A Question of Strategy

Today's Washington Post editorial on Iraq dedicated to slamming Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is really baffling. Their big point is that Democratic plans to withdraw troops from Iraq are somehow unrealistic or based on "fantasy" which seems to simply miss the contours of the argument. Expeditious departure of American forces from Iraq isn't some counterintuitive plan to stabilize Iraq; rather, grounded in recognition that an open-ended U.S. military presence isn't stabilizing Iraq either, it's based on the strategic calculation that the nation's resources and manpower should be deployed elsewhere.

That's a point you could dispute, but Hiatt & co. don't even acknowledge that this is the debate we're having. You also get weird assertions like this "U.S. commanders and diplomats in Iraq don't hesitate to say that if American forces withdrew now, sectarian conflict would probably explode in its full fury, causing bloodshed on a far greater scale than ever before and posing grave threats to U.S. security." One gets weary of pointing this out, but over and over again we see withdrawal plans being judged by worst-case scenarios whereas staying scenarios are judged by best-case scenarios. The truth of the matter is that no matter what we do with the American military, the course of events in Iraq will ultimately be determined by decisions made by Iraqis. If we leave, they might choose poorly with disastrous results. But that can happen if we stay, too. Or they could choose well. The purpose of the surge was to use our military power to try to alter the decision-making of Iraqi leaders, but it hasn't worked -- there's little-to-no evidence that us having 150,000 troops in Iraq is fundamentally affecting the political situation in a positive way.

Comments

"One gets weary of pointing this out, but over and over again we see withdrawal plans being judged by worst-case scenarios whereas staying scenarios are judged by best-case scenarios."

Well said.

Posted by bisonbison | March 20, 2008 2:48 PM

Matt you should really submit an op-ed to the Post on this. I know they would be hard to crack on this since their fp columnists range from hawkish liberals to bat-shit crazy neocons, but it would be worth a try.

Posted by David | March 20, 2008 2:54 PM

*applause* Every realistic sketch of a future Iraq looks unstable. At least choose an option where a) our people aren't getting killed, b) Iraqis aren't being targeted for helping us, c) what happens depends on them, d) we at least are passively rather than actively making more enemies based on what happens there.

Somewhere (Sullivan?) it was pointed out this morning that the neocon attitiude toward Iraq is profoundly unconservative: If propping people up no matter what they do is bad here, isn't it bad elsewhere as well? Doesn't it encourage dependency?

As much as I admire the Pottery Barn metaphor, too much has gone bad. A shot at fixing it (and I don't think it's within our power to fix it) would require massive commitment that isn't there from the US citizens previously requested only to go shopping and leave things to George.

Posted by Deborah | March 20, 2008 2:59 PM

Well-said, indeed.

It's been obvious to me, who came of age during the Vietnam quagmire, where even more disastrous claims were made (at least this time there's no phony domino theory). Now even babes like Matt get it.

Posted by Joel | March 20, 2008 3:01 PM

Today's Washington Post editorial on Iraq

It's a neocon page; I thought we'd all finally admitted that. If the argument isn't out of place at the NY Sun, it isn't out of place in a WP editorial.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 20, 2008 3:12 PM

Yes indeed, sweet reason, common sense and a respect for history and evidence. Keep saying it and you never know it might catch on.

Posted by Chris Dornan | March 20, 2008 3:15 PM

It's a neocon page; I thought we'd all finally admitted that. If the argument isn't out of place at the NY Sun, it isn't out of place in a WP editorial.

Unfortunately, the same trend lines are also very visible at the NY Times. With Brooks and Kristol now on board, I'd say that almost 1/3 of the daily op ed page is neoconish these days.

And the Sunday Week in Review is sometimes worse. On the recent Fifth Year Iraq anniversary section very recently, it seemed that most of the dozen pieces were by really hardcore AEI types (e.g. Perle, Pletka) and I don't they they had a single strong original critic of the attack. I think the same neocon who now edits Week in Review also edits their Sunday Book Section, which is often almost as bad.

Wasn't there also some rumor a little while back that Bloomberg (who's pretty much a neocon) was thinking of buying the NYT, given all the problems with its stock price?

Posted by RKU | March 20, 2008 3:23 PM

Gee, I have a novel idea (not). Could the people who were wrong about the war please shut the fuck up, and could we listen for a change to the people who were right? I realize that's an AWFUL lot to ask...

Posted by Steve LaBonne | March 20, 2008 3:30 PM

The purpose of the surge was to use our military power to try to alter the decision-making of Iraqi leaders, but it hasn't worked -- there's little-to-no evidence that us having 150,000 troops in Iraq is fundamentally affecting the political situation in a positive way.

Except the US military is ensuring that a vicious power vacuum doesn't open up. Certainly a broad, indefinite, and uncertain commitment is burdensome, but the alternative is monstrous.

I was against this war from the beginning, but I do believe that for us to remove our forces from Iraq now would be immoral -- by orders of magnitude.

Leave and allow the Shia to slaughter the Sunni?

I realize 'it's their problem,' but considering we were the protagonist in uncapping this latest round of historical hostility, it's a matter of principle that we stay until their animus is at least non-violent, whenever that might come.

Posted by BCM | March 20, 2008 3:45 PM

The Post echoes other hawks in saying that a pullout (even over 18 months!) will result in "bloodshed on a far greater scale than ever before." This is how the surge is a "success": The presence of more troops in Iraq has apparently created a more dangerous situation for the troops to keep a lid on. At this rate, with enough boots on the ground we could prevent Iraqis from killing each other several times each.

Posted by Dan Warren | March 20, 2008 3:52 PM

People keep responding to the disappointments that the MSM gives us as if there's some little bit of wisdom that saying things just right would bring some correspondent or another an epiphany. ("Hey! I coulda had a V-8!") Broder, Hiatt, Tweety, etc. are all grown-ups. They say what they do not out of ignorance of other arguments, but because they've chosen that way.

It's much more reasonable to assume that they're as mendacious as the politicians they serve.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 20, 2008 3:53 PM

"Leave and allow the Shia to slaughter the Sunni?"

Ah, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Posted by Joel | March 20, 2008 3:54 PM

If there were ever more evidence that a newspaper exists to serve its advertisers, rather than its readership, this is it.

The readers within the Washington, DC market completely disagree with the editorial board on this issue, yet the editorial board is basically calling the readership of the DC metro area complete idiots.

Posted by Tyro | March 20, 2008 4:12 PM

It's a waste of time arguing with the likes of the WaPo or the NYT. Instead, you've got to hit them where it really hurts -- their wallet. Every time you take issue with an op-ed, mention how every quarter their revenues and readership are down from the quarter before. Mention, too, how their basic untrustworthiness makes them fundamentally non-viable.

And if you know anybody who still subscribes to the rags, or runs classified ads in them, persuade them to quit throwing their money away. The WaPo and the NYT are BARELY worth reading for free; paying for them is crazy. Same thing goes for their classified ads.

On a related note, Spencer Ackerman has an article that sheds some light on why the Atlantic has become such a piece of crap, too. Turns out McArdle and Sullivan weren't exactly pioneers in the Know-Nothing serial liar category.

Posted by sglover | March 20, 2008 4:15 PM

Joel, if we do pull out, Bath & Body Works has some great soap to wash to the blood off your hands...

Posted by BCM | March 20, 2008 4:24 PM

"Joel, if we do pull out, Bath & Body Works has some great soap to wash to the blood off your hands..."

I doubt there's any left over after wingnuts like you get through washing the blood of 4000 Americans killed, 20,000 injured and 100,000-500,000 Iraqis killed as a result of the US invasion and occupation off your hands.

Smarter trolls, please.

Posted by Joel | March 20, 2008 4:50 PM

...there's little-to-no evidence that us having 150,000 troops in Iraq is fundamentally affecting the political situation in a positive way.

It's not affecting the political situation in Iraq in a positive way, but it did deliver the 2004 American presidential election to the party of the Godly.

Iraq -- not so much a war, as the world's most expensive campaign commercial.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | March 20, 2008 5:11 PM

Hear hear!

Posted by Mike | March 20, 2008 5:22 PM

Joel, I said in my original post that I was against this war from the beginning. Allow me to add to that by saying that I was against it on the grounds that this war would unleash completely gratuitous violence. Prophecy realized.

If the US left Iraq, removing the only buffer between sects that have been warring longer than the US has been a country, would only serve to once again unleash gratuitous violence.

Posted by BCM | March 20, 2008 5:55 PM

BCM, I was also against this war from the beginning, not only because of the expectations of violence, but because it was based on lies. I guess that makes us both prophets.

"would only serve to once again unleash gratuitous violence."

And the violence going on now is not gratuitious?

Unlike you, BCM, I learned the other lesson of Vietnam: US military occupation is not required for other people to solve their problems. If they want to kill each other, we don't need to be paying for it in our own blood and treasure.

Posted by Joel | March 20, 2008 6:10 PM

There is also no reason to back the consistently taken a myopic view of the importance and costs of Iraq by the war's advocates and supporters. Yes, we can keep our fingers in the Civil War dike, but the cost is too high strategically and financially for the nation to bear. Petreaus gets paid to be myopic and view the world from his particular foxhole, the rest of us do not. The nightmare scenarios painted by Bush and his allies of a post-US Iraq seem no more likely than the false nightmare scenarios they painted of the Saddam era Iraq. It's time to make the hard headed cost benefit analysis, cut our losses and go.

Posted by AJ | March 20, 2008 6:25 PM

After reading the long post at Juan Cole's Informed Comment today on how the Neocons continue to set the stage for an Iran war; and then Harper's article on the battle in the Pentagon over Iraq, not Iran, on the question of drawing down the troops as planned -- or not -- I worry all the more that the main reason Bush&Neocons want the surge troops levels to stay where there are over the summer is that they want them there, ready for this 2nd act: the bigger and better preemptive war, the ultimate October Surprise. McCain is already getting prepped by the Administration to be the rightful successor, to be the new War President. What better way to seal the legacy and lock the nation and the world into this messianic mission of the Neocons?

Posted by sluethiness_in_the_blogosphere | March 20, 2008 7:09 PM

And the violence going on now is not gratuitous?

Well, it looks like it's at least getting better since the Surge began:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4228

If they want to kill each other, we don't need to be paying for it in our own blood and treasure.

Maybe we should have thought that through 5 years ago then. You break it, you fix it.

Posted by BCM | March 20, 2008 7:38 PM

"It's a neocon page; I thought we'd all finally admitted that. If the argument isn't out of place at the NY Sun, it isn't out of place in a WP editorial.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 20, 2008 3:12 PM"

It's basically a second-rate version of the WSJ now: one paper, two audiences. The WSJ's business reporting, and even sometimes its political reporting, is better also. The WaPo is now a shell of its former self to a greater extent than possibly any major American daily.

"Maybe we should have thought that through 5 years ago then. You break it, you fix it.

Posted by BCM | March 20, 2008 7:38 PM"

When Iraq had like 2 million people, the Brits couldn't fix it over 30 years while stationing 90,000 troops there. We are learning why the final days of European imperialism were so bloody. There are only 2 realistic ways to have the kumbaya solution: 1) a massive, few-million, international troop presence in Iraq backed by several UN members in full force or 2) let one side win the civil war. The UN, according to the RAND Corporation, has a better peacekeeping track record than us, so they would probably do a better job at this, but at this point no one is willing to contribute troops. Our last chance to see #1 was in 2004 when we could have elected Kerry, thus having about a 15% chance this would come to pass. We decided to fail. Over 80% of civil wars only end when one side wins. Period. End of story. Iraq has never been a real nation-state. It's an imperial conceit. Putting all of our blood and treasure into propping up a mirage is a fool's errand. Nobody likes what the alternative is, but when you simply lack the tools to do a job, putting everything you've got into a relatively minor sideshow is simply foolish and doomed to failure.

A less savory option is to back one group against another, possibly leading to a partition. This has the benefit of probably ensuring that one side in the Sunni-Shia battle would win. However, Iraq isn't our country and it looks like no one wants partition because everyone wants the oil revenues. Short of burning all of the oil fields, which won't happen, there isn't a real solution that is feasible at this time. The time for this debate at the latest was late 2004. Now we're just fiddling while Rome burns. If we stay in Iraq, we might as well hand this next century to China and see how they handle shaping it.

Posted by Reality Man | March 20, 2008 9:24 PM

Reality Man:
**The WaPo is now a shell of its former self to a greater extent than possibly any major American daily.**

Ah, but you forget the once-great Boston Globe. Now owned by NYT, and the most boring newspaper on the planet. Except for a couple of people in Washington, almost all the non-local news is just reprinted wire-service stories (mostly AP). Editorial and Op-ed pages, which were once lively, interesting, thought-provoking and surprising, are now totally predictable, boring, and uninteresting.

As a certified old fart, I'd like my old Globe back, but I fear that all the kind of writing I like is now exclusively here in blogland.
hk

Posted by harveykek | March 20, 2008 9:54 PM

It is interesting how "U.S. commanders and diplomats in Iraq" seemingly effortlessly conclude from "sectarian conflict would probably explode in its full fury, causing bloodshed on a far greater scale than ever before" this "posing grave threats to U.S. security". I understand that withdrawal might lead to escalation and bigger bloodshed, which is very unfortunate indeed, but why should it pose "grave threats to U.S. security" - I do not understand.

Posted by OM | March 20, 2008 10:03 PM

Maybe all the booze i've consumed watching the greatest sporting event in the history of civilation has clouded my brain from seeing your brilliant point, but what's baffling about this, matt? They don't have an honest argument to cite, so they came up with a dishonest one. Simple, right?

Posted by Client #11 | March 21, 2008 3:46 AM

Seems like a perfectly reasonable editorial to me. Anyone betting on a significantly different approach to Iraq by any of the three remaining candidates is going to be disappointed. It is inconceivable that any US President would just turn their back on a place of such importance, both in symbolic and in concrete, practical terms. Iraq simply can't be left in chaos, and no one else is going to do the work of preventing it.

The UN "has a better peacekeeping record than us" because they don't have to do much. PeaceKEEPING is a breeze compared to peaceMAKING. The UN doesn't even attempt to deploy to places they're not invited, and where the fighting has already ended for the most part. Besides, no one else has a force that could do it--then SACEUR Marine General Jones told the BBC in 2004 that continental European forces were "less than 10% usefully deployable", and things have not improved since then. The countries that have any appropriate forces at all are currently reneging on their obligations in Afghanistan.

We're looking at a decades-long commitment in Iraq, and anyone who says otherwise is either mistaken, or lying.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 21, 2008 5:19 AM

We're looking at a decades-long commitment in Iraq, and anyone who says otherwise is either mistaken, or lying.

Posted by Robert Powel

I say otherwise, and I challenge you to prove I'm mistaken, given that a key piece of evidence for such an absurd statement is dependent on what is actually real within "decades", rather than continuous parades of pompous statements of what 'must' be by self-aggrandizing moralizers.

Posted by El Cid | March 21, 2008 5:28 AM

You're right of course. There can be no "proof" of what will happen in the Iraq of the future. It's my belief that you will see this proof in time.

But then, we may convert entirely to hydrogen for energy and to Islam for religion. There's a lot more evidence to support the likelihood of a decades-long commitment in Iraq, though.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 21, 2008 5:45 AM

A lot of what is seen as "evidence" for what must happen in Iraq is based on the view that U.S. political leaders will continue to make the same assumptions and calculations facing the same context as now. That will most certainly not be the case, and what will surprise many may be that once U.S. forces are all but withdrawn, the huge controversy about that which folks such as yourself allege will not arise. A giant "who lost Iraq" debate is foreseen as inevitable, as are dire consequences on the ground; yet what is more likely is in fact the disappearance of the previously inevitable.

Posted by El Cid | March 21, 2008 5:55 AM

The importance of Iraq's oil reserves, and the potential they provide for Iraq to dominate those of at least some of its neighbors, is not going to change soon. Neither is Iran going to stop being a neighbor, nor the Persian Gulf stop being the world's most important trade route. The millions of Iraqis who have more-or-less worked with us are not all going to move to Kansas. Moreover, we've got about a million families that have members who have served in Iraq, and they're not going to buy that their sacrifices were simply about Bush's personality flaws.

There won't be any "who lost Iraq" debate if Iraq is allowed to continue to gradually stabilize into a state or states more or less aligned with Western interests, and at peace with its/their neighbors. The idea that this wouldn't figure into the "assumptions and calculations" of any possible President seems to me utterly far-fetched.

It seems what Matt is saying recently is something like "we can't be sure if pulling out will result in Iraq's implosion or not, so let's try it". Resting the fate of their administration, and in fact much more on a coin toss would be very un-Presidential, and I can't see any one of these three doing it.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 21, 2008 6:26 AM

Moreover, we've got about a million families that have members who have served in Iraq, and they're not going to buy that their sacrifices were simply about Bush's personality flaws.

This is the sort of pompous nonsense I'm talking about. This is rich! You apparently have the idea that you can simply bark unquestioned as though the notion that the U.S. might withdraw from Iraq is exactly the same as lining up all the families of service members and plunging their babies into dirty toilets.

Do you ever talk to any of these families? Are you some sort of deluded maniac who thinks he can talk for them, or can cite some polls to pretend you do?

Do you go home and imagine that you're holding telepathic conferences with the spirit of military families past?

Listen, nutbag, I live in this country, too, and my friends and coworkers and neighbors etc. have also been those serving. I have no idea why you think that your bizarrely ideological views qualify you to speak of what military family members not only do, not only will, but must think.

And then you assume that everyone reading will simply cower beneath your ludicrous assertions, which, by the way, are not borne out by the variety of views I have encountered.

As a matter of fact, two of those who have managed to come back from Iraq (one badly injured, probably permanently) expressed pretty much that exact view as the one you ridiculed -- the entire war was about Bush Jr and his allies' personal delusions, and the toppling of Saddam a good thing in principle but a complex reality given what happened to the country -- and yet I think they would roundly beat you about the head if you started your lecture to them and their families on how dare they p*ss on the graves of the friends they lost by suggesting Bush Jr. was full of sh*t.

Most of these people are strong, given their injuries, and they don't need a lecture from such as you on how to view the war and occupation as a policy in order to honor their own, their friends, and their families' service.

Jerk.

Posted by El Cid | March 21, 2008 6:57 AM

"There's a lot more evidence to support the likelihood of a decades-long commitment in Iraq, though."

Actually, no. The best evidence is that the US people will not support a decades-long commitment in Iraq.

The clearest parallel between the current US military occupation of Iraq in recent history is the Vietnam war. We got into both distant countries based on lies. Continued military involvement resulted in no solutions, but involved a crippling cost to the US economy and an unacceptable burden in American blood. Both were sold as a fight against a fictional enemy (Vietnam, Global War on Communism; Iraq, Global War on Terror). The majority of Americans soured on Vietnam and we left. The majority of Americans have soured on Iraq. We're leaving.

The US commitment to Vietnam ended, and the dominos didn't fall. There is no convincing evidence that if the US left Iraq, things would be any different. There is not an atom of evidence that it would empower al Qaeda--that's just Bush administration propaganda.

Posted by Joel | March 21, 2008 7:03 AM

I respect the sincerity of your strongly held views, El Cid, but I've got a right to mine too.

I have served, most of the men in my family did, and I've got friends and family in the military right now. That doesn't empower me to speak for all the military families in the country, nor would I presume to, but it does give me the right to have an opinion about what a lot of them think. I believe you'll agree that nothing I wrote had anything to do with plunging babies or pissing on graves. I'll take responsibility for what I write, but not for you hysteria.

The idea that the whole story of the Iraq war can be summed up as a critique of George Bush's personality flaws is widespread, and wrong. In my view it is demeaning of the sacrifice made by millions of Americans, including this one.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 21, 2008 8:21 AM

Powell: I too have served in the military, as had my father and others in my family, though as I always say, my own term of service was simple, not exciting, and not in war. And like I said, I also have friends and colleagues in the military right now.

None of which is relevant to the rightness or wrongness of any argument, whether held by 100% of everyone or held by myself alone. Consider a hypothetical example of two individuals with equally dramatic or heroic military biographies who hold contrary opinions; clearly it becomes obvious that arguments by biography fail when the biographies cancel out, and the arguments are left to survive or fail on their own.

And you may as ever feel free to equate my ridiculing of your ideological and baseless assertions, particularly the more sneering ones, as "hysteria", but it's simple parody in order to support the engagement of real issues without having some hack characterize positions with which he disagrees as being the functional equivalent of denigrating the troops, licking Saddam's or various tyrants' boots, and whatever other insinuations strike you as useful.

Posted by El Cid | March 21, 2008 8:36 AM

El Cid:
I take responsibility for what I write, and I expect you to do likewise. I answered your question, "do you ever talk to any of these families?"--yeah, I'm in one. I didn't bring it up, you did.

What my life experience is relevant to is not "any argument", but the right to express my opinion that many people like me consider the attempts to reduce the long, drawn-out, and costly struggle in Iraq to a partisan cliche about George Bush's personality flaws to be at least childish, and at worst an insult to the sacrifices we made in good faith and with decent motivations. I've got a right to state that opinion without being insulted.

I don't consider myself a paragon of righteousness, and I don't easily question the good faith and motives of others without serious justification. But when I'm confronted with the current equivalent of being called a baby killer and getting my uniform spat on, I don't mind pointing out the hypocrisy of those who so easily discount the costs paid by Iraqis and Americans, Iranians and Kuwaitis, and others, before George Bush ever made it to the White House.

Bush deserves to be held accountable for his mistakes, but so did Saddam Hussein.

If you think I've made an "ideological or baseless assertion", by all means point it out. If you've got a fact that demonstrates it I want to know it--credibility is important to me, and I don't want to go around writing things that are factually incorrect. But it seems that ridicule is your only recourse when I make a comment that doesn't fit your script, but that you can't factually dispute. And when it takes the form of putting words in my mouth like "pissing on graves", I think hysteria is an fair characterization of the tone you set.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 21, 2008 12:50 PM

"Except the US military is ensuring that a vicious power vacuum doesn't open up."

This is completely untrue. The only thing that has happened due to the presence of the US military is that the Sunnis decided they couldn't fight the US, the Shia and Al Qaeda simultaneously. So they decided to take US money, get rid of much (but not all) of Al Qaeda, and wait for the US get out so they can go back to fighting the Shia.

That's it - that's the total sum (leaving out the 1.3 million dead Iraqis, and four million displaced) of the US invasion.

As for Powell, WHEN are you people going to stop feeding this asshole troll?

"when I'm confronted with the current equivalent of being called a baby killer and getting my uniform spat on"

Which never fucking happened, as everyone now knows except this propagandist jerk who continues to recite bullshit on this blog day and day out.

He's a FUCKING LIAR. Get it through your heads, folks. He's PAID to be a FUCKING LIAR. He's a paid propagandist and a neocon shill.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 21, 2008 7:00 PM

One sure test of credibility is checking to see whether people calling others "liar", etc. ever actually document any factual errors. Neither Hack, El Cid, nor any of the others foaming at the mouth on this issue have done so in my case.

Those who seem to think that boorishness is evidence of moral superiority and/or authority don't as a rule actually have the goods.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 22, 2008 2:53 AM

Surge
The surge has created an "opportunity" for political accommodation in Iraq according to General Montgomery Meigs. This window was made possible by a whole series of events 1) the training of Iraqi forces 2)the decreasing violence by the militias 3) crippling of al-Qaida in Iraq. More importantly, we have to "exploit" this opening with American and Iraqi troops fighting al Qaida, the influence of Iranian troops, foreign fighters, and so on.

Timelines & Troop Withdrawals by Presidential Candidates
Meigs states these promises "complicate" the delicate balance of assisting the Iraqis while "preempting" the military in accurately assessing future military capability.

"Straight Talk" by the candidates
The candidates need to educate the American public about the realities in Iraq and the Middle East. It is much better to describe the "conditions of success" rather than planning for fixed timelines.

Posted by EWard | March 23, 2008 3:05 AM