Declining Violence

There's a lot to chew over in this Washington Post feature on the experiences of 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division in Baghdad's Sadiyah neighborhood. Perhaps the most important is what the story suggests about the declining violence in Baghdad (and perhaps elsewhere in the country), namely that the spike in violence was associated with competing sectarian efforts at ethnic cleansing and the decline in violence represents the success of those efforts:

American soldiers estimate that since violence intensified this year, half of the families in Sadiyah have fled, leaving approximately 100,000 people [...] Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, went from house to house killing and intimidating Sunni families [...] "It's just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing," said Maj. Eric Timmerman, the battalion's operations officer.

This is the basically fraudulent nature of the American enterprise in Iraq. We're told we can't leave because of the civil war that would break out or intensify or whatever if we do. But our troops aren't really capable of meaningfully impacting the result of the sectarian conflict anyway. Instead, they're just being plopped into the middle of it and exposed to harm, so that when the conflict eventually ends (as conflicts tend to) we can call the results "victory" and stay in Iraq forever. If the violence waxes, that shows the war needs to continue. If it wanes, that shows that we're winning and need to keep on keeping on. Meanwhile, in the real world the civil war and ethnic cleansing we're supposed to be preventing are things that have already happened.

Comments

"just riding around, waiting to get blown up," said a U.S. soldier in Iraq.

Compare with the Vietnam-era officer who said he destroyed a village to save it.

Anytime the Democratic candidates want to skip the senatorial complexities and focus on that soldier's Beckettian quote, fine by me.

Posted by Mark Paul | October 27, 2007 8:06 PM

Hey Matthew, face it, Bush has anally fucked the country.

Posted by Pritesh | October 27, 2007 10:01 PM

"Compare with the Vietnam-era officer who said he destroyed a village to save it."

Who was the legendary officer who said this? Did any officer ever say this, or is this chestnut that gets continually regurgitated merely a lefty shorthand for "War, bad; Soldiers, stupid"?

Posted by Juan | October 27, 2007 11:00 PM

Yglesias, Yod da man. Y'all aint one o dems jerky blogaaz who be all "Waah!!1! They aint doing what I wants them to do. You make an effort at analyzing the important issues of the day in complete sentences. If only you didn't do it in blogs.

Posted by Moral panikuh | October 27, 2007 11:27 PM

The last comment is not a meaningful contribution to the comments sections of an esteemed blog like this one and does not represent my opinions.

Posted by Moral Panicker | October 27, 2007 11:28 PM

Juan bad, Juan also stupid...

“We had to destroy the village to save it”

Attributed to many different people, including war correspondent Peter Arnett who supposedly attributed the quote to an unidentified Army officer. Used circa 1968, perhaps during the bloody Tet offensive. Some people believe the phrase applies to the massacre at My Lai , where approximately 500 unarmed villagers were murdered by rampaging US troops. Army Lt. William Calley was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment but served only three years before being pardoned by President Richard Nixon. Tim Larimer of Time magazine returned to My Lai 30 years later and said, “ My Lai ’s place in American history is firmly entrenched, as a disturbing wake-up call that the US military could be as guilty of inhumane acts as any army.” A Vietnamese war veteran who returned to the village to find his entire family murdered and then hastily buried, remarked, “There were many My Lais.” Recently the Toledo Blade corroborated his remark, uncovering other atrocities and war crimes in Vietnam,

Here's a fellow who actually claims to have at the briefing where the statement was made. As is usual, the actual facts about the village of Ben Tre are more complicated, but the statement apparently was made:

http://www.nhe.net/BenTreVietnam/

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 27, 2007 11:32 PM

It's irritating to me that the issue has shifted from the illegality of the war - and thus the fact that it is a war crime - in the first place to this notion that the US has to CONTINUE to kill civilians and disrupt the country "in order to save it."

And that's the way it should be phrased: "We are destroying Iraq in order to save it."

It's just ridiculous nonsense to suggest otherwise.

Not to mention that the effort is costing FAR MORE than Iraq is worth to the American people on top of it.

I mean, ask any non-moron American (if you can find any): is Iraq worth spending one to two trillion dollars of your tax money on?

See the answer you get.

Not even mentioning the question: "Is Iraq worth the life of your military son or daughter?"

If you can't answer "yes" to both questions, you have no business talking about how the war should continue.

It's that simple.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 27, 2007 11:39 PM

Hack (an endlessly appropriate name),

I can Google too. I looked up that page before I commented.

"Attributed to many different people, including war correspondent Peter Arnett who supposedly attributed the quote to an unidentified Army officer."

Peter Arnett "supposedly" attributed the line to an "unidentified" officer. Compelling stuff.

As for your link to the homemade web page attributing the line to a "Major Booris": A subsequent google search of "Major Booris" turns up no reference in any newspaper or magazine article, just in an anonymous internet comment on a Guardian blog and one on Wonkette. For a famous line that has been regurgitated so many times, shouldn't there be at least one reputable journalist who can attribute it to an actual officer?

Posted by Juan | October 27, 2007 11:52 PM

What a ridiculous analysis.

For whatever our presence is worth, to deny that we're playing a stabilizing role in places such as Anbar is nothing short of wild obfuscation.

You're also neglecting the importance of the void we'll leave. Someone, anyone, will need to rise up and take our place, lest the state devolve into utter chaos.

The Saudis have already promised not to allow that, as have the Iranians. You can count on the Turks to take advantage of our absence, most likely at the expense of the Kurds.

When will pundits who blindly supported this war stop being completely irresponsible in their views of the occupation? There were no flowers and candies upon our invasion, get over it.

Posted by Kevin Sullivan | October 28, 2007 12:05 AM

So by Matt's definition of this "fraudulent" success, there is no way the American's could win or make things better in Iraq. Our new strategy just happens to coincide with a decrease in violence and deaths, and our presence is inconsequential. I suppose the only thing to do is leave, since we're not doing anything anyway. Nothing will happen, right?

So exactly why did they stop killing each other. Are there no more Sunnis in Iraq to kill? Or no more Shia? Did I miss this news? Please just complete this sentence: the sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased because ...

Posted by RBeck | October 28, 2007 12:06 AM

"Please just complete this sentence: the sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased because ..." ethnic cleansing works.

"So exactly why did they stop killing each other?"

The violence continues at very high levels, but standards of America, Iraq, or almost anybody's history.

That we're having no net stabilizing effect is possible. That the high level of ethnic cleansing would probably eventually reduce violence was predicted by many during the past year. Regional governments are evolving in Iraq -- real governments, unlike the almost powerless "National" Iraq government. Making confident guesses about what's happening in Iraq using public info is a fool's game, but these are hopeful trends. For Iraq, for us (allowing an easy exit, if no geo-political benefits).

For more on this see:
http://www.d-n-i.net/fabius/long_war_IV.htm

Posted by Fabius Maximus | October 28, 2007 12:23 AM

Besides the obvious point that violence is naturally going to decrease as the ethnic partitioning of Iraq proceeds -- and that we can do absolutely nothing to stop it if (as the quoted troops and officers are firmly convinced) the Iraqi government actually wants it -- note the following passages in the Post piece, RBeck:

" 'This is a dangerous place,' said Capt. Lee Showman, 28, a senior officer in the battalion. 'People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it.'...

"The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo. 'They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire,' he said. " 'They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground.' "
______________________

Hmm. Could it possibly be that the Iraqi government and the CPA are both fiddling the casualty statistics to make it look as though they're lower than they actually are? Nah. No chance. Petraeus would never do anything like that.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | October 28, 2007 12:31 AM

Here's a little help in case you're having trouble answering my last post...

Top 10 reasons that violence is down in Iraq:

10. Killing people is tiring. Everyone went to the spa.
9. Inspired by the words of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
8. Afraid of what the U.N. might do.
7. Oiuja board said "Stop."
6. Like the rest of us, they're watching the new season of "I Love New York" on VH1.
5. Blood stains ruining all of their work clothes.
4. Capping the enemy in the back of the head is so passe.
3. Busy writing campaign speeches for Barack Obama.
2. Discovered it's a great way to piss off the American Left.
1. Not the American surge.

Posted by RBeck | October 28, 2007 12:36 AM

Fabius and Bruce,

So there is no one left to kill? Why didn't they just keep going? Why don't the Shia say "On to Anbar."?

And who predicted the violence would decrease, certainly not those advocating a pullout last spring?

Posted by RBeck | October 28, 2007 12:42 AM

"There's a lot to chew over"

Heh!

This not only stupid, but it's also weak.

You don't know nothing, do you.

Posted by Big Tent Democrat | October 28, 2007 1:07 AM

Right-wing alert:

"I'm frustrated . . . Do they fundamentally get giving up individual rights and power for the greater good?" Glaze said.

Sounds like we're trying to indoctrinate them with socialism over there.

Posted by greg | October 28, 2007 1:17 AM

Like in Kosovo.

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 28, 2007 1:59 AM

What possible motivation could the neocons ever have for voluntarily ending the Iraq occupation?

Seeing through the game isn't the same thing as winning it.

Posted by alphie | October 28, 2007 3:26 AM

Juan:

"A subsequent google search of "Major Booris" turns up no reference in any newspaper or magazine article, just in an anonymous internet comment on a Guardian blog and one on Wonkette. For a famous line that has been regurgitated so many times, shouldn't there be at least one reputable journalist who can attribute it to an actual officer?"

Look, stupid, here are the facts.

1) Not everybody on the planet is available via Google. I know an old college girl I can't find anywhere on Google. So what?

2) A "reputable journalist" did attribute it to an officer. He simply didn't identify the officer.

3) The officer was identified by someone present at the meeting. You don't believe this, go find something else to bitch about. We don't care.

Your original point was nothing but bullshit snark in the first place.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 28, 2007 4:08 AM

Ethnic cleansing, in the case of Iraq, means mostly migration, and not (mostly) murder. Nevertheless, it could easily have spun up rather than spun down. It could have accelerated into a vicious cycle of murder and revenge that killed millions of Iraqis. It showed signs of moving that way. But that didn't happen. That's probably what the surge brought us.

The financial cost of the war in Iraq is so high I've begun to doubt the figures. Accounting for war is complex; the men get paid regardless of which country they are in (although different amounts). Do they expense a bomb when it is bought or when it is exploded? They pay for a Humvee when they get it, even if they store it in a warehouse. Do they charge for it again when it is blown up in Iraq?

Being in Iraq "Forever" doesn't have to be a problem. The US has had military bases in South Korea and Germany practically "Forever" and those countries are in good shape and the US is not burdened by these bases.

Posted by JFred | October 28, 2007 4:33 AM

Fred, please name the major differences between the occupation of Iraq and postwar Germany/Japan. There are none? They are negligible? Sorry, that's an F.

But hey, if you want to ruin the US financially, go for it and maybe in a few years time they'll return to being a normal country among others simply because they're broke.

Posted by novakant | October 28, 2007 4:56 AM

Saving Ben Tre

About the famous quote of the Vietnamese 1968 Tet Offensive:

“We Had To Destroy Ben Tre In Order To Save It”

I was the CO of Task Force Builder, an Army engineer group of 60 soldiers that was stationed in the small rural village of Rach Kein, Vietnam in 1968. Rach Kein was approximately 20 miles SW of Saigon, in Long An Province.

Ben Tre, Vietnam, is a moderately size town that is located on the Mekong River about 25 miles SE of Rach Kein. It was much bigger than Rach Kein, probably even bigger than the town of Long An.

During the first week of the Tet Offensive the VC made their big move. The 3/39 Inf (9th Inf Div) was initially sent to fight in the big battle for Saigon. This left us alone to face an NVA regiment of 5,000 men that surrounded us on January 29. We survived that. And we remained surrounded and cut off for several weeks. As best I recall, the 3/39 was in Saigon for about two weeks. I certainly remember this, because while they were gone from Rach Kein, we were on our own as far as defending against ground attacks. These must have been likely, for at one point, the 9th Inf Div sent in several companies of the 2/39 Inf to bolster the town defenses and to conduct sweeps around Rach Kein while the 3/39 was away.

I especially remember that one platoon of infantry was wiped out in a well laid ambush in an open rice paddy that was just a few hundred yards from where we eventually built a school near the first village North of Rach Kein (can’t remember its name). The VC had cleverly built MG bunkers into the rice paddy dikes (it was the dry season) and the infantry walked right up to them before the VC opened fire.

Then the 3/39 returned. Or I should say that 75 percent of them returned. The fighting in Saigon had been intense. After only a few days rest, they were air lifted by chopper to retake the town of Ben Tre that had been occupied by the VC during Tet. The VC had dug in heavily, not ready to retreat without a big fight. So the still exhausted and depleted infantry troops of the 3/39 were thrown into another vicious fight. I cannot tell you how much respect that I have for those guys. True heroes, every one of them. Tough, plucky, and mostly draftees. I still remember my wonder at the ability of America’s youth to endure.

I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who remembers them? So I willingly tell this story, so you can help me to remember. Their deeds should not be forgotten. The 3/39 Inf. Bn. suffered 100% casualties during the year 1968. I watched it. Something that still haunts me. 800 young men gone, dying bravely to serve the country they so loved.

Anyway, the fighting in Ben Tre went badly for the Americans. House-to-house all the way, and the VC were so well dug in and barricaded that progress got stalled. So, in desperation, artillery and air strikes were called in on the town. Much of the town was heavily damaged in the resulting melee, but the town was retaken.

Several days later, Major Robert Black (the Rach Kein Advisor) invited me to attend with him an evening briefing that the 3/39 was going to give for a group of journalists and Saigon army brass. I had never before been invited to attend an infantry battalion briefing. I accepted the invitation. The briefing was held in a Vietnamese house that served as the S-3 office. It was about 7 houses East of where the VC barbershop was at one time set up. It was on the left side of the road as you drove through the infantry compound, just about across from the infantry mess hall.

Anyway, the living room of the house was packed, mostly with civilians. The purpose of the briefing was to explain the battle of Ben Tre. Such briefings are usually conducted by the S-3, in this case, Major Booris. He was a heavy-set fellow.

He was also not my favorite officer. This was because he was the guy who told the infantry on guard to open fire on us the morning when we were walking back to Rach Kein across the rice paddies. This was when we had chased the VC who had ambushed the infantry Road Runners that one infamous and well-remembered morning (but that is another story). Fortunately for us, the infantry E-5 on duty had ignored the major’s orders. I’ll never forget his grin as he told me that he had saved our bacon by ignoring the S-3’s orders. He could clearly see that we were friendlies, so he withheld his fire.

Anyway, at one point the journalists were pressing Major Booris to explain why it had been necessary to wipe out the town. They were definitely pressing the point that perhaps too much force had been applied by the US. Major Booris was trying his best to put a good face on the situation. But at one point he got flustered, and blurted out, “We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it.” I have to admit that I almost laughed when he said that. It was a really unfortunate comment. But Major Booris, in his defense, was trying his best to defend his battalion’s honor. His CO, LTC Anthony P. Deluca, deftly jumped to his feet, interceded to rescue major Booris from this difficult moment, and smoothly carried the rest of the conversation. I really liked LTC Deluca, he was a good combat leader, and he was always fair to Task Force Builder.

Anyway, that was the only briefing of the infantry that I ever attended. But it turned out to be the most famous. Because some of the journalists present at that briefing seized Major Booris’ comment and really publicized it. As I recall, it appeared on the cover of Newsweek or Time magazine within the month. And it has gone down in history as an example of the some of the insanity that was Vietnam.

Last year I was reading an historical assessment of the Vietnam War, and the famous historian who wrote it actually challenged whether or not that Ben Tre statement was ever made. Well I know, because I witnessed it being made. I wrote to the historian, explaining this. I hope that he got my message.

Regards,
Michael D. Miller
Former Captain, US Army Corps of Engineers
Commander, Task Force Builder, 1968
46th Engineer Battalion
159th Engineer Group

PO Box 640
Crestone CO 81131
Tel [phone] Oct 25, 2006

Posted by wobbly | October 28, 2007 6:33 AM

This is precisely how the wars that are known as the Balkans Conflict ended. The Slovenes, living in an already homogenus part of Yugoslavia pushed out the Serb-dominated Jugoslav National Army (JNA) in about two weeks in Aug 1991. There being few Serbs in Slovenia, the JNA really didn't have the stomach for a fight. Croatia was different though - lots of Serbs in the Krajina region, so that was worth fighting for. The Krajina region overlapped with Bosnia. Thus the heavy fighting. But, the real break in the War for Yugoslav Succession didn't come until the Croatian Army got training from a US private military contractor and used NATO as their air cover to effect the largest transfer of population since WWII - over 200,000 Croatian Serbs were uprooted from their homes that they had inhabited since they were invited there to serve as a buffer to the Turks by the Emperor of Austria in the 17th Century (Krajina means "borderland" or "march"). Ironically, where did a lot of those refugees get resettled? Kosovo, since Serbia didn't want them. The Croats succeeded in Hercegovina where the Serbs failed in Krajina - they cleansed Bosnian Muslims from broad swaths of Hercegovina. Remember - it wasn't the Serbs who brought down the famous Mostar Bridge with mortar fire, it was the HVO (the Croatian Militia). So, to sum up, the Yugoslav War didn't end until there were mutually more or less satisfactory population transfers/massacres, if you can call ethnic cleansing or massacres "mutually satisfying".

The dirty secret about wars is that they usually dont end until there is a massive population transfer. Just ask a Pomeranian German in 1945, a Kosovar Serb in 1999 or an Native American any old time.

Posted by calipygian | October 28, 2007 7:23 AM

I can't believe no one has quoted Tacitus yet.

Posted by Bill | October 28, 2007 7:53 AM

Its amazing how many touting the "success" of the surge forget this was all supposed to be about "giving the iraqi government breathing space" to make political progress. So you got decreased violence. What progress has the iraqi government made? Cue sounds of crickets chirping.

Posted by vrk | October 28, 2007 8:27 AM

How many of those now claiming the surge had nothing to do with the drop in violence, predicted that drop in advance? There are still more than a million Sunnis left in Baghdad, all of whom would be gone if the Shia militas had their way. The most dramatic improvement has been in Anbar, which was always 95% Sunni. Things could easily be much worse in Iraq today absent the surge, an all-out civil war could have increased the bloodshed by as much as an order of magnitude. The fact is, that using the new "population protection" strategy, our troops have done an outstanding job of reversing what was a rapidly accelerating downward spiral, saving thousands of lives in the process, and these (largely partisan) efforts to deny them any credit for that achievement are just pathetic.

Posted by Jon | October 28, 2007 8:36 AM

vrk - I e-mailed Byron York with that very point. Haven't seen any response to that. But, there is a new piece up at the Weekly Standard by one of those fatuous Kagan brothers about how we need to capitalize on our victory in Iraq. I'm still scratching my head, trying to figure out what we have won.

Posted by calipygian | October 28, 2007 8:36 AM

I'm still scratching my head, trying to figure out what we have won.

I'm scratching my head, tryng to figure out when we won?

Mission Accomplished!!

And what does he mean we? When did fatso put on a uniform?

PS Go Sox!

Posted by Soccer Mom | October 28, 2007 9:26 AM

Did you know that Scott Beauchamp is in the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division?

Posted by Herb | October 28, 2007 9:29 AM

Capt. Miller:

Well, I guess that clears THAT up. Thank you for sharing that fascinating story.

Furthermore, it is so well-written, I wish you would try to get it published somewhere more enduring than a blog comments section. I would start with The New York Times op-ed page, although that's obviously very tough to get into. If that doesn't work, you might go left to someone like The Nation. Truthdig.com would be another possibility. They frequently take looks back at history.

As you know better than I, there are serious efforts being made to create a mythology around Vietnam -- e.g. we were stabbed in the back, returning soldiers were spat on, the military was not allowed to fight -- and not without some success. For instance, President Bush seems to believe that the lesson of Vietnam is that "we" -- that is to say, Americans other than himself -- should have stayed longer and soldiered on to victory. This falsifying of history only makes tragic misjudgments like Iraq more possible.

Good luck,

Gregg Gordon
Upper Arlington, OH

Posted by greg | October 28, 2007 9:42 AM

Indeed, thanks from me too for your story, Capt. Miller. Like Mr. Gordon, I encourage you to publish it in a some other more enduring and more widely read venue.

Posted by THS | October 28, 2007 9:59 AM

The dirty secret about wars is that they usually don't end until there is a massive population transfer. Just ask a Pomeranian German in 1945

WW2 in Europe didn't end because of population transfers, it ended because the German military was defeated.

Posted by novakant | October 28, 2007 10:13 AM

Novakant - Right. I probably picked my prepositions poorly. The thought would be better if I had wrote "wars ussually end with massive population transfers".

Posted by calpygian | October 28, 2007 10:26 AM

How about, "Light at the end of the tunnel"? Anybody want to dispute who said that? Does it matter?

Posted by blutscheiss | October 28, 2007 11:33 AM

Jon,

You're right that Anbar was always 95% Sunni, but if you would read more widely, you would know that it is now virtually 100% Sunni. Our newly awakened "allies" have kicked what Shi'ites there were out, some now living in abandoned Sunni houses in Baghdad. Freedom's on the march, alright -- right behind the refugees.

"How many of those now claiming the surge had nothing to do with the drop in violence, predicted that drop in advance?"

Well, at least one that I know of -- me. First, it's difficult to measure just how much violence has declined. We famously "don't do body counts," so there is no reliable baseline from which to measure, just some random statistics, probably cherry-picked.

But I accept that the violence has declined somewhat. The US Army and Marines are a formidable force, and no one doubts they will rule the roost wherever they are present. The problem is there aren't nearly enough of them to be present everywhere they are needed. We were never 30,000 soldiers short of that goal -- more like 300,000 -- and so while they indeed deserve great credit, the best they can do is achieve the kind of "peace" the Post article describes.

Moreover, the surge is over. No new troops are being sent, we are reducing our presence in Diyala province as we speak -- the hottest spot in the country -- and in a few months we'll be back where we started a year ago.

Like it or not, we're getting out. Regardless of what is being said on the campaign trail, the next president, Republican or Democrat (assuming he or she is less delusional than President Bush) is going to quickly recognize the obvious -- that we can't have our way in Iraq. There is no result we can realistically hope to attain that is worth the expenditure of $3 billion a week, and the best we can do is cut some deals and hope for the best, but we must, in any event, withdraw ("redeploy," if you prefer the euphemism). They simply won't have us.

I regret that this eventuality was not considered in advance. It's done our country great harm, and the consequent loss of life to no good end is tragic, but there it is. As an Iranian friend of mine told me a few years ago, "You can't conquer ARABS!" They'll fight you for centuries. That's the voice of experience.

Or as a banner I recall at a street protest in Fallujah (in 2003, when things first took a turn for worse) put it: "Sooner or later, US killers, we'll kick you out."

Posted by greg | October 28, 2007 12:09 PM

Jon,

P.S. Quadrupling the number of air strikes can hardly be described as a "population protection" strategy.

Posted by greg | October 28, 2007 12:44 PM

"You're right that Anbar was always 95% Sunni, but if you would read more widely, you would know that it is now virtually 100% Sunni."

That may be, but the vast majority of violence in Anbar was not Sunni vs. Shia. Yet Anbar is where the violence has declined the most, which belies Matt Y's claim that the decline in violence is due to sectarian cleansing having run its course.

"First, it's difficult to measure just how much violence has declined."

"But I accept that the violence has declined somewhat."

You say you predicted the decline, yet your recognition of it seems rather grudging. The fact is every group that has been tracking Iraq casualties has found, without changes in their methodology, very significant declines. The lefty site icasualties.org, which tracks all media reports of Iraqi deaths, shows the numbers down by 50% from August, and more than 70% from the pre-surge peak. That's not "somewhat". There is plenty of anecdotal evidence supporting the statistics as well, such as Baghdad morgues that used to be full, now mostly empty.

"Moreover, the surge is over. No new troops are being sent, we are reducing our presence in Diyala province as we speak -- the hottest spot in the country -- and in a few months we'll be back where we started a year ago."

In terms of troop levels, yes. In terms of violence levels, that remains to be seen. It may be that by summer '08, with the help of improved Iraqi military forces and the local neighborhood watch groups, we will be able to maintain the same security gains with fewer US troops.

"Like it or not, we're getting out."

That was always the plan. The difference between victory and defeat, or at least success and failure, is what the conditions are when we leave.

Although, it will may well be years before withdraw even the majority of our forces, let alone all of them. Even Hillary won't guarantee a complete withdrawal before 2013. A US troop presence in the tens of thousands for a decade or more, is a very real possibility.

"P.S. Quadrupling the number of air strikes can hardly be described as a "population protection" strategy."

Of course it can, the airstrikes are directed against those who were attacking the population. Unless the airstikes are killing more civilians than they save (and the evidence does not support that, civilian casualties from airstrikes have increased by about 200 this year, while the overall civilian casualty rate has decreased by thousands) they are on balance an effective population protection measure.

Posted by Jon | October 28, 2007 2:35 PM

Jon: "There are still more than a million Sunnis left in Baghdad, all of whom would be gone if the Shia militas had their way."

Come on. If that Post article (based on militry eyewitnesses) is correct, the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad is still proceeding -- with substantial support from the Iraqi government -- but it's just proceeding more slowly than it would have otherwise, since the government doesn't want to tick off the US by doing it TOO obviously.

As for the drop in violence in Anbar, it can safely be ascribed to two causes: the fact (noted by Greg) that the small number of Shiites formerly in Anbar have been bloodily evicted, and the fact that the Sunni sheikhs finally got fed up with their (small minority of) al-Qaeda assistants and threw them out as well -- a process which naturally involved a certain amount of shooting while it was going on, but which would have occurred with or without us. (We now know that the only thing that would inspire Iraq's Sunnis to ever allow a significant al-Qaeda presence in their midst would be if they need the a-Q fighters as emergency military allies against the Shiites -- in which case the a-Q fighters would be too busy either shooting at Shiites or running for their lives to plot much against the US. Once that civil war is settled, the a-Q would once again become personas non grata all over Iraq.)

In short, we still have no reason to think that the process of ethnic cleansing and partitioning of Iraq isn't proceeding. Jon's argument seems to be limited to saying that we can at least somewhat supervise it and make it less gory than it would otherwise be. But that raises the question: Is this militarily worth doing for us, given the very good chance that we'll need a sudden supply of troops elsewhere on very short notice in connection with a crisis associated with Pakistan, North Korea or Iran?

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | October 28, 2007 4:33 PM

Jon,

I agree with you that violence has probably decreased -- how much is impossible to tell. To quote the Post:

"This is a dangerous place," said Capt. Lee Showman, 28, a senior officer in the battalion. "People are killed here every day, and you don't hear about it. People are kidnapped here every day, and you don't hear about it."

The situation is still far too dangerous for a thorough, reliable, independent analysis, and the statements of our government simply cannot be taken at face-value -- at least I've seen enough; if you're still buying, that's your business. Again, to quote the Post:

"They just know back (in the US) what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," (Staff Sgt. Richard McClary) said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground."

The parts of Baghdad where we've surged are undoubtedly safer. As I said, where we have sufficient troops, we can impose our will. But has the violence been stopped, or merely displaced to other parts of Iraq? At any rate, even a cursory look at sites like icasualties.org will confirm that the country as a whole remains a horrifically violent place, by anyone's standards.

I'm also less confident than you about the near-term likelihood of a significant improvement in the performance of Iraqi troops. How many of these people have we trained by now, and for how long? The problem is not training. It's loyalty. Perhaps you missed this part of the Post article:

"'To this day, I don't think we truly understand how infiltrated or complicit the national police are' with the militias."

There was also an ABC News story last week (I'd give you the link, but it's expired) saying all Iraqi government vehicles except the prime minister's own motorcades are now subject to search at US checkpoints. We've apparently reached the point where we trust no one in Iraq but al-Maliki himself. That doesn't look like progress to me.

I would also refer you to this report on the deteriorating situation in Basra via today's Daily Telegraph, a conservative UK newspaper:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/28/nrbasra128.xml

As to air strikes, I don't know where your figures come from, but there were reports on three consecutive days last week of air strikes killing civilians by the dozens. The ratio to insurgent deaths is again impossible to know. Women and children killed in such strikes we count as "regrettable" civilian casualties; dead military-age males are considered ipso facto "insurgents." I personally doubt that all of those men were insurgents, but I'm confident many of their brothers, sons, and uncles will be.

But I think our main point of difference is probably your assertion that withdrawal "was always the plan." I disagree. I think it was never the plan -- just the opposite. I think the plan was to establish a permanent military presence at the center of two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves, the better to intimidate and if necessary coerce all rival buyers and would-be sellers. I think the gargantuan embassy we seem unable to build is plain evidence of this.

But that plan, in my opinion, is doomed to failure, and my guess is that monstrous (and monstrously expensive) firetrap on the Tigris will never be used, at least in whole, for its intended purpose. (It might, however, make a suitable site for the Bush Presidential Library, since there seems to be some controversy among the good Methodist elders about locating it at SMU.)

I am aware of Hillary's comments concerning troop withdrawal. I don't claim to know her real intentions -- I think she is just acutely aware of the vulnerability Democrats have had on national security issues throughout her adult lifetime and protecting her flanks as best she can -- but I promise you, if we are spending money in Iraq at anything like the present rate and American troops are still getting killed in November 2012, she will not be president come January 2013. Nixon figured that out, and I think she will, too.

Posted by greg | October 28, 2007 6:54 PM

In this connection, there's a very interesting overview by Marc Lynch ( http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/10/iraq-discussion.html ):

"Yesterday I spoke on a panel about Iraq to an audience of retired diplomats (DACOR), along with Christopher Kojm and Jim Planke (both of whom served on the Iraq Study Group)...

" I understand the logic of the bottom-up reconciliation strategy quite well, thanks. I just see no evidence whatsoever that it is working: whether public opinion surveys, continuing refugee flows, or sectarian and confrontational political discourse. Yes, Ammar al-Hakim went to Ramadi, which is encouraging -- but his mission failed... and if you look at what he was actually trying to sell to the Sunnis, you'd be less encouraged than some people have been by the atmospherics. Yes, Tareq al-Hashemi went to Sistani with his National Compact, but the Compact has gone nowhere. And so on. The national political level remains completely deadlocked, and the politicians seem to have lost whatever sense of urgency they felt back in August and September. And all of those politicians behave according to the logic of moral hazard that the US has created -- since the Bush administration can't credibly threaten to escalate and won't threaten to withdraw, it has no leverage over any of them while protecting them from the consequences of their decisions. And even if those politicians did somehow magically come to agreement, their ability to deliver on any such agreement declines by the day.

"Iwas surprised at the consensus on our panel yesterday (among three people who have never discussed the issue before, and from much of a very knowledgeable and experienced audience based on post-session conversations) about where Iraq was heading: towards a warlord state, along a Basra model, with power devolved to local militias, gangs, tribes, and power-brokers, with a purely nominal central state.

"As I've argued repeatedly, this is the most likely effect, intended or otherwise, of the Petraeus-Crocker tactics. The US is empowering local actors at the expense of the national level, while both communities are fragmenting at a remarkable rate. The Sunni side is divided among the various insurgency factions (their efforts at forming a Political Council notwithstanding), the various Awakenings (which are themselves internally divided, bickering over power and personalities), tribes and local leaders looking out for their own, and an al-Qaeda movement which peaked last fall when it launched its abortive and self-defeating bid for hegemony with its ill-fated Islamic State of Iraq project. On the Shia side, the UIA has fragmented, the Mahdi Army has fragmented (though reportedly Sadr has used the ceasefire period to try to sort things out), Badrists and Sadrists are fighting in the streeets, Sistani has lost influence and his aides are being murdered at an alarming rate, and as Jon Alterman has pointed out there are some 144 competing militias in Basra alone.

"This kind of fragmentation might help the US in its tactical maneuvers at the local level, and buy local stability in the short term. But it is absolute anathema to any kind of national deal. As Jim Fearon, one of the leading political scientists working on civil wars, recently put it, 'a power-sharing deal tends to hold only when every side is relatively cohesive. How can one party expect that another will live up to its obligations if it has no effective control over its own members?' It also deeply complicates any neat ideas about partition, of course, since there are no unified blocs to which one could easily devolve power...

"Is a warlord state an acceptable or desirable destination for American policymakers? Whether such an outcome, if combined with a local Sunni power structure hostile to al-Qaeda, would pose a threat to American national interests is a debate worth having. It would certainly mean a major climbdown from initial American goals, but, then, a lot has happened over the last four years and it's quite clear that the US doesn't have the power to achieve its original goals. And it would hardly be optimal for Iraqis, since they would be condemned to live in a Hobbesian environment, and the refugee crisis would likely never be resolved. Should the US simply acknowledge the reality of the institutional and political environment it has created in Iraq, or maintain its current radical disconnect between its stated objectives and what it is actually doing?"
_______________________

In connection with that last question, Lynch also asks: "Towards what endpoint are the tactics leading?" Well, I think we know that at this point the endpoint of the Bush Administration's is simply to try to pass on the mess -- and specifically the blame for it -- to the next Administration. Beyond that, they no longer have a goal.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | October 28, 2007 8:45 PM

Interesting, Bruce. Thanks. Hadn't gotten around to the Aardvark for a few days. (Wish more of those blasted Arabic papers had English translations, though.)

Agree with your last, but BushCo may have one other goal. Pardons.

Posted by greg | October 29, 2007 12:02 AM