Progressing Nowhere

"Iraqis Wasting An Opportunity, U.S. Officers Say" according to the headline writers, but what Tom Ricks is really doing in his Washington Post analysis of the situation in Iraq is exposing exactly how ephemeral the "progress" that's been made. Notably it's not progress toward our ostensible policy goal of producing some kind of decent Iraqi state capable of running the country:

The U.S. military approach in Iraq this year has focused on striking deals with Sunni insurgents, under which they stop fighting the Americans and instead protect their own neighborhoods. So far about 70,000 such volunteers have been enrolled -- a trend that makes the Shiite-led central government nervous, especially as the movement gets closer to Baghdad. [...]

The year-long progress in fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq could carry a downside. Maj. Mark Brady, who works on reconciliation issues, noted that a Sunni leader told him: "As soon as we finish with al-Qaeda, we start with the Shiite extremists." Talk like that is sharply discouraged, Brady noted as he walked across the dusty ground of Camp Liberty, on the western fringes of Baghdad.

It's good, of course, that October was a low casualty month for US troops just as it's terrible that 2007 was the deadliest year yet. But if our goal is reducing American casualties we can easily accomplish that by leaving. Paying Sunni rebel groups opposed to majority rule in Iraq to not attack our troops so that they can use the funds to more vigorously prosecute a war against a corrupt and militia-ridden Shiite-dominated Iraqi government isn't adding anything of value to American security.

Comments

October was also a low-casualty month for Iraqis, if you want to count brown people in your moral calculus.

Posted by y81 | November 16, 2007 2:35 PM

Matt demonstrates the zeal of the convert in his dogged persistence with these incessantly negative posts on Iraq. Were you this dogmatic when you supported the war? The "Iraq is hopeless" meme is dead. It's time to bring some of that nuance lefties pride themselves on to your discussions of Iraq.

Posted by Fred | November 16, 2007 2:47 PM

Matt demonstrates the zeal of the convert in his dogged persistence with these incessantly negative posts on Iraq.

People do tend to emphasize the points that back them up. After all, when casualties were up, conservatives pointed to the "good news" and Saint Petraeus lied through his teeth (by claiming that the surge was bringing casualties down when in fact it wasn't, at least not until September). Would you, Fred, really get all negative about Iraq if casualties went back to the summer levels (i.e. the extremely high casualty levels produced by the failed surge)? Of course not.

The issue here is national security principles. Since America staying in Iraq is making America less secure as well as making it impossible for the Iraqis to form a working government, those who value America's national security will advocate withdrawal, even after two months when casualty levels have fallen from "worst in the world" to "among the worst in the world." Those who value President Bush's ego over America's national security will naturally feel otherwise.

Posted by M.A. | November 16, 2007 3:07 PM

But if our goal is reducing American casualties we can easily accomplish that by leaving.

The 'goal' for the whole bloody war was for the White House to have a stick to beat Democrats with, to aggrandize the executive's powers of the executive through the pretext of a war, to reduce domestic opposition to the revolution to a cipher.

This whole misbegotten escapade in Mesopotamia has been nothing more or less than a civil war-by-proxy, attempting to settle deep and abiding differences about what this country, not Iraq, is, means, and does, by having a war.

Unlike the first Civil War, the actual fighting has been contracted out to professionals (no conscription in this war), while most of the dying and the actual battlefield has been sent offshore, in accord with the best practices of modern management.

People like Fred don't have anything invested in which particular stick they can lay their hands on to bash the other party, so long as there's a stick handy.

If it wasn't in Iraq, it would have been someplace else.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | November 16, 2007 3:10 PM

Has the Iraqi government come closer to national reconciliation yet Fred? No and Western oil companies have been striking deals with the Kurds that make that even harder. The whole point of "as they stand up, we stand down" as it has been sold to the American people is that when the central government is functioning and can enforce law and order, then we will no longer be needed. What progress we have made is paying off the people who were killing us to kill an unpopular fifth party of little real consequence in Iraq while they bide their time before striking against the ethnic group that is the government's support base.

Posted by Reality Man | November 16, 2007 3:20 PM

Notably it's not progress toward our ostensible policy goal of producing some kind of decent Iraqi state capable of running the country

I don't know why Matthew persists with this nonsensical idea that military progress somehow isn't "progress". Of course it is. Military progress is necessary, but not sufficient, for meeting our goal.

I mean, it's a two step process. First, you must have military progress. Second, progress on the first step will hopefully give enough breathing room for the second step - political progress. It is nonsensical to think that progress on the first step isn't progress. Sure, the ultimate goal has not been accomplished. And if that's all Matthew was arguing, we'd all agree. But Matthew is for some reason making the demonstably false argument that we've made no progress at all.

Posted by Al | November 16, 2007 3:27 PM

"Notably it's not progress toward our ostensible policy goal of producing some kind of decent Iraqi state capable of running the country

I don't know why Matthew persists with this nonsensical idea that military progress somehow isn't "progress". Of course it is. Military progress is necessary, but not sufficient, for meeting our goal.

I mean, it's a two step process. First, you must have military progress. Second, progress on the first step will hopefully give enough breathing room for the second step - political progress. It is nonsensical to think that progress on the first step isn't progress. Sure, the ultimate goal has not been accomplished. And if that's all Matthew was arguing, we'd all agree. But Matthew is for some reason making the demonstably false argument that we've made no progress at all.

Posted by Al | November 16, 2007 3:27 PM"

Military progress against whom? Al-Qaida in Iraq was never the force that kept Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish politicians from embracing each other. With AQI out of the way, the Sunni ex-insurgent leader mentioned above will just have fewer enemies who can surprise him when he decides to start killing Shi'ites.

Posted by Reality Man | November 16, 2007 3:39 PM

Paying Sunni rebel groups opposed to majority rule in Iraq to not attack our troops so that they can use the funds to more vigorously prosecute a war against a corrupt and militia-ridden Shiite-dominated Iraqi government isn't adding anything of value to American security.

Matt tries glossing over the huge accomplishment of the defeat of Al Qaeda in what bin Laden called the Central Front of its war - by Americans and even more importantly, by fellow Sunnis who concluded that AQ was actually a cancer on Sunni people.

We are overseas taking casualties and spending huge amounts of money not so we can elevate the Iraqi culture to democratic town meetings or Westernize other Muslim nations with Sharansky-Bush democracy - we are there to help end violent, radical Islam and prevent it again becoming a great threat to the West. A threat that is leveraged with the potential of them to gain biowar and nuclear WMD in the next few decades.

I am as happy the Sunnis in Iraq rejected the Takfiris (a name AQ acolytes are referred to by Muslims - representing the history of criminal, intolerant zealots who butcher other observant Muslims from extremism). Just as I am happy that the Algerians beat their variant of AQ Takfiris in their 2nd Civil War (1994-20030. Just as I am happy that KSA finally woke up and saw radical Islam was a menace to Saudis and they have helped roll up more AQ in their homeland and the Gulf than the US has done globally.

Matt unfortunately is like many Lefties that have emotionally invested themselves in embracing defeat, craving another Vietnam, and not getting the glory of America being humbled - attempt to recast the conflict as not being about defeating radical Islamists - but the failure to make Iraq a democracy of mutual love for one another and other nationals...Keep trying Matt. If you love failure and defeat for America, I'm sure you can snatch crumbs of it from the larger picture of AQ being destroyed in Iraq. Maybe you can say Binnie was wrong and if you were in charge of AQ you would call Pakistan the "Central Front" and we should invade it as Obama wants to...

Posted by Chris Ford | November 16, 2007 3:48 PM

OK. We're winning. Two questions.

What are we winning? Can we come home? (If not, why not?)

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 16, 2007 4:02 PM

Matt unfortunately is like many Lefties that have emotionally invested themselves in embracing defeat,

I bet most "lefties" feel that there was nothing there to "win". We go in and kill a million people, exile another million, drive the country into extreme segregation. Then, the violence -- which we engendered -- dies. What a surprise. How is that "win" something to be desired? Why did we pick the fight to begin with?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 16, 2007 4:05 PM

The lefty response to the current decline in violence in Iraq is a mirror-image of their response to the elections in Iraq a couple of years ago. First, the lefties said that this sort of political progress was impossible. When the political progress was obvious -- going from a standing start to a democratically-elected, constitutional government -- lefties said political progress didn't matter; what mattered was the high levels of violence.

Fast forward to this year, lefties said it was impossible for the surge to work in lowering the levels of violence -- not enough troops. Now that the surge is demonstrably working, and violence is way down, lefties say that this doesn't matter, because there hasn't been enough political progress.

It's true that the Iraqis haven't wrapped up their disagreements in a neat bow yet, but it seems a little churlish to dismiss the accomplishments of our armed forces in drastically reducing the number of terror attacks and reprisals that have killed so many Iraqis and hardened their hearts to reconciliation. It will be easier for the Iraqi politicians to make the necessary compromises when they are squabbling about reconstruction contracts and patronage jobs instead of picking up body parts from car bombs every day. An objective observer might be willing to give them this chance to create some sort of decent society for themselves. Someone who is desperate to establish his anti-war bona fides, after previously supporting the war, might instead try to shoehorn any piece of news from Iraq into the conclusion that we should abandon the Iraq as soon as possible.

Posted by Fred | November 16, 2007 4:24 PM

Now that the surge is demonstrably working, and violence is way down [...]

Sunni repudiation of al Qaida is the main source of the decline in violence.

So, can we bring the troops home?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 16, 2007 4:42 PM

The purpose of having troops is to have them fight for vital national interests. They have been doing so in Iraq for some time now, if not always in the most effective way. The idea that because we have lost in four years of fighting about 20% of the number of troops we lost in about four days at the Battle of the Bulge, we should run away and hide, is demeaning to the people who have sacrificed, and to the troops who by an overwhelming margin want to be allowed to succeed rather than surrender.

I mourn the loss of every life, some of them close friends and family of friends. But it is borderline treason to insist that these sacrifices should be thrown away because of partisan political myopia. We didn't start the war in Iraq, but we can and must bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 16, 2007 5:10 PM

Uhh, Chris...'takfir' came into vogue when OBL received a fatwa allowing him to kill other Muslims, i.e. those considered not 'true to the faith.' Basically, by calling someone a 'takfiri,' as determined by some ephemeral faith metric, OBL was absolved of guilt for the murder of fellow Islam practitioners. Y've got it backwards, chum.

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | November 16, 2007 5:32 PM

"...we are there to help end violent, radical Islam and prevent it again becoming a great threat to the West..."

Just guzzle that kool aid down!

Good luck with your "strategy", but if I were you I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work...

"...An objective observer might be willing to give them this chance to create some sort of decent society for themselves..."

I think Mr. Ford (and others on the right) have made it quite clear that they abandoned the "bringun' demacracies to tha peoples" conceit quite some time ago. Yet some on the right still feel compelled to trot out this rational (rational #2 of 3,827 and counting) to bludgeon those of us who actually possess a conscience (that is, assuming we with consciences can’t tell the difference between platitudes and actions). Shortly thereafter they get back to the meat and potatoes of “bombing the ‘ragheads’ into the Stone Age”.

While the right may have some credibility and experience with the later (“might makes right”), the former (respect for human rights) seems a bit of a stretch for those who so easily squander their own and others civil rights for the sake of a false sense of security...

Posted by Rihilism | November 16, 2007 5:36 PM

It is a good thing Al Qaeda seems to be broken in Iraq – for the Iraqis. For the U.S., of course, which has gambled that keeping Osama as a terrorist on tap in Pakistan would be just the thing to propagandize Americans into supporting a farce of an administration, the al qaeda problem has gotten much bigger this week, and will continue to grow. The force that broke al qaeda in Iraq was the Sunni Ba'athist groups in Anbar province, and the U.S. sensibly surrendered to them – I am always happy to see rightwing schizos celebrate surrender, since we know that in their hearts they want to be cheeto eating surrender monkeys – but the surrender came three years after they should have surrendered to them.

In the meantime, Syria this week has declared it is putting a cap on Iraqi refugees, and there are reports that these refugees are coming back into the country. Many of these refugees are the professional class under Saddam Hussein. To recover anything back in Iraq, they will have to fight. Since the U.S. is arming the Sunni forces in Anbar province, they have a force that they can ally with.

So we are looking at, what, the third phase of this war? Meanwhile, the money and blood wasted by the U.S., and the countless Iraqi lives that were sacrificed because of the pointless invasion and the criminal occupation have added up to a big naught. The warmongers have so changed their tune that they now define "win" as a lessening of violence - which of course is Matt's point.

A good way to illustrate how much the U.S. lost is to compare the situation today with the situation fantasized during the Mission Accomplished spring of 2003. This is the Wall street journal about Rumsfeld on April 10, 2003:

"Victory in Iraq promises to offer a big boost to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's mission to transform how the U.S. military fights, what it buys and where it goes.

A triumph would amount to a vindication of the emerging Rumsfeld Doctrine, which envisions faster forces, with lighter equipment, fighting quicker wars than in the past. This new way of war poses a challenge to the Powell Doctrine, which called for the use of an overwhelming force and guided the U.S. military for more than a decade.

The success of the U.S. strategy in Iraq, with its emphasis on speed, is likely to have immediate consequences. Instead of concentrating ground forces in Germany and Korea, Pentagon planners are likely to spread them around so they can be deployed quickly to hotspots. Mr. Rumsfeld has noted that Austria's refusal to allow Germany-based U.S. forces to pass through that country hindered the Pentagon's ability to get a force to the Persian Gulf quickly. If the U.S. had had a larger presence in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, Austria's refusal would have had far less impact.

Mr. Rumsfeld also is likely to push the Army and Marine Corps to invest more in lighter, more-lethal ground forces that can be airlifted to combat zones. When Turkey refused to allow passage to U.S. troops, the best the U.S. could do to open a northern front in Iraq was to airlift in soldiers from the 173rd Airborne. These air assault troops didn't pack enough combat punch to take on Iraqi Republican Guard forces in the north or to capture oil fields around Kirkuk.

"What you see in Iraq in its embryonic form is the kind of warfare that is animating our desire to transform the force," says Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and a close adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld.

The core of the Rumsfeld Doctrine is that the speed of the invading U.S. force is more important than its size. "Speed matters. Speed kills. It leads to less collateral damage and fewer U.S. casualties," says retired Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, head of Mr. Rumsfeld's Office of Force Transformation. The goal is to move more quickly than the enemy can react, cutting off his options.

It isn't clear that the success U.S. troops experienced in Iraq will translate elsewhere. The Iraqi army, while large, was hobbled by poor morale and a decade of international sanctions. Opposing forces already may be plotting new tactics to counter the Rumsfeld approach. The guerrilla attacks by Iraqi Fedayeen, though not well-coordinated, hampered the U.S. advance. A more adept enemy could do more damage.

With the Iraqi regime collapsing, fans of the Rumsfeld doctrine are already crowing. Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking yesterday to newspaper editors in New Orleans, declared that Iraq is "proof positive of the success of our efforts to transform our military."

Mr. Cheney quoted historian Victor Davis Hanson's early assessment of Iraq: "By any fair standard of even the most dazzling charges in military history, the Germans in the Ardennes in the spring of 1940 or Patton's romp in July of 1944, the present race to Baghdad is unprecedented in its speed and daring and in the lightness of its casualties."

Ah, champagne days for those warmongers who'd shirked the war in Vietnam!

General Franks, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN on april 13, 2003, gave a pretty simple definition of victory:

"BLITZER: Are you ready to declare a victory today?

FRANKS: Would you define "victory" for me?

BLITZER: Well, victory as mission accomplished, has the Saddam Hussein regime been destroyed?

FRANKS: Under that definition, you know, one could get inclined; but that isn't the definition that we use, Wolf. We believe that there are a number of military objectives in this country. One of them, to be sure, is to remove the regime, and we believe that this regime is no longer in charge. In fact, it is an ex-regime.

On the other hand, to be absolutely sure that we have control of all of the weapons of mass destruction in this country, oh, my goodness, as you said yourself, we're certainly not near the conclusion of that one. And you work through an entire range of finding associations with terrorism.

Then one goes to an end-state where Iraqi people have a government that is able to function in a way the Iraqi people want it to function."

Not bad. On Franks criteria, we won the first one, the second one was a joke on the American people, since WMD was a tawdry lie cooked up by the Cheney-ites to lure Americans into the war in Iraq, and the third one we have no control over whatsoever, and never will have. Matt's right: there is no reason to have a single U.S. serviceman on Iraqi soil right now. They are doing nothing, and they will accomplish nothing, that will lead to "victory" for the U.S. or the satisfaction of Frank's third criteria of victory.

Getting out now will allow the U.S. to do what a power that has lost a lot of its lustre and strength should do to recover - which is soft involvement.

Posted by roger | November 16, 2007 5:43 PM

"But it is borderline treason to insist that these sacrifices should be thrown away because of partisan political myopia."

Precisely, Bush and Cheney should be arrested immediately.

"We didn't start the war in Iraq..."

Come, now. Given all the lies that have slipped through Georgie's pursed lips, none of them have even approached this doosy...

Posted by Rihilism | November 16, 2007 5:44 PM

President Bush defined victory in Iraq in November 2005:

• In the short term:
  • An Iraq that is making steady progress in fighting terrorists and neutralizing the insurgency, meeting political milestones; building democratic institutions; standing up robust security forces to gather intelligence, destroy terrorist networks, and maintain security; and tackling key economic reforms to lay the foundation for a sound economy.
• In the medium term:
  • An Iraq that is in the lead defeating terrorists and insurgents and providing its own security, with a constitutional, elected government in place, providing an inspiring example to reformers in the region, and well on its way to achieving its economic potential.
• In the longer term:
  • An Iraq that has defeated the terrorists and neutralized the insurgency.
  • An Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure, where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country.
  • An Iraq that is a partner in the global war on terror and the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, integrated into the international community, an engine for regional economic growth, and proving the fruits of democratic governance to the region.

Posted by croatoan | November 16, 2007 5:46 PM

To Ricks' quotes, we can now add today's sunny comments from Sunni leaders in Anbar as reported by The New Yorker ( http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/19/071119fa_fact_anderson?printable=true , by way of Kevin Drum):

"A few days before General Petraeus testified before Congress, I met with Sheikh Zaidan al-Awad, a prominent Sunni tribal leader from Anbar. The last time I had seen him, in 2004, he was full of hostile bluster about the U.S., and made no secret of his identification with the 'resistance,' as he described the hard-line Sunni insurgents. Sheikh Zaidan was a fugitive, suspected by the Americans of being a sponsor of the insurgency, and he was living in voluntary exile in Jordan. But when we spoke this fall, in an apartment in Amman, Zaidan told me that he had recently met for informal talks with American military and intelligence officials, because he approved of what they were now doing -- allowing Sunni tribesmen to police themselves.

"I asked Zaidan what sort of deal had led to the Sunni Awakening. 'It’s not a deal,' he said, bristling. 'People have come to realize that our fate is tied to the Americans’, and theirs to ours. If they are successful in Iraq, it will depend on Anbar. We always said this. Time was lost. America was lost, but now it’s woken up; it now holds a thread in its hand. For the first time, they’re doing something right.'

Zaidan said that Anbar’s Sunni tribes no longer had any need to exact blood vengeance on U.S. forces. 'We’ve already taken our revenge,' he said. 'We’re the ones who’ve made them crawl on their stomachs, and now we’re the ones to pick them up.' He added, 'Once Anbar is settled, we must take control of Baghdad, and we will.' There would have to be a lot more fighting before the capital was taken back from the Shiites, he said. 'The Anbaris will take charge of the purge. What the whole world failed to do in Anbar, we have done overnight. Baghdad will be a lot easier.'

"Many of the players in Iraq seemed, like Zaidan, to be positioning themselves for the next battle. While the Shiites issued warnings about the Sunnis’ intentions, nearly all the talk among the Americans was of the Mahdi Army and its reputed sponsor, Iran, which Petraeus accused of waging a 'proxy war' in Iraq; there were dismissive references to Al Qaeda as a spent force."

__________________________________________

As for the Mahdi Army itself: "...[A]nalysts credit much of the recent drop in Iraqi civilian deaths not to the surge but to Sadr’s decision, in August, to order the Mahdi Army, which is believed to have been responsible for much of the Shiite-on-Sunni sectarian killing in and around Baghdad, to 'freeze' its activities for six months. Sadr’s apparent aim was to ward off an escalation of a two-day gun battle between the Mahdi and another Shiite militia, and to reassert his control over his men...

"Shiite political parties and militias are so interwoven that a Shiite equivalent of the Sunni Awakening seems unlikely -- it would probably require a split within the Shiite community, a civil war within a civil war. Iran would also be a major factor. Given Sadr’s alleged close links to Iranian hard-liners, and the growing hostility between Iran and the United States, his future moves are virtually impossible to predict."

____________________________________________

Drum: "Neither the Shiites nor the Sunnis have so far demonstrated any serious desire to compromise on the key issues of national governance. Instead, they're just using the surge as a way of catching their breath and readying themselves for the battle to come. When it does, whose side will we be on?"

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | November 16, 2007 6:29 PM

"The lefty response to the current decline in violence in Iraq is a mirror-image of their response to the elections in Iraq a couple of years ago. First, the lefties said that this sort of political progress was impossible. When the political progress was obvious -- going from a standing start to a democratically-elected, constitutional government -- lefties said political progress didn't matter; what mattered was the high levels of violence."

---------------------
Uh, no. The main argument was that simply holding an election was the easy part, and that the elections were more likely to provoke conflict and violence than to lead to democratic stability.

That argument's been proven correct- both by the horrific violence that resulted from the post-election political environment (and still hasn't receded to pre-2005 levels, as far as I can tell), and by the fact that US has resorted to funding and empowering groups that want to overthrow the elected government.

It's pretty bizarre to still hear people babbling about the magical purple fingers even as the US allies itself with Sunni rejectionists - sorry, "Concerned Local Citizens."

Posted by N | November 16, 2007 6:55 PM

"Uh, no. The main argument was that simply holding an election was the easy part..."

Let me stop you right there. That's complete revisionism. If you go back and read what people wrote before the first election, there were plenty of arguments that it would be impossible to hold elections, that no one would show up, etc. This is part of a trend of goal post-moving on Iraq.

Posted by Fred | November 16, 2007 9:49 PM

Precisely, Bush and Cheney should be arrested immediately.

Ah yes, if only "Going to war without the consent of Rihilism" were an actual crime.

Posted by Mixner | November 16, 2007 9:58 PM

"October was also a low-casualty month for Iraqis, if you want to count brown people in your moral calculus."

And if you count 1,200-1,600 dead Iraqis (by an undercount) as a "low casualty month" compared to the previous 2,000 or more...

So far this month, we've had 468 Iraqis killed (that is, REPORTED killed - which doesn't count the unreported deaths of which there are many), so with luck we might get down to only the 900 or so claimed for last month (which was wrong.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 16, 2007 10:31 PM

Fred: "If you go back and read what people wrote before the first election, there were plenty of arguments that it would be impossible to hold elections, that no one would show up, etc. This is part of a trend of goal post-moving on Iraq."

Fred talks about "goal post moving"! Jesus, the fucking nerve!

First it was WMDs, then it was "Saddam's a bad guy", then it was "democracy", then it was "we have to avoid a civil war", then it was the "surge", now it's "the surge is working" bullshit.

The fucking hypocrisy is amazing.

And I don't recall reading anything about how the elections couldn't be held. What was discussed was whether the elections would be "legitimate" or just a pro-American rigged POS. Sistani fixed that one by demanding they be held when they were rather than wait until the US handed over power in June 2005. Cite something to the contrary. You can't because you're full of shit.

Not to mention that a quick Google shows that Donald Rumsfeld felt that the elections couldn't be held in all provinces because of the security situation. "Charles Krauthammer, after 18 months of blithe optimism on Iraq, has now suddenly decided that the country is embroiled in a civil war and that the forthcoming elections will resemble those of 1864 in the United States, when the Confederate states did not vote for Lincoln."- Juan Cole.

Juan Cole was indeed concerned that the result of the elections would be increased violence if the Sunnis were not given adequate (by their lights) representation. And he was completely correct about that.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 16, 2007 10:46 PM

"The U.S. military approach in Iraq this year has focused on striking deals with Sunni insurgents, under which they stop fighting the Americans and instead protect their own neighborhoods. So far about 70,000 such volunteers have been enrolled..."

And as I said elsewhere, this is just a fucking welfare program for unemployed Iraqis and has zero to do with whether or not they want the US troops present, let alone the relations between the Sunni and Shia.

And the very notion of paying the insurgents not to shoot Americans is just brain dead from a military standpoint. It's like paying Osama not to attack New York, or Hitler not to invade Britain. While it might work for a while, it doesn't address the underlying conflict. And in the meantime, it simply provides more revenue for the opponent.

And the right wing thinks this is a great idea! Giving money and arms to the enemy!

If you were to suggest arming the insurgents three years ago, they'd have sent you to Guantanamo! Now, the sheik in the post above can say, "We've brought the Americans to their knees crawling to us for help" - and the right wing loves it!

You can't make this stuff up, folks!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 16, 2007 10:56 PM

Fred:"you go back and read what people wrote before the first election, there were plenty of arguments that it would be impossible to hold elections, that no one would show up, etc"
-----------------
Lots of (often misinformed) people wrote lots of different things - I have no intention of refuting or defending every blog post or TV soundbite that appeared around election time.

Among those who actually know something about democratization in developing/post-conflict countries, I think it was clear that the single biggest concern was that the elections would heighten sectarian tensions. And the prediction that "no one would show up" proved quite right in the Sunni areas, which was where it really mattered.

Regardless of the content of the preelection debate, drawing a seamless line of progress between the initial elections and the current reduction in violence is nonsensical. The results of Iraq's first elections obviously damaged prospects for state-building and peace, and recent strategy changes by the US can in part be considered a last-ditch attempt to undo as much of that damage as possible.

Posted by N | November 16, 2007 10:59 PM

Exactly.

I think it is important also to emphasize the real definition of stability.

If Iraq will collapse in the absence of American soldiers (as the hawks strenuously assert) than Iraq is already unstable.

If Iraq will go into civil War in the absence of American soldiers, than Iraq itself is already in a state of civil war.

If someones headlight will fall off in the absence of ghetto-rigged duct tape, than their headlight is not exactly working. It may not be falling off NOW, but that doesnt mean its working.

The hawks like to talk about victory without defining what victory means. I would go with the definition offered by the President - that America will have succeeded if Iraq becomes a stable, democratic nation capable of controlling its own territory and borders INDEPENDENTLY.

So even if the violence goes down, that doesnt mean we are closer to victory. Again - if Iraq is violence free now but collapses when we leave, what have we won? Being the shaperone of a middle east nation indefinately? Doesn't sound like such a prize to me.

Finally, it will be interesting to see how long the two talking points for hawks - "We are winning the WAR!" and "If we leave, genocide will happen!" - can coexist together, because they are in obvious contradition for the reasons cited above.

Posted by Neal Murray | November 17, 2007 12:41 AM

It's funny how not a single Iraq War backer has been able to show evidence that national reconciliation is happening in the government or make a convincing case that the Sunni insurgents now fighting AQI will not turn their guns on the Shi'ites. Instead, they hide behind the troops like a bunch of pussies and complain about Vietnam-era lefty self-defeat. These guys on this thread have never grown out of their politics of resentment and can't actually analyze a foreign issue coherently. It's all about how the bogeyman is teh bad.

Posted by Reality Man | November 17, 2007 3:00 AM

Also, the Iraq War backers seem to also glide past the fact that there will have to be a troop drawdown in April by the Pentagon's own admission, otherwise our military will be broken or we'll need to start a draft. This isn't the fault of a bunch of bogerman lefties, but the logistics of war. When you fight a war with not enough troops for victory, this is what you get.

Posted by Reality Man | November 17, 2007 3:10 AM

I hope the Sunni rebels are getting as good a deal from us as the Pakistani generals.

Posted by bob h | November 17, 2007 7:19 AM

Our best option was to draw down troops a long time ago, positioning them to support an Iraqi provisional government rather than an American one. But that's now water under the bridge. The current policy is better late than never, unless Iraq was a place we could afford to ignore. It hasn't been for at least twenty years, and it won't be for at least that long into the future.

It is not necessary to our national interests for Iraqis to be singing KumByYah around the campfire. It is necessary for our, and their own, national interests for Iraq to evolve a relatively stable Federal system with lots of local autonomy, especially in security matters. With all due respect to the Arabic-speaking Middle East Studies PhD's posting here from Iraq, I haven't seen anything remotely like data on which to declare such an arrangement unobtainable. Rather the reverse.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 17, 2007 12:18 PM

"Ah yes, if only "Going to war without the consent of Rihilism" were an actual crime."

Intercepting electronic communications of U.S. citizens without a warrant or probable cause violates the 4th Amendment, violates the President's Oath to uphold the Constitution and is grounds for impeachment.

Authorizing torture is a criminal act and is grounds for impeachment and trial for war crimes.

Posted by Rihilism | November 17, 2007 12:22 PM

Powell, your call for evidence - by which I suppose you mean well reasoned arguments - should directed, first, at your idea of what the 'American interest' is. I see no reason to think America has much of an interest at all in staying around while Iraq evolves a "relatively stable federal system", especially if you balance that against the American interest in not spending another trillion dollars on Iraq. Right now, relatively stable evidently means arming all sides. This is like lighting a fuse - it takes time for it to go off, but it will go off.

As for stability per se in Iraq - as the news reports have pointed out, violence in Basra has gone down as the British departed. Of course, that simply means that the Taliban-esque party in control of Basra now doesn't feel threatened, but that is about as good as it gets in Iraq, post occupation. So much for the idea that if the Coalition wasn't there, violence would grow.

From Reuters:

"Attacks against British and Iraqi forces have plunged by 90 percent in southern Iraq since London withdrew its troops from the main city of Basra, the commander of British forces there said Thursday.

The presence of British forces in downtown Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, was the single largest instigator of violence, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns told reporters Thursday on a visit to Baghdad's Green Zone.

"We thought, 'If 90 percent of the violence is directed at us, what would happen if we stepped back?'" Binns said."

Posted by roger | November 17, 2007 3:58 PM

Robert Powell, how does your plan square with the quotes from the Sunni militia leaders who are talking about going after the Shi'ites next and the whole problem of either drawing down our military in April or breaking it?

Posted by Reality Man | November 17, 2007 6:19 PM

Quotes in the press from a Sunni Arab notable exiled in Jordan hardly qualify as evidence. Current developments in Basra are interesting, but don't necessarily indicate that if all foreign troops pulled out of Iraq things would settle down, much less in a way that we'd find agreeable.

As far as the costs, a little perspective is in order. As a percentage of GDP we're spending a little more than 20% of what we spent in the Korean War, which killed about two million people including around 35,000 GI's, and produced a tie that left the dictatorship that started the war in power, currently running the world's largest concentration camp and developing various types of wmd's it seems willing to proliferate. Unlike Iraq, Korea was entirely peripheral to the world economy, and had no more significance in terms of containment of communism than Iraq does as a key confrontation with Islamic radicalism. Objectively, probably less.

We have vital interests in demonstrating that we can persevere and ultimately obtain a decent settlement in the face of long-standing difficulties in the Persian Gulf region, which involves insuring a reasonable level of stability in Iraq. We clearly cannot do this by remote control.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 18, 2007 3:46 AM

The IBD's take on this: "Progress, Progress And More Progress"

"Winning: News from Iraq gets better by the day, but the media have done their best to downplay the turnaround and congressional Democrats have basically pulled the covers over their heads and pretended it doesn't exist."

Click the link for some of their examples.

Posted by Fred | November 18, 2007 4:40 AM

"We have vital interests in demonstrating that we can persevere and ultimately obtain a decent settlement in the face of long-standing difficulties in the Persian Gulf region, which involves insuring a reasonable level of stability in Iraq. We clearly cannot do this by remote control.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 18, 2007 3:46 AM"

How is this going to happen without having a government that all major parties find acceptable? Do you really think the ex-insurgents that we're now arming won't turn against the Shi'ites? If you don't, blind partisanship has made you hopelessly naive. What mechanism are we supposed to use to get a decent settlement leading to a government that can insure a reasonable level of stability? When you have the Iraqi PM himself saying that those hoping for national reconciliation are pretty much traitors, what hope really is there in the big picture? Just saying "we must do this" when we lack the agency to do it isn't an answer. Also, what are we supposed to do come April? In this thread you've listed platitudes, but no substance. Are you proposing we internationalize this venture or something? This is why you don't get involved in nation-building ventures in diverse societies while pissing off your allies so that they don't go in with a strong force alongside you.

Posted by Reality Man | November 18, 2007 4:59 AM