody learned anything then, and nobody’s learning anything now. This is how empires die.
Man, that was a depressing post.
The indictment for the responsibility for the war goes much more to much of the mainstream midlle-of-the-road establishment than it does towards the fringe right. Anyone want to argue that?
Yes. The Bush administration is fringe right, and it stampeded the nation into war. Middle-of-the-road establishment was complicit in going along without much reflection, but it would not have happened but for the fringe right people running this country.
All of hilzoy’s points are excellent; it remains to be seen if those Lessons Learned will actually be learned.
After all, we were supposed to have “learned something” from Vietnam. Yet the people who got us into Iraq were very well aware of what had happened there – but had built up a revisionist view of it all. The problem wasn’t, in their minds, getting involved in someone else’s civil war, nor propping up an ineffectual and unpopular regime, nor attempting to graft a democratic, capitalist nation-state on people to whom those were alien concepts, nor a failure to win hearts and minds, nor the difficulties of fighting an insurgency with “regular army” tactics. No, they convinced themselves that the “lessons of Vietnam” were primarily a matter of will and resolve.
The people who are still pro-Bush, pro-war are already busy on the revisionist front. They’re saying now – and they’ll spend the next 20 years saying – that the occupation wasn’t brutal enough; that the media, Democrats, and liberals were all traitors who aided and abetted The Enemy; and that we gave up on the very eve of victory.
If people still, now, believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks… if people still, now, believe he had WMDs… if people are already, now, falling for the same alarmist rhetoric aimed at Iran that they fell for when it was aimed at Iraq… if that can happen now, with the failures and lies and manipulations still fresh in memory, still unfolding before our very eyes… how can we expect the lessons learned to actually be learned the next time some President decides to cook up a war for dubious reasons?
I’ve been reading _The Assassin’s Gate_ (as well as the rumination that’s been going on lately in the media), and what strikes me is the weird confluence of all the elements needed for us to make the worst possible decisions in Iraq. The neoconservative ideas about pre-emptive war from people like Wolfowitz and Perle, the “small-footprint” ideas of Donald Rumsfeld, Bush’s reticence about nation-building as a reaction to the Clinton administration’s adventures, the information blackout that caused us to rely on exiles who hadn’t been in Iraq for decades, etc., etc. These ideas and forces come from all over the place, and ideologically, there’s no way to fit them together sensibly. But the whole thing lines up as if there were a big magnet sitting over it, pulling it all in precisely the wrong direction.
I’d only add one “lesson” to your thought-provoking post: We need to become much more thoughtful and careful about how we select our leaders. Our next president should be someone who is visibly hungry for information — and visibly passionate about communicating it. Basically, a wonk.
“This is how empires die.”
But on the bright side: bread and circuses for everyone!
“Yes. The Bush administration is fringe right, and it stampeded the nation into war. Middle-of-the-road establishment was complicit in going along without much reflection, but it would not have happened but for the fringe right people running this country.”
Yes, but it also wouldn’t have happened without the active and passive collaboration of the middle-of-the-road establishment. It took both the right and much of the center to do this. It couldn’t have happened without either.
To not emphasize this is to let the center establishment, the major media and the politicians and anyone who gave them credibility, including me, off the hook. It’s to say that they should be listened to in the future as if it had never happened. It’s to say nothing should change. It’s to put the blame all off on the obvious crazies.
That will have nothing but bad results if we let it happen.
And yes, I’m for Obama for President, although only a few shades past Edwards, and I wish I didn’t have to choose.
well done — i mean, too much to say, but one thing you’re right on is the idea of being more careful when you’re mad (“don’t drive angry!”).
it’s also why things like habeas and due process are so important — they’re precommitments that prevent us (odysseus to the pole-style) from acting in moments of weakness, hate, etc.
Be very careful which local groups you choose to arm, train and ally yourself with.
They almost always bite you in the ass later(see: Viet Minh, Contras, Taliban).
CaseyL: After all, we were supposed to have “learned something” from Vietnam. Yet the people who got us into Iraq were very well aware of what had happened there – but had built up a revisionist view of it all. The problem wasn’t, in their minds, getting involved in someone else’s civil war, nor propping up an ineffectual and unpopular regime, nor attempting to graft a democratic, capitalist nation-state on people to whom those were alien concepts, nor a failure to win hearts and minds, nor the difficulties of fighting an insurgency with “regular army” tactics. No, they convinced themselves that the “lessons of Vietnam” were primarily a matter of will and resolve.
Absolutely right, but not just coincidental. I was teaching courses on the Vietnam War during the period 1975-1981, and so was trying to keep up with the “lessons” we (the American public) were supposed to have learned from it. There was, just over this short span, a steady increase in those whose mission it clearly was to deny the obvious “lessons” I would have thought most of us – except the Republican White House – had just learned, lessons you have ably summarized above.
In less than a decade after the end of the war, we had pretty much “unlearned” everything Vietnam might have taught us, and were back into the same Cold War / counter-insurgency paradigm that had got us into it in the first place. The academic analyses (e.g., Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam) were supplemented – or supplementary to – artifacts of popular culture such as the quasi-fascist The Deer Hunter and the “Rambo” series (starting with First Blood, though that’s actually the least objectionable of the lot).
Consequently, and sadly, I was completely unsurprised that twenty years later we didn’t know the lessons of Vietnam. Call it the triumph of the memory hole.
Beyond emphasizing the complicity of the center, we should figure out what makes for such a complicit center. I’m not sure of the answer, but I think it has to do with ideology. There was a lot of drift after the cold war, and the U.S. became unsure about its identity. Neoconservatives, with their “moral clarity”, were ready to take charge at a time (9/11) when their ideas seemed to make a sort of nightmarish sense to people.
The silver lining (if there is one), is that the neoconservative philosophy got its moment in the sun and was seriously discredited. To avoid future “center complicity”, there have to be strong ideas to replace the ones that failed so badly. I hear politicians talk about “restoring our nations credibility in the world”. This is good, but it’s not enough. They need to be talking about how and why interdependence works, and what the U.S.’s role should be in the world (hopefully without using the term “moral authority”).
I dunno that the neocon stupidity’s been discredited. All of the Republicans for president are running on stuff like “double Gitmo” and “Bomb Iran” and other equally mind-numbingly stupid ideas. And they’ve got a sizable block of voters who ALREADY blame the “stab in the back liberals” for “losing” Vietnam. Ready audience and echo chamber for the latest round of back-stabbity blame fun!
The U.S. has rarely been good at learning from past mistakes. Check out the fine book ‘America’s First Battles’ some time; it talks about the first major engagement the U.S. fought in from the Revolution to (I think) Vietnam, and there’s a strong theme there of U.S. units consistently getting stomped early because they had learned the wrong lessons from prior wars.
On the other hand, while it is probably true that Iraq is on the off ramp to defeat at this point, I will buck the consensus and humbly suggest that the war may just yet not be lost. I cannot prove that, and I do not expect to convince anyone of it, but from where I stand things are not quite as grim as seems to be commonly believed (though I note I may also be misreading the consensus).
It is not good that it took the U.S. four years to learn how to fight COIN again, but it does not necessarily follow that because it took that long, the war is already lost. Insurgencies are by definition fought from a position of weakness, which gives the COIN forces the advantage of being able to make mistakes but recover from them. If what has happened in Anbar repeats itself in Diyala (and this is far from certain, please note), then the war will look very different. It will not be won, but nor will it have been lost.
Okay, maybe not discredited in *everyone’s* eyes. But who’s answering the phones at PNAC? I think the last update to their web-site was in 2005.
The “bomb Iran” sentiment is out there, but there’s no philosophy behind it — and it’s really the philosophy that’s important. Conservatism will always be around, and will always be especially strong in times of danger. But neoconservatism (at least the foreign policy part) is pretty much on a respirator.
I’d be pretty surprised if we end up preempting anything or spreading any freedom anywhere until I’m safely in my grave. We forget important lessons, without a doubt. But it usually takes us thirty or forty years.
“…and there’s a strong theme there of U.S. units consistently getting stomped early because they had learned the wrong lessons from prior wars.”
Simple knowledge of history tells us this. Revolutionary War, Civil War, Kasserine Pass….
“On the other hand, while it is probably true that Iraq is on the off ramp to defeat at this point, I will buck the consensus and humbly suggest that the war may just yet not be lost.”
It probably wouldn’t be healthy for you to think otherwise, under the circumstances. May you turn out to be right.
But it won’t be won until the Iraqi government wins it, not us. We can’t win it for them. Or so it seems to me. You?
“I will buck the consensus and humbly suggest that the war may just yet not be lost”
I’m not ready to lose hope either. But reading Petraeus’ “minimum 20 counterinsurgents per 1000 residents” figure in the counterinsurgency manual gives me a chill. There’s a lot of “stepping up” to be done. And Gary is right that the Iraqi government is going to have to be doing the stepping.
Gotta go with Gary and cleek on this one.
The problem of the war is the same problem in its nature as Hilary’s candidacy. It’s the problem of George Tenet. There were enough people who knew better, and they could have taken action, but they simply refused to make any personal sacrifice for it. Now some (Scrowcroft, Clarke) did and were trashed. This includes people in the media, politicians, people in government, and pundits. This includes Hillary, who simply couldn’t risk the possibility of opposing a possibly successful war given her presidential ambitions. She wasn’t going to stake her whole political future and all her life’s work for Iraq! This kind of decision was made hundreds and hundreds of times by people who the power to influence but preferred to keep mum, Iraq not being any skin off their backs. In short, it’s our collective cowardice, indifference, and greed that gave us this stupid war.
It’s the same selfishness that’s giving us Hillary’s candidacy in ’08. Why are the Democrats lining up behind the candidate with the largest liabilities? Why oh why? Because the Clintons control the party machine and — win or lose — it won’t hurt you within the party to back Hillary. Again, people are putting their selfish interests, their agendas, and their careers before their better judgements and the country’s interests, which is going to lead to a catastrophic result.
We have bad institutions all around us, and they thrive on our selfishness and our indifference to doing what’s right.
*Applause*
Gary,
Yes, students of history are well aware of those battles. But, as I’m sure you know, many people are not students of history, and fewer are students of military history. Things like ‘Task Force Smith’ may evoke very specific knowledge in a select few, but I’ll wager that their is a nontrivial number of people even on this blog who are not familiar with the particulars of the Battle of Long Island, Kasserine Pass, and so on.
And you are correct that my position and work may well be influencing my view of the war. I am aware of that possibility and I will do my best to prevent it, but it would be foolish not to consider that possibility in my assessments.
In the long run, yes, only the GoI can win the war. However, Coalition units can help to establish the conditions in which they can succeed. I suspect you know this already, but I’ll point out that a large part of success in the COIN fight is legitmizing the host nation government, and helping to provide security can do this.
That having been said, it is quite possible for the Coalition to improve security conditions in the country and the GoI to still fail to come together and take advantage of this. (Please note I am not attempting to blame the Iraqis as a people for any defeat in the war.) There are a lot of variables out there, but not all of them lead inevitably to defeat.
There are still questions that must be asked about whether or not the chances justify continued Coalition presence in Iraq, etc. I personally hope to see the Coalition and Iraq come together and bring this to some nominally successful conclusion, but at the same time I do worry that if such an outcome were reached, many would use it to justify the war (and future wars). From a strictly American standpoint, losing this war the right way might be the best thing for the future of our country. The problem being that I don’t believe the U.S. will bring out the thousands of Iraqis who have risked all to try and improve their country out, and I suspect that no matter what happens the U.S. public will not absorb the right lessons.
Lessons Learned?
Commenting on an article by Timothy Garton-Ash, Hilzoy @ Obsidian Wings writes on the lessons drawn from the situation in Iraq….
Seconding Ara.
We saw the same dynamic with Kerry in ’04. But at least back then, Dean let us dream a little before the party establishment was able to force their man to the top.
Don’t expect people to be grateful after you’ve dropped thousands of tons of bombs on their country killing thousands of their countrymen.
I agree with Gary and Ara. And this post by hilzoy is weak, IMO, precisely because of the neglect of the centrist responsibility. It’s easy to pick on Jonah Goldberg, but when America does something really stupid and evil, like Iraq or Vietnam, it’s often with the enthusiastic support of Serious People. To Gary’s list I’ll add another name–John Lewis Gaddis. Below I’ve attached a link to where Gaddis clearly sees that the invasion of Iraq might lead to another Vietnam, but it doesn’t seem to bother him too much. Sure, it’s risky, he seems to be saying, but that’s part of the game.
Gaddis
Don’t put power mad ideologues in charge of your democracy who think like this.
Iraq’s economy has been destroyed, probably irretrievably; it’s professionals are leaving the country en masse; its infrastructure is in shambles; the lawmakers can’t pass a law; but some people think the war can be won if a few hundred Al Qaeda wannabees get killed in Anbar. Good luck with that.
Ara has it right. Too many people profitted from Iraq War I; they didn’t want to miss out on the supposed new bonanza.
And this post by hilzoy is weak, IMO, precisely because of the neglect of the centrist responsibility. It’s easy to pick on Jonah Goldberg, but when America does something really stupid and evil, like Iraq or Vietnam, it’s often with the enthusiastic support of Serious People.
the center long ago lost its support for the war, but the Serious People and the government are still for it. so we still have it. and we will still have it when Bush leaves office. so, doesn’t that say something about how much effect the center’s support really matters ? does it also hint that maybe the center’s support didn’t matter much back in 2003, either ?
is there any evidence Bush has ever given a flying fig about what the citizens think of his policies ?
Bush’s approval right before the Iraq war was in the mid 50’s, and had been trending sharply downward ever since 9/11. the war gave him more support after he started it, but in the run-up, his support was diminishing, fast. the more he pushed for the war, the lower his approval rated. so, i have to wonder: how deep was this “centrist” support ? and again, did it matter at all ?
To not emphasize this is to let the center establishment, the major media and the politicians and anyone who gave them credibility, including me, off the hook.
Well, Gary, you convinced me not to let you off the hook. 😉
Plus your initial point was to lay reponsibility much more to the center mainstream than with the fringe right. I agree they are culpable in the sense of aiders and abettors, but they provided very little of the force that made it happen. Their failing was to go along so willingly — dumping normal restraints and sanity in favor of the fringe right’s warmongering.
“I will buck the consensus and humbly suggest that the war may just yet not be lost”
One of the odd things about this war is that “winning,” “losing” and “victory” have very fuzzy meanings.
If “losing” means we will not achieve the goals for which this war was allegedly fought, then it is lost. There is no way we are going to have a more stable Middle East with Iraq as a secular democratic state not hostile to US intersts. We inevitably are going to have a far more dangerous region, with Iraq going theocratic, desoptic, not our friend, and Iran-lite — if we are lucky, the locals will kick out the nutsy jihadi types and just be unfriendly, but not exporting violence.
If “losing” means being beaten on the battlefield — no, it has not and will not happen. We could stay in Iraq forever and not suffer such a defeat. And people who think this way (Bush) see leaving as losing, and see advocates of withdrawal as snatching defeat from victory by such advocacy.
Inevitably? Really? There is no way that Iraq could come through this without a theocratic despot at its head? I mean no offense, but a prediction of that magnitude strikes me as requiring extraordinary evidence to be taken at face value.
As to the question of what I am defining as victory, I mean leaving Iraq with a reasonably-functional, nominally representative government. So I will certainly concede that I do not see the more grandiose goals once offered as reasons for the war as coming true, and so by that standard, one can still call the war a loss and I’ll not argue. But I disagree that your prognosis is inevitable.
Before we went to war, there were people who were trying to shut debate down by marginalizing or slandering or, in some cases, threatening those who disagreed with them.
I guess this lesson hasn’t been learned very well. ;(
WASHINGTON, July 19 (AP) — A Pentagon official has told Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton that questions she has raised about how the United States would withdraw from Iraq feed enemy propaganda.
The stinging wording of the message, from Under Secretary of Defense Eric S. Edelman, was unusual, particularly because it was directed at a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mr. Edelman’s July 16 message, in response to questions Mrs. Clinton raised in May, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq,” he wrote, “reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia.”
No one here is likely to accuse me of being an HRC supporter, and I think this is out of line.
OCSteve,
What that represents is desperation. And it isn’t desperation on the part of the Pentagon.
But here’s a question. What response, if any, should come from Sec. Gates regarding this?
What response, if any, should come from Sec. Gates regarding this?
What should be the response? Something along the lines of a 2×4 up side the head reminder that the pentagon works for those nutty civilians over on the hill.
G’Kar: Inevitably? Really? There is no way that Iraq could come through this without a theocratic despot at its head?
I’d point out that what dmbeaster actually said was that inevitably the Middle East was going to be “a far more dangerous region, with Iraq going theocratic, despotic, not our friend, and Iran-lite”.
As to the question of what I am defining as victory, I mean leaving Iraq with a reasonably-functional, nominally representative government.
Such as Iran now has? You’d count that victory?
I think you’ve just agreed with dmbeaster.
(I’d point out, too, that any representative government Iraq achieves, any time in the next twenty years, is absolutely going to be at least nominally hostile to the US: the US has set itself up to be the easy hate-object for Iraqi politicians to attack for popular support, assuming Iraq achieves the kind of functional government where politicians make speeches and promise policy in order to be elected.)
I appreciate G’Kar’s optimism. I’d just add that the more Democrats ratchet up credible threats of withdrawal, the more pressure there is on the Iraqi government to achieve the happy result he seeks. People like Ambassador Crocker can credibly cast the Democrats in the role of “bad cop” in their attempts to leverage the Iraqi politicians. I don’t know that it will work, but it’s pretty clear the Iraqis were convinced they had a blank check under the old order.
OT (kind of) – Wow.
I should note that there’s some NSFW language in my link to the video above, but the video is fine (to the extent it doesn’t cause to put your fist through the wall).
Jesurgislac,
dmbeaster: a far more dangerous region, with Iraq going theocratic, despotic, not our friend, and Iran-lite.
G’Kar: Inevitably? Really? There is no way that Iraq could come through this without a theocratic despot at its head?
I am baffled as to how you came to the conclusion that my response somehow did not address dmbeaster’s claim.
Steve,
Let me be clear: I am not optimistic about the future of Iraq. I merely do not think it is yet written in stone. And while threats of withdrawal may pressure the Iraqi government to get its act together, it is already pushing a lot of Iraqis into staying on the good side of the insurgents because they want to survive after the Coalition pulls out. I certainly do not blame them for this, since they do not always fully understand American politics (although the Iraqis I’ve met do see to be far more politically engaged than most Americans I know) and often believe that when Congress says we’re getting out, we’re getting out for sure. But this does undermine our COIN strategy, which ultimately depends on the population kicking the insurgents out. Please note that in no way am I suggesting or implying that those who think the Coalition should get out should not speak their mind. Nor are hawks justified in claiming that discussions of a pullout help the enemy; while they may (I am in no position to know the relative effects of political debate in the U.S. on the Iraqi government) or may not, it would not be an issue if we hadn’t gone into this war when we should not have done so.
As hilzoy and others have noted, this discussion really should have occurred before the war and would have, in all likelihood, preempted the war, but since it did not there’s no reason not to have it now. As I noted, I do hope that America does learn some things from the last six years, though I am pessimistic that it will.
The consequences Timothy Garton Ash describes — or at least, consequences broadly like them — were predictable at the time.
And Timothy Garton Ash failed to predict them. Take a look at this uncritical regurgitation of DC elite conventional wisdom from December 2002.
Late in the column Ash referred almost obliquely to the reality that there were other points of view being expressed, but apparently considered them so marginal that he didn’t trouble himself to convey any of those arguments.
And while threats of withdrawal may pressure the Iraqi government to get its act together, it is already pushing a lot of Iraqis into staying on the good side of the insurgents because they want to survive after the Coalition pulls out.
That’s a very interesting point. But unless there’s a prospect of ultimately wiping out the insurgency – which I really don’t see happening given politically acceptable time frames and troop levels – I’m not sure we can ever do any better. At some point, yes, we’re going to abandon the Iraqis to work these things out on their own.
What does a political reconciliation mean, after all? It means at least one side is sufficiently concerned about the prospect of violence from the other side that it agrees to work out a reasonable power-sharing compromise. At the end of the day, the reason the Shiites have to give up some amount of power to the Sunnis is because there’s going to be violence from the Sunnis if they don’t, and it’s better for everyone to cut a deal and live in peace.
I wish this sort of thing could take place under US stewardship, to avoid the worst-case scenarios from playing out, but I just don’t see how that is ever going to happen. And it sounds like you don’t believe it’s likely, either, just that it’s possible. As I said, I certainly hope you’re right about that.
G’Kar,
The Shia political leadership were not reading the Federalist Pappers and Adam Smith, when they were in exile in Syria and Iran.
All of the major players on the Shia side all have theocratic credentials. Even the Quietists resemble moderate theocrats.
Steve,
Again, I’m not suggesting for a second that people shouldn’t argue in favor of a Coalition withdrawal. I was only presenting that as a counterpoint to the possibility the Iraqi government will begin to act with the realization their time with U.S. support is running short.
As for political reconciliation, the Shia are unlike to concede anything, as they are holding the whip hand in this relationship. If the Coalition does withdraw, the Iraqis will most like implement an Iraqi solution to the problem, and a lot of Sunni will die. Yes, many Shia will die as well, but the numbers favor the Shia in this contest.
That doesn’t address what the Saudis might do in such a case, however.
Hilzoy: There are also cases in which we can get away with assuming that we will not need [an exit strategy]. (Grenada.)
As a neutral point of analysis about the relative powers in play, yes. But I hope this sentence doesn’t imply blithe acceptance or approval of U.S. intervention in cases where it is supposedly “low cost” enough.
someotherdude,
Sadr’s only theocratic credential is his father. Sadr himself is not an Ayatollah or even close to it; his power base is based on populism and thuggery. And he certainly qualifies as a major Shia player.
I am baffled as to how you came to the conclusion that my response somehow did not address dmbeaster’s claim.
I am baffled how you could think that your response addressed the current reality of the situation, as DMbeaster described it. The Middle East is a far more dangerous region now, and Iraq is going theocratic: various despots have arisen (the US’s original plan was to put a despot of the Bush administration’s choice in control): it looks more and more like Iran-lite: and the notion that the US, after all it has done to the Iraqi people, could have a friendly relationship with Iraq (assuming Iraq even exists as a coherent nation in five years time) is unreal.
Your response was on the lines of “And a pony!” It addressed none of the issues: you merely stated what you would like to have happen, without any hypothesis about how Iraq is going to get there, let alone how the US occupation could permit Iraq to achieve it.
G’Kar
You are right, sort of. Inevitable is overkill as to some components. I think it applies to the region being more dangerous.
As for theocratic, despotic, not our friend, and Iran-lite, the odds strongly favor those outcomes (and in my opinion, was the likely predictable outcome pre-war), and there is precious little the US can do about it. Some form of representative government is not possible in a country in which all power devolves to the militia, and political killing is routine. Theocracy is the dominant force in the country for the same reason that since time immemorial, power has cloaked itself in religious respectability, and the theocratic forces in Iraq swamp the secular ones. Not friendly to the US? — the country hates us, and political success will be defined by an anti-US posture. The dominant Shiite forces in the country are already closely aligned with Iran (I would say closer to Iran than to the US). The faction least friendly to Iran is Sadr — and then only because of a strong streak of nationalism that is very hostile to the US.
Something that I think is frequently overlooked is the extent to which 4 years of US occupation hell has utterly changed this country. Whatever forces were present in Iraq in 2003 with which we could have worked to further our goals are now completely gone. In its place is tribalism, religious civil war, theocracy, anarchy and lawlessness. The Iraqi middle class and secular moderates are gone — I would bet those elements of Iraqi society are a big part of the huge number of refugees now out of the country.
Your faith in COIN is badly misplaced. It cannot work in a country in which most of the populace hates you. It cannot work when the primary dynamic is factional civil war. This is not a matter of winning hearts and minds (unwinnable now, anyway) — its about whose side are you on. To the extent Iraqis support US actions, it is because it is perceived as favoring their side. It is madness to think it represents favoring US interests.
One of the most nonsensical stories making the rounds is the implication of Sunnis in Anbar colluding with US forces to throw out crazy jihadi outsiders. This is depicted as some sort of success, and in a very small way, it is since jihadi crazies are being driven out. But as soon as that task is accomplished, the same Sunnis are going to be killing us.
We do not need more “victories” like that.
Jesurgislac,
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.
It appears Sadr’s status within his confessional hierarchy, does not limit his appreciation for a theocratic government. As a matter of fact, from what little reading I’ve done…Iraq is going theocratic and the Shia will be debating what type of theocracy it is going to become.
If there is a violent civil war, it will be a brutal theocracy if it’s a softer civil war it may look like Iran.
G’Kar,
It appears Sadr’s status within his confessional hierarchy, does not limit his appreciation for a theocratic government. As a matter of fact, from what little reading I’ve done…Iraq is going theocratic and the Shia will be debating what type of theocracy it is going to become.
If there is a violent civil war, it will be a brutal theocracy if it’s a softer civil war it may look like Iran.
I want to support Gary’s point as forcefully as possible within the bounds of posting rules.
The liberal interventionist pundits and calculating “liberal” politicians who knew better but failed to ask the hard questions, (or address the hard questions anti-Iraq war politicians and policy advocates raised) are the ones responsible for the lack of a serious debate.
Corporate media outlets played a huge role in marginalizing even the most ‘credentialed’ anti-Iraq-war views (Zinni and Webb, who’d been regulars on the cable networks, suddenly couldn’t get on). But if Tom Daschle and Carl Levin and Dick Gephardt had stuck to their original hard line — no vote on an Iraq resolution until after the November elections — the debate inside and outside Congress would have been very different.
One of the odd things about this war is that “winning,” “losing” and “victory” have very fuzzy meanings.
That’s because it’s not a war, it’s an occupation. If you think of the situation in Iraq as a “war”, there’s no way of “winning”. There’s no “enemy army”, there’s no “enemy capital”, there’s no “front”, and the concept of “combatants” is fuzzy at best.
I think of an occupation as heavily-armed babysitting; we’re trying to keep the kids from wrecking the place until the adults take over and we can go home. And it’s unfortunately obvious that we can’t commit the resources to do this.
G’Kar: [The threat of withdrawal] does undermine our COIN strategy, which ultimately depends on the population kicking the insurgents out.
“The insurgents” are Iraqis resisting the occupation; they aren’t going to get ‘kicked out’ by anyone. The only kicking-out that might happen is foreign fighters; for the rest, the resolution is going to come from more war, and some internal negotiation — which will only happen after the various factions conclude they cannot defeat the others, or that their particular faction faces absolute defeat and extinction unless a deal can be made.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.
And you are, of course, entitled to pretend that the facts about what is happening in Iraq are just my opinion.
dmbeaster,
I think the odds are probably in favor of not a friend of the U.S. and despotic. I think the probabilities for theocratic and Iran-lite are less than 50%.
I apologize for not addressing the question of whether or not Iraq would end up a friend of the U.S. earlier. I concur that this strikes me as highly unlikely regardless of what the outcome is in Iraq. I will note, however, that there are many nations that are not friends with the U.S. that the U.S. still manages to coexist peacefully with, so I still count that end state as a pretty good one.
Despotic, as I said, is probably a pretty good bet, although it is difficult to tell simply because there are so many power players already in existence in Iraq, and none of them alone are capable of seizing control even in the absence of Coalition forces. That is the general trend in this region, however, so while I’m not certain how it might come about, possibly after a long and rather unpleasant civil war, I’ll grant that I believe you would probably be safer betting in that direction.
Theocratic and mini-Iran, however, simply do not fit well with most Iraqis. Even the 65% of Iraqis who are Shia are by no means all fans of either theocracy or Iran. It is important to note that, to Shia, Iraq is a far more important nation than Iran because Iraq holds the two most important Shia shrines in Najaf and Karbala. (Sunni make the Hajj to Mecca; Shia go to Najaf and Karbala.) Iraq’s Shia do not, as a rule, have any interest in becoming Iran-lite or a satellite of Iran. They want their own country, and many of them have no particular interest in that nation being theocratic a la Iran.
The Sunni are certainly not interested in going along with a theocratic regime, given both their former position as the leadership of Iraq and the religious differences, and barring some major ethnic cleansing they are strong enough to prevent such a result. And the Kurds are, for the region, a pretty secular people. They’re not going to go along with a theocratic Iraq either. So I think that the evidence does not support your conclusion here.
If you believe that COIN involves winning hearts and minds, I advise you to pick up a copy of FM 3-24 (available from the University of Chicago Press, I believe) and take a look, as you are terribly misinformed.
As for Anbar, you are correct that the possibility exists that the Sunni tribes there will return to trying to kill Coalition forces now that AQI has largely been driven from the province. We will know more in the coming months, as the province has become remarkably quiet of late. It is important to note, however, that recruiting for the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police has jumped by more than an order of magnitude since the ‘Anbar awakening,’ indicating that the tribal leaders may be willing to work with the GoI.
Sadr himself is not an Ayatollah or even close to it; his power base is based on populism and thuggery.
Here’s a memorable anecdote about Sadr’s thugs. You tell me if it sounds more like theocracy or populism. The man has a fatwa against soccer!
G’Kar,
Most Iranians never supported an Islamic theocracy, but the “law and order” crowd (The Pragmatists, if you will) always will settle for “strength” if there is no other alternative.
And that alternative must have the ability to establish law and order.
And let us not forget the Theocratic Monarchy of Saudi Arabia is much more brutal than the Republican Theocracy of Iran.
Please add me to the list of those praising Ara’s comment upthread.
Gary and G’Kar — I agree that a lasting solution has to come from an indigenous government, but I don’t see that happening before a basic level of security is achieved on the ground.
I’d be curious to know your, or anyone’s, thoughts on whether that is achievable, and what it would take to achieve it.
Thanks –
For clarity’s sake, I’d like to point out that I have never said that I believe it is likely that the war in Iraq will be won, only that I do not believe that it is already lost.
Nell,
“The insurgents” are Iraqis resisting the occupation; they aren’t going to get ‘kicked out’ by anyone.”
One, this is a vast oversimplification of what is happening in Iraq. There are a mix of insurgents, criminals, and terrorists struggling for various goals. There are foreign fighters, former regime elements, common criminals (Saddam emptied the jails shortly before the invasion), theocrats…the list is quite long, and their goals are quite varied.
Two, when I use the words ‘kicked out,’ I do not mean physically removed from Iraq, I mean only separating them from the Iraqi population at large. The various elements in Iraq that are fighting the Coalition are only a small fraction of the total population, with a larger fraction (less than a majority) supporting them. The majority of Iraqis are fence-sitters, committing themselves neither to the ‘insurgents’ or to the GoI. If the GoI can force the insurgents out of a given area, keep them out, and provide vital services, the population (as a whole, obviously not as a unified bloc) will move towards the GoI and the insurgency dwindles.
Now, the long pole in that tent is the GoI stepping up and closing the loop, which is why I am not optimistic about the situation.
I appreciate G’Kar’s optimism. I’d just add that the more Democrats ratchet up credible threats of withdrawal, the more pressure there is on the Iraqi government to achieve the happy result he seeks. People like Ambassador Crocker can credibly cast the Democrats in the role of “bad cop” in their attempts to leverage the Iraqi politicians. I don’t know that it will work, but it’s pretty clear the Iraqis were convinced they had a blank check under the old order.
This assumes that Iraqi perception of the likelihood and timing of US withdrawal will have a major impact on how Iraqis behave. I think this is a seriously flawed assumption.
I would posit that all factions of Iraqis expect the US to withdraw at some point in time, and all are willing to play a waiting game for that inevitability to occur. In the interim, all factions engage in a slow moving civil war — jockeying for the best positions as the US occupation comes to an end. They are all itching for that moment when they are freer to take action. No faction worth its salt worries about a US withdrawal. Factions whose strength depends on continued US occupation are doomed, and these are the only ones who might change their tune under the threat of US withdrawal.
Withdrawal is a wise policy not because of the effect it may or may not have on Iraqis. It is the wise policy because we have run out of any options whereby our continued occupation improves things. And our continued presence makes a lot of things a lot worse. We are wasting lives, treasure and our prestige and stoking the forces of Islamic fanaticism. The true dead-enders are the US war advocates.
The notion that continued occupation prevents Iraqi chaos and bloodshed is also sadly wrong. What is the functional difference between thousands of Iraqis being slaughtered in a few months of pitched civil war after withdrawal, versus thousands being slaughtered in a US managed civil war during another two years of occupation? If anything, a case can be made that 4 years of botched US occupation has resulted in more Iraqis being killed than would have been killed per the Iraqi solution without US supervision.
One of the very strong arguments against withdrawal, in my view, is the notion that having broken it, we have the obligation to fix it. Except it is not within our power to do so any longer. Yes, withdrawal is admitting that the mission was a complete screw-up and failure, which is why so many resist it with the same fervor of an addict not willing to admit to an addiction.
The other strong argument is that leaving only brings worse consequences, so we have to stay anyway. This is a more difficult judgment call. I think it is wrong, and I expect the warmongers to hype whatever goes wrong after withdrawal as proof that we should have stayed. But one who reaches this conclusion has to answer how our continued presence will improve anything. Continuing a failed policy because you fear the consequences of what will follow simply puts off for tomorrow those consequences if there is no meaningful plan that will reverse it. Unfortunately, a “meaningful plan” includes 1 in 10 longshots for those addicted to this continued war.
It is time to get out completely in an orderly manner over the next year. We can use whatever remaining scraps of influence that process might give us to nudge the Iraqi process of resolving itself. But that is the only influence we still have over events.
Steve,
That’s a fascinating story, particularly as Sadr is not authorized to issue fatwas under Shia law. This obviously doesn’t mean he isn’t necessarily doing so, only that he risks overstepping his bounds. The Shia take a more rigid and hierarchical view to Islam and the Sunni.
someotherdude,
Valid points, but I suspect that the odds are still better that Iraq ends up with a more secular than theocratic government when the dust settles.
russell,
I think that a basic level of security can be reached, but that it will take more time than the American public is willing to give it. Let me point out here that the blame for this rests squarely on those who pushed for the war and the military that failed to fight the war properly for much of the first four years and not in any way on those who disagreed with the war. The American public is, I believe, justifiably tired of claims that victory is just around the corner and so the administration finds itself in the position of the boy who cried wolf.
This assumes that Iraqi perception of the likelihood and timing of US withdrawal will have a major impact on how Iraqis behave. I think this is a seriously flawed assumption.
You’re welcome to think that, but I think you’re dead wrong. Consider the average Iraqi. He knows that he may have to choose one side or the other (simplifying the situation here; there are lot more than two sides). He likes the idea of an Iraq with a representative government, but he doesn’t believe the GoI can hold together without American support. He further realizes that the U.S. Congress keeps talking about pulling out of Iraq very soon. It seems quite natural to me that his reaction to any overture from the Coalition is going to be to keep them at arm’s length, since he well knows that if the U.S. does leave, those viewed as collaborators with the U.S. will face death. The idea that this knowledge won’t affect behavior suggests a very different view of human nature than what I am accustomed to.
I’d also like to note, since I suspect some commenters believe otherwise, that I do not have a position on whether or not the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq. At times it seems like a good idea to me, at others, less so, so I do not pretend to know what is best.
G’Kar: Theocratic and mini-Iran, however, simply do not fit well with most Iraqis. Even the 65% of Iraqis who are Shia are by no means all fans of either theocracy or Iran.
Nor are many Iranians, which I see someotherdude has already noted. Nor, I suspect, are many Saudis. Nor, evidently, were many Afghans. Nor, indeed, are many Americans.
When a despotic government enforces its own religious beliefs on the population, it does not require the general population to be a fan of theocracy: it merely requires that they should be unable/unwilling to overthrow the government.
G’Kar
The majority of Iraqis are fence-sitters, committing themselves neither to the ‘insurgents’ or to the GoI.
The majority of Iraqis self-identify with some faction of Shia, Sunni or Kurd, and the various sub-groups within them (God help those small minorities that fall outside those groups). They are not going to change that allegiance to the GoI unless their faction controls it, or they otherwise perceive it as not hostile to their faction’s interest. They are not fence-sitters in the true sense of the word.
I’d also like to note, since I suspect some commenters believe otherwise, that I do not have a position on whether or not the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq. At times it seems like a good idea to me, at others, less so, so I do not pretend to know what is best.
I respect that, btw. Just thought I’d mention it.
dmbeaster,
You are assuming that it is wholly impossible for Shia, Sunni, and Kurds to get along in a common state. (Also, minor nit, Kurds don’t ‘self-identify’ with being Kurds; they are an ethnic group.) Shia and Sunni are not bound by religious compulsion to fight one another, therefore it is far from impossible for them to get along enough to coexist under a single state.
The Kurds are a different issue, and it will be interesting to see what happens with the Kirkuk referendum this November.
G’Kar, there’s not going to be any ‘kicking out’ as you define it either (separation from the population).
And, given that I’ve been insisting in comment sections including ObWi’s since 2005 that a complex, multi-party civil war and resistance to occupation has been underway that U.S. troops can do nothing to quell, I take exception to being accused of oversimplifying. Your list leaves out or mischaracterizes major elements fueling the conflict — not least the occupation forces themselves.
The government of Iraq is a Shia government, with Kurdish support (that will bolt the moment the Kurds are asked to sacrifice anything — such as Kirkuk — for a united Iraq). As such, it is never going to be able to separate Sunni insurgents from the Sunni population.
The Shia militias likewise will remain tied to the Shia population, as well as dominating the Iraqi security forces. Whenever U.S. trooops engage in “counterinsurgency” operations in Shia enclaves, those militias kill U.S. troops as readily as do Sunni insurgents in Anbar and Diyala and the ‘triangle of death’ south of Baghdad.
Nell,
I apologize, but I do not have the time to go back through all of the comment sections to see what people’s past positions have included. The way you phrased the issue, in my opinion, blurred some important lines, so I attempted to clear that up. No offense was intended.
As for your specific claims, I’m not certain that you are correct. Insurgent forces have largely been forced out of Baqouba after Arrowhead Ripper. Sunni from Anbar are signing on to join GoI forces. While it is true that the Shia dominate the Iraqi Police, efforts continue to clean them out and your claim that that cannot be done is your opinion. The IA is becoming a less-sectarian force, and is hardly a Shia force, holding as it does significant Kurdish and Sunni elements.
As for Anbar, have you been watching to see how many attacks there are on Coalition forces there of late? The trend is down almost to nonexistence. I noted above that it is possible that the Sunni tribes will take up the sword against the Coalition once more, but at the moment they are not.
A few comments: first, Nell: “I hope this sentence doesn’t imply blithe acceptance or approval of U.S. intervention in cases where it is supposedly “low cost” enough.”
— No, it doesn’t. It only meant that if we were going to invade Granada, then we could probably get away without having worked out, in detail, what to do if we somehow failed, since that was so completely unlikely. The question whether we should have is a different matter entirely.
Second: I agree with what everyone has written about the responsibility of the center. But I wasn’t meaning to deny that, exactly. When people tried to shut down dissenting voices, for instance, they could only have the effect they did because there weren’t nearly enough people who said: wait a minute, whether we agree with those dissenting voices or not, shutting them down is a disservice to the country, and an invitation to disaster. So I would have thought that points 1-3, for instance, were addressed to the center as well.
I should probably have added: no one, just no one, gets to send people off to fight and possibly die, to incur the enormous costs to any country we decide to invade, etc., etc., etc., for the sake of their careers, or because it’s the “safe” thing to do (for whom, exactly?). There are situations in which I think it makes sense not to dissent publicly for the sake of one’s career, though I think it’s also important to keep yourself honest about stuff like that. But surely no one’s career is important enough that it outweighs the costs of going to war wrongly.
G’Kar: Thanks; and I really hope you’re right. I should say that my pessimism has more to do with the Iraqi government than with the military.
G’Kar: While it is true that the Shia dominate the Iraqi Police, efforts continue to clean them out and your claim that that cannot be done is your opinion.
You mean like cleaning the Catholics out of the Royal Ulster Constabulary? I’m sorry, where did you think it was a good idea to ensure that 65% of the population have no representation in the police? South Africa, perhaps?
As for your specific claims, I’m not certain that you are correct.
You think it’s possible to treat every city in Iraq like Fallujah, all at the same time? Because Nell’s right: the notion that the Iraqis taking part in the civil war can all be driven out of Iraq and then there’ll be peace is a “And a pony!” fantasy. Do you think that the US Civil War would have ended peacefully if the goal of the Northerners had been to drive out of the US, or kill, every man who took up arms on the Confederate side? Do you think this would have worked any better if there had been a foreign army on the Confederate side determined to drive out of the US, or kill, every man who took up arms on the Union side?
“Winning” in a civil war is always arguable. For a foreign occupation to think it can win a civil war by taking sides is an unhappy fantasy.
hilzoy,
There are many reasons to be pessimistic about the military as well, although I would concur that the Iraqi government is the weak link.
Again, I am pessimistic as well. I don’t think that losing is guaranteed, but if I were to have to put money down on an outcome, that is where I would bet. Fortunately, no one is asking me to bet money on it.
You mean like cleaning the Catholics out of the Royal Ulster Constabulary? I’m sorry, where did you think it was a good idea to ensure that 65% of the population have no representation in the police? South Africa, perhaps?
My apologies, I was imprecise. When I say ‘cleaning them out,’ I do not mean removing all Shia from the police. I was referring to ongoing attempts to develop a professional force that is devoted to the rule of law rather than to the advancement of their sect.
Because Nell’s right: the notion that the Iraqis taking part in the civil war can all be driven out of Iraq and then there’ll be peace is a “And a pony!” fantasy.
I cannot argue with this, but I have never made such an argument.
Jes: the Narnian Ambassador can speak for himself, but speaking for myself, I think that when someone, especially someone of demonstrated good faith, says something that might be interpreted either as saying that 65% of the population should have no representation in the police force, or more charitably as an elliptical way of saying that actual militias and death squads claiming to represent that 65% should be cleaned out, it would be generous (and more helpful to civil discussion) to acknowledge the latter possibility.
“the Narnian Ambassador can speak for himself”
And lo, he did!
You’ve missed not a few lessons there in your 10-point list of lessons learned.
(1) The US did not go “slightly crazy” after 9/11. This had been building since 1993, when the election of the Clinton Presidency caused no small amount of “empassionment” of national politics. It became more acceptable in that era to pillory an opponent over what once were considered perfectly reasonable disagreements and to shout down opponents rather than resolve matters through civil debate. Media bias became more prevalent as well, trying to shut down discussion from the conservative side of the public–and this was coupled with the rise of conservative media who took the passions of conservatives and amplified them. Once you get to the 2000 elections which were hard-fought and narrowly-won, you end up with the phrases “Bush Derangement Syndrom” and “Selected not elected.” It is an article of unshakable faith among Bush critics that the 2000 elections were stolen and no amount of facts to the contrary can shake that. 9/11 was neither a turning point nor a watershed in the insanity of the nation’s political class.
(2) It was also a pretty standard move in 1984, 1988, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and so forth. And you have to remember that following 9/11, there were many Americans and others in the world that thought that America deserved what it got. Combine this with the aforementioned BDS, and there were a lot of the political class that were unserious about the war even to the point of treason. Witness the NYT publishing security leak after security leak, Dan Rather relying on fabricated memos, and many out and out lies published in the media. But don’t question their patriotism.
(3) Don’t mistake pissing off your audience with censorship. The two are not equivalent. What the Dixie Chicks did was to basically take political views dearly held by their audience and treat those views (and their audience members) with contempt. Tim McGraw and Toby Keith are anti-war Democrats, but much more respectful of their audience. While Natalie Mains may have become a cause celebre among the anti-war crowd, there was certainly no small amount of slander (Cindy Sheehan, Tedd Rall, Markos “Screw ’em” Moulitsas) being directed in the opposite direction.
(4) There is a lesson in diplomacy that “everone’s got an angle.” A continual thread on many discussions on foreign affairs was that the United States needed to be taken down a peg or two–in fact, the decline and fall of the American Empire is an article of faith on Anti-American sites who would turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses of China, or the Middle East, or Russia in order to prop up entities that have the political and economic power to challenge the United States. When the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy, ask yourself what is their angle for saying so–and do not presume that altruism is their motivation, because it usually isn’t.
(5) The problem with your analysis is that Reagan cannot be ignored. Reagan’s policies worked very well on the macro level, while the Carterian, Bushian, and Clintonian foreign policies were abject failures. Carter’s response to Soviet Expansionism was to boycott the Olympics. Bush Sr. took the advice of people advocating an interventionist foreign policy where peacekeeping was put by the wayside in favour of peacemaking. Clinton continued the interventionist policies and ended up with disasters in Kosovo and Somalia and and emboldening of Al Qaeda. Reagan, on the other hand waged an economic and political war that was targetted at the weaknesses of the Soviet Union and waged it so successfully that the Soviet Union ceased to exist a few years after Reagan left office.
(6) Again, while the Cuban Missile Crisis may seem to be a counter to the argument of Munich, the lesson of Kennedy is not that moderating a hawkish response works–but that a resolute response is effective. By creating the conditions that allow for both sides to recognize that each is serious and not merely rattling sabres or a “paper tiger”, you end up with a situation where both sides are more inclined to pursue peaceful resolutions. If one side in a conflict does not believe that the other will fight to defend its interests, there is a greater incentive to use military actions rather than diplomatic actions.
(7) Soldiers are not magicians, but there certainly were a lot of politicians who forgot that in the 1990s when they deployed troops around the world in order to quell conflicts. Their job is to break things and kill people and ideally, they are so good at it that they never need to be called upon to do that. Politicians have to know how to use a military option and when to call in a civilian option. There are many politicians who are too eager to send in the troops–and then too eager to send in the civilians before the soldiers’ jobs are done.
(8) It must be nice to be able to pick and choose wars that you can win. Real life, however, rarely gives that option. Wars are often forced upon people and at that time, you do everything in your power to win. But war is a risk. There is no such thing as a war that you are certain to win–and the danger of believing that you can go to war and win is what brought about the most monumental stupidities in the first half-century in Europe. Once you go to war, there is a always risk of defeat. The adaptive nature of warfare ensures that. If there is a failure in the war in Iraq, it will not be President Bush’s failure–it will be the failure of the American People who a) entered the war with unrealistic expectations and b) were all to eager to end the war when they got bored with it–or saw an opportunity to score political points.
(9) Warfare is an adaptive exercise. That means that when you fight, your style of fighting changes because your opponent’s style changes. As each side grapples for victory, they try new things–some work, some don’t. Successes are repeated and built upon. Are there do-overs in warfare? Absolutely. The question is how many lives did the last failure–or last success cost?
An occupation is warfighting. As US strategies changed, so did Al Qaeda’s and the Insurgents. At this point, can Al Qaeda win in Iraq? No. They are defeated, and have the dead-enders still trying to forment unrest and grab headlines.
I don’t accept the notion that for every insurgent you kill, you start a blood fued with his family. That’s rather simplistic and does not account for all manner of social elements such as social standing, local custom, pride, honor, desire for peace and prosperity, as well as more prosaic matters such as whether the family actually liked the insurgent.
(10) You make the incorrect assumption that diplomacy stopped because of the war. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both Syria and Iran, which you mention in your post, have more interests in seeing a US defeat in Iraq than they do in helping stabilize Iraq. You have to look at the diplomatic offensives in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Libya before you characterize diplomacy as being ineffective.
G’Kar:My apologies, I was imprecise.
I jumped to conclusions a bit rapidly – thinking about it, I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.
I cannot argue with this, but I have never made such an argument.
No, sorry – you were arguing that the Iraqis fighting the civil war – aka the insurgents – could be physically separated from the rest of the population – somehow! – and that this would – somehow! – make peace.
it would be generous (and more helpful to civil discussion) to acknowledge the latter possibility.
It would, and I should have.
I prefer the Narn Ambassador, if you please. When people call me the Narnian Ambassador, I suddenly am deluged with questions about C.S. Lewis and someone called ‘Aslan.’
A very interesting post, but the author leaves out the nuclear WMD argument for the war. Sure, I remember that we found none, but quite a few national intelligence agencies, pre-war, supported a continuing covert Iraqi program, not just the US.
That, to me, was the only justification for this war: that a nuclear Iraq , free of UN sanctions, might (underline) be containable, but that the inevitable daisy-chain of proliferation among the ME nations would probably not be containable to the nation states in the region, meaning a great risk of undeterrable islamic radicals or covert state actors with access to nukes.
I don’t remember Scowcroft or others addressing or countering the argument that this war is the first, and probably not the last, counter proliferation war that will be fought.
Cleek wrote–
“the center long ago lost its support for the war, but the Serious People and the government are still for it. so we still have it. and we will still have it when Bush leaves office. so, doesn’t that say something about how much effect the center’s support really matters ? does it also hint that maybe the center’s support didn’t matter much back in 2003, either ?
is there any evidence Bush has ever given a flying fig about what the citizens think of his policies ?”
It’s not a question of whether Bush cares what others think, it’s a question of whether serious opposition by mainstream politicians and pundits could have made the difference in 2002-2003.
I’d say the “serious” center only turned against the war sometime after the 2004 election, possibly as late as 2006. Kerry wasn’t an antiwar candidate in 2004. And by turning against the war, I mean only admitting that getting into the war was a bad idea. If by turning against the war one means trying to get out of it now, by facing the fact that we can’t fix the mess we’ve made and so we should pull out, that’s only become a respectable centrist position in mid-2007. The NYT editorial page finally endorsed this just a few weeks ago.
If the vast majority of centrists had been against the war instead of supporting it, then there’s a good chance it wouldn’t have happened. Once you have troops fighting in Iraq, politicians and even pundits and journalists feel more vulnerable to the charge of not supporting the troops if they oppose it, plus some well-intentioned types thought that we had a duty to stay in Iraq and fix the mess we’d made. So now, five years later, we’ve finally got the level of mainstream dissent openly expressed in this country that might have done some good in September 2002. I don’t think we can blame Jonah Goldberg for this.
And anyway, I also don’t think that America getting involved in stupid immoral adventures overseas is anything new. It wasn’t, and that’s why it shouldn’t be surprising that the center and some liberals were cheerleading the Iraq War. It was perfectly normal for Americans to think that when we kill people it’s all for the best. Bush’s incompetence on every conceivable level–that’s what’s been new and that’s what has caused the center to turn against the war. (If Bob M were still around, he’d say that’s not a bug, but a feature, but I think it’s a bug. Imperialists like to be seen as competent.)
No, sorry – you were arguing that the Iraqis fighting the civil war – aka the insurgents – could be physically separated from the rest of the population – somehow! – and that this would – somehow! – make peace.
No, this is not my argument, either. There is no magic involved in this. I am not certain why it seems so implausible that the insurgents, a relatively small number of Iraqis, can be separated from the majority of Iraqis I should note that this does not mean that every single insurgent is physically removed from the presence of every Iraqi. But you can, if you do it right, push most of the violent insurgents out of a particular area. There will still be insurgents there, but sufficient security forces will cause them to go to ground. During that period, you can then build local institutions and the local economy, drawing the local population into the orbit of the government. If this is done, and that is a big if in Iraq, then eventually the external security forces can leave and the people of the area themselves will keep the insurgents out because they do not want that violence in their community. This is not ‘somehow,’ there are a number of things that must take place, and as many of them rest on the shoulders of the GoI, I remain pessimistic as to the probability of their occurring. But this is not a military version of ‘steal underwear–?–profit.’
G’Kar
Valid points, but I suspect that the odds are still better that Iraq ends up with a more secular than theocratic government when the dust settles.
If your measuring stick is Iran, I would agree that Iraq is only headed to an Iran-lite version of theocracy.
If your measuring stick is some objective analysis of the degree of secularism vs. theocracy, I would be interested in an explanation of how your prediction is possible. Who are the secular forces resisting the powerful theocratic forces in the country? The Shia in particular are theocratic, and are likely to rule this country. Identify the Shia faction that would promote secularism over theocracy? It does not exist.
Don’t mistake pissing off your audience with censorship. The two are not equivalent.
No, but I think a — no, the — major radio station ownership group in the US directing stations not to play an artist’s songs counts as actual censorship.
What the Dixie Chicks did was to basically take political views dearly held by their audience and treat those views (and their audience members) with contempt.
No, what the Dixie Chicks did was to say — in its entirety — “Just so y’all know, we’re ashamed that the President is from Texas.” (To an audience of Londoners, no less.) A statement which got them death threats. Now, unless Londoners being proud that the President is from Texas is a “political view dearly held,” you’re just making stuff up. And I think death threats are far more contemptuous than anything they said, but YMMV. (Maybe you just get a lot of them? I dunno.)
Tim McGraw and Toby Keith are anti-war Democrats, but much more respectful of their audience.
Toby Keith is “anti-war” like I’m “pro-hamburgers.” He may be anti-Bush, but he was fast out of the gate with that “boot up your ass” song.
While Natalie Mains may have become a cause celebre among the anti-war crowd, there was certainly no small amount of slander (Cindy Sheehan, Tedd Rall, Markos “Screw ’em” Moulitsas) being directed in the opposite direction.
You are Josh Trevino and I claim my $5!
This had been building since 1993, when the election of the Clinton Presidency caused no small amount of “empassionment” of national politics.
it wasn’t the election of Clinton that caused that “empassionment”. it was a new, and vicious, boldness in his political opponents. see Newt, Rush and Scaife.
But don’t question their patriotism.
question away. but don’t pretend your definition of ‘patriotism’ is the right one.
When the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy, ask yourself what is their angle for saying so
excellent advice.
Clinton continued the interventionist policies and ended up with disasters in Kosovo and Somalia and and emboldening of Al Qaeda.
Lebanon. El Salvador. Nicaragua.
…as well as more prosaic matters such as whether the family actually liked the insurgent.
WTF?
no doubt there are black sheep insurgents out there, as there are in any population you can draw a box around. do think they make up a significant percentage of any group ?
and obviously, we’re killing more than just “insurgents”. and if you add in the millions of displaced Iraqis… we’re not making many friends over there.
bah.
G’Kar
As for my alleged assumptions about Shia, Sunni and Kurds getting along, the facts on the ground is that they are busy murdering one another while jockeying for power. Explain to me the basis for credible assumptions that they can work out their differences peacefully.
As for Kirkuk, the Kurds have been busy expelling Arabs and Turkmen to insure a vote in their favor. The issue is whether the remaining Iraqis will go along with this, which presently is unlikely. The bigger question is whether or not the vote will even be allowed to go forward.
Kirkuk is a major flashpoint. I have no idea how it can be resolved without more serious violence, and the implications for Turkish involvement are profound should the Kurds take over Kirkuk. Unfortunately, he Kurds are fanning those flames as well, including allowing sanctuary for Kurdish terrorists operating in Turkey.
I’ll note here that I’ve got to run and may not be back online for some time (duration unknown, hopefully short). It has been a fascinating discussion, and I didn’t want anyone to think that I was abandoning the field simply because I did not wish to discuss it any further. Thanks to all for the interesting comments.
@G’Kar:
I’m happy to concede that these are differences of opinion/prediction that we’ll be able to evaluate by events. So far my track record is much better than yours — because your assessment has been much more optimistic than mine up to now.
It’s my opinion and prediction that the Iraqi Police will not be successfully purged of Shia militia members (people whose primary loyalty is to their party or sect and not to a government of all Iraqis.) That’s because the sects and parties to which they’re loyal make up the current government of Iraq.
It’s also my opinion that Sunni insurgents, to the extent they’ve been driven out of Diyala, are regrouping elsewhere, and will not in any meaningful sense ever be separated from the general Sunni population. The five-fold increase in air attacks during the recent escalation is creating insurgents as rapidly as it drives them temporarily out of specific areas (e.g. the helicopter attack that killed two Reuters staffers in addition to civilians; the troops in that copter fired on everyone who moved).
Attacks on U.S. forces in Ramadi are down. Is that just as true in Anbar province as a whole? (While we’re dealing in facts vs. opinion, I’d welcome a pointer to sources on this phenomenon.)
Testimony at the recent trial resulting from U.S. troops’ murder of a man in Hamdaniyah, as well as the Haditha hearings, paints an unsettling picture of the training, rules of engagement, and command attitudes that affect the behavior of U.S. troops wrt Iraqi civilians. The problem seems to go well beyond individual ‘bad apples’ (e.g. the testimony that training at Camp Pendleton includes shooting wounded combatants). Unless structural changes turn that pattern around, I predict Sunni communities who are now ‘holding fire’ will turn on U.S. troops when the moment suits them.
Any interest in offering those of us without practical video access even the faintest clue what the topic is, perhaps?
Goodspeed, G’Kar. Hope to hear from you soon.
Sorry Gary, Andrew Sullivan describes it here.
OT: Jake, the kid next door (age maybe 8) loves Harry Potter, and was comletely thrilled, when I moved in, to discover that I had all the Harry Potter books, and that he could borrow them any time he wanted. (He has. Several times each.) Naturally, he and I have talked about how much we are anticipating the arrival of no. 7.
So there was a knock on the door and it was Jake, and he had brought me a special lightning bolt tattoo, which I then proceeded to put on my forehead (where it remains), and got part of it in my hair (very funny, apparently), and he wants to race me to see who will finish it first (we are each getting copies in the mail tomorrow.)
I like my tattoo.
“If you believe that COIN involves winning hearts and minds, I advise you to pick up a copy of FM 3-24 (available from the University of Chicago Press, I believe)”
See here.
More easily and freely available here, or here, however.
It’s not a question of whether Bush cares what others think, it’s a question of whether serious opposition by mainstream politicians and pundits could have made the difference in 2002-2003.
i assert that Bush was going to have his war, regardless of what any pundit had to say about it. and i don’t think there was any chance the GOP-controlled congress would have bucked him on it – again, regardless of what any pundit had to say.
If the vast majority of centrists had been against the war instead of supporting it, then there’s a good chance it wouldn’t have happened.
i think you give those centrists far too much credit. they’re opposed now – having any effect ? nope.
“– No, it doesn’t. It only meant that if we were going to invade Granada,”
They do have good tapas, I hear. But NATO might take exception.
“then we could probably get away without having worked out, in detail, what to do if we somehow failed, since that was so completely unlikely. ”
I don’t think so. If Spain were a tiny Caribbean island, that would be different.
🙂
Obviously not. There’s no invisible “all” between “clean” and “them” in G’kar’s statement.
Probably in the same imaginary universe you imagine he said that in. Any reasonable reading, that didn’t postulate that G’kar and the American Army were intentionally genocidal and choosing a strategy that wouldn’t be a secret if it were in fact in place, is that he was faintly careless in phrasing, and that he meant “clean out the Shia militia members,” not “clean out all the Shia,” which is an interpretation utterly unjustified by any known facts.
“For a foreign occupation to think it can win a civil war by taking sides is an unhappy fantasy.”
You’ve entirely made this up out the imaginary part of G’kar’s comment, you know.
Thanks for the descriptive link, Ugh.
Er, no. The Narnian Ambassador is the Ambassador from Narnia, where might also be found Calormen people, Archenlanders, people of the Eastern Ocean, talking animals, and so on.
The Ambassador from Narn, who was at one time G’Kar (prior to his becoming Citizen G’Kar, and otherwise), is the Narn Ambassador, not the “Narnian Ambassador.” He might be found at Babylon 5, or wandering the universe, where also might be found the Centurai Ambassador, the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, and so on.
Narn =/ Narnian: two separate universes.
This concludes our brief look at the letter “N” in “Tours Of Other Universes.” We now return you to your regularly scheduled flames.
A very interesting post, but the author leaves out the nuclear WMD argument for the war.
The evidence presented by Bush et al — aluminum tubes, yellowcake, etc. — was demonstrated, at the time, to be questionable at best.
For months leading up to the time we invaded, UN weapons inspectors were in country, and found nothing.
I don’t mean to stir up this whole line of discussion yet again. I just want to point out that, at the actual time we invaded Iraq, there was good and ample evidence, readily available, that Iraq posed no nuclear threat to anyone, least of all the US.
Thanks –
One aspect of the recent political maneuvering in Iraq struck me as a bit odd. Namely, the branding that was being applied to the new political bloc being pursued by Prime Minister Maliki. This new front would (if consummated) be comprised of Maliki’s Dawa Party, SIIC (formerly SCIRI) and the Kurdish parties. Essentially, this “new” political arrangement would closely resemble the current ruling coalition, with the Sadrist Current being excluded.
The curious part is that this new conglomerate was describing itself as the “moderate powers front” – a label that many in the White House and compliant press corp were repeating without qualification. Actually, the “moderate” label has become a more ubiquitous descriptive for these parties in general.
[…]
For example, SIIC’s Badr Corp militia has been amongst the most violent and brutal throughout the past few years. This is true even if Badr’s actions have been cloaked in the purifying garb of officialdom (due to Badr’s incorporation into the government security apparatus) whereas the Mahdi Army has lacked such a shield. It was the Interior Ministry under SIIC’s leadership that has been responsible for the drill-holes and obvious signs of torture found on many of the corpses littering Baghdad’s streets. Unlike the Sadrists, SIIC is very closely tied to Iran and has been the most aggressive proponent of the creation of a separate Shiite region in the south of Iraq – the latter being a far more radical political move than any suggested by the Sadrist Current.
More:
http://americanfootprints.com/drupal/node/3585
SomeOtherDude and I are on the same wavelength; I was just coming here to post a link to Eric Martin’s post about the so-called “moderate” coalition at the heart of the Maliki government.
While you’re there, have a look at the previous post, which links to fester’s post at Newshog putting the “reduced attacks in Anbar” talking point in perspective.
I’m sure the increasingly professional
Badr BrigadeIraqi police have nothing to do with this:More charges of U.S. troops killing unarmed prisoners.
Searching for a bright spot, I can only come up with this: Their fellow soldiers turned them in.
Bleak spot: A Lieutenant Col. was relieved of command over the incident, indicating at best he turned a blind eye. (silver lining: he was relieved of command.)
Cleek, you totally ignored my point–it’s easier for a politician to oppose a war before it starts. Once it starts they become vulnerable to the “you don’t support the troops” accusation and things have to become catastrophically bad before the average spineless congressperson feels it is safe to ignore that kind of criticism.
I don’t think Bush in 2002-2003 was an actual dictator who could have invaded Iraq no matter what Congress or the press had to say about it. If the news media had done its job and if most of the Democrats and the more rational Republicans in Congress had done their patriotic duty and actually looked at the facts and acted on them, it was not inevitable that we would have invaded Iraq. Nor is it inevitable now that we will bomb Iran, even if Bush wants to. It may happen–if so, it’ll be in part because the center, once again, didn’t hold.
Plus your initial point was to lay reponsibility much more to the center mainstream than with the fringe right. I agree they are culpable in the sense of aiders and abettors, but they provided very little of the force that made it happen. Their failing was to go along so willingly — dumping normal restraints and sanity in favor of the fringe right’s warmongering.
Is it possible to mention the inhabitants of a certain European country 70 years ago without invoking Godwin?
Is it possible to mention the inhabitants of a certain European country 70 years ago without invoking Godwin?
Nope:
Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
Baa
I’ll note here that I’ve got to run and may not be back online for some time (duration unknown, hopefully short). It has been a fascinating discussion, and I didn’t want anyone to think that I was abandoning the field simply because I did not wish to discuss it any further. Thanks to all for the interesting comments.
I’m sorry to hear this, not least because, re-reading the thread, I note I didn’t directly apologize for the unjustified conclusions I jumped to earlier. I apologize.
Just a quick comment referring to a rather lengthy post above. Anytime I see someone refer to BDS, I immediately downgrade the validity of anything else that is said.
While you’re there, have a look at the previous post, which links to fester’s post at Newshog putting the “reduced attacks in Anbar” talking point in perspective.
Then there is this, too: Reuters – Daily attacks in Iraq hit new high in June
While you’re there, have a look at the previous post, which links to fester’s post at Newshog putting the “reduced attacks in Anbar” talking point in perspective.
Then there is this, too: Reuters – Daily attacks in Iraq hit new high in June
Pacej001: “That, to me, was the only justification for this war: that a nuclear Iraq , free of UN sanctions, might (underline) be containable, but that the inevitable daisy-chain of proliferation among the ME nations would probably not be containable to the nation states in the region, meaning a great risk of undeterrable islamic radicals or covert state actors with access to nukes.”
I was trying to concentrate on lessons that might be applicable next time, and wasn’t so focussed on the particular points of debate in the runup to this war.
However, I thought the following things. First, while I believed until sometime around Jan. that Iraq had WMD (meaning chemical or bio. weapons), it always seemed to me that it was very, very unlikely that they had nuclear weapons. When I stopped being convinced (around Jan.) that Iraq had any WMD, that of course seemed to me a lot less likely. I’ve run through my reasons for skepticism before; if you’d like, I’ll run through them again, but for now, I’ll just move on.
(2) It really, really helped that I had some knowledge of Saddam Hussein before the runup to the war, and thus before people started adopting views about him because of which position they’d support. Everything I knew about him suggested that he was very, very unlikely to give any nuclear weapons to anyone else, if he had them. He was a control freak. He wanted to hold all possible sources of power very, very close. Moreover, if he had gotten nuclear weapons, one of their great advantages to him would precisely have been that other people nearby did not have them. It was enormously in his interests to keep the number of people with nukes as small as possible, so long as that number included him. Giving them away, or selling them, would have jeopardized that. (Here NK is plainly different: it needs to deter attack, which really only requires having nukes, not other people not having them; and who is it going to use nuclear superiority to intimidate? Russia? China? SK or Japan, both backed by us? Unlike IRAQ, NK has no disincentive to proliferation.)
(3) I also just could not see Saddam launching nuclear weapons at us. He didn’t have the missiles. If he had gotten nukes, he would have had only a very small number, the sort that makes you reluctant to use them, since you’d be using up a sizable percentage of your entire deterrent capacity with each one. The costs to him would have been utter annihilation. He was very, very interested in making our stay in his vicinity miserable, and so forth. He was (as far as I could tell) not very interested in getting himself and his country destroyed.
(4) I also think it must be relevant that I was 30 when the Cold War ended. That means I spent a long time knowing that a completely unpleasant and hostile country had a lot more much deadlier weapons than Saddam would ever have pointed right at us, and that means that I found it just incomprehensible that a lot of people were, as far as I could see, so bent out of shape by the thought that one repellent dictator might have two or three nukes that they couldn’t manage to think clearly about questions like: is he likely to use them? What will be the long-term consequences of invading, including the possible opportunity costs, and are they better or worse than the long-term consequences of letting Saddam stay in power, even with a couple of nuclear weapons? Etc.
Don’t get me wrong: I was enormously relieved when he turned out not to have them. It’s not that I liked the idea, or even found it anywhere remotely near OK. It’s just that I thought you really had to ask a whole series of other questions before so much as approaching the conclusion that we ought to invade. And I couldn’t see that the answers to those questions looked at all the way supporters of the war seemed to be assuming.
As for Anbar, you are correct that the possibility exists that the Sunni tribes there will return to trying to kill Coalition forces now that AQI has largely been driven from the province. We will know more in the coming months, as the province has become remarkably quiet of late. It is important to note, however, that recruiting for the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police has jumped by more than an order of magnitude since the ‘Anbar awakening,’ indicating that the tribal leaders may be willing to work with the GoI.
Let’s see. We agree to train, arm, and pay sunnis to become an effective fighting force. And they stop fighting us while we do it, before we leave.
Coincidence or accident? You decide.
Free in America? Not Flying
I’m supposed to have booked a flight to Chicago by now, and one of the reasons I haven’t is that I virulently loathe flying in the United States. I like flying in planes very much, watching humans in airports is always a quiet joy, and a long day in cr…
My apologies if I have missed anyone.
Nell,
You have every right to be proud of your predictive accuracy to date, and you’re correct that you have been more correct than I. I will note, however, that I have tried very hard to refrain from making any predictions about what is going to happen in Iraq. I moved into this thread only because I wanted to express the viewpoint that the war has not already been lost, not to predict that it will be won. As I have said numerous times, I would bet on a loss, but I think that the chance of a win, however remote, does still exist.
My apologies for not having a source I can share with you regarding Anbar. I probably should not have brought it up.
Jesurgislac,
Thank you.
dmbeaster,
Some sectarian violence does not equate to all Kurds/Shia/Sunnis are ready, willing and able to kill one another. Note that there was no surge in sectarian violence following the second bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque.
J Thomas,
I’m afraid that’s not actually how things happened in Anbar. That may still be a concern, but your description suggests a timeline at odds with what happened.
I dunno that the neocon stupidity’s been discredited. All of the Republicans for president are running on stuff like “double Gitmo” and “Bomb Iran” and other equally mind-numbingly stupid ideas. And they’ve got a sizable block of voters who ALREADY blame the “stab in the back liberals” for “losing” Vietnam.
Nate: They haven’t got the majority. Maybe you’re going to get a HUGE surprise in 2008. I seriously doubt that any single Presidential candidate now contending OTHER THAN Barack Obama has a serious chance of winning. The public DO want serious change away from the present policies.
And, actually, I believe that the leadership in Washington are more aware of it, and more feaful of it than a lot of policy wonks like us are.
That’s why I’m in serious dread of a sort of counter-revolutionary “October surprise” sometime this year, meant to benefit a Giuliani or a McCain. I don’t expect the “neo-conservative,” neo-fascist elements in Washington to yield to the public’s desire for a revolution in policy without a fight–and, more probably, without the contrivance of a counterfeit “national emergency.”
As for Anbar, you are correct that the possibility exists that the Sunni tribes there will return to trying to kill Coalition forces now that AQI has largely been driven from the province
Assuming those affiliated with the Anbar Sheiks have stopped targeting the Coalition, there still seem to be plenty of non-AQI affiliated locals still willing to fight.
It was a collective decision. In Washington there was overwhelming willingness to go to war, and the media swallowed the message that we needed to respond to the imagined threat–both because they were gullible and because the political wind was blowing that way. What does not surprise me is the passivity of the average voter. Cannot tell you how often people said to me that they supported the war as long as their children did not have to go. Most often these were prosperous, middle class parents of bright kids with good prosects. Had there been a draft in place they would have reacted. Absent any risk to their own family they consented in silence. These are the folks who contribute to campaigns, who have met Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi and Barbar Boxer, who expect to be heard on the important issues. Restore the military draft. Had it been in place we would have had huge marches against the war, prolonged Congressional debate on the merits of the proposition, and the media poking holes in the rationale for the attack.
Awesome post Hilzoy.
If we don’t have confidence that a President can do this, we shouldn’t go to war.
This remains the single most convincing apology from those who first supported, but don’t now, the decision to invade. They say they couldn’t imagine Bush would execute it so badly.
What in his history prior to the invasion convinced them he would all of a sudden become competent is entirely beyond me, though.
excellent analysis. one of the best i’ve read in this benighted decade of shameless hubris by those who assiduously avoid the possibility that they or theirs will ever hear a shot fired in anger.
And on your point #5, this is at least the SECOND time these people have been shown to be completely wrong. Remember Team B and the Committe on the Present Danger?
At least third, really. These are the same people who thought that dealing with Gorbachev was tantamount to suicide.
G’Kar: “Note that there was no surge in sectarian violence following the second bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque.”
Maybe their knob doesn’t go up to 11.
A Conservative Plan for Iraq
Anyone who questions the lack of a realistic and comprehensive Iraq strategy is labeled a friend of fascism by the Republican leadership. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) recently said, “I wonder if [Democrats] are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people.” Republicans are paralyzed with the fear of being thought ineffective on national security and the war.
Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership cannot seem to accept that—regardless of how we got there—we are in Iraq. They have not made a convincing case that an arbitrary phased or date-certain troop withdrawal is in the best long-term interest of the United States. Rather, they seem to think that withdrawal will undo the decision to have gone to war. Rubbing President Bush’s nose in Iraq’s difficulties is also a priority.
This political food fight is stifling the desperately needed public discussion about a meaningful resolution to the fire fight. Most Americans know Iraq is going badly. And they know the best path lies somewhere between “stay the course” and “get out now”.
Some Truths
READ MORE
http://controlcongress.com/uncategorized/a-conservative-plan-for-iraq
John Konop: They have not made a convincing case that an arbitrary phased or date-certain troop withdrawal is in the best long-term interest of the United States.
At the moment, it seems clear that the people who need to make their care are the people who think that breaking the US army is in the best long-term interest of the United States. If the US army is to be lost for a generation, what exactly is being accomplished with their utter destruction?
*follows the link*
I read the post you linked to, and I’m quite impressed by it, but one thing you don’t deal with is that the US is running out of soldiers to send to Iraq. What’s your estimate of how much longer the US occupation of Iraq can keep going? I really think that should be either an update or a followup. Further, none of your “New Directions” depend on keeping the the US military tied up in Iraq to its eventual destruction. So, why not get behind an immediate withdrawal?
and I’m quite impressed by it
Well, if a little “Yes, and I’d like a pony” too.
Hope you stick around. We need good conservative commenters on this blog…
[Democrats] have not made a convincing case that an arbitrary phased or date-certain troop withdrawal is in the best long-term interest of the United States.
Strange, then, that 70% of the public favors withdrawal.
And you might as well ditch that ‘arbitrary’. The case has been made that U.S troops cannot achieve results worth their staying. Therefore their withdrawal will not be timed to anything that the Iraqi government or Iraqi “security forces” do. It will be timed to the ability to reach a political agreement to do so. Nothing any more arbitrary about that than there was about the timing of the invasion.
For an example of a convincing case that withdrawal — complete withdrawal — is in the national interest, I recommend Jim Webb’s floor statement in favor of the Levin-Reed amendment.
Whether a case is convincing is obviously in the mind of the hearer, I’ve not heard a convincing case for staying in Iraq — with the current mission — since the adoption of the Iraqi Constitution.
Never substitute impugning someone’s character for impugning his or her argument.
I hope you take this to heart in more than just war vs. anti-war matters.
There are way too many so-called liberal bloggers that believe the best way to attack someone is through baselessly impugning their character, or feel that baselessly impugning their character is a very reasonable tactic to take. You have blogrolled at least one website that if races/genders were reversed would be aptly called a hate site.
In the end this does none of us any good.
One cogent point missed was the lesson learned that Congress should never preauthorize a war giving an incompetent/corrupt administration time to ramp up the fear machine through it’s chief acolyte Fox and press the administration to come back and ask for authorization at the time it will prosecute the war. Authorizing a blank check has proved to be a bad idea in everything else in life, so why should the serious business of war be an exception.
Gary Farber is absolutely correct in his synopsis on the representation from the Left who were complicit in the path to war. Unfortunately, no one on the Left sought out serious debate in Congress to put Bushy feet to the fire. The Left saw the issue as Black and White as well. And the reasons that were promulagate for the ANTI side were easily painted as being too Dovish, or Cheese Eating Surrender Monkies. Even Feingold failed here. He opposed vbut I don’t recall his request for debate. Too many Lieberman Democrats populated the ranks with the additional fears of self-interest displayed when the authorization vote came up. In short when it comes to Iraq our entire government let us down with the obvious consequences.
I don’t agree with the point, initially articulated by Gary and picked up by others, about complicity of the center. Mostly because I have been, and remain, annoyed by the telescoping of time, and washing out of nuance, on both sides of the discussion.
For each centrist/moderate/liberal/leftist one wants to count as a supporter of the war, one has to look at what they supported and when they supported it. (Pollack is, to my mind a good example — I remember him writing in the Post that although he thought regime change a good idea, and fully warranted, he didn’t think the time or method was right. I make no claim that he never changed his view on this . . .)
I never thought invasion was a good idea. If I’d been in Congress in October 2002, I would have voted for the resolution. I do not think these statements are inherently contradictory in the least.
I must respectfully disagree with my distinguished commenter colleague Mr. Carp.
At the time that the resolution on Iraq was introduced and debated, everyone in Washington understood that if it passed, Bush would have his war. Everyone understood that no matter what the regime was saying, he had made a decision for war. Including the politicians who wanted to pretend that all they were doing is strengthening his hand at the UN.
The crucial cave was by Tom Daschle, who as Senate Majority Leader could have prevented a vote on the resolution before the election, something he initially announced he would do. He was persuaded by the electoral ‘strategists’ in his party (most of them preparing presidential runs) that “getting the Iraq vote out of the way” would allow the Dems to focus on their preferred issues.
The war was, in fact, already on. The Southern Focus bombing campaign — destruction of Iraqi communications, anti-aircraft, and command and control facilities under cover of “stepped-up enforcement of the no-fly zones” — had been ongoing since May or June. News clips even in the U.S. gave clear indications of this; it was admitted after the invasion was over.
The drumbeat for war had been going on since the State of the Union (‘axis of evil’) message, continued by Bush and Cheney all summer at VMI and West Point and in front of the VFW.
Pat Lang and Tony Zinni appeared with others in a panel on the invasion of Iraq at VMI a week after the resolution passed Congress. Zinni was the only unambiguously anti-invasion speaker. Late in the question-and-answer session, which was dominated by antiwar questions, Lang said: “Look, in Washington this is regarded as a done deal. If you want to stop this war, you’d better get active politically.”
CC: I don’t agree with the point, initially articulated by Gary and picked up by others, about complicity of the center. Mostly because I have been, and remain, annoyed by the telescoping of time, and washing out of nuance, on both sides of the discussion.
The “telescoping of time” is a very good point. As well as I can remember, anyone not pro-war was marginalized in any way possible. I don’t think I participated directly in that, but I was surely complicit in it. It seemed so certain at the time, but when I look back now at bloggers or pundits or politicians who were against it, their arguments were clear and concise and obvious in hindsight. At the time though, they were obscured by some kind of red-haze of blood lust.
I’m not disagreeing with any of the facts given by Nell. There was another narrative at work, though. Bush had been backed down from pure unilateralism by Scowcroft (and God knows who behind the scenes) in August. He’d had to go the UN-Congress-UN route, and although we know better in hindsight, it wasn’t completely clear in October 2002 that war would actually take place. I’ve never thought much of the president, but plenty of people believed that the grown-ups in the government (and the depth of their bad faith hadn’t been revealed yet either) would use the congressional vote to get a UN resolution, and then play the game out in that way. Who knew that Blair would buy into the messianic vision, or Powell? Or even Cheney, at that point?
Bush’s masterstroke, if you want to call it that, is the one thing he’s ever been good at in his entire adult life: making the stakes of his failure so great that people who disagree with him have to step in on his side. That’s powering a substantial but ever diminishing part of the support for the war even now: we have to keep going with the misison in Iraq to save the world from the full scope of the disaster Bush has caused. So it was — on different scale — in October 2002: there was plenty of reason to believe war might yet be averted (as I think there was reason all the way until the US rejected the Canadian proposal) but the consequences in Iraq, Afghanistan, elsewhere, of congressional rejection of the war resolution could be seen as very serious.
Now in handsight, we know that no consequences of voting no in October 2002 would be worse than the consequences of launching an insane war, and then compounding the insanity by adopting impossible war aims and refusing to declare victory on the various occasions when that might have been plausible.
In October 2002, though, a yes vote seems like it might even preclude war, by tying the US into the UN process.
I know this isn’t how Nell saw it at the time, and I know that in the event the faith of centrists/moderates/liberals in the eventual triumph of basic common sense was misplaced. I don’t think it’s fair, though, to say that people who wrongly thought the war would be averted were in favor of the war.
OCS, I don’t hold blood lust against anyone who wasn’t in a position to act on it, and didn’t behave like an assh*le. We pay people a whole lot, and have given them a whole lot of discretionary authority, to think things through, and not act in a haze of bloodlust. They failed, and then (now, in some cases) they wore that failure as a badge of honor.
Nell, although I would have voted for the resolution in October 2002, I wasn’t sorry when both my senators voted against it. I’m glad to be part of a polity where they could do so and, as noted on the other thread, wish you were as well.
Nell: everyone in Washington understood that if it passed, Bush would have his war. Everyone understood that no matter what the regime was saying, he had made a decision for war.
Did they? Because my recollection was that in October 2002 the meme was still “We’ll only invade if we HAVE to” – and I recall several people explaining to me that it was necessary to give Bush the authority to invade so as to convince Saddam Hussein that the US really meant it. The Downing Street Memo, which reveals that Bush & Co had made up their minds to invade Iraq by the summer of 2002, was (I thought) such a blow because it definitely proved Bush was lying well before the SOTU 2003 speech.
You may mean “Washington insiders” and that may be true.
it wasn’t completely clear in October 2002 that war would actually take place. I’ve never thought much of the president, but plenty of people believed that the grown-ups in the government (and the depth of their bad faith hadn’t been revealed yet either) would use the congressional vote to get a UN resolution, and then play the game out in that way. Who knew that Blair would buy into the messianic vision, or Powell? Or even Cheney, at that point?
Well, here I may have benefited from clear-eyed pessimism and acquired immunity to the ‘grownups will take charge’ narrative (which I believed in until about two months into the Cheney-Bush regime, and abandoned when it was they were governing as if they’d been elected in a landslide for the radical right).
It was clear to anyone reading what Blair was saying that he had bought into the messianic vision; by the time of the Congressional vote he’d made many speeches and statements (including during a September visit to Crawford) that explicitly supported Bush’s call to war. [Hadn’t his government already come out with the notorious ’45 minutes’ claim in the ‘dodgy dossier’? Here I may be telescoping, so consider this data point dropped if so.]
No doubt I also benefited from having been in direct political combat with the neoconservatives as a specific, identifiable faction since 1980, starting with Central American issues. I was aware of PNAC, their claque in Congress, the open letter to Clinton, and the number and names of their supporters throughout the administration, including and especially Dick Cheney and his senior staff. You were actually in doubt where Cheney stood?
However, this information was also available to the public who hadn’t had decades of implacable loathing for the neocons by the time of the Congressional vote, thanks to an influential column by Jay Bookman in September 2002, followed by a flurry of ‘who and what are the neocons’ articles. [I’ll add that Pat Buchanan was first to make the call, but his column was not given the attention of Bookman’s by anyone who wasn’t a paleo-con.]
The ‘Bush doctrine’ expressed in the National Security Strategy published in September, which got prominent attention in the NYTimes and other major papers, was as clear an expression of a doctrine of ‘preventive war’ — unilateral, unprovoked wars of aggression — as you’re going to get.
If the grownups had had any capacity to take charge, the linking of al Qaeda and Saddam would not have gone on, and on, and on, and kept popping up like a bad penny. Money and military assets were being diverted from Afghanistan to the planning and preparation for war in Iraq. (Here I may have had the advantage of knowing military people who were aware of some of these diversions, and finding them disconcerting. But there were also public signals aplenty. In the event, the truth turns out to be more extreme than the rumors at the time.)
Charley, to be clear: I believe you thought the war would be averted despite a Congressional resolution. I don’t believe Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, or any of the rest of those who handed over Congress’ war powers, actually believed it would be. They were and are Washington insiders, who were being told: it’s inevitable, and you need to be on the safe side.
There’s a timeline (with one really bad typo) of the “45 minute” claim here: BBC Politics. But in summary, the dossier was published 24th September 2002, and Blair made reference to the “45 minute” claim both in the foreword and when speaking to the House of Commons on the day of publication.
I wasn’t in doubt about where Cheney stood, or Bush, or any of the neocons. On the advisability of war with Iraq. I never had any doubt about those people, with regard to the substance.
I didn’t think — and I still don’t think you can say this about the senators* that you name — that the government would blow off the UN in the way that it did. The experience with Afghanistan, and the then-new Bonn process, suggested the opposite. Yeah, they talked plenty of trash about the UN, but I thought, and I think plenty of other people here in DC thought, that at the end of the day we’d have either no war, or a war with a UN mandate and broader coalition (and narrower aims). Plenty of people overinterpreted the Scowcroft brushback, and George Sr.’s ability to influence events.
* I’ve no doubt they were being told what you say they were told. I’ve no doubt this was a factor. I’m agnostic on it being the controlling factor, for any of them.
Even including the dossier, I didn’t think Blair was going to go without an explicit UN resolution, and I don’t think even he knew he would until drive to get the second resolution failed.
I’m agnostic on it being the controlling factor, for any of them.
Yep. Here we’re down to a simple, probably unresolvable difference in our assessment of what makes pols tick and how and what they think.
Evidence for my view: John Edwards and his advisor at the time (was it Shrum?) have admitted that the ‘it’s inevitable; get on the bus or be left behind’ warning was controlling in his case — despite Elizabeth’s opposition.
Clinton’s floor speech in favor of the Iraq resolution should be re-read by anyone who wants to claim she sincerely believed war would be averted by UN opposition. She wasn’t just in favor of the resolution; she was in favor of the invasion.
CharleyCarp: I didn’t think Blair was going to go without an explicit UN resolution, and I don’t think even he knew he would until drive to get the second resolution failed.
FWIW: I think Blair had made up his mind to go along with Bush, while hoping that (a) he could get the House of Commons to vote for for war (a-1) and that he wouldn’t win the vote in the Commons while losing the vote of his party, and (b) really, really hoping for a UN resolution to make legal the decision to invade.
I’m trying to find when Charles Kennedy said “Tony Blair is no more than George Bush’s poodle” – it was certainly early 2003, if not before, but it became so widespread, so fast, I had to look it up to find out who originated it, though Steve Bell’s cartoons in the Guardian brought it lasting fame. Anyway, by the time of the “poodle” jibe it was clear that Blair intended to bring the UK into the Iraq war, with or without a UN resolution to justify it.
You asked for thoughts so here’s a suggested 11) …
“Talking tough should not be confused with actually being tough.” Real toughness begins with self-control. Bragging and talking trash are danger signals, not signs of resolve.”
decrepitoldfool (somehowidontthinkthatsentirelyaccurate): good point. Thanks.
Here we’re down to a simple, probably unresolvable difference
Not much of an echo chamber, is it?
;- )
Jes is correct about Blair. And thanks for the info on the dodgy dossier timing, J.
So much happened in September 2002 that it’s quite understandable that the entire prewar period gets telescoped in memory. In hindsight, that makes it even more clear how planned-out it was.
Two moments stand out with intense clarity for me; both were while reading the New York Times. An ‘administration official’ in an article about the new National Security Strategy and Bush’s proposed war resolution (which in its original version authorized attacking any country in the region) that ‘the President would brook no opposition’ on it. I thought to myself, “Brook no opposition?!? Who elected him emperor of the world?”
I think that was Sept. 20 or 21. The other was four or five days later, reading that Daschle announced there would after all be a vote on the Iraq war resolution. It felt exactly as if I had been kicked in the stomach, hard. I knew then that Dems would get pasted in the elections and that it would now be impossible to avoid Bush’s illegal and probably endless war.
And here we are! And, while I’m reliving crucial moments in 2002 — it was five years ago to the day — it’s the very hour — that a friend called me up to ask about what national organizations were doing to oppose the possible invasion.
Not much of an echo chamber, is it?
*Hah. All you lefties are all the same.
*(OCSteve)
Further support for Jes’s assessment of Blair’s thinking, since a Timothy Garton Ash column prompted hilzoy’s post, is a TGA column from September 2003 which, while expressing grave reservations about the course of the occupation, affirms that Blair’s fundamental decision — to stick by Bush no matter what — was correct. (You might say that TGA was the poodle’s poodle. ;>)
J Thomas,
I’m afraid that’s not actually how things happened in Anbar. That may still be a concern, but your description suggests a timeline at odds with what happened.
G’Kar, how is my statement incompatible with the timing?
They say they’re going after AQI and that they aren’t fighting us, and we give them weapons and training and we talk like they’re good guys now who’re on our side. Is there something about this travesty that doesn’t fit the facts?
To come back to the present, and the convincing case for withdrawal, I see (via Sullivan) that at least one conservative has come around to my view on how to get out of this mess.
Ten Not-so-Easy Lessons
Over at Obsidian Wings, Hilzoy has a thoughtful post on the lessons we should learn from the Iraq debacle, including #4: When the rest of the world thinks youre crazy, its worth entertaining the possibility that they might be right….
Really, the most important thing we should learn from all this is that 9/11 was an inside job, and that the masterminds behind it were Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Evidence for my view: John Edwards and his advisor at the time (was it Shrum?) have admitted that the ‘it’s inevitable; get on the bus or be left behind’ warning was controlling in his case — despite Elizabeth’s opposition.
I wish John would just stand down and let Elizabeth run.
Thanks –
“Do you have others? Any thoughts?”
11. Terrible things inevitably happen in war. Therefore, war must be a matter of necessity rather than choice.
12. No army is capable of nation building during an insurgency.
@russell – So do I, but there’s the question of whether she could finish her term.
The analysis on the surface seems impressive but on further contemplation it contains many flaws. First, the analysis, like most, neglect to describe that the sanctions against Saddam were failing and that the French and Russians were actively trying to remove them, so they could engage in above board, rather than, illicit commerce with Iraq. Retiring the sanctions would give new life to Saddam Hussein, who was positioned to revive his WMD manufacturing. This was confirmed by post-war investigation. Under the circumstances, and following 9/11, war was a reasonable response. I do criticize Bush for failing to voice all the reasons behind the war. He has the worst PR group of any president in recent memory.
Second, the post-war in Iraq was handled miserably, beginning with the looting. It was almost as if we had a PC approach to war. However, we get to experience war in real time and us monday morning quarterbacks can sit back and carp instantaneously.
Third, my concern is while certain people including myself foresaw an easier time in rebuilding/recasting Iraq, the converse now holds sway that it is a losing battle and let’s cut losses and leave. The Vietnam war, part 2. But we never pulled out of Vietnam until we negotiated a peace accord with North Vietnam. And we would have achieved a stalemate like Korea had the post Watergate Democrats sold out S. Vietnam by breaking the Nixon promise of air support. Look at the aftermath of our betrayal of S. Vietnam, both direct and indirect: boat people by the tens of thousands, brutalisation of S. Vietnamese, cambodian genocide. Can we expect anything better in Iraq?
The odd thing about all of this war is the general fatigue and malaise as the loss of troops is a fraction of Vietnam or Korea. We have not lost the war yet and there are positive developments in the last couple of months. We have been there for only 4 years and for some this is too long. Counterinsurgency campaigns often require a decade or more. Yet we have had troops stationed in Korea for over 50 years and there is no outcry that it is time for a pull out.
Now that every anti-war person proclaims their vindication, great; let’s get back to the reality of weighing the benefits costs of either staying or pulling out.
When the war was launched, the Administration did not predict that it would last a decade or more. If it really was inevitable that it do so, they should have said so.
I am inclined to say that the major lesson is that you should try to figure out how to fight a counter-insurgency campaign before one starts, rather than afterwards.
That said, I think people are using the word “never” a bit too freely e.g. “never fight a war of choice”.
Chamberlain chose to fight Germany, Lincoln chose to fight the Confederacy, the American revolutionaries chose to fight George III…Genghis Khan chose to invade China…
If a lesson is universally applicable it applies to all wars, not just the ones you think went well/ badly.
BTW – I am a bit sceptical about this claim that guerrilla wars are always long wars – Saddam crushed the Shiite revolt quickly enough in 1991.
I am a bit sceptical about this claim that guerrilla wars are always long wars
This claim has not, to my knowledge, been made. The claim that insurgencies always take a long time to put down, however, is a well-established fact. The Shia uprising in 1991 was not an insurgency, therefore the fact it was put down quickly really has no bearing on the question of how long it takes insurgencies to be put down. The Shia uprising was a valuable example of why people choose insurgency over open war.
Hilzoy’s 10 Lessons From Iraq
Obsidian Wings has 10 lessons a smart antiwar commentator wants learned from Iraq. Prowar folks would do well to look at them and think about them a bit.
I am conservative. I think that this article points out what any true conservative feels about the American Foreign Policy under this administration, i.e., it was hijacked by a particularly arrogant, ignorant, ill-informed, and dangerous clique called the Neo-Cons.
It will take 20 years to undo what these charachters have fashioned and we could reap destruction tens of millions of lives to correct what these fools have sown.
All of this was foreseeable. All of this was foreseen. These imperious and clueless fools dressed U.S. foreign policy up in Imperial Purple, a fact that infuriates me every time I think about it and led the country into possibly the greatest foreign policy blunder we have ever committed.
The Snowcroft policy analysis was completely correct as was the Sinsheki military analysis. Instead of listening to these men of substance, the Administration chose to follow the simplistic visions and policies of know-nothing posers and bullies like Cheney and Rumsfeld and their sycophants. It makes my blood boil.
It is sad that the lesson of Vietnam is not taught. THe lesson is twofold:
1. Militarily we won (had eliminated the insurgency in South Vietnam) and were helping a fledgling government (sort of democratic but not communist) to defend itself from no longer an insurgency, but invasions (150,000 troops at a time) from the Communist North Vietnam.
2. Our Congress (Democratic Party controlled) and western MSM media had lost the war and decided to hand over to North Vietnam a country (South Vietnam) by not supporting the South at all, in any way.
The lesson: Democrats in the US have no reason to not allow a country to become Communist (today Islamic Theocracy). The Western Media believes in this, and that the US and the West should fail, and be replaced by Communist or left-leaning or anything else aggressive enough to take over (read Islamic Theocrats).
It is this lesson that applies directly to our situation today. Whether we are winning militarily or not is not the issue.
The issue is solely: we must fail, we must get out now, failure will show the world how inept democracy is, how the US is not a superpower, how bad we really are, we go in then cause worse consequences when we leave, the US is unrtustowrothy, etc.
This is the agenda of the Democrats in the US, the leftists, and the media. It is well underway. We will succeed in duplicating the defeat of Vietnam as defined above.
The consequences of the fall of South Vietnam will be the same here today, dominos of neighboring nations will fall, get into wars with one another, millions will be killed, and genocide and religious cleansing will be had for all. The names will be changed but the end results will be the same. Destruction of countries, collapse of economies by the takeover of centrally controlled economies (Islamic Theocrats are remarkably similar in economic patterns as Communists were in South East Asia 40 years ago.)
Lets see: Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam have the lowest economies of anyone in the South East Asian area and in fact the lowest economies, outside of Africa, in the world.
Iran has succeeded in reducing its economy to oil only and at a lower GNP than before the fall of the Shah 25 years ago. That is your model for what will happen.
Not to mention if Iran gets a significant part of Iraq (the Shiite south for example.) That has always been the start of a Persian empire, with all that that entails. Plus nuclear weapons, that is a recipe for disaster in about 5 years. I do not envy the President and Congress when that happens. We will be in a lot worse position to fight them and it will require World War II like efforts to end it then.
Unless, we can stabilize Iraq to the point where they can then takeover their own role in the middle east without really being threatened by Syria and Iran.
Yes, it will require that we learn the lessons of Vietnam and refuse to just allow such a thing to happen in Iraq. It means long term support ala what we had to do in Europe. But it will be a lot less costly in the long run than WWW III with a nuclear Iran – an Iran with a policy of “If we lose a few dozen millions that is not a problem since there are billions of Moslems.”
Following up on TOC‘s comment, what’s especially galling about the Iraq war is that it was a very bad idea by the usual liberal _and_ conservative ways of thinking.
What color is the sky in your world Ollie?
G’kar – why was the Shia uprising not called an insurgency?
Is there a civil war going on in South Korea? How many US troops are being killed every day by insurgents, terrorists, friendly fire, or other causes in South Korea? How many South Korean civilians are being killed per day?
I think you’re wrong on most particulars.
People did not listen to War critics because they had been spectacularly wrong:
Wrong on the policy of 90’s ignore terrorism and appeasement.
Wrong on predicting disaster in Afghanistan (Hersh was predicting quagmire in Newsweek days before Kabul fell). Wrong on predicting quagmire in the initial war against Saddam (again Newsweek predicted quagmire during the three day for the sandstorm in the run up to Baghdad).
Simply put, critics had zero credibility being spectacularly wrong. Wrong in a way everyone could see. Wrong on the order of bodies plunging off the WTC and the collapse. We could see the WTC collapsing and knew the old policies and old critics were spectacularly wrong.
Second, broadly speaking the Iraq War was understood as: Muslims are not afraid of us and commit massive terror attacks against us, they need their asses kicked, Iraq will do.
Since 1979 at least Muslims have been attacking the US with impunity. Leading Americans to be very angry and supporting almost anything that would have Muslim ass kicked. Saddam, Iran, it wouldn’t much matter and after Afghanistan and the pause at the Pakistani nuclear umbrella people wanted something more.
Overall the Iraq War will be a disaster. Withdrawal/surrender/retreat at the cost of a “mere” 3-4K dead will convince every Muslim that the US is indeed weak and can be attacked with impunity. With Iran racing towards nukes and Pakistan tottering to Zawahari (remember HIM?) this is a disaster. It puts a giant “NUKE ME” sign on every American city and we will see our cities nuked by one of them.
What then? IMHO the time for restrained reaction to mass casualty terror attacks has passed (due to Bush bungling). The reaction will be to kill massive amounts of Muslims, and will in any case be the only sane reaction.
Once the US is hit with nukes (terrorists have escalated since 1979 steadily upwards) unless we show concretely why it’s a suicidal idea we would be hit again and again and again.
What has happened is that politics have failed: our oceans no longer protect us, ugly and dangerous men can kill great amounts of us with impunity. And the only alternative is mass killing AFTER we lose cities.
HAD War critics offered a realistic alternative to Iraq, i.e. “let’s kick Saudi Ass” or “let’s nuke Pakistan to get bin Laden and their nukes” we could have simply packed up and gone home. Showed strength and deterred the real enemy which is Muslims. Even if it would have been a un-PC thoughtcrime to speak the actual truth: Muslims are our enemies and will remain so.
Jim Rockford: note that I specified particular people who were not listened to, and that the examples I used were not, say, the folks at ANSWR (or whatever the acronym was), but Scowcroft and Webb. These are not people who had been spectacularly wrong in the way you describe. They just aren’t.
Also, about this “our oceans no longer protect us” stuff: that has been true since the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile. It is not something we suddenly realized on 9/11. Our entire foreign policy during the Cold War was an effort to keep ugly and dangerous men from killing great amounts of us despite the fact that we had, and could have, no defenses in the usual sense.
I just wish we had remembered about that.
On reflection, substitute “large chunks of our foreign policy” for “our entire foreign policy”. Hyperbole: bad.
First, the analysis, like most, neglect to describe that the sanctions against Saddam were failing and that the French and Russians were actively trying to remove them, so they could engage in above board, rather than, illicit commerce with Iraq.
OK, if we have to revisit this stuff once again, let’s have it.
My first question: did we first attempt stricter enforcement of / renegotiation of the sanctions, prior to war? If not, why not?
I look forward to your reply.
It was almost as if we had a PC approach to war.
I’d say, it was almost as if we had an utterly careless approach to war. YMMV.
let’s cut losses and leave.
If you care to honestly engage the position of folks who advocate leaving, I believe you will find their point of view to be “we will only make things worse by staying, so let’s leave”.
Can we expect anything better in Iraq?
No. And, from the point of view of the national interest of the US, we can expect far worse.
Yet we have had troops stationed in Korea for over 50 years and there is no outcry that it is time for a pull out.
Quite so. This might cause a thoughtful person to consider, what is different between Korea and Iraq?
It is sad that the lesson of Vietnam is not taught.
Here are the lessons I learned from Vietnam. YMMV.
We intervened in an internal civil conflict. Bad idea.
We began by supporting a local proxy that was corrupt and not well supported by the local population. Bad idea.
We escalated our involvement to include large numbers of US troops based on a lie. Bad idea.
We proceeded with a military strategy that, on the face of it, could not succeed, because it refused to take and hold enemy territory. Bad idea.
We continued to pursue the war long after decision makers recognized it could not be won on any terms we were able or willing to engage in. Bad idea.
Some, but not all, of these lessons apply to Iraq.
Unless, we can stabilize Iraq to the point where they can then takeover their own role in the middle east without really being threatened by Syria and Iran.
Sounds right to me. IMO it will take the 400K Shinseki originally asked for, plus some. Call it a half million.
That means a draft and hell of a lot of money. If you’re under 40, it means you’ll probably go, if you’re not already there. If you have kids under 40, it means they will go, if they’re not already there.
It’ll cost you, personally, thousands of dollars.
Want to sign up for that?
Also, about this “our oceans no longer protect us” stuff: that has been true since the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile.
It goes back before that. William McKinley was assassinated by a self-professed anarchist in the very early 20th C.
19 guys with box cutters and a half million bucks. There is no army, no matter how large, that will protect us from that.
Thanks –
“The most probable consequence of rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in its present condition is a further bloodbath, with even larger refugee flows and the effective dismemberment of the country.”
That is actually far from the most likely scenario to those of us who understand Iraq and its society, and the on-the-ground reality there since March, 2003.
I have written a reality based, common-sense analysis of this question, which you can read here.
In short, things will continue to deteriorate in Iraq as long as the U.S. remains there. As soon as the U.S. leaves there will be a significant reduction in violence, destruction and killing, since U.S. occupation forces are the number one single source of death for Iraqis. Even if the violence between Iraqis increases, which is by no means guaranteed (the U.S. is also widely viewed by Iraqis and others as provoking much of the violence between Iraqis), it is extremely unlikely that it would equal the reduction guaranteed by the absence of U.S. forces.
It is very unlikely that a withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces would result in a greater bloodbath than the one the U.S. forces are largely causing. I explain in some detail some of the reasons for that in the piece I linked to.
Sorry – I knew I should have previewed to make sure the link worked.
russell @ 10:17 – Great post. The last line especially succinct, poetic and on the mark.
Greetings,
Im really not that good with words, please forgive
any grammer mistakes. 🙂
1. the 1st lesson of 9/11, is we and the rest of the
world can no longer afford,to humor these idiots in the mideast. its just too expensive, in human terms, to ignore groups. Like Al-queda, hamas, the popular movement for the ejaculation of palestine.they are serious about fighting
the “Great Satan”.
2. the looters, would you rather, our troops to start shooting them on national T.V. Because that is the only efective action, to stop the looters.
3.Since i was born (1969) there has been a serious problem, with Islamic Terrorists. We must solve this problem. The Jihadists, only respect strenght, and the will to use it.
4. What, you think its easy, to invade a country, then rebuild it?
5. If we give up, and come home. without changing the Mid East, into a more moderate societys, Where jihad and
killing the infidels is not so common and acceptable. Then the next attack on us, and do not doubt, the jihadist will
attack again.
Then we will be forced to take a more drastic action
against them. and the countrys that support them.
Nagasaki-type actions.
Just my opinion, i could be wrong.
Tony
South Haven,MI