The Baghdad Focus

Damien Cave and Stephen Farrell, "Troop Buildup, Yielding Slight Gains, Fails to Meet U.S. Goals"

Seven months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.

One thing to keep in mind about the "surge" is that the overall increase in the number of American soldiers wasn't especially large relative to either the pre-existing size of the deployment or to the size of Iraq. But along with the "surge" of additional American forces into the country, there was a "surge" of forces away from non-Baghdad portions of Iraq into the capital. It would be extraordinary if that policy didn't manage to produce "modest security gains" in Baghdad at the expense of problems elsewhere. The question is why one might think this kind of concentration of forces might be a good idea.

Roughly speaking, there are two possible ideas. One is that the security gains might be large enough to reach some kind of tipping point. You start with X troops in Baghdad. Then you "surge" up to X + Y troops. This surge produces a self-sustaining new situation, so now you surge down to fewer than X troops in Baghdad, allowing you to surge up elsewhere. That, though, hasn't happened. The "underlying sectarian dynamic" is the same.

Alternatively, one might think that the national capital is uniquely important to political events, and that a special focus on Baghdad security might create the environment for political reconciliation. That, though, hasn't happened either. The whole thing's failed. Now people would like us to believe that other "bottom up" trends compensate for the failure of the plan. But since this cuts directly against the logic of the policy we've been pursuing since January, there's no reason to think that anything we're doing is having a substantial positive impact on whatever decentralized processes in Iraq may or may not be evolving in a good situation. The scorecard can't just credit the US military presence for any good thing that happens anywhere in Iraq, while simultaneously arguing that without the military presence every bad thing about Iraq would be worse.

DoD photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, U.S. Air Force

Comments

The NYT appears to be sponsoring a shoot-out between the pro and anti-surge contingents in its Iraq reporting corps. While Michael Gordon uncritically types and publishes press releases from Petraeus, Cave and Farrell provide directly contrary evidence.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Sulzberger and Keller lack the faculties of reasoning and judgement to reach a conclusion about what is going on in Iraq. Thus they produce "fair and balanced" coverage lurching between optimistic and pessimistic coverage of a doomed occupation.

It was not always thus at the New York Times. An earlier generation of leadership had no difficulty determining that Vietnam was a fraudulent and foolish war, and the Times put its full weight behind exposing the folly and ending the war, boldly challenging the Government in the "Pentagon Papers" case.

Sulzberger and Keller are simply weak men of inferior character, part of the sad story of the decline of a great institution.

Posted by HH | September 9, 2007 11:23 AM

HH, please note that this took a few years. Of course, by that standard the NYT leadership is still a couple of years behind.

If only information technology had improved since the late 1960's!

Posted by Barry | September 9, 2007 1:01 PM

Chief NYT editor Bill Keller presided over the Judy Miller follies, then delayed the NSA story that could have cost Bush the 2004 election. Now Keller is stumbling around alternating "patriotic" pro-war news stories with reality-based skeptical pieces on Iraq. This isn't editorial leadership; it's spin-the-dial story selection. Sulzberger simply lacks the balls to fire Keller.

Posted by HH | September 9, 2007 2:55 PM

The REAL problem is that there ARE NO "bottom up" developments.

That crap is simply a lie about Anbar and the Sunnis turning against Al Qaeda. That has been revealed to be a lie because we now know that the only thing being done is to BRIBE the Sunni tribes in Anbar and elsewhere to attack - or CLAIM to attack - Al Qaeda cells.

And Al Qaeda cells were NEVER the main problem anyway, as everybody with any knowledge of the situation knows.

Al Qaeda is AT BEST 8% of the problem. And most of the so-called "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" were Iraqis anyway, converted by a even fewer foreign fighters into the Al Qaeda concept.

So that whole situation is a non-event which has nothing to do with the overall situation in Iraq.

In other words, it's just another lie.

We need to stop penny-pinching "benchmark numbers" and start telling people that it is ALL a LIE.

THEN we need to start pointing out the underlying REASONS WHY Bush wants to stay in Iraq. It has nothing to do with IRAQ. It has to do with OIL and IRAN.

If you can't even discuss the underlying reasons for the policies that the neocons and Bush are pushing, how are you going to convince the US public that the benchmarks and the rest are irrelevant LIES?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 9, 2007 4:47 PM

"Now people would like us to believe that other "bottom up" trends compensate for the failure of the plan. But since this cuts directly against the logic of the policy we've been pursuing since January, there's no reason to think that anything we're doing is having a substantial positive impact on whatever decentralized processes in Iraq may or may not be evolving in a good situation."

'course, one lesson to draw would be this:

we pulled a lot of troops out of the rest of the countryside,
and the rest of the countryside got better.

we could improve the whole country just by pulling our troops out of the whole country.

Posted by kid bitzer | September 9, 2007 8:02 PM

It would be extraordinary if that policy didn't manage to produce "modest security gains" in Baghdad at the expense of problems elsewhere. The question is why one might think this kind of concentration of forces might be a good idea.

Historically it has indeed worked better to establish solid-control of small areas and then expand these areas than to try and establish only partial-control over everything by dispersing troops all over.

Posted by r4d20 | September 10, 2007 10:59 AM