It's The Strategy

Kevin Drum remarks on the public's growing indifference to the question of how things are going in Iraq. Polls show an uptick in the number of people who think the war is going well, but CNN's polling indicates that more people than ever -- 68 percent -- say they oppose the war in Iraq.

I think this makes a lot of sense. It all comes down to what you think of the overall strategy. If you think, as I do, that the war is serving no strategic purpose except, perhaps, to present a continuing risk of a flare-up with Iran while antagonizing Arab public opinion then the war "going well" is, just like the war "going poorly," just another reason to leave. On the other hand, if you think that the war serves the vital strategic importance of projecting American power into the region and keeping other antagonists like Syria and Iran at bay, then the war going poorly would be a reason to redouble our efforts, but the war going well would also be a reason to redouble our efforts.

Reality on the ground does matter at some level, of course, but in a fundamental sense the question is still about strategy not about the exact state of play in such-and-such neighborhood in Baghdad. The original strategic purpose of the war was to eliminate an advanced nuclear weapons program that didn't exist. Today, the purpose is ... what? Mainly, it seems, to allow people who staked their reputations to this venture to avoid admitting that they made a horrible mistake.

Comments

This makes logical sense. Although when things were going really bad in Iraq, Matt used this to bolster the argument that we should leave. He didn't phrame the argument as: we should leave, it doesn't matter if the war is going bad or well.

Posted by Dave | November 8, 2007 6:20 PM

Declare victory and go home, anyone?

Posted by Oberon | November 8, 2007 6:40 PM

1) What's NOT being widely reported is that the current lull in fighting is being largely PURCHASED by George Bush with our tax dollars.
To bribe Sunni sheiks. Whether they will stay bribed is an open issue.

See http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1108/p01s04-wome.html

2) Our incompetent Democratic leaders are fucking MORONS. Every damm time Bush vetos a domestic spending bill, the Democrats should be telling American voters the following:

"Bush can send Billions of dollars to bribe Iraqi Sheiks -- but Bush doesn't think your child should receive health care.

Bush and the Republicans have dumped $Trillions of debt on you by giving tax cuts to the richest 1 percent of the population and grabbing oil deposits for Big Oil's plutocrats. But Bush thinks you -- American citizens -- should go without water. Or drink polluted water. "

3) Democratic leaders are such pathetic PUSSIES. They should be beating the living shit out of this incompetent fuckup in the White House -- but instead they quietly murmur incoherent bullshit and make no serious protest while Bush fucks this country like a dog.

Because they personally ain't hurting -- and their personal interest seems more important to them than the misery their constituents are suffering.

God preserve us from such "leaders".

Posted by Don Williams | November 8, 2007 6:47 PM

Matt, your analysis is far too sophisticated.

For months leading up to the 2006 election, Democratic candidates were affecting to be hopping mad about the war, and running on the idea that we must do something to end the war. Feeding and heightening antiwar sentiment were politically useful tactics for achieving power. But since they were elected, Democrats have gradually simmered down, and the party's leaders are now sending the clear message that while the war is not going well, its nothing worth doing anything drastic about. And large numbers of their obedient constituents have simply followed their lead.

What percentage of Americans do you think worry about grand strategy abstractions, as they pertain to the Middle East?

Posted by Dan Kervick | November 8, 2007 7:00 PM

MY, I think you're thinking too hard about this. This is a case of the boy who cried wolf. The American people have been told over and over again we're winning. Yet, troops still aren't coming home, they're still dying in Iraq, and we hear bad news all the time even though we're "winning". Because of this, people have given up on Iraq and really don't care about "winning" anymore because winning isn't worth it.

Posted by Dan the Man | November 8, 2007 7:06 PM

If Matt is "too sophisticated" I think Dan Kervick is too cynical by half, as well as inaccurate.

First, if Democratic outrage was only an affectation in 2006, it doesn't make sense to say now they've "simmered down." They weren't boiling to begin with, right?

Second, you can be for ending the war but still against doing something "drastic." That's usually known as trying to be responsible. "Drastic" in this case would presumably mean cutting off all funding forthwith - but one need no sooner contemplate this option than discard it as unwise. Which is why the Democratic leadership is attempting a measured drawdown tied to limited funding for ongoing operations. Which Bush will veto anyway because he knows there aren't enough overriding votes. Hoo-hah.

Third, it's always worth bearing in mind that Congress surrendered basic war-making powers to the chief executive a LONG time ago. In short, this war ain't going anywhere until Dubya says so, or leaves office.

Posted by Bill | November 8, 2007 7:24 PM

One point of ambiguity that should be clarified here is the relation between the view that the strategic purpose of the war is "projecting American power into the region" and the view that the strategic purpose of the war is "to allow people who staked their reputations to this venture to avoid admitting that they made a horrible mistake". Perhaps the point is that the long-term strategic goal is the former but the short- to medium-term goals that would make such a long-term strategic goal feasible are chimerical, and rationalized by self-deception?

Posted by jason | November 8, 2007 8:28 PM

It seems likely that Americans just don't care anymore. Though, in a sense, that could mean they've just internalized the strategic futility of whatever it is we're doing over there now. If that's the case, there is little the Republicans can do now to salvage their situation.

They are stuck between the 26% of Americans that believe this war is the center of the Global Counter-Christo-Jihad-Against-the-Terrorists-Who-Were-Already-at-War with us anyway, or whatever, and the sane 68%.

Posted by AJ | November 8, 2007 9:21 PM

Don't know why I through this orthoganal line of thinking out here; quixotic idealism, perhaps? (the irony being that as the more conservative I typically expect to be less idealistic).

I appreciate MY's nod to strategy, which I find oddly absent in most writing on the war. I would change the wording though.

MY: On the other hand, if you think that the war serves the vital strategic importance of projecting American power into the region and keeping other antagonists like Syria and Iran at bay, then the war going poorly would be a reason to redouble our efforts, but the war going well would also be a reason to redouble our efforts.

I see the strategy as an attempt to create an Arab nation that has a solid foundation from the western perspective, without being western. A nation that is inclusive and empowering of its people. Bush has latched onto democracy, but that may be a mistake. Putting the cart before the horse, perhaps?

This task, though difficult and ambitious, seems to have strong & obvious potential for strategic change in the conditions that enable extremist Islam -- which is a problem because of oil and because of the growing asymmetric potential that technology brings to immoral indivduals.

From my point of view, calls that Bush is stupid, are facile or trivial -- besides-the-point wrong. If you want to knock him for this, one should call him over-idealistic, or incompetent (poor execution). The idea itself is big vision that competitors largely ignore.

In my mind, articles in the Atlantic leading up to the war, postulated much of the scope of how difficult the task would be. The real issues were/are can the US stomach the effort, how big will that effort be, and will it be worth it?

My problem with all of the (you?) armchair generals/presidents is that you rarely/never put forth an alternate strategy to deal with the asymmetric extremist threat.

Do you really think that a one-two foot level rise in sea levels is a bigger threat?

Posted by Keith | November 8, 2007 9:47 PM

Re Keith's comment "My problem with all of the (you?) armchair generals/presidents is that you rarely/never put forth an alternate strategy to deal with the asymmetric extremist threat. "
---------------
1) This, of course, is utter bullshit.

2) The way to deal with the "asymmetric extremist threat" is to explain to the American people what created the extremist threat.

Instead George Bush told a bald-faced lie to the American people -- that Sept 11 occurred "because they hate our freedom". And the whole pack of contemptible whores in Washington DC who live off the crumbs of rich men rushed to support Bush's lie.

3) What created the extremist threat was clearly explained to US TV networks by Bin Laden in his 1997-1998 interviews -- i.e that the US government had inflicted massive death and destruction on the Islamic world in the course of whoring for special interests -- the billionaires of Big Oil, Big Defense,and the Israel Lobby.

That the US government had supported a vicious kleptocracy in Saudi Arabia for decades in order to steal Saudi oil while giving the Saudi people nothing.

That when Israel bombed Palestinian civilians and killed Palestinian children, Israel did so with US supplied F16s, bombs and Apache Helicopters.

That the US government killed over 600,000 children in Iraq during the 1990s by bombing Iraqi water plants, denying the import of water purification chemicals, and forcing the Iraqi people to drink polluted water -- resulting in epidemics of cholera, typhoid,etc.

4) None of the above actions were in the US national interest -- they were in the service of Big Oil, Big Defense, and the Israel Lobby. To gain millions in campaign donations from a few billionaries, Bush has been happy to waste the lives of almost 7000 US citizens and $Trillions of our tax dollars -- money badly needed by our sick, our poor and our elderly.

We are spending almost $38 per GALLON for Middle Eastern gasoline -- when you include the cost of military protection for Big Oil's foreign investments. A fraction of our $Trillion/year military spending diverted to research would rapidly yield advanced energy technologies and alternative energy sources. But time is running out.

4) It is the height of two-faced deceit for Bush supporters to claim Bush is promoting "democracy".

A corrupt US oligarchy which rules by telling massive lies to its own citizens in order to benefit a small wealthy elite -- at hideous cost to the common citizen -- is hardly in a position to promote "democracy".

Especially when that oligarchy is so eager to cosy up to dictators whenever those dictators cuts deals with US business interests. Have you seen Dick Cheney preaching the joys of "democracy" in Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan?

5) It is also the height of deceit for Bush to inflict massive death and destruction upon a country on the other side of the world -- a country which posed no threat to the USA -- and to claim that he is acting to promote "democracy".
In a "democracy", people chose their leaders -- versus being micromanaged by a predator from the other side of the planet.

6) The quickest way to convince the Islamic World to rein in their violent extremists is for us to rein in the violent extremists we have in our own government. Especially when those deep corrupt extremists fuck the American people as badly as they fuck the people of the Middle East.

Posted by Don Williams | November 8, 2007 10:52 PM

"Second, you can be for ending the war but still against doing something "drastic." That's usually known as trying to be responsible."

No, that's known as trying to have it both ways.

Posted by kafka | November 8, 2007 11:29 PM

The Left's political mistake this year has been assuming that most Americans are anti-war; in reality they are just anti-losing wars. If Bush's man Petraeus has actually turned things around, opposition to the war will start to drop, even if the troops aren't coming home anytime soon. Then those on the Left who were anticipating (and even hoping for) an American defeat will have earned the contempt of middle America.

Posted by Sanjay | November 9, 2007 12:19 AM

I hate to say it, but I think Don is really proving my point.

He calls my ideas worthless. Although I may not have articulated it in my post, this is a big part of my complaint of the left and its stance toward Iraq. I find it typical for the left to complain that the War is stupid, and then ignore the problem.

I find it hard to believe that others consider the explanation of a problem to be its solution.

The only solution he seems to offer sounds like isolationism. When has that solved anything?

Ignoring extremists is not going to make them go away or satisfy them, somehow. Terrorism was really invented as a way to reach those that ignore the extremists. How can you think this is a reasonable counter strategy?

Bombing civilians in poorly thought out attempts to capture terrorist thugs, is similarly a very bad method of countering extremism. This however, is a complaint of execution not strategy.

Posted by Keith | November 9, 2007 1:10 AM

The strategic interest in the Iraq war is embedded in the American political consciousness. From 13 states hugging the Atlantic Coast, to what can only be described as a global empire of military and commercial installations, America's history has been nothing but expansion.

We've been fighting back and forth with Russia over the Middle East since WW2, and the political elite sees it as some sort of new "manifest destiny." I think a lot of the American people do too, and in not much of a different way than the first American settlers set out to "enlighten" the Native American tribes...

And we're living beyond our means, not just as individuals, but as a society. Although we've always run debts, we also used to profit off the spoils of our ways, especially resources in conquered lands. It doesn't have to be oil, it could be gold in California or furs in the Northwest.

But I don't think war is so profitable as it used to be - and the value of the dollar is showing it. Cost factors change, and the combination of guerrilla tactics and increasingly available technology and information has increased the cost of war exponentially in the span of America's history. War and expansion isn't a viable method of managing debt anymore, but its still a part of our deeply held nationalist story.

The true "strategic" reason for expansion in this sense is to get access to Iran. Sure, Afghanistan borders Iran, but the terrain there is rocky and the roads are unstable. The military planners will expect Iran to be a more formidable target than Iraq, who had just suffered a decade of sustained sanctions and tactical bombings. So they may actually want to wait another few years before starting any sort of major military strike against Tehran.

The American psychology of exporting ideas like gender & racial equality, democratic freedom, and other convenient catch-phrases we use to compare ourselves against other cultures we probably don't understand is just a really good cover story once the generals have located a strategist target outside of another major power's sphere of influence. Regardless of the lack of support there is now for the Iraq war, they will figure out a way to get enough support for an attack on Iran - even if it means Hillary Clinton leading a crusade for women's rights. Oh, and terrorism! Weapons of Mass Destruction! 9-11! Freedom....?

Posted by underground | November 9, 2007 2:22 AM

Manifest Destiny? I do agree that the Mexican American war (~1835) was all about that, we essentially stole the SW from Mexico. I think a reasonable argument could be made that it was more to the good (our economic system proving superior to Mexico's), but I do agree that it was not our finest hour.

The end of the 19th Century brought us the Spanish American war, also imperialistic, though arguably less so. The resulting benefit to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philapines is also harder to justify. Though we did not fully annex or exploit any of those regions either.

The Isolationism during WWI & II does not fit well with your thesis. Please tell me you do not believe we tricked Japan into hitting Pearl Harbor because we were so intent upon adding Guam and American Samoa to our Empire. If you consider us to be truly imperialistic, how do you explain our treatment of Japan and Germany after unconditional surrender? Clearly these territories were/are far more valuable than SW Asia.

It seems to me that annexing the gulf region would be akin to when we got the Philipines (a lot of headaches for little gain). It is easy to show the cost of Iraq is not worth the oil. I think its safe to assume that would follow for all of the Arab states. Though Saudi Arabia could sure use some fixing.

Access to Iran is available from Afghanistan, and would've been much more palatable before Iraq stretched our military resources. Iraq was chosen because it was plausibly doable. Iran is not and was not. They might bomb it, they will not invade. Your point here is specious, and strikes me more as a desire to be topical.

History is replete with tyrants and oligarchies. We do not need to fully understand or embrace all the nuance of culture to get repression, it is the historical norm. Fighting against that makes us the benevolent aberration.

Posted by Keith | November 9, 2007 2:56 AM

Matt,

Should we pull out of Afghanistan too? How is our strategic purpose there more vital than ours in Iraq?

Posted by Steve O. | November 9, 2007 3:11 AM

I think Keith and Sanjay have made excellent comments. Most of the rest is regurgitated Deaniac talking points/pablum.

Matt is superficial to the point of stupidity, not to mention dead wrong, to assert that we invaded Iraq to "eliminate an advanced nuclear program that didn't exist". Most experts at the time doubted it's "advanced" rather than potential status, and said so in the press.

We went to war with Iraq because it invaded, raped, and annexed a charter member of the UN and US ally, Kuwait. Over the next twelve years we tried everything under the sun to bring the war to a successful conclusion, including sponsoring a sanctions regime that killed perhaps a million innocent Iraqis while increasing Saddam's grip on power, spending tens of billions of dollars and not a little blood enforcing them; and staking both our credibility and that of the UN Security Council on our ability to obtain Iraqi compliance with the terms of the ceasefire and subsequent Chapter VII Resolutions.

Those who think we can just flip a switch and "get out of Iraq", which has been a key to an area of vital national interest at least since Carter made that official policy, are hallucinating. To advocate a self-administered defeat at the hands of a few thousand nutters would make Vietnam look like a success story. That's why no responsible leaders in either party are suggesting we'll be "out of Iraq" by 2013. Personally, I don't think we'll be out until we no longer have issues with Iran, and no longer need petroleum to have a world economy.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 9, 2007 5:14 AM

Robert Powell writes:

Those who think we can just flip a switch and "get out of Iraq", which has been a key to an area of vital national interest at least since Carter made that official policy, are hallucinating.

Ah yes. A key area of "Vital National Interest"! How often do we hear this cliche spouted from people who think THEIR interests must somehow magically coincide with the interests of those who are actually benefiting from the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

So Robert, maybe *you're* the one who is hallucinating.

The response is always the same: What, are you saying the Middle East and its oil aren't in our Vital National iInterest??!! *guffaw*

First define "our". Next define "national". Me, I'm still scratching my head trying to see how the invasion and occupation of Iraq was necessary to "our" "national" interests. According to people who seem to have no fucking clue about the notion of what something might COST, to the MAJORITY, playing a part in whether some adventure is JUSTIFIED.

It's in *our* "national interest" to buy Middle Eastern oil. "Our" = the American people. But you blather:

Personally, I don't think we'll be out until we no longer have issues with Iran, and no longer need petroleum to have a world economy.

Issues with Iran indeed. "We" indeed. *I* don't have any "issues" with Iran. Neither the fuck do you. You've just been trained to think you do. Iran has always sold its oil on the world market. "Your" issue with Iran is that the United States isn't directly profiting from it -- though you don't realize it.

So as for interests, it's in the interests of large oil companies, and military contractors, to -- guess what? -- have a war, which drives up the price of oil, produces inroads for their control of other countries' oil infrastructure, and ensures that we continue to spend BILLIONS and TRILLIONS on defense, in the name of "national security."

So Robert Powell, why don't you stop hallucinating for a change, ya numbnut.

Posted by Bill | November 9, 2007 7:38 AM

Re Keith's comment " I hate to say it, but I think Don is really proving my point... The only solution he seems to offer sounds like isolationism. When has that solved anything?

Ignoring extremists is not going to make them go away or satisfy them, somehow. Terrorism was really invented as a way to reach those that ignore the extremists. How can you think this is a reasonable counter strategy?"
----------------
1) Again, bullshit. Self-deceptive Bullshit which deliberately ignores my points and constructs a strawman to attack.

There are probably a thousand or so extremists who --because of their past experiences -- will hate and attack us no matter what we do. At least in the Middle East.

2) It will be very difficult to locate those guys in a population of 1 billion Muslims if they have the support and sanctuary of the Islamic world. If the average man on the street decides the USA is greatly evil and will give his support to any terrorist who attacks us. Even idiot Rumsfeld had the sense to ask if our behavior is creating more terrorists than we can kill.

The fact that Bush supporters claim to be promoting "democracy" -- while obviously not giving a shit for the opinion of the Islamic world and for the real grievances that are breeding terrorism -- shows that "democracy" is just deceitful cover for self-serving agendas.

3) If the American people, on the other hand, force our government leaders to change their ways and to treat other people with respect, then those foreign peoples will help maintain the order necessary for commerce. They will either rein in their extremists or will betray them to us.

4) And what's wrong with "isolationism"? It served us well for 200 years. We have some of the most fertile land on the planet --protected from the rest of the world by two large oceans and the world's most powerful navy.

Sept 11 was only successful because our superrich elites decided to throw millions of long term US employees out on the street and go on a global money hunt. To facilitate "globalization" they decided to not defend our borders.

We can hardly expect to enjoy our great wealth here if we are not willing to extend that same privilege to people on the other side of the globe. To let them decide for themselves how their societies will work, what their laws and government will be, and to choose their own leaders. What right do we have to micromanage nations on the other side of the world? Especially when the record of our management is the cruel infliction of enormous death , destruction, tyranny and misery?

We prospered greatly in the 1950s and 1960s --when our trade was only about 3 percent of GDP. The way to improve our standard of living is to invest our capital in research and development of new technology here.

Instead, our engineers are thrown out on the street so our capitalists can move US capital into low wage factories in China.
Plus export much of US technology abroad and destroy our competitive advantages in high tech industries.

5) You will notice that the lying shitheads in our news media never ask whether our elites' global empire is costing more than the benefits it brings to the average citizen.

They are especially careful to ignore the fact that the profits of that empire go to a well-connected few while the huge costs --in blood and tax dollars for a $1 Trillion military budget -- are dumped off on the common citizen: 7000 dead and over $4 TRILLION in debt -- including several Trillion Stolen from our Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.

6) If we want to promote democracy then how about we promote it here in the USA?

Start with pointing out that we DON't Have a democracy -- we have a deeply corrupt oligarchy in which Congress and the White House daily betray 99 percent of our citizens to serve the superrich 1 percent.

An oligarchy in which our Members of Congress survive only by receiving $1 Billion in campaign donations per 2 year election cycle. Damm few of those millions come in as $25 checks -- and damm few of the individuals donating $Millions are doing so in the national interest.

How about if we point out that our national discourse is totally controlled by a deeply corrupt news media -- controlled by a few men -- which has a documented record over the past seven years of lying through its teeth on behalf of Big Oil, Big Defense, and the Israel Lobby. Ask Judith Miller and the owners of the New York Times if they have found Saddam's nukes yet.

Posted by Don Williams | November 9, 2007 8:51 AM

"My problem with all of the (you?) armchair generals/presidents is that you rarely/never put forth an alternate strategy to deal with the asymmetric extremist threat. "

Your laziness is not our problem. A full spectrum of plans for Iraq, or for terrorist threats exist. We on the left do not need to append a full dossier of plans to stop terrrorism, fix Iraq, save social security, educate poor children and provide cheap health care to every blog thread to which we decide to post.

Posted by Njorl | November 9, 2007 9:08 AM

Sanjay's comment is certainly what the Republicans hope to be the case. But he clearly misses the evidence that was the jumping off point for this post. If MY's polls are accurate, then belief that the war is going well does not translate into support for the war.

If one is going to argue that belief that the war is going well will translate into support for the war (or a drop in opposition to the war) in a post that notes the evidence shows that it doesn't, one is minimally obliged to acknowledge that the evidence is against. Ideally one should try to explain why the evidence is against ones position. It is odd to simply assert the opposite of what the evidence shows.

Posted by Lon | November 9, 2007 9:11 AM

Ignoring extremists is not going to make them go away or satisfy them, somehow. Terrorism was really invented as a way to reach those that ignore the extremists. How can you think this is a reasonable counter strategy?

What does any of this have to do with the indefinite occupation of Iraq? We're not hunting Osama Bin Laden in Iraq. We're hunting extremists that are angry about.. our occupation of Iraq.. so we have to kill everyone who wants us out of Iraq... to protect America from people who want us out of Iraq. It has nothing to do with protecting the American mainland. It's an act of policy self-justification based on the idea that we can't ever afford to do anything that any organized entity is trying to coerce us into doing.

Of course, a strategy this stupid plays right into the hands of Osama Bin Laden, who can bait us into an infinite number of expensive, demoralizing, hatred-spawning, fundamentally unwinnable pacification campaigns until we collapse into an economic third-rate power.

In the long run, terrorist groups:

A) die
B) transition into full-out guerillas, then achieve political power.

If you want to see B), then your best bet is to invade lots of Muslim countries.

There's no relationship whatsoever between invading Iraq and protecting the US mainland by killing terrorists who are make plans to attack it. There may be a fictional, theoretical relationship in the minds of democracy strategists, but in reality there's nothing.

Selling democracy over a gun barrel ruins it.

Posted by glasnost | November 9, 2007 9:14 AM

Those who think we can just flip a switch and "get out of Iraq", which has been a key to an area of vital national interest at least since Carter made that official policy, are hallucinating. To advocate a self-administered defeat at the hands of a few thousand nutters would make Vietnam look like a success story

There was nothing wrong with how Vietnam ended. We attempted a stupid, unjustified, unnecessary, morally bankrupt war and deservedly lost. Our country survived that just fine. Vietnam eventually recovered. It's a good model for Iraq. The tragedy is the huge number of innocent lives lost for our fantasies, but perhaps we'll learn something eventually from that.

Posted by glasnost | November 9, 2007 9:19 AM

Keith, I think your comment that we entered WW1 and WW2 despite popular sentiments of non-intervention (which is not the same as isolationism) goes a long way to proving my interpretation correct. We are talking about expensive, unpopular, foreign wars are we not?

I'm not saying that we tricked Japan in Pearl Harbor or that 9-11 was a hoax, just that our political leaders are always looking for ways to sell a concept of self-defense and exporting democracy against "tyranny." Despite the unpopularity of foreign wars, they continue, they intensify, and eventually they expand. As for Germany, Japan, and South Korea - I'll just say that our military still occupies those areas and they have all turned out to be major trading partners and served as key anti-Soviet strategic allies. There's no reason to upset self-determination if it gives us the results we want.

An invasion of Iran may not be feasible, but it is becoming more feasible as the strategy unfolds. Would you rather invade Iran while Saddam was still in power, or would you rather invade after you had been militarily watching the Iranian border, on two sides, for several years? Would you rather invade from a major commercial highway, or across old roads that wind through a mountainous border? Would you rather invade a nation that has strong trade, or install a series of increasing trade sanctions first, while stating a hope for civil unrest? It may not be feasible today, but the effort to make it feasible is underway - on all fronts, literally.

We will have to see how it unfolds in the long run and if the people have any say in our foreign policy. Otherwise, you can't just ignore the importance of Iraq as a staging point for accessing Iran. As soon as Iraq seems to calm down, we are suddenly busy instituting sanctions and declaring Iran a state-sponsor of terrorism. Why wait? Well, we're in a position to do something in regards to Iran that grows stronger by the day.

Posted by underground | November 9, 2007 10:02 AM

Above posts by Bill, Don, and glasnost ably explicate why in 2004, by which time everyone knew that there were no wmd stockpiles in Iraq, that we had invaded without sufficient troops, and that the Administration had badly muffed the occupation, the American people re-elected Bush by an over 3 million vote margin, including about 2 million who had voted for Gore in 2000. Personally I was eager to vote for a Democrat until the party provided idiocy like that above as a part of their campaign.

Blissful ignorance on the nature of national interests, Good Guys vs Bad Guys cartoon conspiracy theory analysis, advocacy of the Rodney King Doctrine ("why can't we all just, sob, get along?"), "what's wrong with isolationism?", telepathic "insight" into the mind of OBL, "there was nothing wrong with the way Vietnam ended"....really, guys, do you have to make it so easy for Republicans?

Njorl shouldn't expect any post to be taken seriously that doesn't at least attempt to address alternatives to the specific policy being bitched about, and Lon has confused a few questionable polls with "evidence". Does anybody here know what they're talking about?

Steve O. asks a great question which I'd like to see answered, along with a retraction of the ridiculous statement from Yglesias about "the original strategic purpose of the war".

Posted by Robert Powell | November 9, 2007 10:27 AM

Robert Powell bloviates:

Blissful ignorance on the nature of national interests,

Would you like to explain to everyone how Iraq has turned out to be in our national security interests?

Good Guys vs Bad Guys cartoon conspiracy theory analysis,

LMAO. You mean like, destroying the evildoers in Eye-raq?

advocacy of the Rodney King Doctrine ("why can't we all just, sob, get along?"),

Because that would require competent, morally sound leadership? Just guessing.

"what's wrong with isolationism?",

If we're batting around the false choice between isolationism and reckless, mendacious interventionism, which would you choose? Oh, I forgot, you just want shit like the Iraq war "executed better."

telepathic "insight" into the mind of OBL,

No, just paying attention to what he says publicly.

"there was nothing wrong with the way Vietnam ended"

Ungracefully put, to be sure, but what in fact are you getting at? Peace with honor?

....really, guys, do you have to make it so easy for Republicans?

Bush won in 2004, not because of the so-called "idiocy" you're totally incapable of rebutting substantively, but because something like 40% of the American electorate thought Saddam was behind 9/11. Defend that shit all you want, and blame the Democrats. You're clearly a frickin moron.

Posted by Bill | November 9, 2007 10:45 AM

Personally I was eager to vote for a Democrat until the party provided idiocy like that above as a part of their campaign.

And by the way, I presume this is all one need know about your character. What a pathetic, weak-livered admission. "I didn't reward Democrats with my vote, even though I wanted to because of the current Disaster-in-Chief." Way to take a principled stand, moron.

Posted by Bill | November 9, 2007 10:52 AM

and Lon has confused a few questionable polls with "evidence". Does anybody here know what they're talking about?

If "a few questionable polls" aren't evidence of public opinion, what is? Sanjay offered no "evidence" for his assertion, but "evidence" against his assertion is immediately discounted because...because...because it disagrees with what you think? It seems you can add your name to the list of people who don't know what they're talking about.

Posted by Rambuncle | November 9, 2007 10:52 AM

Robert Powell: Good Guys vs Bad Guys cartoon conspiracy theory analysis,

1. They hate us for our freedom!

2. Iran, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, a new Caliphate, East vs. West.

3. Fight "them" over there so we don't have to fight "them" over here.

4. You're either with us or you're with the terrorists.

5. There's a "fifth column" of East Coast liberals who want the U.S. to lose the Global War on Terror.

6. These guys in Guantanamo are all really bad guys who want us dead. (Why would they want that??? We're the good guys, and we don't torture!)

7. John Kerry is half-French.

Eh, the phone's ringing, otherwise I'd come up with about 20 more.

Posted by James | November 9, 2007 10:59 AM

Robert Powell,

I am puzzled by your idea that polls do not constitute evidence. Certainly they are among the smallest units of evidence. But they would seem to fare well compared with say just making things up as you seem to favor. On what basis do you claim that 2 million people by secret ballot first voted for Gore and then for Bush over Kerry? Are you relying on some kind of poll, or are you deciding that since you did so and you are worth 2 million people, that must be the case?

And did Kerry get more votes than Gore because people switched from Bush to Kerry, or because he attracted more new voters?

So yes, I do have the silly idea that polls are worth understanding, and that they are evidence based enough that someone who wants to assert the opposite should actual defend their claims.

But is it the idea that people should defend their claims that to you constitutes not knowing what one is talking about?

Posted by Lon | November 9, 2007 11:06 AM

Robert Powell, this country has suffered a massive deluge of right wing deceit in the past 6 years. Instead of policy being made in the national interest, it's been made to pander to Big Oil, Big Defense, and the Israel Lobby.

Here's the end result:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=492663&in_page_id=1811

Somehow I don't think the Republicans will be using these Presidential photos in their campaigns next year.

Posted by Don Williams | November 9, 2007 11:59 AM

You will notice that the above photos are from a BRITISH newspaper. You won't see them in the New York Times.

Maybe Punch Sulzberger is holding off until he can have his star reporter, Judith Miller, pose with the troops.

Posted by Don Williams | November 9, 2007 12:06 PM

Lon-there are lies, damned lies, and polls. All except elections and exit polls, which is where my assumptions come from, are at the bottom of the "evidence" list.

Admittedly some of the better ones which feature very large samples over long periods of time with unambiguous questions can produce something like real evidence. A good example would be the Gallup polling done about twice a year from 1991 to 2003 on the clear question: "Would you support or oppose the use of US troops for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power?" Always a majority, at times approaching 3:1 and averaging about 2:1 for the entire period answered "yes". It was 70% back in 1993, when it became clear Saddam would not fall in the wake of his first defeat.

It's pretty hard to attribute that to "Bush lies", but some doggedly insist that's how we came to fight in Iraq. Similarly, extrapolating from polls showing lots of people are unhappy with the way the war has been conducted that they are in favor of losing seems a bit of a stretch. "Use of US troops for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power" is a lot less ambiguous than "is the war going better?" or "do you support the war?"--presumably, "as it has been waged".

Semi-educated zealots who swallowed the "Downing Street Memos" and Le Affaire d'Plame scams often cite ridiculous polls like the one showing 40% believing Saddam did 9/11. You can find others that show a similar percentage who believe Bush had prior knowledge, the CIA, Mossad, or Space Aliens did it, etc. Citing such junk is evidence of contempt for the intelligence of the voters, and should be immediate grounds for scrolling past the posts of those who do so. That's you, Billy. I don't have to subject myself to the poorly-informed rudeness of egotistic undergraduates any more.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 9, 2007 4:08 PM

Powell is clearly another ignorant right wing troll a la Fred, Al, etc.

He thinks the "Downing Street Memos" and the outing of Plame are "scams."

That pretty much tells you all you need to know about him.

He babbles about how many of the US public wanted Saddam out - like that has any relevance to anything in terms of actual US strategic interests.

Finally, the entire discussion ignores the obvious fact that the entire enterprise was done for four reasons: 1) control the oil; 2) establish control of the ME (entailing the upcoming wars on Iran and Syria) - to control the oil, basically; 3) make a ton of money for the war profiteers and the oil companies; 4) support Israel (as a side issue for some of the Jewish neocons.)

None of it was done for "WMDs", or "War on Terrorism", or "bringing democracy to the ME", or "Saddam was a bad guy", or any of those crap excuses.

Until the US population understands that, the wars will go on, US troops will keep dying, the economy will go into the dumpster, and the world will increasing hate this country.

And it's nitwits like Powell that are the reason. It's because at least thirty percent of the US population are nitwits like Powell that the US is doomed to end up a Third World country over the next two or three decades.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 10, 2007 2:21 AM

Hack, meet Bill. I don't know about the 30%, but I'm pretty sure that the number of self-important ignoramuses like these guys is smaller, and surely much less likely to influence anyone's ideas about policy options. See my last post under "Kahl on Reconciliation", Dick. And don't forget your medication...

Posted by Robert Powell | November 10, 2007 4:09 AM

You're the one who needs medication, talking about being "dragged into a war"...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 10, 2007 12:57 PM

"The original strategic purpose of the war was to eliminate an advanced nuclear weapons program that didn't exist."

No, that was information given to the press and public. The strategic purpose of the war was to secure energy supplies for the US and profits for the oil corporations and to take another step closer to US hegemony in the Gulf. The US now holds the second largest oil reserves in the World in Iraq.

"Today, the purpose is ... what?"

Today, the purpose is how to keep them.

Underground, Keith, Steve O.

Afghanistan was an attempt to bypass Iran. The US now needs Iran compliant because the invasion of Afghanistan to stabilise Afghanistan as US client state in order to form a gateway to the Caspian Basin energy riches has fallen apart with the resurgence of the Taliban. The strategy to run pipelines through Afghanistan in order to bypass Iran has been a failure.

Afghanistan was the first energy war, Iraq was the second.

Iran contains a large chunk of Middle East oil and has a large chunk of the oil in the Caspian sea to the north. More importantly Iran controls sea access to the Persian Gulf and is the most direct land route for pipelines to the Persian Gulf from the Caspian Basin, not only from Iranian oil fields but from oilfields and gasfields in countries like Turkmenistan to the east of the Caspian.

http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/pipelines.htm

Iran's strategic position between the Middle East and the Caspian Basin oil fields makes it a prime US target.

Iran will be the third energy war.

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