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Friday, 25 July 2008
The Iraq paradox
We've arrived at a very weird place in terms of our presidential candidates' positions with regard to Iraq. Thanks to the amazing success of the surge -- the policy that Bush at long last initiated after four years of John McCain saying that's what we should do -- both McCain and Obama find themselves in an awkward situation.
- The Surge has succeeded so well that Maliki is emboldened to say that we can start talking about the Americans leaving, since the Iraqi government sources have gotten so much better at kicking the Sadrists around and other such demonstrations of prowess.
- Obama is so wedded to the mythology of MoveOn.org et al, for whom it is a religious precept that every soldier or Marine ever sent into Iraq was the worst, most horrible mistake in the history of the universe (actually, I'm probably understating their position just a little here).These are the bruised innocents who reaction to the surge was, "What? We're going to send MORE soldiers in to be maimed and killed; have we lost our freaking minds?"
- McCain feels like, "Finally, everybody (except the MoveOn types) recognizes that MY idea of boosting our force levels has worked beyond our wildest dreams, bringing us closer and closer to being able to declare victory." Of course, with things going so well he's not about to say that the success of the surge we can, irony of ironies, speak about Americans drawing down forces -- just what Obama's always wanted to do, regardless of realities on the ground. That would look like Obama was getting his way, and among the simple-minded it would look like "Hey, Obama was right all along" -- even though he was the exact opposite of right, even though we only got to this good spot by doing what Obama adamantly opposed.
- And Obama certainly can't recognize currently reality and say "Oh, well, the surge worked. Wow, great jobs guys; you proved me wrong. But now can we leave?" If he ever uttered the phrase, "the surge works," his most intense and devoted supporters' heads would explode spectacularly.
So here we are: Things are going well in Iraq, and neither campaign can use that fact advantageously.
How weirdly ironic is that?
Posted by Brad Warthen at 10:38 PM in 2008 Presidential, Barack Obama, Elections, Iraq, John McCain, Military, Strategic, The World, War and Peace
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Comments
We're talking about the lives of American men and women. We ought to be able to get over the politics, declare victory and get out.
If we entered Iraq to get rid of WMDs, we are victorious.
If we entered Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein, we are victorious.
If we entered Iraq to establish democracy in Iraq, we are victorious.
If we entered Iraq because Hussein somehow was connected to the attacks of 9/11, we're gullible for buying into it.
This war isn't like other wars. There's no Hirohito or General Jodl to sign an instrument of surrender. We must define victory on our own terms.
Mr. Obama was right on the war. Mr. McCain was right on the surge. Let's bring the troops home and go after the real terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Posted by: Norm | Jul 25, 2008 11:10:25 PM
Today's guest column by Drew McKissick about Obama demonstrates the fledgling senator's evolution into Clintonism, the despicable science of occupying every position at the same time so as to keep voters from finding the real candidate.
Meanwhile, the real Obama opted not to visit wounded soldiers today because his press entourage would not have been allowed to attend, hence no photo op, so why bother?
I tell you, Mr. Warthen. If Obama can't admit being wrong about something, the surge, for example, I can't see why anyone would want him to be president. That would mean he still thinks there are 57 states and a Great Lake bordering Oregon.
Posted by: p.m. | Jul 25, 2008 11:54:53 PM
Just another example of Mr. Warthen's mendacity. To shamelessly mislead and say you've not made up your mind about the presidential election while cheer-leading George Bush's cheerleader in chief is all too typical.
The State paper last endorsed a Democratic candidate for President in 1952. Mr. Warthen is proud to continue that tradition. He refused to answer Keven Cohen when asked if he had made up his mind. That tap dance allows him to continue his Hamlet charade.
Mr. Warthen was wrong on the war, John McSame was wrong, the State's choice for President TWICE, Junior Bush, was wrong, and not a one is man enough to admit their bloody and costly mistake while OBL is a free man because of their misguided and duplicitous policies.
Posted by: Guero | Jul 26, 2008 6:17:35 AM
I'm sorry to hear The State endorsed a Democrat over Eisenhower. How foolish. Thank goodness South Carolina's flagship newspaper has had it right in every election since then.
The last Democrat who got my vote for president was Jimmy Carter. I won't make that kind of mistake again. Democrats have all but destroyed America, and just look at that present lineup of congressional and spiritual leaders: Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Shumer, Clinton, Rangel, Kucinich, Sharpton, Jackson, Obama. Yea, behold the human bridge to nowhere.
By the way, methinks no one would want to be the kind of "free man" Osama Bin Laden is. Being free to visit whatever corner of the cave where you're hiding ain't much of a life.
Posted by: p.m. | Jul 26, 2008 7:47:24 AM
Why does it matter whom Mr. Warthen and his shrinking enterprise endorse for President? Do we consult the blacksmith for advice on automobiles? With numerous other filtered and unfiltered sources of information available why do we need the State, talking heads like Olberman or Limbaugh, Church "leaders", celebrities, etc. to dictate our electoral choice?
Posted by: george | Jul 26, 2008 8:34:01 AM
Let's see, the Repugnant Party, led by the worst president in history, Junior Bush.
The party of Rush "Oxycontin" Limbaugh, Bill "Slots" Bennett, Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, David "Ho-Hopper" Vetter, Dick "Draft-Dodger" Cheney, John "Flip-Flopper on taxes, immigration, Bob Jones, Confederate Flag" McSame, his brown-nosing Little Light in the Loafers Lindsey, and the American Ayatollah All-Stars of John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson.
The Culture of Corruption Party, a shrinking regional party of racists and plutocrats.
OBL is certainly more free than my brother-in-law, killed at the WTC, with his killer roaming free complements of Junior Bush.
Posted by: Guero | Jul 26, 2008 9:09:39 AM
Politics aside for the moment, whatever’s happening in Iraq is being keenly watched by the long-standing bad guy in the region, Iran. The surge is succeeding to some extent with Iran’s cooperation as Shiite militia rest and rearm in Iran awaiting the outcome of the US election and the impact on troop levels. While Bush is in office Iran can afford to be patient and hope for a return to America as usual before it resumes operations at a higher tempo. It can still tighten its grip on Lebanon and work to keep the Syrian regime compliant, but has had to pause its 30-year campaign to kill Americans for several months.
Back to politics, ua gotta get up early to fool p.m. who complains that Obama did not visit the soldiers while he was in Germany. We have wounded in Germany? Hey, we beat the Huns in 1918, why are we still there?
The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) serves as the primary medical treatment center for casualties of U.S. operations within Europe, Southwest Asia and the Middle East; it’s right down the road from Ramstein Air Base. Yup, 63 years after the end of the Big One, we still have bases and forces in Germany. It would probably be a good idea to have bases in Iraq for some years just to keep an eye on the area.
I doubtbut hope that we’re doing more than just watching Iran.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Jul 26, 2008 9:36:20 AM
We were utterly wrong to go into Iraq. It makes it hard to argue that you ought to send more troops into Iraq, once you realize that. However, we did so, and now have a shining chance to get out in some order. And yeah, we have to worry about Iran. Bet we wouldn't have to if Iraq were still a strong power.
Posted by: Karen McLeod | Jul 26, 2008 11:29:46 AM
Agree with Karen. Supporting the surge is like supporting chemotherapy after contracting lung cancer from years of smoking.
Who runs Iraq now? The Iraqis or Americans?
Let's not be naive enough to disregard just how much money the U.S. defense industry would lose if we pulled out. Dick Cheney needs somewhere to go in six months.
The funniest comment I've seen lately is John McCain's claim that he knows how to win wars. Based on what results, Senator? Which wars did you win? Sorta like Brad Scott claiming he knows how to win football games.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Jul 26, 2008 1:12:53 PM
And let's define "winning a war"... normally that would mean either total annhilation of the enemy or their surrender.
As fas as I know, we'll never achieve the latter and the former has not happened. The enemy just moved somewhere else.
This has not been nor ever will be a war. It is purely a counter-terrorism operation.
Posted by: Doug Ross | Jul 26, 2008 1:16:33 PM
Karen and Doug - Lanny Davis, who served as special counsel to President Clinton 1996 – 1998, wrote about his feelings about the war, the surge, and the future of Iraq in an op-ed this past Monday.
Opposing the war was a no-brainer for him.
But ... then came my first moment of doubt.Of course, things did turn to poop thereafter,I saw on TV in early 2005, in their first preliminary democratic elections, long lines of Iraqis waiting to vote under the hot desert sun with bombs and shrapnel exploding around them. Waiting to vote!
And then there was that indelible image - an older woman shrouded in a carpetlike cape, smiling gleefully and holding her purple finger in the air for the TV cameras, purple with ink showing that she had voted.
Smiling! In the middle of war! At U.S. troops standing nearby!
Wow, I thought. Is it possible I was wrong?
Is it possible, I wondered, that Iraqis truly did want democracy and freedom and the right to vote and government of the people, just as we Americans do? And were willing to fight for it, with our help?
Wouldn't that be a good thing? Even a great thing?
Maybe another democracy, however imperfect, other than Israel in the Middle East could lead to more moderation, possibly other democracies? Democracies that could serve as bulwarks against al Qaeda-type of terrorist states?
And then in early 2007 came the surge, which so many of us in the antiwar left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong.Do you know?The surge did, in fact, lead to a reduction of violence, confirmed by media on the ground as well as our military leaders.
It did allow the Shi'ite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the last several months to show leadership by joining, if not leading, the military effort to clean out of Basra the masked Mahdi Army controlled by the anti-U.S. Shi'ite extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and from the Sadr City section of Baghdad he claimed to control.
This willingness by the Shi'ite-dominated al-Maliki government to move against the Sadr Shi'ite extremists won crucial credibility for the government among many Sunni leaders and Sunnis on the streets, who joined together with Shi'ites to turn against the al Qaeda in Iraq and other Taliban-like extremists.
These are facts, not arguments.
I think there are a lot of antiwar Democrats who, like me, are impressed by these facts and who now see a moral obligation, after all the carnage and destruction wrought by our military intervention, not just to pick up and leave without looking over our shoulders.
Surely we owe the Iraqis who helped us, whose lives are in danger, immediate immigration rights to the U.S. Yet the shameful fact is that most are still not even close to having such rights.
Surely we owe the al-Maliki government and the Shi'ite and Sunni soldiers who put their lives on the line against Shi'ite and Sunni extremists and terrorists at our behest some continuing presence and support and patience as they strive to find peace, political reconciliation - and maybe even the beginnings of a stable democracy.
The only question is, for how long?
Forever? No. 100 years? No.
But for how long? I don't know.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Jul 26, 2008 4:48:00 PM
Good post, Mike. To say we were "utterly wrong to go into Iraq" implies knowledge of what would have happened had we not, when no one can know. I myself would like to see us stay in Iraq until the Iraqis become our friends and see us as theirs. But I'm not sure anyone can know whether that can happen, either.
Posted by: p.m. | Jul 26, 2008 10:55:28 PM
p.m. - I agree, but the next few years are going to be extraordinarily difficult because Iran is up to something. They’re providing longer range missiles to Hamas and Hizbollah with the latter building a formidable logistics infrastructure under the nose of the UN forces in Lebanon. They’re not doing that as a public works project, but to counter any Sunni influence with the region's pawns, the Palestinians. Whether they’re doing so in order to react to an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities or to engage Israel in a war of attrition to keep them from attacking Iran is hard to say. It could be both.
Iraqi Shiites will want to remain independent from their Persian brethren and need us to do so. That helps internal Iraqi politics and encourages ties with the Sunnis. If we get involved in any large-scale military action with Iran, who knows what the impact will be.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Jul 26, 2008 11:30:41 PM
Good news!
Back around last Thanksgiving I announced that we’d won in Iraq. Lo and behold, the AP has discovered that we’ve won too!:
BAGHDAD (AP) — The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.Wow! But if you think that’s amazing, consider this: in the 1300-word report, the word “surge” is not used even once. That’s like writing a novel without using the letter “e.” Tom Maguire has more.Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.
Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Jul 26, 2008 11:49:26 PM
I know that Senator McCain doesn't give a fig for my sentiments, but you gotta feel some sympathy for him (as David Broder notes in a column). After faithfully carrying water for W's policies for years, suddenly he gets the rug yanked out from under his feet by the Administration and al-Maliki. Goes to show you that life really IS unfair.
Posted by: Steve Gordy | Jul 27, 2008 11:44:35 AM
Stay in until the Iraqis are our friends? They are asking us to get out. I don't think staying in any longer is going to win us points, or a calmer Iraq.
Posted by: Karen McLeod | Jul 27, 2008 2:23:39 PM
July 26, 2008
Did the Surge Work?
by Ivan Eland
The media, egged on by John McCain and his campaign, are going to twist the arm of Barack Obama until he cries "uncle" and admits the U.S. troop "surge" has worked in Iraq. So far, Obama has not cracked under the pressure and, for reasons of political expediency, admitted this dubious proposition.
The smart political course of action for Obama – but not the correct one – would be to admit the surge has worked to reduce violence but to observe that that's little solace after a needless invasion and five-year (and counting) occupation that has cost more than 4,000 lives and about $600 billion. So far, Obama has stuck to the correct, and maybe even charitable, conclusion that the surge is only one of many factors that has reduced the carnage in Iraq.
Using logic, if the U.S. troop surge had been the cause of the diminished violence, then why did the mayhem go up in 2005 when the United States undertook a troop surge of similar magnitude? Moreover, because little true political reconciliation has occurred in Iraq since the surge began, if the additional troops were the cause of the new tranquility, that calm should be evaporating now that U.S. forces are being reduced to pre-surge levels. Yet so far, no spike in violence is occurring. Thus, the logical conclusion is that other factors are likely to have been more important in improving conditions than the addition of more troops.
For example, many experts believe that the prior violent cleansing of ethno-sectarian populations has separated the battling Shi'ite and Sunni groups and thus reduced the internecine warfare. Also, the U.S. military finally implemented a true counterinsurgency strategy in which it eschewed killing lots of guerrillas (and civilians collaterally) with heavy firepower and moved toward holding ground and winning the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi population. One would have thought it would not have taken the U.S. military so long to relearn this lesson after the searing experience of the Vietnam War.
Finally, and maybe most important, the U.S. decided to negotiate with (Muqtada al-Sadr and his Shi'ite militia) and pay off (the Sunni guerrillas) enemies to get their forces to quit attacking U.S. troops. U.S. politicians, thinking it is not macho to do either, have either downplayed these factors or preferred to refer to the latter by euphemism. The former is especially embarrassing to the politicians because the United States has criticized the new Pakistani government for negotiating with, instead of fighting, the Taliban and other Pakistani militants, while the U.S. government has pursued the same strategy in Iraq with the al-Sadr Shi'ite militia. The latter is embarrassing because it is considered wimpy to pay off, rather than do battle, with your enemies.
Make no mistake: paying off your enemies is always a better and cheaper strategy than expending the blood and treasure to fight them. For example, if Abraham Lincoln had offered the South compensated emancipation of its slaves – which he had advocated before becoming president – before the Civil War started, he might have avoided the killing of more than 600,000 Americans (38,000 of whom were African-American) in a war that provided freedom for blacks only in name.
Yet paying off enemies to reduce the violence is not a long-term solution to stability in Iraq. In that part of the world, if you quit making the pay offs or conditions change in such a volatile and fractured society, violence could quickly escalate again. The reconciliation occurring in Iraq is largely cosmetic and forced by U.S. pressure. It is analogous to two sets of parents arranging a marriage between two young people who don't get along and locking them up in a room together until they like each other. To get out of the room, they will go through the motions of amity, but probably will eventually end up divorced.
If the United States is smart, it will avoid the consequences of the likely future divorce among Iraqi groups and move toward Obama's tendency to declare victory and start leaving while things are going better. Such a policy would leave a better chance of U.S. forces avoiding the likely coming storm of resumed violence. If the United States wants to give Iraq the best chance of stability in the post-U.S. era, it should use its withdrawal to negotiate a radically decentralized government in which exiting armed militias maintain security in their own autonomous regions.
Above all, the U.S. should avoid John McCain's conclusion that the surge worked in Iraq and should be tried Afghanistan. Obama and McCain are engaged in a bidding war to see how many U.S. troops they can add to another lost war in Afghanistan, which has even lower prospects for future stability than Iraq. The Taliban are much more ideological and militant than most of the Sunni guerrillas in Iraq and far less likely to agree to be paid off. Also, the Taliban have a sanctuary (Pakistan) that the Sunni guerrillas in Iraq never had.
The al-Qaeda that threatens the United States is in Pakistan, not Afghanistan or Iraq. The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan merely helps al-Qaeda gain support in Pakistan. Thus, the U.S. should withdraw all of its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and concentrate on dealing with al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
Posted by: HOWL | Jul 27, 2008 3:18:15 PM
Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 and other attacks on the US:
* provided a safe haven for Bin Laden and his top aides
* paid $25,000 to the families of terrorists killed in bombings
* funneled cash to the 9/11 hijackers, which they picked up on trips to Europe.
* trained terrorists and hijackers at 2 training camps. We captured Salman Pak intact, with jetline, train, and busses for practice, along with graduation tapes showing Saddam telling the murderers to "Destroy Israel, but attack America first!"
* we captured the financial logs showing payments to terrorists in the US, Africa and Europe, along with a list of over 250 UN and European politicians being bribed by Saddam.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Jul 27, 2008 6:11:50 PM
Hmmm. HOWL’s comment is remarkable. I found the following especially noteworthy:
Make no mistake: paying off your enemies is always a better and cheaper strategy than expending the blood and treasure to fight them. For example, if Abraham Lincoln had offered the South compensated emancipation of its slaves – which he had advocated before becoming president – before the Civil War started, he might have avoided the killing of more than 600,000 Americans (38,000 of whom were African-American) in a war that provided freedom for blacks only in name.While I do recommend pragmatism, in the real world one often finds that meeting a stated or assumed price is often followed by further conditions and a higher price. I think Lincoln realized that the compensation was not a one-time payment for slaves’ freedom, but a recurring payment for the economic loss of the slaves’ labor.
Moreover, the extortionist’s mentality is clearly one in which any payment in recognition of a demand proves to the extortionist that it was always only a matter of price and encourages him to escalate it.
At the founding the Barbary pirates were a pain that the Congress sought to deal with in the same manner that several European powers did, by paying tribute. After several years that proved to be expensive, so the US took another tack.
After just a little thought and but one beer, I have to consider HOWL’s remarks idiotic. Where has paying tribute really worked? Moreover, it’s a wrong and dangerous notion that makes folks like Chamberlain believe that since the Anschluss (Germany’s annexation of Austria) was okay, the annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland was too, in the proper contexts, with an understanding of people’s histories, honoring ethnic preferences, und so weiter.
With that said, the Iraqis are already our friends and allies, we just need to be aware of their internal politics and political needs.
No nation wants to be viewed as the vassal of another, so the correct response is to publicly voice support for Iraq’s sovereignty, our desire to negotiate agreements as an equal, and all the other stuff we’re doing now. At the same time, agreements and understandings are developing out of public view for quite pragmatic reasons having to do with the neighborhood Iraq happens to occupy.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Jul 27, 2008 10:02:52 PM
I hear you, Karen, but you didn't think we should have been there to begin with, so pardon me if I'm not really listening.
If we don't come out of this war with Iraq as at least sort of an ally, it will seem to have been a waste, even if it were only an unpleasant necessity.
Posted by: p.m. | Jul 28, 2008 2:23:36 AM
p.m. Will you please explain to me what you think was necessary about this war?
Posted by: Karen McLeod | Jul 28, 2008 6:26:15 AM
Two dozen posts and very little mention of what is really important: the cost of the Iraq debacle. 4,200 American soldiers dead. Another 30,000 maimed. $3 trillion dollars wasted. A million Iraqis dead and 2 million refugees. We've squandered a great deal of goodwill from around the world. Now everyone's talking about the threat from Iran. It's time to break the never-ending cycle of fear driven war making. It's time to declare victory and come home before the roof caves in again.
Posted by: bud | Jul 28, 2008 7:28:35 AM
For all you cocky, arrogant war-mongers out there Iraq is still a damn bloody mess. To suggest this whole debacle has benefited America or Iraq is a sick lie. Today's, USA Today Headline:
Bombings kill 52 in Baghdad, Kirkuk
Police say 52 people died in suicide bombs in Iraq on Monday, police say.
Posted by: bud | Jul 28, 2008 7:55:23 AM
bud
Your numbers on Iraqi deaths are a touch overstated. Do try to cut down on the propaganda.
I also noticed bombings elsewhere. Those Islamic militants a busy folks, as are Kurd separatists.
Ya gotta lighten up a bit and stop regarding bad news for the US as good news for your side. It’s quite unbecoming.
Posted by: Mike Cakora | Jul 28, 2008 9:15:27 AM
It's sad when intelligent people can spout off any sort of nonsense as fact and then when you point out how wrong they are you get accussed of America bashing. All the pro-war folks have now adopted the position that the Iraq war, because of the surge, is now won and everything is peaceful. When someone points out the inconveient truth that people are still dying - 57 just today - and 1 million + (a figure based on scientific methodology) over the last 5-1/2 years are dead, they quickly turn it around and suggest we're being negative.
Let's just call this what it is. We're attempting to create a colony out of Iraq. And this colonization is based on lies which continue on. Those lies need to be challenged. It's time to end the occupation and come home. The era of colonization is over.
Posted by: bud | Jul 28, 2008 10:17:44 AM
