If Conditionals Were Ponies

Fareed Zakaria's through with the Iraq War and says it's time to pack up and start heading home. Andrew Sullivan comments "I'm not there yet and willing to give the military one last try, if Rumsfeld is fired and a serious new plan for regaining control is unveiled." Personally, I'm willing to buy a $2 million townhouse if someone gives me $2 million to buy a house with. What does this mean? It's an escapist fantasy, not a position on the issues.

Rumsfeld isn't going to be fired and Bush has made his Iraq policy clear -- leaving is losing, so we'll just stay and people will keep dying. One can support that policy or one can cast one's lot with the opposition, but the leopard isn't going to change its spots and devise a magical new plan for victory.

Comments

I think the more complete quote is "I'm not there yet and willing to give the military one last try, if Rumsfeld is fired and a serious new plan for regaining control is unveiled...and a pony!

Awesome post title, by the way. If I were better at post titles, I would have come up with that.

Posted by Tom Hilton | October 9, 2006 5:15 PM

For some time now, public voices have been discussing "options" for Iraq, without the existence of a consensus regarding the real state of affairs in that country. That's a recipe for nothing, when you don't have a common premise to work with. Now, perhaps a strong voice like Fareed's -- essentially I guess he's saying, there's no way to "win," but perhaps we can find ways to limit our failure -- can help move public discourse in the direction of real exit strategies. Hopefully, the strength of consensus about the need to exit will motivate our leaders to do something.

Posted by DC | October 9, 2006 5:22 PM

"stay the course" -> 2000 more american deaths before bush departs (at sept. 06 rate). how many more deaths is sullivan up for?

Posted by supersaurus | October 9, 2006 5:33 PM

I approve of the title too, though "if antecedents were ponies" strikes me as more accurate.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | October 9, 2006 5:52 PM

Why would Sullivan think that somehow these clowns are going to magically discover how to be competent? I wouldn't trust Bush & Co. to run a two-car parade.

Posted by Dave | October 9, 2006 5:52 PM

"we'll just stay and people will keep dying"

People will continue to die if the US leaves, it just won't make the evening news.

The death rate among Iraqis will probably go up as they kill each other off. The Kurds and Shia will probably join up to reduce the number of Sunni insurgents and their base. The US presence is prolonging the lives of thousands of Sunni.

The number of US deaths among the military isn't much higher than the peacetime death rate of soldiers due to training accidents and such.

Neither leaving nor staying is a "Solution".

Posted by Warren | October 9, 2006 5:56 PM

Reread the last paragraph and especially the last sentence of Zakaria's piece. It seems to me that he is NOT saying we need to start leaving, only that we need to scale down our objective and that the president's current goals are unattainable.

Posted by mdo | October 9, 2006 5:57 PM

The number of US deaths among the military isn't much higher than the peacetime death rate of soldiers due to training accidents and such.

Well, here's a military source that says you're full of it. The peacetime mortality rate from 1992 - 2001 was about 57 per 100,000--obviously a lot lower than 2,700+ out of a couple hundred thousand.

Posted by Tom Hilton | October 9, 2006 6:13 PM

Tom, that's not even the half of it. The fact that there are combat deaths doesn't mean that there aren't also accidental deaths. The accidental deaths continue to take place during a war. The combat deaths add to the overall mortality rate of service personnel.

Gen. Stephen Blum of the National Guard made similar false statements when he told reporters that the rate of Guardsmen dying in vehicle accidents in the States was about the same as that of combat deaths in Iraq. Just an incredible pack of lies. Good find on the doc, by the way.

http://www.darrelplant.com/blog_item.php?ItemRef=256

Posted by darrelplant | October 9, 2006 6:33 PM

James Baker, to whom Bush owes his presidency, is coughing into his fist like a Delt at a Dean Wormer meeting, "Get out".

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 9, 2006 6:35 PM

Neither leaving nor staying is a "Solution".

Maybe not. But if I have to pick one or the other I'll go with the position advocated by those that recognized that little problem before we actually had boots on the ground in Iraq and indeed held that as a reason we shouldn't invade in the first place.

Posted by Deanwormer | October 9, 2006 6:40 PM

Darrel, I should have given credit--I got the source from a comment by BrianFC at Lawyers, Guns, & Money. And yeah, you're absolutely right--it's not as if accidents have ceased to happen because there's a war on.

Posted by Tom Hilton | October 9, 2006 6:40 PM

Somewhat demoralizing to see people bothering to
quote the ditherings of one A. Sullivan. Need to hold to higher threshold of significance and value.

Posted by Lady Chatterly | October 9, 2006 6:42 PM

Matt, this post confuses me. Why is Bush withdrawing our troops a reasonable policy position but Bush firing Rumsfeld and changing policy is a fantasy? Aren't they both fantasies? You make it sound like a point of logic, not opinion, but I fail to see the logical difference.

Posted by Mark | October 9, 2006 6:51 PM

True dat, Matt.

All the talk of partitioning, phased withdrawls, redeployment, time tables, and benchmarks is just blowing smoke rings, navel-gazing, and to quote The Simpsons "cloud talk." We're there for another 2 1/2 years MINIMUM, so lets attempt to be somewhat realistic when we contemplate the future. I've had enough fantasy-driven politics over the last 6 yrs to last the rest of my life.

Posted by tweez | October 9, 2006 6:56 PM

Mark makes a good observation. Policy recommendations from pundits with no actual political power are an interesting game of what-ifs. What does it mean to advocate withdrawal from Iraq if Bush doesn't care what you think? What does it mean to say, "fire Rumsfeld now" if it won't make a difference?

Sure its reasonable to discuss what good public policy would be. But we also have to spend time in this meta-game, talking about what is or is not politically possible. I think the rules get pretty confused here and people don't talk about this meta-game very explicity. I think one way to describe it is asking the question: what political impact will your arguments have? This seems like a reasonable critique of public argument. But I think some pundits are kind of in denial about their role in politics, possibly Sullivan included. Sullivan needs to clarify his position. Namely, I am interested in knowing whether he thinks we should be withdrawing from Iraq already b/c Rumsfeld is still defsec and Bush shows no inclination of firing him.

Posted by mpowell | October 9, 2006 7:12 PM

Yeah -- let's say the Dems take both Houses back with enough seats that they can pass whatever they want... They can't force Bush to withdraw, can they? I mean, practically speaking, Bush is commander-in-chief regardless of who controls Congress. Has anybody been looking at how, once victory is achieved in November (please please please), we can force action on Iraq?

Posted by nate | October 9, 2006 7:25 PM

Congress controls the pursestrings, so they could just stop passing spending bills for the Iraq deployment. It'd be political suicide (Dems vote against troop pay!) but they could do it.

Posted by daveNYC | October 9, 2006 7:37 PM

Sullivan's plan is that we can somehow miraculously find another 100-200,000 troops and win in Iraq and yet it is the Democrats who he says aren't serious about Iraq?

Posted by Eric K | October 9, 2006 7:39 PM

They can't force Bush to withdraw, can they?

They can cut off the funding, I believe, although I don't know if they can get their exclusive authority to declare war back at this point.

Posted by latts | October 9, 2006 7:41 PM

Mark, you're right that Bush is not going to leave Iraq just because we say so. The point is that those who play the conditionals game enable Bush's "stay forever" plan by wishing rather than protesting. As long as they persist in a hope for a positive result in Iraq that will never come, they are prolonging the inevitable admission of failure. Sullivan is willing to give the military one more chance "if" the impossible happens. Well, the impossible is not going to happen, so Sullivan is just passing the buck, postponing an actual decision and giving the mistaken impression that something good could yet come of this.

Posted by Tomemos | October 9, 2006 8:03 PM

Those who say it would be impossible for Congress to force withdrawal, or that it would be "political suicide" to do so, should study the history of the Vietnam War. It was Congressional action to cut off funding that forced Nixon to finally throw in the towel.

Another way of looking at this is that while no one but Bush can change the personnel at the Department of Defense, many of us can throw sand in the wheels of continued occupation. Once your realize that's what you're doing, tho, you need to change the way you talk. There's no use in talking about detailed course adjustments, the question is just "go" or "stay". Sullivan and others are probably too wedded to their role as advisors to the throne to adopt the appropriately adversarial tone.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | October 9, 2006 9:03 PM

Re: It was Congressional action to cut off funding that forced Nixon to finally throw in the towel.

Nixon was already gone from office by then. And note well that Nixon did gradually withdraw US forces from Vietnam. Sure public opinion (not Congress) forced his hand. Nixon was a crook but at least he was smart crook and knew a losing proposition when he saw it.

Posted by Jonf | October 9, 2006 10:09 PM

Democrats de-funding the war is another fantasy. The Democrats are divided on the war, and will have a slim majority if they have one at all.

Those who say it would be impossible for Congress to force withdrawal, or that it would be "political suicide" to do so, should study the history of the Vietnam War. It was Congressional action to cut off funding that forced Nixon to finally throw in the towel.

I think you mean Ford.

Congress didn't 'cut off' aid to South Viet Nam. That's a hawkish propaganda meme. It just voted for less than Ford asked for.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=4660

The crucial difference is that U.S forces were no longer in the field, and there was no public enthusiasm for sending them back.

Cutting funding for an operation in which U.S. forces are currently engaged, would indeed be political suicide.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 9, 2006 10:18 PM

Jonf, you may know better, but my understanding was that funding cutoffs were an important vehicle for that public pressure. The Congressional Research Service says:

In late December 1970, Congress cleared H.R. 19911, P.L. 91-652, for the President. This Supplemental Foreign Assistance Appropriations Act prohibited the use of funds to finance the introduction of United States ground combat troops into Cambodia or to provide U.S. advisors to or for Cambodian military forces in Cambodia. As part of the compromise between Congress and the President that led to the enactment of H.R.19911, similar curbs that had been placed in other legislation in 1970—specifically H.R. 15628, P.L. 91-672 (the Foreign Military Sales Act), and H.R. 19580, P.L. 91-668 (the Department of Defense Appropriations Act), were deleted.

In late June 1973, Congress cleared H.R. 9055, P.L. 93-50, the second Supplemental Appropriations Act for FY1973, for the President’s signature. This legislation contained language cutting off funds for combat activities in Indochina after August 15, 1973. Its text read: “None of the funds herein appropriated under this act may be expended to support directly or indirectly combat activities in or over Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam by United States forces, and after August 15, 1973, no other funds heretofore appropriated under any other act may be expended for such purpose.”

In a related action, Congress completed action on June 30, 1973 on H.J.Res. 636, P.L. 93-52, the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for FY1974. This legislation contained language similar to that in H.R. 9055. The language in H.J.Res. 636 read: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, on or after August 15, 1973, no funds herein or heretofore appropriated may be obligated or expended to finance directly or indirectly combat activities by United States military forces in or over or from off the shores of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.”

Was passage of these bills political suicide?

Posted by lemuel pitkin | October 9, 2006 10:25 PM

lemuel, those funding cutoffs were for combat activity by US forces, i.e. any attempt to redeploy into Indochina after the US had finally withdrawn in 1973 (or to use US bombers to support the ARVN, which in that era of dumb bombs involved so many civilian casualties that it was arguably simply immoral). They were not for US aid to the ARVN, which continued through 1975. Congress did reject an emergency supplemental funding bill in early 1975. By that time it had become clear that the ARVN was a black hole, unable to sustain itself. In any case, nothing the US did on this count had any real impact on the collapse of the ARVN and the north's victory in 1975.

As for the political repercussions, Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976 and the Democrats retained a strong majority in Congress. Reagan's victory in 1980 was due to high inflation, high gas prices, the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The chief political repercussion of the vote against the supplemental arms appropriations bill for RVN in spring 1975 is that we will forever have to read idiotic op-ed pieces by the likes of Melvin Laird and (alas) Jim Webb. Do not aid these nincompoops in their attempts to distort the history of the Vietnam War, much less of the political landscape of the 1970s.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 9, 2006 10:55 PM

I concede a lack of expertise in this area. However:

* The first bill cited is from 1970.

* My view that this was an imporant factor in US withdrawal from Vietnam comes from conversations with smart older leftists who would like to see the same stick used now, not from (or at least, not directly from)right-wing propaganda.

* Given that Bush is going to be President for two more years, and this is one fo the few tools available for compelling a withdrawal from Iraq, and that it was at least seriously attempted by the good guys in the Vietnam era, isn't it something we should be talking about now?

(There actually was a bill like this -- H.R. 4232 -- introduced last year. Admittedly it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere...)

Posted by lemuel pitkin | October 9, 2006 11:16 PM

On the pursestrings issue: yes, it would be political suicide. A bad declaration of war is always better rewarded than a necessary withdrawal.

I think there are more fine-grained ways of dealing with Bush's War, not least by cutting off the money spigot to Halliburton. If something sufficiently transformative gets through so that it's not Bush's War any more, the petulant little man might just take his ball and go home. Might.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | October 10, 2006 12:41 AM

Whatever it was before, it's a rescue mission now.

We waited until the Yugoslavs were done playing musical chairs to intervene and partition the country; they didn't play nice.

In this instance, we happen to already be there. Don't we have a certain responsibility to help Shiites relocate to Shiite-majority areas, and likewise with Sunnis and Kurds.

I'm not underestimating the political, logistical, and emotional impediments to such an operation. The Americans don't want to admit that that partition is next to inevitable, and they sure the hell don't want to risk young lives for that kind of mission. And you have to suspect that the average Sunni father of four with an electronics shop on the edge of Sadr City whose family has owned the property for six generations and whose livelihood depends on its revenue doesn't want to relocate to Tikrit.

But is either staying the course or departure the most moral choice?

Posted by Linus | October 10, 2006 12:42 AM

Nate,

If the Dems take both chambers of Congress with enough seats to pass whatever they want, GW Bush has a lot more to worry about than loosing control of the war in Iraq to the Congress.

Posted by Fifi | October 10, 2006 1:46 AM

What ever happened to the Haditha report, btw?

We're coming up on the one year anniversary of that incident.

Justice delayed...

Posted by monkyboy | October 10, 2006 2:35 AM

I'm not underestimating the political, logistical, and emotional impediments to such an operation.

Yes you are. "First, do no harm." There will be no way to know whether the good we might possibly do in averting bloody massacres might outweight the harm we do in uprooting people unnecessarily, definitively partitioning and perhaps fatally weakening the Iraqi state, legitimizing ethnic cleansing and so forth. The Muslim world will perceive us as having dismembered Iraq to aid our own hegemony. The arguments over whether we did more harm than good will go on forever.

This patient is suffering as a result of complications ensuing from an ill-advised operation which we botched. Further operations to try to mitigate the harm we have already caused will only compound our responsibility for further suffering. It is time for us to stop trying to "help". The patient is stating more and more clearly that he wants us to simply go away.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 10, 2006 4:09 AM

It's interesting that more than a few of the commenters here appear to be only interested in the numbers of US deaths and fatalities, and rather uninterested in the number of deaths and fatalities among the Iraqis--many of which probably would not have occurred if Bush and the PNACians overthrown the Hussein regime. After all, it was allegedly to help the Iraqis that Bush and the PNACians pushed to overthrow the Iraqi regime, not to unleash a killing wave in Iraq.

I suspect that such American provincialism is just another example of what a British lady once told us: "Americans are very keen on themselves."

Posted by raj | October 10, 2006 7:09 AM

"...definitively partitioning and perhaps fatally weakening the Iraqi state..."

My view is that Iraq should be spoken of in the past tense.

"The Muslim world will perceive us as having dismembered Iraq to aid our own hegemony."

It doesn't matter. We'll have saved thousands of lives.

Posted by Linus | October 10, 2006 12:04 PM

Because we all concede that Bush is in for the long haul and the Dems are going to go along, does that mean all political options are used up? I don't think so. The grassroots anti-recruitment movement is politics in the American Grain. We have a volunteer army, which means the army depends on volunteers. Squeeze the numbers and you deprive D.C. of its mercenaries.

The establishment anti-war voices who keep congratulating each other that this time, unlike those crazy anti-Vietnam protesters, the protests have been all american and oh so patriotic forget to add -- and oh so futile. It is certainly time to learn some lessons in protest from the Vietnam era. And the best lesson is - you can attack the Pentagon. It will notice.

Posted by Roger | October 10, 2006 1:37 PM

I suspect that such American provincialism is just another example of what a British lady once told us: "Americans are very keen on themselves."

Which makes us more or less like everyone on earth. If you bought the White Man's Burden that the Brits were selling, you bought more than you should have.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 10, 2006 1:49 PM

Should the Democrats gain control of both chambers and pass a bill limiting the money Bush has to spend on fighting in Iraq, won't the "decider" have a signing statement declaring his different interpretation?

Posted by mal | October 10, 2006 1:53 PM

Which makes us more or less like everyone on earth. If you bought the White Man's Burden that the Brits were selling, you bought more than you should have.

Indeed. I love I'm So Bored with the USA, for example, but I can't help feeling there's an unconscious sense of British entitlement behind it--that part of the reason for this resentment is simply the fact that we displaced them as the country that bores everybody.

Posted by Tom Hilton | October 10, 2006 3:10 PM

"And the best lesson is - you can attack the Pentagon. It will notice."

Yeah, it noticed on 9-11. Took out the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and stationed troops on either side of Iran.

Told the dictator of Pakistan, you're either with us or we'll bomb you back to the Stone Age.

Then gave Pakistan's nemesis India (democratic) the okay to go ahead with its nuclear weapons program even though it's not a signitory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Changing the Middle East will take a long time. It's a volunteer army. Unlike Vietnam, there's no draft.

Posted by Peter K. | October 10, 2006 3:22 PM

Peter K. gives us typical nonsensical "analysis" from a war hawk.

In the real world, as opposed to Peter K. world, the Taliban is alive and active. They have been injured but hardly taken out.

Taking out Saddam Hussein was a victory for the people who attacked the Pentagon.

Stationing U.S. troops in occupied Muslim countries was a victory for the people who attacked the Pentagon.

India was going ahead with its nuclear weapons program whatever we did, as was Pakistan.

On net, then, attacking the Pentagon was a smart decision for the people who did it.

Posted by MQ | October 10, 2006 6:02 PM

Attacking the Pentagon means -- taking away its money. Taking away its manpower. Taking away its political power. An attack via levitation, as in 1967, rather than a rightwing theocratic terrorist attempt, re 9/11. 9/11 was the last unexpected result of the sick, sick Reagan doctrine in the 80s, arming jihadis and creating an international network of them. The Bush people, who have never seen a mistake they haven't wanted to emulate, are doing the same thing with jihadi paramilitaries in Iraq. As they fight Sadr to give SCIRI a chance to create a Taliban like state in Southern Iraq, the jihadists must be laughing their asses off.

The whole militarist lifestyle was foisted upon Americans from D.C., but in actuality, there has never been a huge appetite in America to meddle militarily overseas. This isn't to exonerate the American people of their complicity in American aggression, of course. Americans have a fatal belief that they should be invulnerable, and everybody else should be vulnerable. It is hard to root this type of thinking out, since it was planted in frontier days, when slave power and a genocidal mindset towards Indians prompted a culture of self righteous violence. However, the Iraq war is helpful, in one way, by making people think about why we are such a hyper-aggressive nation. I think the intuitive rejection of being in a country we know nothing of, trying to remake it by trusting power hungry frauds, such as the President and Vice President, is slowly spreading.

Of course, as Peter K knows in his heart, the U.S. should really spend about a 10th of what it is presently spending on the military, which really shouldn't be a priority. Our enemies are laughably miniscule -- a handful of bandits in a Pakistan province. We have no reason to be hostile to Iran, and we have no reason to occupy Iraq, and eventually the equation will be made. There will be an Iraq syndrome, and I think that can be ridden as a vehicle to radically cut into the war economy in this country. Since we should be shifting resources anyway to meet coming huge environmental challenges, this will all eventually work out for the best.

Posted by roger | October 10, 2006 9:38 PM

"The Muslim world will perceive us as having dismembered Iraq to aid our own hegemony."

It doesn't matter. We'll have saved thousands of lives.

On past experience, declaring a formal partition is more likely to raise than lower the level of violence.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 11, 2006 12:28 AM

Do we all remember when were all through with this war the day before it started?

Posted by Judson | October 11, 2006 11:10 AM