I’m making a new thread on a specific issue that arose in Sebastian’s post about a potential civil war in Iraq.
For those who don’t know, I marched against the war, even after it had started, to express my outrage that we were invading a nation that posed no discernible immediate threat to us. Once the Iraqi government was clearly overthrown, however, I agreed with Powell. We had broken it, so now we own it.
In the election campaign, much is being made about which candidate will see through our obligations to the Iraqi people and which is more likely to either cut and run or simply not invest enough in the effort.
This debate is ridiculous to me. We’re racing against the clock, hoping to be able to train the Iraqi army fast enough so that they’ll get killed by the insurgents rather than us, and all we can do is bicker back and forth about whether or not Kerry could convince the French to send troops.
We need more troops in Iraq, different troops, and we need them now. (I know many of my leftwing friends will disagree about this, but I really feel this is our obligation and we can’t disown it).
Two articles out today support this claim.. First via Sullian:
US military officers in Baghdad have warned they cannot guarantee the security of the perimeter around the Green Zone, the headquarters of the Iraqi government and home to the US and British embassies, according to security company employees.
At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone’s perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound’s defences.
The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad’s centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it. (emphasis mine)
This is insanity. We are in the midst of yet another civil war, did we learn nothing from Vietnam? At least in that ill-begotten war we didn’t turn it into a terrorist breeding ground. This country was cobbled together by occupiers and the only thing that has ever held it together was a dictator. They aren’t now and never were ready for democracy. And we have now destroyed any chance Iraq had of becoming one in our lifetimes. We obviously did not learn from our previous mistakes as we are readily repeating them.
I support our troops by bringing them home.
What government would you leave in place before we depart, wilfred?
For what its worth, I agree with you.
More boots on the ground are expressly what is needed. However, I honestly and truly do not believe that any other country in the world will send any troops to Iraq. We need more men and unfortunately those men would have to be American. Where we can get them I don’t know. But many, many, many, of our problems over there stem from not having enough troops to effectively secure the country after the initial fighting was done.
I’m not sure too many people would disagree with you.
You assume too much about our ability to select one and ‘leave one in place’ at all. How long do you think any structure of our making would last without the US military there to babysit it?
First we had way too much premature triumphalism about our ability to win militarily. Then we had way too much premature triumphalism about our ability to beat another people into a shining jewel of democratic libery with a crowbar. Now we have way too much premature triumphalism about our ability to select the manner of our failure.
wilfred – “I support our troops by bringing them home.”
I stand corrected.
edward, the government i would leave is the one that we spent 100+ Billion, 1000+ US lives and 20,000+ Iraqi lives on. Doubling all of those numbers will get you nothing more. More boots on the ground is more gasoline on the fire.
May I suggest Sidney Blumenthals piece in the Guardian today, “Far Graver than Vietnam”.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml
“Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale.”
And it goes on from there.
As I said in the last thread, we are at war and need to fund troop levels that reflect that.
We need to pay the troops more. When most of them signed up they were being paid at a level that represented a small chance of being asked to fight. That small chance is now a virtual certainty. The pay levels need to reflect the change.
We need more troops. We need to dramatically increase our recruiting targets.
We need to be willing to make sacrifices to do that. That may include allowing for small tax increases to cover the new expenditures, canceling or tabling new weapons programs that aren’t pertinent to the current war, tackling outdated but poltically noticeable drains on our economic resources (Farm subsidies leap to my mind), and otherthings that I could probably think of if I spent more time.
Sebastian
We need to believe in the mission as well.
Do you think the president will explain what the mission is again because “winning the war on terror” it aint.
Any foreign government that contributes troops is explicitly acting against its own self-interest. We’ve shown the world we’re willing and able to invade a country simply because we want to. As long as we stay bogged down in Iraq, we can’t turn our attention elsewhere.
wilfred, I don’t dispute that it’s FUBAR. And if I thought Allawi could continue from here to build an acceptable government, I’d agree with you that we should pull out, but nothing indicates he’s ready (you have to remember that at least Hussein’s government was relatively stable), and I think if we just leave we’d find ourselves forced to go back in again very quickly anyway, as AQ would more than likely set up camp there more openly.
Just leaving is not only bad for Iraq (and considering we owe them a stable government, unforgivable IMO), it would be bad for the entire world.
Edward
I supported the use of more troops from the get go. Now, I’m not sure we have a correctable situation.
It truly is starting to look like Viet Nam.
The only way to “win” is with more troops. Endlessly sending more troops and spending more resources is not politically supported. “Winning” does not look like winning.
When do we learn from history? Our own and that regions.
‘i won’t dispute that it’s FUBAR’…. edward, the B.A.R. in that phrase is Beyond All Repair. I agree and that’s why the Iraqi people need to be left to figure it out. If it is civil war that it becomes, what if that is the only way they can ever come to an ultimate peace, either by subdividing or some other means?
If our country was not allowed to have our own Civil War, we would never have become the country we are today. It was a horrible war but ultimately brought this country together. Theirs may not mirror ours identically, but then neither does their society.
The problem i have with most of the right wing opinion is they want to give Iraq some sort of Western Culture Make-over which is creepily like some kind of biblical story where God makes us in His image and then we make Iraq over in our image.
“Just leaving is not only bad for Iraq (and considering we owe them a stable government, unforgivable IMO), it would be bad for the entire world.”
‘Bad’ only exists in comparison. If the intelligence report and Blumenthal’s relay of military opinion is accurate, there is no choice that is not bad. We have to find the least bad choice, which may still be terribly bad.
I was originally very much of the ‘are you out of your minds’ anti-war camp, and then I was of the ‘you break it you bought it’ camp. And now I’m coming realize that it’s a ridiculous analogy. We weren’t in a store. Iraq wasn’t for sale. And while we’re busy trying to glue the vase together and saying ‘it’s no problem, we’ll buy it’, the people who live in the house are beating us with a broomstick and telling us to get the hell out.
What I feared most going into Iraq is now coming true.
There were no weapons, there were no 9/11 connections, we killed thousands of innocents, we lost or brought home wounded thousands of our own, and we’re not going to leave them with a democracy…it’s a total failure in every way except that Hussein is no longer in power…AND who replaces him may yet prove to be worse too.
I personally want GWB to OWN this mistake. I was enraged that he’d invade a sovereign nation without full UN backing, forever changing the world’s perception of what we, as a nation, stood for. I agree wholeheartedly with Kofi that it was an illegal war.
I see the only good that can come of it is for us to send more troops as soon as possible, crush the insurgency, help Iraq build a real democracy and then stay or leave depending on what an elected government tells us to do.
It’s very possible that we don’t have the stomach for the extreme measures necessary to “crush the insurgents”. Even if we did, our actions would elicit more nationalism due to the totalitarian measures we would probably have to put in place.
If you thought Abu Gharib was bad, how do you think our occupation will play on tv when Iraqis fight against the police state we impose.
I don’t think we or the world have the stomach for what it will take to “crush the insurgency”. More nationalists will rise up as a result of the police state created to crush the insurgency. How do we “crush” the nationalists?
You think Abu Gharib was bad, how do you think Americans playing the roles of the Nazis in Casablanca will play on tv.
I’m not sure the answer is more troops. But what is clearly needed is to take the American brand off this occupation. We’ve got to get Iraqis to understand this is a global effort–not just a grab for oil or a strike against Islam or acting as Israel’s surrogate, etc.
I’d hold out the carrot of internationalizing the rebuilding effort in return for getting other nations’ military support. Additionally, to the greatest extent possible, Iraqi companies/workers should see the lion’s share of rebuilding contracts.
We should also play a secondary role in determining the type or manner of Iraq’s future Govt. This may lead to some unpleasant possibilities–especially for Sebastian–but we’re at the point where we don’t have a whole lotta good options.
I’m not sure civil war can be avoided.
the press reports mostly on the Sadr militia. but for me, the most troubling story of recent days has been the re-appearance (in the press) of growing Kurdish militancy. [it’s probably been there all along.]
Since the Kurds (a) already have functional independence; (b) aren’t muslim and (c) are sitting on a SEA of oil, they are holding some damn fine cards.
So after the January election, and while the US is still in-country, the Kurds declare unilateral independence and start a program of ethnic cleansing against both Arabs and Turkomen. The pesh merga Iraqi units all defect to the new Kurdish govt, crippling the Iraqi military.
Turkey threatens war and the (astonishingly re-elected) Allawi govt demands that the US put a stop to it. The Kurds threaten the US with going public with all the dirty tricks the pesh merga did leading up to the election at the direction of the US. Also, the pesh merga, armed with US weapons, dig in.
Now what?
And isn’t this scenario, at this point, more probable than not?
A broader question: many of the pro-war bloggers, like Sebastian but not limited to him, assert that “winning” consists of a pro-West, non-theocratic, democratic government.
now i like daydreams too, although they tend to involve a mostly untalented blue-skinned actress and a winning lottery ticket.
but at some point, and i hope it’s now, the war bloggers are going to have to recognize that this is a pipe dream. If democratic, iraq’s next govt will be virulently anti-american and, likely, strongly theocratic.
unacceptable? then a strongman is the only solution. and now you’ve re-created both our Iraqi and Iranian experience. congrats. mom would be so proud.
what about partition?
what would have happened if the british had won the war of 1812 and imposed partition, recognizing the south as a separate legal govt?
do we just let the iraqis fight it out, until they can figure what kind of govt they want? i dunno.
flames, insults and constructive commentary welcomed.
Francis
But what is clearly needed is to take the American brand off this occupation. We’ve got to get Iraqis to understand this is a global effort–not just a grab for oil or a strike against Islam or acting as Israel’s surrogate, etc.
This is so naive. Everyone loves to conflate their own critiques and anger at America with the ones that some Iraqis and insurgents hold. Blowing up the UN building, kidnapping Frenchmen, and slaughtering Nepalese doesn’t indicate that this all about everyone being mad at America. This is about foreign occupation – period.
Carsick,
Says who? Who says totalitarian measures are necessary AND who says they elicit more nationalism?
Jadegold:
Please identify what you mean by other “nations’ military support”. Which nations? What kind of support?
FDL:
“like Sebastian but not limited to him, assert that “winning” consists of a pro-West, non-theocratic, democratic government.”
Actually I would live with non-theocratic, neutral to the West but not tolerant of terrorists, government with democratic underpinnings.
Are you saying that crushing will elicit flowers. What do you think brings about nationalism? the Olympics?
OK, I’m confused (surprising to y’all, I know;), but there are an awful lot of threads going on here at OW now and what I’m hearing today (and perhaps for the first time), is that while those who didn’t support the invasion of Iraq had various reasons for not doing so (some choosing all of them, some choosing fewer), one of those reasons seems to be that “Removing Hussein would be great but the groups within Iraq would never be able to create a democracy that we envision”*.
Serious, no snark, honest question from a guy who wasn’t super blogospherically knowledgeable at the time: Prior to the invasion was this brought up by a good number of people as a reason not to invade?
*I’m not quoting anyone here, just putting what I think I hear into a general quote.
crionna, it depends who you ask.
dsquared, at his own blog and at CT, argued against “this war now” on the grounds that the bush admin had not shown competence in anything that they had yet put their hands to, including democracy in Afghanistan.
the argument was NOT, therefore, “the iraqis cannot handle democracy.” the argument was: “given (a) the tripartite nature of iraq, (b) the administration support for Chalabi, (c) the administration punishment of any disagreement of the party line on the cost of war in terms of troops and money, (d) the historic problems around the globe of installing democracies in resource-based economies, (e) the proven administration lies regarding WMD [remember Powell pointing out a weapons development site at the UN, which later turned out to be long since abandoned?], and (f) the strong likelihood that there would be a lot of unresolved feuds between Sunni, Shia and Kurd to be resolved and (g) [there are others, but that’s all that springs to mind right now], it is THEREFORE really unlikely that a pro-western, non-theocratic, anti-Al Qaeda democracy would suddenly spring up after a US invasion. and THEREFORE invading Iraq for the purpose of installing democracy is a really bad idea.
parenthetically, the irony that our country, whose constitution is premised on the phrase WE THE PEOPLE, could IMPOSE democracy on those who do not want it, still seems largely lost on pro-war bloggers.
Francis
crionna:
I’m sure it was. . if you want to define ‘a good number’ appropriately. Personally, I think it’s a vaguely racist idea and not a strong argument.
The more prevalent argument was that while it is possible to democratize Iraq, it’s much more likely to happen through persistent economic, cultural, and political reform. As opposed to the chaos of invasion, which would galvanize our enemies, empower the theocrats, result in the loss of innocent life and . . well, there were various angles. You can find them if you hunt down the anti-war editorials. Or you can watch them play out live, if that’s more to your taste.
parenthetically, the irony that our country, whose constitution is premised on the phrase WE THE PEOPLE, could IMPOSE democracy on those who do not want it, still seems largely lost on pro-war bloggers.
Except that Iraqis do want it. Nearly all the polls coming out of Iraq have been reassuring on this front.
criona
I was against it for a slightly different reason. Thinking Iraq and the Middle East a hornet’s nest, I wondered why we couldn’t continue “containment” while we finished or had a firm stabilization in Afghanistan. Our example there would remove some fear… in say, Iraq …if we did it right. In the meantime we could also plan for an invasion if indeed it was still deemed necessary down the line.
I saw no connection to 9/11. I saw too hasty planning on the heels of not finishing our goal in Afghanistan; and I saw a hornets nest in the middle of the ME.
Crionna — I was against it too, though not on a blog (hadn’t discovered them yet.) I thought: first, we should give inspections a chance to work, for all the obvious reasons but also because it would give the Bush administration a chance to test its intelligence. Second, because I thought that the fight against al Qaeda was much more important, and that we needed to really do Afghanistan right before embarking on what seemed to me a totally unrelated task. Third, because I had always believed that there were very good reasons why people were wary of trying to take down Saddam, like the risks of civil war. (Personally, if I were President (pause for shock and horror to wear off), I would not have gone to Baghdad in ’91, not have urged people to rise up, but would later have gone in to protect them had they done so. I think.) Anyways, it seemed to me that this would be a very, very hard thing to do right, which would entail enormous risks to ourselves, the Iraqis, and the region. I still believe that regional war is a non-negligible possibility, and (to me) a horrifying one.) Fourth, because after watching what this administration had done and not done in Afghanistan, I had no confidence whatsoever that they would manage to pull this one off without disaster. Fifth, because I am in general wary of invading countries, however dreadful, and while I am enough of a humanitarian hawk that I supported Kosovo, and would have supported intervention in Rwanda, and would now support intervention in the Sudan had we not invaded Iraq, thereby destroying our credibility and tying down our troops, I did not think Iraq was that kind of case. (Note: NOT because I didn’t loathe Saddam, but because there was no ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, as there had been in, say, 1988, and again in 1991.) Sixth, because one of the reasons I am wary of things like this is because I think that when you intervene in the wrong places, you really, really impair your ability to intervene in the right places later on. (See earlier note about Sudan; consider also our absolute inability to invade Cambodia in the late ’70s and credibly claim to be doing so on humanitarian grounds, given Vietnam.)
Why would we have wanted to go into Cambodia if Vietnam was an illegtimate action?
As usual. hilzoy said it better.
International credibilty in intervention or coalition building is so low now that we need a new president just so we have a chance at rebuilding it.
We need credibility to have the most number of options when it comes to ensuring our security (as best we can)…among other interests.
Personally, I think it’s a vaguely racist idea and not a strong argument.
Hold it. Just so all reading are clear, I meant “the groups within Iraq would never be able to create a democracy that we envision” in the manner of Francis’ points a, d and f above, NOT that Iraqis or any other group can’t in and of themselves figure out, support or work within a democracy.
Sebastian: I haven’t, as far as I know, advanced a general view about what makes wars legitimate or illegitimate. For what it’s worth, I thought at the time, at the various points in childhood that I was at, and still think today, that we should not have gone into Vietnam because awful as the North Vietnamese were, the South Vietnamese, while obviously not as bad, were no great shakes either; and so while I would have been happy to secure the South against invasion had I been able to do so by some cost-free method like waving a magic wand, I didn’t think that going to war to prop up the South Vietnamese government was a very good idea. Between then and now, I got to know someone who was CIA in South Vietnam in the late ’50s, who claims that the CIA people on the ground there were unanimously opposed to any invasion, since they all felt that it would turn into an unwinnable ghastly quagmire; this person quit once it became clear that the analysts in country were all going to be overruled by Washington, thinking: so much for trying to do the right thing, have a good effect on policy, and help my country. Why one would think that any of these arguments carry over into Cambodia, I don’t know.
Oops: not “into Cambodia” (arguments being, as far as I know, non-spatial), but “to the case of Cambodia.”
Because as awful as the Khmer Rouge was, other governments in Cambodia had been awful too. Why intervene on one side?
Who says totalitarian measures are necessary
Well let’s see now… Iyad Allawi certainly seems to think so and I believe has even said so in nearly so many words. The US military and DoD seem to think so. In fact the only major players who are not already, de facto, applying totalitarian measures are the clerics… Is that enough or do we need to spell it out a little further?
AND who says they elicit more nationalism?
that’s a much trickier assertion. I certainly wouldn’t say something like that, for the simple reason that it would be too much trouble to define “nationalism” in the context of Iraq. I would however, reiterate that assuming the existence of a positive feedback loop between “totalitarian measures” and the “intensity of anti-occupation activity” is not unreasonable.
Frankly, I agree in principle that we should stick around (easy for me to say since I’m not getting shot at), but in practice I don’t have a good answer to wilfred’s point. There are a lot of indications that civil war is no longer an if but a when.
Sebastian: I didn’t want to refight the Vietnam war during the SwiftVets flap, or during the Bush’s National Guard service flap, or now. However, my basic view is: war sucks. It has predictable dreadful consequences for the everyone involved, and it tends to produce unpredictable consequences, often dreadful, as well. Sometimes it is nonetheless the right thing to do, but before I am convinced that it is in any given case, I need some reason to think that the various dreadful consequences will be outweighed by some clear and achievable benefit that’s large enough to outweigh them. Call me weird or inconsistent, but for whatever unfathomable reason, I thought that the benefits of maintaining Ngo Dinh Diem, or Thieu, or any of them, in power as opposed to allowing the North Vietnamese to take over, while very real, did not meet that test; and I thought that the benefits of toppling Pol Pot as opposed to allowing him to kill about a quarter of the population of Cambodia did. I also thought that any consideration of intervention in Cambodia in, say, 1977 would have had to involve questions like: would the Cambodians have been at all likely to accept our aid, given our recent past history with them? Might we have in some horrible way strengthened Pol Pots’s position by invading? And so on. I thought these sorts of considerations made intervening in Cambodia at that point impossible. Thus, I thought that one casualty of the war in Vietnam was our ability to stop the killing in Cambodia. (I leave aside, for now, the question whether Pol Pot would have taken over in the first place had we not gone into Vietnam, toppled Sihanouk, installed Lon Nol, and invaded Cambodia.)
To me, this is not about ticking off little boxes — awful here, awful there — but about trying to make judgments about the best thing to do in really complicated individual situations. My judgment about this one may be wrong, but there we are. And since I have, as I said, no desire at all to rehash the Vietnam war, that’s pretty much all I have to say about it.
“the tripartite nature of iraq”
Has anyone ever seriously discussed split up Iraq into three nations, thereby correcting a mistake made almost a hundred years ago? Divide the shia, sunni, and kurds, defend their borders, and encourage democracy in the one or two states that want it?
I know this would seriously put out the Turks, and there might be trouble distributing natural resources, but what are the other downsides? Seeing that statement above kind of popped in my brain, why does no one ever consider re-writing the borders?
Neolith – Riverbend had a good post on her blog about this, explaining how Iraq is no longer neatly divided between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds (if it ever was). There has been much mixing and moving and intermarriage of populations over the decades. Also, an independent Shiite state would be threatening to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; a Kurdish state would be seen as a threat by Turkey, Iran and Syria. And a Sunni state would be very poor because the oil is in the north and south.
Ah, I see. But wouldn’t that be a good case to have a defense force only army, and internationally protected borders? That way the new states could not be a threat, nor could they be threatened by their neighbor.
Since Sunni’s are the majority in the area, could they not either absorb into the Kurdish or Shia areas or go elsewhere?
It just seems more impossible to form a universal Iraqi state unless its under the boot of someone’s heel, than to deal with the ramifications of a split state.