Irrelevant?

There's good and bad in Thomas Ricks' Washington Post article on the contrast between Iraq-the-place and Iraq-the-issue but the conclusion is absurd:

Yet, with a new approach underway in Baghdad, the Washington debate is largely irrelevant to the concerns of the soldier on the ground, said the Army officer who recently returned from Baghdad. "All the talk about pullouts, votes and budgets really doesn't mean much to that 18-year-old with his body armor driving across Iraq worried about IEDs," he said, referring to roadside bombs. "For him, life consists of trying to survive for 365 days to get back home -- only to know he'll have to come back again."

Now, to be sure, most 18 year-olds don't care about congressional debates and no doubt 18 year-olds serving in a combat zone are even less inclined to become political junkies. But the Washington debate is hardly irrelevant to his concerns. He's "trying to survive for 365 days to get back home -- only to know he'll have to come back again." Whether or not he has to come back again is, however, exactly what's being debated. There's a lot of political posturing going on inside the Beltway, but it's not all posturing -- the actual policies that determine how many people go to Iraq and for how long get made here.

Comments

This is very confusing.

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Posted by Typical media whore | April 8, 2007 12:22 PM

The "conclusion," it appears, is that of an Army officer. I'm not sure what, if anything, you're trying to lay at Ricks's door. But it's clearly not Ricks's claim that policy doesn't matter, and it's not a strange position for someone outside the Beltway to believe that everything public is bad faith posturing. It's a decidedly not strange position for someone who remembers the last six years. Wasn't there just a thread in which there was broad agreement that the votes of pro-Iraq War Dems had been acts of political posturing?

I don't know what your point is in this one.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | April 8, 2007 12:34 PM

There is nothing good in this article. Its theme is that the impatient politicians won't give the troops on the ground enough time for the new policy to work. We are being set up for a stab-in-the-back theory of the war. Read it again, Matt.

Posted by Bloix | April 8, 2007 12:36 PM

what kind of brainwashing is so good that a person can't even tell the difference or care about a policy that threatens his life indefinitely and a policy that would reduce the risk of his life being wasted in a civil war of no concern to him (assuming he is of the sort with NO notion of humanity as a whole where every civil war and every act of violence afects us all.)

the thing I understand least about Joe Schmoe 'Murkan is that when republicans, starting with bonzo raygun stand up and say 'we're gonna F-U' that these idiots jump up and scream YEEEAAA!
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Posted by pluege | April 8, 2007 12:59 PM

I don't know what your point is in this one.

I believe Matt's point is that it isn't all bad faith posturing.

Posted by WillieStyle | April 8, 2007 1:28 PM

In other Iraq news, Al-Sadr has apparently called for his movement to attack American troops. This could be big news, depends on how his reputation has held up since february, if he actually means it, and what the other Shia groups do. If America has to start fighting the Shia, I think you guys might lose. And I mean lose in the sense that you won't be able to physically maintain your presence in the country.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070408/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AgcIWfWo81Rcs7adKRSN8Des0NUE

Posted by graeme | April 8, 2007 1:29 PM

SomeCallMeTim wrote, The "conclusion," it appears, is that of an Army officer. I'm not sure what, if anything, you're trying to lay at Ricks's door.

When I read it, I had the same feeling Matt Y. did---kind of good, kind of bad, with this "conclusion" definitely in the bad.

It can be laid at Ricks' door, a la the usual logical counter to press pretenses of objectivity: while the journalist can say "I'm just quoting someone, so there's nothing unobjective here," there's the meta-issue of deciding whom to quote.

Bottom line is that the quote is absurd, and while you could claim that Ricks is offering it up as such, that's not how the article reads to me.

Posted by liberal | April 8, 2007 2:21 PM

Bloix wrote, There is nothing good in this article. Its theme is that the impatient politicians won't give the troops on the ground enough time for the new policy to work.

It's certainly true that the article never addresses an obvious issue that's implicitly raised: in terms of some cost/benefit calculus, is it really worth staying there a few years more?

Posted by liberal | April 8, 2007 2:23 PM

WillieStyle wrote, I believe Matt's point is that it isn't all bad faith posturing.

An excellent discussion of this is "Clumsy Political Process", by Alan Bock over at antiwar.com. First 'graf:

Far be it from me to defend elected Democrats in most circumstances. However, a certain amount of criticism of Democrats in Congress for not acting strongly enough to end President Bush’s misbegotten war in Iraq suggests an inordinate impatience that reflects a certain lack of understanding of just how convoluted the political processes in the Imperial City are. It’s difficult to get simple things done in Congress sometimes, but that’s what you get when you rely on political processes – and it’s not always a bad thing.

Posted by liberal | April 8, 2007 2:28 PM

There's a lot of political posturing going on inside the Beltway, but it's not all posturing -- the actual policies that determine how many people go to Iraq and for how long get made here

That sentence seems symptomatic of my problem with the post: actors in DC could be only posturing and still end up determining "how many people go to Iraq and for how long." In fact, that's a standard description of the "Beltway problem"--there is a disconnect between the actions of politicians and the effect on the populace.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | April 8, 2007 2:36 PM

Ricks is one of the best when it comes to actual reporting and FIASCO was a fantastic book. That said, while he touches on it, he doesn't give enough attention to the question as to whether it matters if Petreaus's tactics in Baghdad work on a strategic level. If in six months we've tamped violence down to early 2005 levels we won't necessarily be better off than we were in early 2005, and we know how that turned out..

Posted by AJ | April 8, 2007 3:01 PM

Thomas Ricks is a Gen Petraeus fanboy; a cursory reading of Fiasco would reveal that. The article as a whole reads with an "all I'm saying is give the surge a chance" mentality. He reminds us that although attacks are down, the real test comes in the summer, so what happens now on the ground doesn't really mean much.

That being said, I agree that everything is being shuffled around and should be watched to see if it works. 4 very high level positions in the chain of command for the soldiers in Iraq have changed hands in recent months - new SecDef, Army Secretary vacancy, new Army Chief, and new CENTCOM commander. Also, they're trying the strategy of making smaller bases that are more closely integrated into suburbs and cities, instead of superbases with Taco Bell, swimming pools, and XBoxes that run on a separate power grid (harboring resentment in the Iraqis who wonder why their electricity can't be as consistent as that brightly glowing U.S. military base), which at least shows that decisionmakers are reading up on their counterinsurgency strategy.

I really, really want these shifts in strategy to work. That being said, I'm not exactly optimistic about it. But neither am I optimistic about more substantive shifts in strategy to occur until we have a new president.

Posted by Shane | April 8, 2007 3:19 PM

shane, maybe you would be kind enough to tell us what you think that "work" means in this context?

especially since no one else, from george bush on down, ever does.

Posted by howard | April 8, 2007 4:45 PM

Well, the wording is a bit messed up; so it comes across as saying something I don't believe the officer actually meant. Of course policy is completely relevant to the soldier's concerns; it's just not relevant to the average soldier--who's busy trying to save his bacon in Baghdad.

Posted by doggril | April 8, 2007 4:57 PM

The deepest problem is that no where in the article -- and, by extension, no where in the range of American Iraq Policy covered in the article -- is there any sound reasoning.

Apparently, instead of admitting impotence and failure, our fearless leaders have decided to push the line that we could have victory in five to ten years, but the feckless fools back in Washington lack patience, and that's why we are going to lose. Cause the fools in Washington would not allow them to take 5 to 10 years, to spend x trillion dollars, killing x00,000 Iraqis and x,000 Americans.

Posted by Bruce Wilder | April 8, 2007 5:07 PM

The cost-benefit, if there ever was one, got lost a long time ago.

1) If the surge works, we've stabilized and empowered a Shiite government that is allied with Iran, our enemy-du-jour.

2) If the surge doesn't work, we're thrashing around in an escalating civil war, seeing our casualties increase month by month.

And these two wonderful potential outcomes have been purchased for half a trillion dollars. Seems like a good deal to me.

Posted by steven r. | April 8, 2007 5:14 PM

Howard,

I will cynically define "work" or "success" as "ultimately resulting in less catastrophic disaster than the probable consequences of a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq immediately." In other words, if it mitigates the disaster that is Iraq somewhat, it will be a success. Of course, it is still a vague definition because I can't be precise about what would hypothetically happen in an immediate and complete withdrawal today.

The fact that I can't even guarantee that this definition of success will result from the surge is just a sad testament to how bad the quagmire is right now.

Posted by Shane | April 8, 2007 5:55 PM

shane, i appreciate your trying, but you see the problem, don't you? the alternative to bush's endless war isn't withdrawal today; it's withdrawal over time. and the cost in blood and treasure simply to get to a less catastrophic disaster (whatever that would be) hardly justifies the investment on a cost-benefit basis.

which is why i see no reason that the surge can possibly "work;" there is no definition of "working" that advances US interests in a meaningful way that is achievable....

Posted by howard | April 8, 2007 11:30 PM

Posted by: steven r.: 1) If the surge works, we've stabilized and empowered a Shiite government that is allied with Iran, our enemy-du-jour.

If the surge 'works', it'll do that, but only temporarily, and probably only so long as the US Army and Marine Corps maintains an ops tempo for the next couple of years, which is causing humungous strains on a monthy-by-month basis.

Posted by Barry | April 13, 2007 4:00 PM