A Surge of Madness

I wasn't super-optimistic that the 2006 midterms were going to cause us to adopt a sound Iraq policy, but I did think it would result in a less unsound one. Instead, we got the "surge" -- our policy actually got worse. I never believed that the infamous September reports were going to make policy more rational, but now it seems to me that they're getting worse. Greg Djerejian looks at the longer version of Pollack & O'Hanlon's trip and it turns out to be not more nuanced than their op-ed, but more unhinged.

Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer is now O'Pollahan's best friend and leverages their findings into further support for the burgeoning Iyad Allawi boom. And here's more on that from Spencer Ackerman. And here as well.

I find it hard to find words to describe what a disaster it may be if the US ends up engineering the return to power of a grossly unpopular ex-Baathist ex-Prime Minister. It's as if people are trying their hardest to come up with policies designed to end with Muqtada al-Sadr marching at the head of a crowd shouting "Death to America" into the rapidly abandoned Green Zone sometime in 2010.

DoD photo by Sgt. Class Robert C. Brogan

Comments

It just goes to show how disconnected Washington is from the rest of the country. It also shows that we never learned a damn thing from Vietnam. A lot of our problem was propping up unpopular leaders.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | August 25, 2007 10:04 AM

It's as if people are trying their hardest to come up with policies designed to end with Muqtada al-Sadr marching at the head of a crowd shouting "Death to America" into the rapidly abandoned Green Zone sometime in 2010.

Don't be silly. We're not "abandoning" shit.

Now that everybody seems to agree that we really are reliving the Vietnam War, the only interesting question remaining is just where in the sequence of events we find ourselves. My money's on 1964 (and not just because it happens to be the year of my birth).

We're just getting started, people. Before this is all over we're going to see "analysts" popping up on every TV yakfest who make O'Pollahan look like the height of intellectual honesty.

I find it hard to find words to describe what a disaster it may be if the US ends up engineering the return to power of a grossly unpopular ex-Baathist ex-Prime Minister.

You'd almost think the whole point was to insure that we never leave. But that's crazy talk.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | August 25, 2007 10:09 AM

Maybe this is a deep game to make Maliki the not-American-puppet.

Posted by Arun | August 25, 2007 10:10 AM

All Iraq all the time would also be a disaster for a superpower that is after all custodian of the entire world. Shouldn't have something blindsiding said superpower.

Important things are happening here:
http://politicalpakistan.blogspot.com/

Posted by Arun | August 25, 2007 10:14 AM

Nothing screams democracy promotion like engineering a coup against an elected prime minister!

Posted by Rob | August 25, 2007 10:14 AM

Marghbar Shah!

Posted by Deja Vu | August 25, 2007 10:26 AM

You're not nearly as pissed off about this Matt as Ahmed Chalabi is.

Posted by Marg Bar Amrika | August 25, 2007 10:28 AM

No, no, no, no, no!!!

If only liberals would truly believe and clap louder, louder, louder, this would all work out great!!!

Posted by El Cid | August 25, 2007 10:35 AM

Things are going to get interesting if Generals Pace and Casey call for troop levels to be reduced by half. You can't call them "defeatocrats," so I wonder how the administration is going to justify ignoring them. Does Bush have the nerve to further extend deployment terms?

Posted by Unreal Veal | August 25, 2007 10:36 AM

Does Bush have the nerve to further extend deployment terms?

Yes. This has been another edition of short answers ...

Really: who can stop him? Congress?! 'Scuse me -- I just spewed coffee all over my shirt.

Posted by Greg Greene | August 25, 2007 10:48 AM

Well, it's unreasonable to deploy people for close to two years at a time. If Bush and other supporters of the war want to maintain such a broadbased commitment, then they need to go out and actively stump for people to join the military and the reserves. I know that smacks of intellectual honesty, but the president likes to chum around with soldiers and give speeches to people in uniform, so maybe this will come easy. Maybe he'll do it, if Rove convinces him that new recruits would likely become Republicans.

Posted by Unreal Veal | August 25, 2007 11:01 AM

Of all the O'Pollahan absurdities Djerjian points to, this is the most telling:

The NIE finds the Iranians "concerned about a Sunni reemergence in Iraq" and thus arming and funding Shi'a bad actors, while Pollack and O'Hanlon, without deigning to source or otherwise buttress their contention, breezily let fly that Iran has supplied al-Qaeda with EFPs. If there are rumblings of discontent with the (too cozy) foreign policy fraternity, this type of casual group-think, given the real risks this disgraced Administration will stumble to war with Iran with catastrophic consequences, might be a leading Exhibit A.

I would like to continue to remind people that Pollack and O'Hanlon are not utter fools and simpletons. They are Washington insiders with deep backgrounds in, and connections to, the US security and intelligence communities. They know how full of shit they are. They know that Iran is working to support the Iraqi government, and assist the extra-governmental Shia groups who are its backbone, to prevent both that government's collapse and the return of Sunni or Baathist rule to Iraq. They know it is simply preposterous to think that Iran is supporting al-Qaeda and takfiri groups who are working to destroy that government and establish fanatical, Shia-hating Sunni Islamic states in their place along the Iranian border.

The only sensible conclusion to draw is that O'Hanlon and Pollock are intentionally participating in a well-organized propaganda campaign to advance some particular policy agenda. I wish people would stop going on about how "unhinged" or "dumb" or "deluded" they are, and spend a bit more time investigating who they are working for.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 25, 2007 11:15 AM

Its still not Vietnam. Vietnam is a country with impossible terrain and over a hundred million people. North Vietnam had a serious conventional army and air defense system. Its actually amazing that we are managing to screw up Iraq, which has a population smaller than Poland's, crowded into two river valleys, and where a quarter of the population wants to leave Iraq and will actively support any invader.

The US government is also on track to run out of money in about six years and not be able to support any military actions, anywhere. That's also different from Vietnam.

Posted by Ed | August 25, 2007 11:16 AM

American could easily have stabilized Iraq after the invasion by leaving the Sunni Bathists in charge. Taking out Saddam and his cronies and maybe changing the name of the party. This is always the way to go when changing an authoritarian regime since the existing institutions and people are the only ones who know how to keep a lid on.

It appears that this Allawi surge might be plan to do just that, in some sense. Plan is probably too strong a word but the sentiment is there.

I've never quite understood how the Sunni's thought they had a chance in hell of prevailing. Then again most probably don't which explains the suicide bombers, When all is lost suicide becomes a viable option. WHen your way of life and status is stripped away people do desperate things.

Arguing for some harebrained stratagey to save the day in Iraq by a return to Sunni control is Saudi support of it and of course the specter of Shia Iran joining forces with Iraq.

One of the great benefits of attacking Iran is that a significant number of Shiites, probably including the Sadarists will attack us in Iraq. Thus lending probable cause for an overt shift to a pro Sunni stance. We are already happily forgetting the probably 90% of our casualities till now were perpetrated by Sunnis. We can foget that and with the new pile of American bodies comming home we will point to the Shites as the killers. There won't be any talk of a pullout then.

Posted by rapier | August 25, 2007 11:16 AM

It would greatly behove the USA and the Sunnis to have Muqtada al-Sadr and maybe 25 or so of his bodyguards whacked by a decent-sized car bomb set off by some false flag group. That is one guy that we owe for hundreds of troop deaths and his giving a green light on use of Iranian EFPs. Better for Iraq too, if this nasty character and Iranian proxy goes..

One thing that Ralph Peters mentions in his column is that with the Sunnis turned on them and knowing who AQ is - they are now being picked off one by one by US troops and Sunni militias. And, that if we really are concerned about AQ, handing them a massive defeat in Iraq at the hands of Sunnis AND Americans fighting them side by side is about the worst loss of face they could ever have dreamed of. Even Sunni Mullahs are getting in the show - preaching that Sunnis who fall fighting AQ will go to Paradise as Jihadis, while AQ fighters who die will go to hell for blaspheming and perverting Islam.

Against that, we have Lefty people and Empty Suit Obama that argue the "real war with AQ" is somehow best waged by abandoning finishing off AQ of Mesopotamia and then invading or bombing Pakistan to be focusing only on 4-5 remnant leaders. That doesn't sound too bright.

If we can't make Iraq work, it appears crazy to me to walk away from the tremendous propaganda victory we have lucked into know being discussed from Londonistan to Indonesia - That Sunnis are debating the news that AQ radical Islamists were apparantly so bad that the Iraqi Sunnis that were fighting America in sanctioned Holy Jihad have decided the Americans are honorable and that AQ is their true enemy and must be removed from Iraq. And Sunnis and Americans fighting in the same military platoons are working to rid Iraq of unwanted enemy AQ.

AQ has suffered major defeat after defeat in Iraq.

1. They have failed to start the full-scale religious war they wanted.
2. They embarassed radical Muslim thinkers by acting like savage animals against brother Muslims and unapologetically, very deliberatly, targeted women and children.
3. Their leaders have been whacked with high frequency.
4. In their rush to get Jihadis in once Ayman al-Zawahiri declared Iraq the Central Front, AQ carelessly exposed fighter ratlines and recruiters in France, Belgium, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Morocco.
5. Use of Iraqi refugees to bomb a wedding of high-ranking Jordanian dignitaries really pissed the Jordanian people off.
6. Shiites now have their people demanding that Iran help through their own networks and Hez to deliver payback for AQ suicide bombings.

OK, Malaki sucks. Iraqi democracy sucks. But as even the very articulate Obama says, "Let's finish the job on AQ". In his inexperence, Obama just has the wrong country in mind. AQ is now exposed. targeted, and in the midst of a strategic and propaganda catastrophe in Iraq.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 25, 2007 11:27 AM

"It's as if people are trying their hardest to come up with policies designed to end with Muqtada al-Sadr marching at the head of a crowd shouting "Death to America" into the rapidly abandoned Green Zone sometime in 2010."

well, sure.
I mean, if you were the Republicans, facing defeat in 2008, and knowing that a Democratic president will be left holding the bag in 2010, wouldn't this just be the height of sweetness?

So, yeah--that's about exactly what Bush and Rove are trying their hardest to do.

Of course, an outcome like that would be bad for America and bad for the troops, but the current Republican leadership has shown pretty consistently that it doesn't care about trivialities like those.
Just so long as it's good for Republicans and their corporate backers.

Posted by Count Cant | August 25, 2007 11:29 AM

Thanks for the bulletin on events occuring in the fantasy world of Chris Ford!

Posted by mq | August 25, 2007 11:35 AM

Does Bush have the nerve to further extend deployment terms?
The one thing you can't accuse Bush of having is a lack of nerve.

Posted by daveNYC | August 25, 2007 11:37 AM

It's all well and good to join forces with Sunni Iraqis to fight al-Q in Mesopotamia. I would remind Chris Ford, though, that we once joined forces with the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, and look what that got us.

We have to face the fact that no matter what we do, and there are many equally plausible options, we will pay a heavy price down the road.

Posted by Jim | August 25, 2007 11:42 AM

The real Al Qa'ida is still most interested in bin Laden's highest goal: to dethrone the Saudi ruling monarchy. That has always been his highest real-world goal (yeah, you can listen to the 'caliphate' nonsense if you want), and the attacks on the USA were simply a tactic, not a goal.

Unfortunately, the Saudi monarchy plays along with bin Laden's plans by being as incompetent, corrupt, and venal as they possibly can.

Posted by El Cid | August 25, 2007 11:43 AM

Perhaps the intention is to make the Irani Republican Guard as the new Viet Cong and Iraq the new South Viet Nam.

Someone call the central casting to be prepared for the scene where the Iraqis climb the roof the the embassy in the Green Zone to get on the American helicopters.

Posted by gregor | August 25, 2007 12:37 PM

Anybody in international marketing will tell you that in most of the world, brand names and copyrights de facto belong to whoever wants to use them. That's how you see ripoff McDonald's in Korea, ripoff KFC's in China and ripoff Starbucks in the Palestinian Territories. As such, just because it has someone else's brand name on it doesn't mean it is legit. The same thing has happened with the name AQ. Terrorist groups throughout the Middle East have learned that inserting the words AQ anywhere in your name makes you look tough and serious. However, many of these groups are focused on local fights that are less connected to the goal of striking the far enemy with the ultimate goal of hitting the near enemy. Around 5% or less of the Sunni insurgency has been made up of foreign jihadists. Much of AQ in Iraq are local Iraqi Sunnis. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri publicly denounced the late al-Zarqawi as a young, idiotic fool guilty of overreach, such as his attacks in Amman. The AQ that attacked us is mostly Saudi Arabian and Egyptian and focused on states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. AQ in Iraq is a sideshow. This is like executing Che after his failed revolution in Bolivia and then declaring ultimate victory over Moscow and Beijing.

Posted by Reality Man | August 25, 2007 2:23 PM

AQ in Iraq is NOT a sideshow. They provide invaluable talking points for those committed to keeping up our disastrous occupation of Iraq.

Posted by mq | August 25, 2007 6:08 PM

I'm all for getting out of Iraq yesterday, but I think Allawi was an OK leader and I'd be all for a coup to install him before we leave. Maliki seems extremely inept, and Allawi is a secularist which is the only way forward for Iraq if there's to be an Iraq, admittedly an open question. Ex-Baathists who broke with the regime are more credible than people whose political leanings under Saddam are conveniently unknown.

Posted by Rich | August 25, 2007 6:18 PM

I'm all for getting out of Iraq yesterday, but I think Allawi was an OK leader and I'd be all for a coup to install him before we leave. Maliki seems extremely inept, and Allawi is a secularist which is the only way forward for Iraq if there's to be an Iraq, admittedly an open question. Ex-Baathists who broke with the regime are more credible than people whose political leanings under Saddam are conveniently unknown.

Oh, and you need a better server--this one stinks.

Posted by Rich | August 25, 2007 6:19 PM

Reality Man - (Reality? Sadly misnamed though you started good by tangentially observing that most radical Islamists that want to kill us are not founding members of AQ.)

AQ in Iraq is a sideshow.

Such a sideshow that AQ networks in several countries were ordered to drop their other plans and head into Iraq with such haste they left their sleeper cells in Europe, Morocco, KSA wide open and not just the USA, but the KGB, French DST, German intel, MI-6 got intelligence windfalls. Not to mention the Jordanian, KSA, and Yemeni secret police that we compassionately heeded the ACLU's demand for repatriation of AQ combatants. And attended their welcome home ceremonies.
The other fun part was letters to AQ/Mesopotamia from AQ Remnants/Pakistan saying they were broke and could use any funds AQ/Mesopotamia could get from their supply and finance ratlines.

Now the Left, seeing their "freedom fighters" being pulverized in Iraq, are desperate to stop the extinction of the next generation of AQ fighters plus uncovery of their support networks in Europe, Arabia, N Africa ---and reposition our troops to "the real threat" inside our fragile ally Pakistan of 4-5 AQ leaders that must face "civilian legal justice for their crimes against infidel law.."

How embarassing, how obvious the Left is.

This is like executing Che after his failed revolution in Bolivia and then declaring ultimate victory over Moscow and Beijing.

NO, this is like we defeated AQ on their central front, AQ suffered massive humiliation from the Ummah now knowing the Sunnis have concluded AQ should be killed as un-Islamic and destroyers of Arab culture - and calling it a victory over radical Islam when everyone but the Lefties are now aware the real enemy is radical Islamist extremists that operate 59 other combat elements besides AQ. Just as when we wacked Castro's main executioner, we killed most of the 60s communist revolution momentum in South America. And no one was erecting strawmen claiming that wacking that thug undermined the power of Moscow and Beijing in Asia.

Around 5% or less of the Sunni insurgency has been made up of foreign jihadists.

You are talking in the past. The present is there are the former Sunni insurgents now working with Americans in wacking AQ, and there are the foreign Jihadists - who are now exposed, fighting a rearguard action to prevent their complete annilhilation.

Much of AQ in Iraq are local Iraqi Sunnis.

Nope, much as Lefties wish to depict AQ in Mesopotamia as Sunni insurgent freedom fighters, not the AQ network sent in to start a religious war between Iraqis - AQ is "the foreigner" to every Iraqi asked. They know. We are the infidel that doesn't belong, but does some good things...

Posted by Chris Ford | August 25, 2007 6:40 PM

Speaking of the surge, when do we get the lefty take-down of Democratic Congressman Brian Baird's positive first-hand report on the surge ("Our Troops Have Earned More Time"")?

Since Baird voted against the war in Iraq (unlike, say, John Edwards), he can't be dismissed as easily as O'Pollahan.

Posted by Juan | August 25, 2007 6:46 PM

when do we get the lefty take-down of Democratic Congressman Brian Baird's positive first-hand report on the surge ("Our Troops Have Earned More Time"")?

It's kind of cool that Baird mentions that "the evidence" backs his conclusions.

It would be even neater if he actually offered that evidence, but unfortunately, none is forthcoming in the article.

We are left once again to either trustingly believe or skeptically question an official or pundit who assures as that he possesses valuable evidence which, for the moment, we cannot be allowed to see, but which, we are told, really proves his points.

Posted by El Cid | August 25, 2007 6:57 PM

Now the Left, seeing their "freedom fighters" being pulverized in Iraq, are desperate to stop the extinction of the next generation of AQ fighters plus uncovery of their support networks in Europe, Arabia, N Africa... - Chris Ford

Okay, now the Jew-fearing Civil War re-enactor is suggesting that "the Left" has termed the various insurgents in Iraq as "freedom fighters".

Maybe you'll all be so scared you'll give in to his "but but but Al Qa'ida really is all based in Iraq and we're beating the Ummah there so we don't have to beat them where they are" nonsense.

Posted by El Cid | August 25, 2007 7:03 PM

"The only sensible conclusion to draw is that O'Hanlon and Pollock are intentionally participating in a well-organized propaganda campaign to advance some particular policy agenda. I wish people would stop going on about how "unhinged" or "dumb" or "deluded" they are, and spend a bit more time investigating who they are working for."

Absolutely correct. There is no doubt that the fix is in for a war on Iran. Only by exposing the connections between the nonsense being said about Iraq and the intent to attack Iran can we expose just how dangerous the current situation is.

Folks, they're leaving troops in Iraq SO THEY CAN ATTACK IRAN. It's that goddamn simple. That was the neocon intent from Day One! You KNOW that from their very own documents!

Never mind the fact that it will be a disaster. The CURRENT war is a disaster. Do you see ANY evidence that Bush and company CARE?

So why do you think they won't use these same exhausted, short on bullets troops to attack Iran?

You think it's going to be just an air war? Dream frickin' on!

The goal here is regime change in Iran, just as it was regime change in Iraq, and it is also seize the oil in Iran just as it was seize the oil in Iraq.

And that means ground war, not just air and naval war.

And when Iran retaliates against the initial air and naval attacks, it will BE a ground war.

And not just dozens or hundreds of US troops dying per month, or thousands of US troops dying over five years, but THOUSANDS dying PER MONTH will be the result. And that will be the LEAST of the result!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 25, 2007 7:38 PM

- We haven't "seized" Iraq's oil -- the proceeds from the sale of Iraq's oil go to the corrupt Iraqi government, not us.

- Frankly, it makes no sense to seize any country's oil: it's far cheaper to just buy it on the open market.

- You are dreaming if you think Iran would start a conventional ground war with us in Iraq in response to air strikes. Any Iranian military vehicles that crossed over into Iraq would be turned into grease stains by our close air support. Iranians, could, perhaps, fight us via local irregular proxies but they are already doing that.

- Stop getting so hysterical with the all-caps and exclamation points -- you aren't blessed with some special understanding of world events that the rest of us don't get. You're just a disturbed guy on the Internet.

Posted by Richard Steve Hack is an Idiot | August 25, 2007 8:02 PM

Juan - Speaking of the surge, when do we get the lefty take-down of Democratic Congressman Brian Baird's positive first-hand report on the surge ("Our Troops Have Earned More Time"")?

Don't worry, the Lefty smears and takedown has already started on Nutroots against the Apostate against the defeat and humbling evil Amerikkka deserves.
About as predictable as the Religious Right's reaction to an Apostate Republican who says he or she supports abortion in certain circumstances.

ElCid - Once again showing the insipid Lefty trait to personalize a global ideology with 1400 year old roots - radical Islam - to the personal grudges of one guy who was in the leadership of a splinter Jihadi group.

The real Al Qa'ida is still most interested in bin Laden's highest goal: to dethrone the Saudi ruling monarchy.

That was just binnie's pet peeve. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Zarqawi, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have said that is not among AQ's highest goals. Lefty confusion and personalizing all ideological problems down to a personal "responsible individual". Sometimes it works, like when the mass murders and Gulags were said by useful Commie stoogies not to be laid to communism, but to one man, Stalin. That gave Lefties cover for decades, until scholars were better able to define the thousands of bloodthirsty commies that were at the root of the murders.

That has always been his highest real-world goal (yeah, you can listen to the 'caliphate' nonsense if you want), and the attacks on the USA were simply a tactic, not a goal.

You say HIS, like he is the Jesus Christ of terror, rather than just one more combatant spinning off from radical Islamist ideology over 1400 years.

Unfortunately, the Saudi monarchy plays along with bin Laden's plans by being as incompetent, corrupt, and venal as they possibly can.

Only in Lefty minds.
The cancer of Wahabbism was unleashed by KSA as a defense against the radical Shiites who were in turn created from the weakness of Jimmy Carter and America running from Vietnam.
KSA recognizes it has a big problem - but it's like Germans waking up in 1941 to the idea that they sprung the Nazis up as a defense against the Russian and Jewish Bolsheviks and created a bigger problem than they tried to solve.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 25, 2007 8:39 PM

"Now the Left, seeing their "freedom fighters" being pulverized in Iraq, are desperate to stop the extinction of the next generation of AQ fighters plus uncovery of their support networks in Europe, Arabia, N Africa ---and reposition our troops to "the real threat" inside our fragile ally Pakistan of 4-5 AQ leaders that must face "civilian legal justice for their crimes against infidel law..""

You're starting your analysis from a crackpot conspiracy theory. That alone means nothing you say should be taken seriously. You see everything through the lenses of self-parody. You are a joke.

The central front of AQ is not Iraq. That young, artificial, Shi'ite majority country has never been central to modern Muslim or Arab identity. Mecca (Islam) and Cairo (pan-Arabism) have been much more important than Baghdad. The heart of AQ has been primarily based in at times Sudan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Considering how you believe that what you call "Londonstan" (a rather racist term that shows you're beyond contempt) is more important to the fight against AQ than Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden actually is, shows you're a fool who is tying yourself in knots just to deal with your own cognitive dissonance.

Posted by Reality Man | August 25, 2007 11:31 PM

Chris Ford - Your constant lies regarding your military service and the desperate need you have to believe them are beginning to to destroy your mind. Your grasp on reality is slipping each time you post. Stay away from the internets or you may be lost forever.

Posted by Chris Ford lies | August 25, 2007 11:38 PM

Reality Man,

This statement of yours is unreal:

That young, artificial, Shi'ite majority country has never been central to modern Muslim or Arab identity. Mecca (Islam) and Cairo (pan-Arabism) have been much more important than Baghdad.

Baghdad was the seat of the Islamic Caliphate for 500 years -- it is of crucial importance to jihadists.

Posted by Juan | August 25, 2007 11:38 PM

"Baghdad was the seat of the Islamic Caliphate for 500 years -- it is of crucial importance to jihadists."

Jihadists are not the same thing as the Arab world and the umma. In the modern era, Baghdad was not even the birthplace of the original Ba'athist Party. It was most popular while fighting Tehran in the Iran-Iraq War. Ba'athism never reached the level of importance that Nasser's pan-Arab nationalism did. Salafism and Wahhabism has its roots more in early modern Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Asia and the Afghan jihad fighters. Saying that Iraq is the center of the Islamic world is just foolish. What do you really think is more important to the jihadists, capturing Iraq or capturing the country that controls Mecca and Medina? Once again, Iraq is a sideshow in the fight against Al-Qaeda.

Posted by Reality Man | August 26, 2007 2:04 AM

Reality Man,

Why do you keep confusing yourself with Ba'athism, Pan-Arabism and other irrelevancies? They have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda seeks to reestablish the Caliphate; that's why Iraq has always been so important to them. That's why Bin Laden was whining about the sanctions on Iraq, back in '98. Is it as important to them as Mecca and Medina? No, but it comes right after.

Posted by Juan | August 26, 2007 4:29 AM

Baghdad was the seat of the Islamic Caliphate for 500 years -- it is of crucial importance to jihadists.

Posted by Juan

No, Baghdad is not of crucial importance to the jihadists, and no one seriously argues this outside of strange right wing nutcases reading lurid fantasies of caliphates and pulp fiction book covers of leering sheiks about to ravage the bound buxom blond.

Both Rome and Istanbul ruled portions of the Roman Empire for 1,000 years, yet neither city is the central focus of the Western world nor of Al Qa'ida.

The real Al Qa'ida, the founding organization of bin Laden which came out of Reagan's terror wars in Afghanistan, still aims to topple the Saudi monarchy. I'm sure they admire their youthful spin-offs, but that's not Al Qa'ida.

Posted by El Cid | August 26, 2007 12:44 PM

El Cid,

Don't take my word for it, take Bin Laden's. Go back and read his original fatwa. He mentions three countries in order of importance to him: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and then Israel.

Posted by Juan | August 26, 2007 1:31 PM

Don't take my word for it -- Juan

You got it.

How about this quote from Osama bin Laden, from 2004:

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. -- Bin Ladin Tape: Transcript of Osama bin Laden's Speech; Aljazeera.net (online publication), Doha, Qatar, October 30, 2004

http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1964.cfm

You guys speak of yourselves as the last gasp defense of Civilization, the West, and humanity from the nearly unstoppable omigosh so fearful Islamic Caliphate, and in reality, you're all just bin Laden's obedient dupes.

Posted by El Cid | August 26, 2007 2:29 PM

My sense is that none of the main factions in Iraq -- Shiite, Sunni or Kurd -- would long tolerate an AQ presence in their contry(ies?) after the U.S. departed. I think that the Sunnis cynically viewed the foreign AQ as useful in their battle with the Americans and the Shia.

The much more crucial issue in Iraq is whether there can be a modus vivendi between the non-AQ factions. I am pessimistic about this and believe that whether the US is there or not, violence will persist until one group wins or each tires of the violence and agrees to either a soft or hard petition.

Al Quaeda in Iraq is a sideshow.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | August 26, 2007 6:47 PM

Chris,

The fact that you mentioned to support our continued occupation of Iraq is actually an argument for withdrawal. The fact that the Iraqi Sunni insurgents have turned against Al Qaeda and are killing them off shows that our occupation of Iraq is not necessary. The Sunni Iraqis are eager and able to kill of Al Qaeda, as are the Shia Iraqis. Therefore, Iraq is in no danger of becoming an Al-Qaeda haven like Afghanistan before the US invasion in 2001 or like the Pakistan border region is now.
Therefore, the presence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq is not a sufficient reason to keep over 150,000 of our troops there, especially with a sectarian civil war going on there that we have no stake in.

Moreover, the unfortunate side effect of our arming the Sunni militias to kill of Al Qaeda is that we have increased the ability of the Sunnis to wage war against the Shite-dominated government in Bagdhad. Once, the Sunnis have succeeded in killing off AQ, they will be free to concentrate their energies on fighting the Shia, which will make the Civil war in Iraq even worse. All the more reason for us to plan to leave Iraq soon, so that we don't caught in the middle of this civil war.

Posted by eltoro | August 26, 2007 8:45 PM

Not real

Thucydides summed up why the Athenians would have undertaken something as crazed as the Sicilian Expedition by diagnosing them as being "duserontes aponton", "lovesick for something that doesn't exist." The "something that doesn't exist" is the element of that analysis which I believe applies to our own Iraq project.

Our course of action in Iraq as you outline it is indeed quite irrational as a foreign policy intervention. But our Iraq project was never intended as anything but a way to help Republicans win elections by serving as a stage for their narrative of a strong Republican Party protecting us from the terrorists. Iraq isn't real to these people, it's just a stage with some props. Another regime change in 2007 may make as little sense in terms of any country's interests in Iraq as did the first such in 2003, but that would be important only if the fate of Iraq was anything they thought of as at all real, as opposed to being a source of plot elements for their script. And what we can gather of their script right now makes clear that the President's political consultants have decided another regime change is just the plot twist needed to help the Republican Party's interests of the moment. And so it will happen, because these guys never say "no" to a voluptuous political narrative, and certainly not just because it doesn't correspond to any reality on the ground.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | August 27, 2007 1:24 AM