Victory

Via Matt Duss, a great map showing rather conclusively that those who warned withdrawal advocates that the result of leaving Iraq would be ethnic cleansing got their continued war, but also their ethnic cleansing as well. We can also see the dubious success of the surge here. The level of violence kept going up during the early surge months and seems to have died down because the radical decline in the number of mixed communities has reduced the opportunities for violence.

I don't get the sense that when people talk about "the success of the surge" that this is the sort of thing they have in mind.

But whether or not you want to characterize walling off Baghdad into a series of separated, segregated neighborhoods while the government remains dominated by a sectarian clique and unable to actually govern in vast swathes of the country (areas where rival cliques rule through force) as "success" this is the new reality. And, of course, for liberals part of that new reality is that the levels of violence really are much lower than they used to be. It's still really violent in that, for example:

At least 20 people were killed or found dead in and around Baquba, the largest city in Diyala Province, which is north of Baghdad. The police said that a suicide motorcycle bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 24 in one of the city’s markets. Six were killed in two separate shootouts. Two died from roadside bombs and the authorities found six bodies in two locations on the city’s western outskirts.

That, however, isn't typical anymore. The question is what, if anything, follows from that. Iraq might go back to falling apart at the seams if we leave. On the other hand, it might go back to falling apart at the seams even if we stay. The extent of our impact on the situation isn't clear. What is clear is that the political causes of the conflict are still in place, which is why the violence continues to persist, albeit at a lower level.

Given that, I'd be happy to keep our troops in the country for some reasonably short period of time if there were some reasonable prospects that doing so would push the situation over a positive tipping point where political reconciliation lays the groundwork for lasting peace. But according to our current policy's architects that's not on the table and, instead, their belief is that military engagement will need to continue for over a decade to bring about their desired results. That's not an idea that makes sense to me. The costs would be enormous. And the time-frame itself would be enormous. If American troops just vanished tomorrow maybe Iraq would be at peace again in 10-15 years. There'd be no way of telling if we were really doing any good.

Now if you think it's strategically useful for the United States to be engaged in the military occupation of a medium-sized country in the Persian Gulf region, then things look different. By I think it's strategically bonkers -- making our al-Qaeda problem worse at vast cost for no good reason -- and the "surge" policy itself isn't promising "success" in the "let's keep doing this for a bit longer and then we'll have won" sense, it's promising to have laid the groundwork for an extremely prolonged new occupation phase that we shouldn't undertake.

Comments

I read of hundreds of thousands of orphans in Iraq. A recent segment on NPR interviewed an Iraqi official and she stated a very, very small percentage of them were afforded any sort of help by anyone. Relatives try to piece together a support network but they're stressed out handling the family they have already. What will these orphans come to in the ten years we're going to hang around? Many will be of an age that carrying a gun, placing an IED or otherwise engaging in very nasty business is possible. And many will feel their plight is due to the American occupation. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers and young adults with no job, no education, no prospects and with a major axe to grind. Won't be pretty.

Posted by steve duncan | December 17, 2007 4:06 PM

I would love to see another layer on this graphic showing the location of individual bombs/violence. It would be interesting to see if the violence is concentrated along the seams or in the mixed neighborhoods.

I assume that someone keeps track of this stuff

Posted by publius | December 17, 2007 4:37 PM

I think progressives missed an opportunity to drive a wedge between Team Petraeus and the Bush administration. Team Petraeus' case for the new strategy was never to aim at "success" on anything like the Bush administration's terms. It's been about managing the failure of the Bush administration's entire Iraq policy (i.e. the war). However, because progressives identified Petraeus with Bush, because of Bush's excessive embrace of Petraeus, everybody involved in the debate made it appear that Petraeus' success would be victory for Bush. Not so, but that's the perception.

In terms of the outlook now, there are two distinct perspectives worth keeping separate. There's the Biddle perspective, which basically has given up on even the most minimal political success with the Iraqi government, and the corollary is to recommend we just keep on doing what we're going with as many troops as possible for as long as possible, hoping that time heals some wounds. Then there is a distinct, somewhat hawkish position that basically says, Let's tell the Iraqis we're getting out, but over a certain, shortish period of time, let's make that a credible commitment, unlike Bush administration threats, and then let's keep doing what we're doing for a short period of time, hoping that the Iraqi government gets scared enough to come through with some of what it needs to be doing, such as training a genuinely national security force to police the seams between separated, i.e. ethnically cleansed communities. And either way, whether the Iraqi government comes through or not, we're out of there in a reasonably short period of time.

But I suspect that reasonably short period of time may be longer than your reasonably short period of time.

Posted by Jeff | December 17, 2007 4:41 PM

Is this scary evidence that the Biden plan would "work"?

Posted by Benton | December 17, 2007 4:52 PM

Let's call this what it really is, which is imperial occupation in the interest of long-term bases that serve our interest in the oil supply of the region. All this chin-stroking talk of strategic interests and stability and all that rot ignores the fact that we've subjugated a sovereign people who were no threat to us and continue to treat them as the objects of our little games. For us to be there at all is immoral, and the immorality of staying there 10-15 years is grosser but not different in kind than if we stay a "reasonably short" (wtf?) time longer. I understand what MY is trying to say here, but the habit of glossing over how we got into Iraq and treating self-determination and human dignity as afterthoughts of our Great Game imperial musings kinda gets on my nerves.

Posted by scott | December 17, 2007 4:54 PM

Opponents of the war, and I'm securely in that camp, can use this period of lowered attention towards Iraq to think through the future.

The first thing we have to accept is that American forces will be in Iraq in substantial numbers for two years. That's a given. Bush will not greatly reduce troops through Jan. 20, 2009, and a new Democratic President will take until at least December 2009 to finish a withdrawal.

Secondly, we should be thinking about how these two years might best be used to soften the impact of our eventual departure. It's in no one's interest that Iraq collapse into full-scale civil war during our departure. Is there anyway we can use our forces to forestall a complete coming apart for those two years? Who knows, maybe the Sunni tribal forces and the Shi'ites in government can even develop some kind of modus vivendi through bribes and other inducements to keep Al Qaeda from reemerging and the Sunnis from seeking revenge for the cleansing of Baghdad.

Third, we in the anti-war crowd need to realize how important a quiet Iraq is to our larger goals. We want the coming Democratic President to be successful in repairing America's image abroad and working on tough global issues (like global warming) and in pushing through a progressive agenda at home, starting with health care. These are tough issues whose chances of success will be diminished if that Democratic President is overseeing a chaotic end to our adventure in Iraq.

The domestic battle over Iraq is finished. We won. The nation views the war the same way we do and no amount of wingnut crowing will change that. Getting out now is great, but it's not going to happen. Hammering congressional Democrats for not forcing an end to the war is a stupid waste of time. Instead, it's time for us as Democrats and opponents of the war to be grateful for what has happened due to the Anbar Awakening and the new US strategies.

Democrats are not likely to lose in 2008 if Iraq doesn't dominate the front page. The Democratic agenda may lose in 2009 if the chaos of Iraq is spread all over the news, however.

I really am opposed to this war and was opposed way before it even began. But I think it's finally time not only to hope for the best (which we always should have done) but to actually see that as in the Democrats' interests.

Posted by santamonicamr | December 17, 2007 5:54 PM

Come on Matt, you sound like you just woke up. Our goal in Iraq is and always has been to build a big base from which to launch our military forces anywhere in the Middle East. Why else did we build the biggest embassy in the world there? Why are we building four major military bases? The outcome we always desired is slowly coming to fruition. We have a country that will be in every respect a colony (notice how the Turks got our permission to invade Kurk land) which we will control. We will let the ethnic cleansing continue until the Iraqis get their own territories; we will let the Kurds run the north; the Shias the South, and the Sunnis we will favor because it will keep the others off balance.

It is all working according to plan. If you don't realize it, you are not looking at it squarely in the face.

Posted by Llyonnoc | December 17, 2007 6:58 PM

The whole thing makes perfect strategic sense if you consider peak oil. Iraq's oil reserves are woefully underdeveloped and are estimated to be somewhere between 115 and 300 billion barrels, depending on who you believe. Let's assume 200 billion. This oil can be extracted at up to 8 million barrels a day. $100/barrel oil means that that oil is worth about $300 billion/year. And many people believe that oil will go a lot higher than $100/barrel. Iraq can also act as a swing producer, which is pretty handy for the US if they're also a US client. Perfectly sensible strategically.

Posted by ramster | December 17, 2007 7:04 PM

BTW, the Iraq oil numbers come from this Brookings report:

http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2003/0512globalenvironment_luft.aspx

Posted by ramster | December 17, 2007 7:08 PM

So self-imposed ethnic segregation is working? Maybe the Middle East is the same as the Balkans after all.

Posted by Quietus | December 17, 2007 7:08 PM

Today: 1 US Soldier, 20 Iraqis Killed; 49 Iraqis Wounded

Sunday: 1 US Soldier, 25 Iraqis Killed; 28 Iraqis Wounded

Saturday: 1 US Soldier, 16 Iraqis Killed; 37 Iraqis Wounded

Friday: 2 U.S. Soldiers, 3 Iraqis Killed

Thursday: 33 Iraqis Killed, 32 Wounded

Wednesday: 64 Iraqis Killed, 140 Wounded

Tuesday: 1 US Soldier, 11 Iraqis Killed; 36 Iraqis Wounded

Monday: 14 Iraqis Killed, 52 Wounded

Yes, the numbers are getting lower every week. This is a sign of "exhaustion", as I predicted earlier. However, it definitely doesn't mean the conflict is over. It means the sides are regrouping and rearming for another round.

It's theoretically possible that the two sides might be interested in negotiating now - but since the Shia won the first round, they have no motivation to do so. It was only the support of the US for the Sunni insurgents - in an attempt to deal with Al Qaeda - that prevented the Sunnis from being run out of Iraq all together. However, the Sunnis, according to one report, are convinced that they can beat the Shia and regain power in Iraq.

Meanwhile, al-Sadr is regrouping his Mehdi Army and continues to demand that the US occupation be driven out.

The pieces are in place for another round of extreme violence if any real compromises are not made on both sides.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 17, 2007 7:09 PM

There's a small strawman in the first paragraph. IIRC, those concerned about consequences of withdrawal worried about potential wholesale slaughter that might accompany ethnic cleansing & separation, not so much the ethnic cleansing itself.

Plenty of "stay-the-coursers" would have been (and still are) reasonably content with some kind of partition, de jure or de facto.

The current policy of US troops keeping the lid on, and ameliorating the violence while partition happens is pretty ugly, but may be the least bad.

Please don't come back with a zillion official pronouncements contradicting the above. I'll stipulate it's never been official, public policy, and is by no means universally accepted among the stay-the-coursers.

God, I hate trying to make a simple point with Lefties, 'cause y'all freak out and natter about the slightest phraseology that strikes you amiss.

I merely think that the first paragraph is a little misleading, incorporating a strawman view.

Thank you.

Posted by Stephen | December 17, 2007 10:19 PM

Stephen: "The current policy of US troops keeping the lid on, and ameliorating the violence while partition happens is pretty ugly, but may be the least bad."

If it were true - but it isn't. The violence has died down as the sides regroup and rearm, nothing more. That and the fact that the partitioning is mostly done is why the violence is down. When they're ready to resolve the main issues of who's running the country and who gets the oil revenues, as well as when is the US going to get kicked out, it'll go back up.

And nothing the US has done has had any impact on any of this so far - with the possible exception of co-opting some of the Sunni insurgents into shooting at Al Qaeda for money - money which they are spending on rearming for the fight with the Shia and the US later on.

"God, I hate trying to make a simple point with Lefties, 'cause y'all freak out and natter about the slightest phraseology that strikes you amiss."

It's a requirement to have a clue. I know this isn't the norm in right wing circles, but it is in left circles.

Of course, that's somewhat relative, since most liberals don't have much of a clue either.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 18, 2007 1:09 AM

the "surge" policy itself isn't promising "success" in the "let's keep doing this for a bit longer and then we'll have won" sense, it's promising to have laid the groundwork for an extremely prolonged new occupation phase that we shouldn't undertake.

The problem I have with sentences like this is that it presumes that the "extreme prolonged ... occupation" phase is "new." It's not. It has been the intention all along, the only real goal of the war.

Cheney said as much in the "Mission accomplished" phase, saying that he expected to draw down to 50,000 troops over the next few months. The construction (and funding) for the "enduring bases" took place in plain sight. No member of Congress can claim not to know about the plans for 50,000 soldiers worth of military bases.

There has never been an attempt to create an autonomous Iraqi national defense force. They have no air, no armor, no logistical capability and no functional chain of command. There have been no actions taken to rectify those gaps, which leaves their borders open in a heavily armed region.

The plan has always been for an indefinite occupation, which means the plan has always been for a government that is not sovereign. A sovereign government of Iraq that was even vaguely representative of the people of Iraq would not permit the presence of military bases that serve in support of Israel's interests, and in opposition to Iran's.

Posted by jayackroyd | December 18, 2007 9:21 AM

The maps cited do not seem to distinguish between "ethnic cleansing" and relocation. Sectarian segregation is certainly a problem, but is very much different than a change in population dynamics due to extermination. The maps seem to have been misleadingly cited. Could you please provide a clarificaton, Matt? Thanks.

It should be noted that sectarian segregation - if that's what this map reflects more than it does ethnic cleansing - can in fact be seen as an instrument designed to avert sectarian violence in the event of US withdrawal. Don't get me wrong, we're talking about ugly stuff here, but the map may, in fact, point to conlcusions opposite of those implied in your post.

Posted by Seth | December 18, 2007 12:17 PM

Jeff: "I think progressives missed an opportunity to drive a wedge between Team Petraeus and the Bush administration."

This assumes that an incredibly politicized and corrupt administration would pick a prominent person who wasn't totally on board. In the case of the Bush administration, I don't believe that they've slipped up this way since 2001.

"Team Petraeus' case for the new strategy was never to aim at "success" on anything like the Bush administration's terms. It's been about managing the failure of the Bush administration's entire Iraq policy (i.e. the war)."

As far as I can tell, 'managing the failure' was the goal of the surge, and was also the best that the administration could hope for, as of right after the 2006 elections. And Petraeus has done a good job of 'kicking the can down the road' a year.

"However, because progressives identified Petraeus with Bush, because of Bush's excessive embrace of Petraeus, "

Uhhhhhh - Bush picked him, and Petraeus, AFAIK, never really deviated from the Bush line. He certainly acted as if his primary goal was helping the administration (to the extent possible).

"everybody involved in the debate made it appear that Petraeus' success would be victory for Bush. Not so, but that's the perception."

And the perception was what mattered - especially with Petraeus. Remember the potemkiin marketplace he set up, through which he conducted tours?

Posted by Barry | December 18, 2007 4:15 PM