O'Hanlon Quality Analysis

Ah, excellent, just what I needed. Some fresh Michael O'Hanlon commentary on Iraq:

The most intriguing area of late is the sphere of politics. To track progress, we have established “Brookings benchmarks” — a set of goals on the political front similar to the broader benchmarks set for Baghdad by Congress last year. Our 11 benchmarks include establishing provincial election laws, reaching an oil-revenue sharing accord, enacting pension and amnesty laws, passing annual federal budgets, hiring Sunni volunteers into the security forces, holding a fair referendum on the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk, and purging extremists from government ministries and security forces.

At the moment, we give the Iraqis a score of 5 out of 11 (our system allows a score of 0, 0.5, or 1 for each category, and is dynamic, meaning we can subtract points for backsliding). It is far too soon to predict that Iraq is headed for stability or sectarian reconciliation. But it is also clear that those who assert that its politics are totally broken have not kept up with the news.

I think Brookings Benchmarks are kind of like Disney Dollars, i.e. funny money. We get no sense of where this five out of eleven comes from or what it's really supposed to signify. The general thrust of the exercise seems to be to cast "failure" as such an extreme scenario that it can never actually happen. O'Hanlon will always be wisely positioned between the over-optimists and the over-pessimists, always urging us to hang on for a couple more Friedman Units, and so the war will continue, forever and ever just as John McCain wants.

Comments

As I've consistently advocated, Mike O'Hanlon for Hillary's VP.

He's definitely passing the C-in-C threshold here. One Friedman at a time.

Posted by HeavyJ | March 9, 2008 11:31 PM

Quite so, Matt.

Shouldn't the Times require, as a condition of publishing this semi-regular series of installments, that the authors provide more detail at the Brookings or Times web sites?

No detail on these 11 benchmarks is apparent at the Brookings site (I couldn't find it in the March 3 index at http://www.brookings.edu/saban/~/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index.pdf ) and no additional info is at the Times.

Moreover, Googling "brookings benchmarks" yields just two hits, one Yglesias and neither O'Hanlon's.

Posted by Steve | March 9, 2008 11:52 PM

True Story: it originally only went up to 10, but then O'Hanlon was thinking "once you've got to 10, where else can you go?". This one goes up to 11.

Posted by P O'Neill | March 9, 2008 11:53 PM

P O'Neill wins the thread!

Posted by drjimcooper | March 9, 2008 11:54 PM

First Secret Plan for Peace.

Now Secret Benchmarks for Success.

Next up: Secret Reasons to invade a country.

Oh wait, we were already there.

So the good O'Hanlon is reversing! Can a secret plan for peace be far ahead?

Posted by gregor | March 9, 2008 11:57 PM

Michael O'Hanlon eats the peanuts out of Dick Cheney's "conservative movements." There's no reason to take anything he takes seriously.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | March 9, 2008 11:58 PM

You have to pay real money for Disney Dollars, but they're not actually worth anything--outside fantasy land that is.

Posted by southpaw | March 10, 2008 12:09 AM

Schrutebucks? Stanley Nickels?

Posted by Viskovitz | March 10, 2008 12:19 AM

outside fantasy land that is

That's a blatant falsehood! They can also be used in Adventureland, Tomorrowland, and New Orleans Square.

Posted by Seitz | March 10, 2008 12:19 AM

Guess which Dem candidate O'Hanlon supports?

Posted by Killjoy | March 10, 2008 12:32 AM

"We get no sense of where this five out of eleven comes from or what it's really supposed to signify."

Your Iraq commentary has really jumped the shark.

This time last year you (and several prominent Democrats) claimed that the surge was pointless and wouldn't reduce sectarian violence (civilian deaths caused by such violence dropped from 2700 in February 2007 to 700 last month). When you were proved wrong on that prediction, you and Pelosi & Co. claimed that the surge was still either a failure or pointless because there was no progress on political reconciliation among the Iraqis. When presented with evidence of such progress at the grassroots levels, Dems dismissed this saying that the Iraqi legislature still hadn't scheduled local elections, passed an amnesty law for low-level Baathists not implicated in Saddam's crimes, or passed an oil law. Now that the legislature has passed the first two of these, and has passed a budget which includes an equitable distribution of oil revenues to the provinces, it's impossible for you to claim that there hasn't been any progress by Iraqis toward political reconciliation.

So your new tack is to compare these same benchmarks that Democrats used as evidence of a lack of progress when they hadn't been met to "Disney Dollars" and babble about Friedman Units and throw in the lie that McCain wants the Iraq war to go on forever.

Posted by Fred | March 10, 2008 12:56 AM

Alternative O'Hanlon. There are 13 benchmarks, but since they all share one bench--bench notches?--they can only be seen a few at a time, unless one takes the long view with a wide angle lens. But since it's impossible to take the wide angle view, because my view of one benchmark affects the observed phenomenon in relationship to all the others, I have hypothesized that we can call Iraq a nation in the grip of a transformational quantum dynamic chronological set of observations, in which any one benchmark at any time may be advancing, or not, depending on the input of the observer. And, any advance we see, necessarily means an advance incorporating any additional or random five other benchmarks, regardless of what these would show, looked at directly. It's all optics and quantum mechanics, but who said there were any facts on the ground to begin with.

Shorter O'Hanlon; Iraq is what I say it is, except when it's not, but then it never happens in my view to be not.

Posted by old mortality | March 10, 2008 12:58 AM

Meanwhile, the Washington Post last Friday ran an editorial by Susan Rice and Stewart Patrick that unleashed, "under the auspices of the Brookings Institution," the "Index of State Weakness in the Developing World." And where was Iraq, you ask? Fourth weakest state in the world, right behind Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But...yeah, progress. Definitely. If we keep our troops in place, maybe Iraq can surpass the strength of Burundi, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

Posted by Brian | March 10, 2008 1:08 AM

Hey Matt, have you read Walzer's piece on mercenaries?

http://www.tnr.com/story.html?id=a498d530-e959-4f1e-8432-8851075ac657&p=1

This seems right up your alley.

Posted by blah | March 10, 2008 1:18 AM

Hehe. It's got to be tough when reality intrudes on the Reality-Based Community.

Posted by Al | March 10, 2008 1:22 AM

At the moment, I give the O'Hanlon a score of 5 out of 11 (my system allows a score of 0, 0.5, or 1 for each category, and is dynamic, meaning I can subtract points for backsliding). It is far too soon to predict that O'Hanlon will never write anything of value again. But it is also clear that those who assert that he's not currently a babbling fool have not kept up with the news.

Posted by Stephen | March 10, 2008 1:24 AM

Fred, blogging from his unit in Iraq no doubt:

"Civilian deaths caused by such violence dropped from 2700 in February 2007 to 700 last month."

All hail the Free and Peaceful Republic of Exxonistan. Dear Leader, we embrace the Hundred Year Plan!

Posted by HeavyJ | March 10, 2008 1:59 AM

Fred, blogging from his unit in Iraq no doubt:

"Civilian deaths caused by such violence dropped from 2700 in February 2007 to 700 last month."

All hail the Free and Peaceful Republic of Exxonistan. Dear Leader, we embrace the Hundred Year Plan!

Posted by HeavyJ | March 10, 2008 2:00 AM

I too Googled "Brookings benchmarks," and got nothing but quotations of today's column: "To track progress, we have established “Brookings benchmarks” — a set of goals on the political front similar to the broader benchmarks set for Baghdad by Congress last year."

It reminds me of the SNL McLaughlin Group skit from 1992, when, during the "Predictions" segment, Dana Carvey-as-McLaughlin said, "Congress shall admit a 51st state to the union. It will consist of swiss cheese, be inhabited by fairies, and exist entirely in Pat's head. It will be the only state he has a chance of winning."

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | March 10, 2008 2:07 AM

Fred --

While its true that the legislature passed a law for local elections, I note that you neglect to state that it was rejected by the presidency council, and sent back to parliament.

It's also true that a de-Baathification law was passed. However, I think you missed the part where the Sunni legislators, who obviously have the most at stake, voted against it on the grounds that it could be used to exclude more more former Baathists than before.

Finally, it's straight up false that a revenue sharing agreement has been passed.

On the scale of "Brookings benchmarks", I guess that's a 2/3.

Posted by muffie | March 10, 2008 2:18 AM

While looking (so far unsuccessfully) on the Brookings site itself for any listing of O'Hanlon's benchmark appraisals in the past, I did find his Sept. 2007 analysis of the situation ( http://www.brookings.edu/multimedia/video/2007/0913Ohanlon.aspx ), which contains -- and is in fact headlined by Brookings -- with the immortal statement "Yes, the strategy is failing, but it’s going to lead to a situation where things get worse if we leave."

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | March 10, 2008 2:19 AM

"... holding a fair referendum on the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk..."

This is the big one. The Shia claim it, the Kurds claim it, even the Turks claim it. The referendum on Kirkuk will be put off for many Friedman Units because to do so now would be very bloody.

Posted by patrick | March 10, 2008 2:26 AM

What Fred said.

In actual practice, oil revenues are ALREADY being shared (see Crocker testimony); violence is way down (compare with, for example, Brazil or South Africa); there is a real and rapidly growing economy (someone mentioned Zimbabwe?); every day that passes sees further deterioration in the already shambolic "insurgency" (Muqtada al Sadr is now calling for his militia to convert to a charity organization); US casualties are approaching the norm for peacetime deployments; etc. But why go on? Everybody knows that the entire history of Iraq started some time in GW Bush's first term, and that his lies sent us into the worst ever illegal unilateral war for oil which is a military disaster on the order of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.

I figure it's damned near impossible for Democrats to lose the election this time, but if there's a way to do it, it will be found by those following the lead of the Quisling press as illustrated here.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 10, 2008 3:15 AM

The term "Friedman Unit" has been replaced by the "Muqtada Unit".

Posted by Mr. Forward | March 10, 2008 6:41 AM

"and so the war will continue, forever and ever just as John McCain wants."

And so will O'Hanlon's funding.

Posted by bob h | March 10, 2008 6:55 AM

We get no sense of where this five out of eleven comes from or what it's really supposed to signify.

We've never been told what our actual objectives are in Iraq. Bush has never agreed to benchmarks, goals, end points, etc. Especially end points. Were Iraq to hit those 11 a new 11 or 12 or 40 or 3 would suddenly appear to replace them. We're in Iraq to be in Iraq. The purpose of war is war.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 10, 2008 8:34 AM

Another Bush victim.

In his statement, al-Sadr said: “Many persons who are close to me have split for materialistic reasons or for wanting to be independent, and this was one of the reasons behind my absence.
“Yet I still have many people loyal and faithful to me and I advise them to direct society toward education and teaching.”
He said, “the presence of the occupier” and his movement’s failure “to liberate Iraq ... as well as the disobedience of many people and their deviation from the right course has pushed me into isolation in protest over this.”

Yes, Moktada al-Sadr has chickened out and moved permanently to Iran, where he claims he’s studying for his Doctor of Ayatollah degree.

Posted by Neo | March 10, 2008 8:49 AM

Another Bush victim.

In his statement, al-Sadr said: “Many persons who are close to me have split for materialistic reasons or for wanting to be independent, and this was one of the reasons behind my absence.

“Yet I still have many people loyal and faithful to me and I advise them to direct society toward education and teaching.”

He said, “the presence of the occupier” and his movement’s failure “to liberate Iraq ... as well as the disobedience of many people and their deviation from the right course has pushed me into isolation in protest over this.”

Yes, Moktada al-Sadr has chickened out and moved permanently to Iran, where he claims he’s studying for his Doctor of Ayatollah degree.

Posted by Neo | March 10, 2008 8:52 AM

Uh oh. Sounds like some of you have gotten Colonel Blimp's gall up. Be nice now.

Posted by El Cid | March 10, 2008 9:19 AM

Yes, Moktada al-Sadr has chickened out and moved permanently to Iran, where he claims he’s studying for his Doctor of Ayatollah degree.

Great. We've driven al-Sadr to Iran. That's why hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have been uprooted.

Can we leave, now?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 10, 2008 9:20 AM

Yes the Iraq war has been well and truly won, and the Surge did it. The only thing that ever mattered was conditions on the ground in Washington and they were determined by how successful the perceptions were managed. The Bushies know more about us than we know about ourselves.

McBush will likely be thrown out on the economy, which was probably wrecked by the war anyway so there may be a kind of poetic justice. The President will be in the same position as Nixon and, thanks to the perception management, may well find it difficult to escape the quagmire, so Bush may have the last laugh anyway.

Posted by Chris Dornan | March 10, 2008 10:13 AM

Fred wrote:

This time last year you (and several prominent Democrats) claimed that the surge was pointless and wouldn't reduce sectarian violence.

Which was true. The surge caused a spike in sectarian violence; violence dropped in September 2007, after the surge caused more Iraqis to die (and after Petraeus went before Congress and lied about violence being down) due to Sadr's cease-fire.

you and Pelosi & Co. claimed that the surge was still either a failure or pointless because there was no progress on political reconciliation among the Iraqis. When presented with evidence of such progress at the grassroots levels,

The separation of Iraq into ethnically-cleansed areas is not "Grassroots progress." the question is why conservatives continue to point to "peace" in ethnically-homogenous areas as a sign of progress.

And of course the political-reconciliation measures passed by Iraq's nonexistent "government" turned out either to be fraudulent, unimplementable, vetoed or worse than useless (the anti-reconciliation De-Ba'athification measure).

and throw in the lie that McCain wants the Iraq war to go on forever.

McCain wants us to stay in Iraq until we "win." "Winning" is defined as an end to violence in Iraq. Since staying in Iraq makes the violence continue, McCain wants Americans to die in Iraq forever.

If McCain wants to stop being accused of wanting the war to continue forever, he has to have some willingness to pull out if, say, it's 2016 and the war is still going on and we're almost bankrupt. McCain has no such plan, since he would rather America suffer endless defeat and humiliation than accept the minor, insignificant "defeat" of a pullout from Iraq.

So, Fred, if you think McCain doesn't want the war to continue forever, then explain to us if there is a point at which he would be willing to pull out even though we haven't "won?" If he says the war will continue till we "win," and defines "winning" in a way that can never happen, then McCain is willing to let the war continue forever, and so are you. Because McCain puts his ego ahead of the interests of America, just as Bush ordered the failed surge for the sake of his ego.

Posted by T.B. | March 10, 2008 10:29 AM

Quisling press as illustrated here.
Posted by Robert Powell | March 10, 2008 3:15 AM

Yes only when the USA is Liberalerrein will the virtuous manly American nation of sacred Christian vitue and free market principle be unshackled from the yoke of liberal tyranny and traitorism.

Posted by Northern Observer | March 10, 2008 10:59 AM

Re: Kirkuk
"This is the big one. The Shia claim it, the Kurds claim it, even the Turks claim it. The referendum on Kirkuk will be put off for many Friedman Units because to do so now would be very bloody. "

I assume you mean ethnic Turkmen, not Turkey. Considering Turkeys incursions lately, it is a distinction one should be careful with.

On a tenuously related not, I saw something recently stating that Iraqi Kurds now outnumber Iraqi Sunni Arabs.

Posted by Njorl | March 10, 2008 11:09 AM

Robert wrote: "US casualties are approaching the norm for peacetime deployments".

I suggest that 400 US soldiers killed annually, 130,000 troops tied down, and $120b each year is not a normal peacetime deployment.

On to something more serious - I hesitate to even slightly agree with O'Hacklon, but there really has been some political progress, which was the original intent of the surge. Whether the surge had anything to do with it is a separate question, but where do we go from here?

One guidance I'd like to see is what the people and the semi-elected leadership of Iraq want. A year or two ago they wanted us the hell out of there, but I haven't seen opinion polls in a long time.

Posted by Brian Schmidt | March 10, 2008 11:19 AM

Get a life dude.

It's obviously the case that a few bombings will continue, but these guys really are the last of the dead-enders.

I'll will say this: We're winning this war: The administration sees it, the military sees it, the American people see it, and Iraqis themselves see it - as they increasingly renounce their own religion's fight against the historic forces of freedom.

The only people who don't see are some beer-addled beatniks hanging out in some dirty blogging Flophouse.

Posted by Americaneocon | March 10, 2008 11:34 AM

Americaneocon wrote:

It's obviously the case that a few bombings will continue, but these guys really are the last of the dead-enders.

Last throes!

Geez, given that the violence levels in Iraq are currently those of 2005 (horrible civil war violence, but not as bad as at the height of 2007), can't you at least come up with rhetoric that's different from 2005? We all heard the "we're winning" and "these bombings are just the last of the dead-enders" stuff three years ago. Get some new material.

Posted by T.B. | March 10, 2008 11:45 AM

"and has passed a budget which includes an equitable distribution of oil revenues to the provinces,"

Can someone give me a link to this? I find it hard to believe this happened, and the Bush Admin didn't trumpet it.

Posted by Doofus | March 10, 2008 12:20 PM

Nevermind Disney Dollars, the 'Brookings benchmarks' put me in mind of the immortal Spinal Tap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akaD9v460yI

Posted by highwater | March 10, 2008 12:22 PM

It's obviously the case that a few bombings will continue, but these guys really are the last of the dead-enders.

If the insurgency is down to the last of the dead enders, why is the Iraqi state unable to stand without our continued ground deployment?

Posted by Brian | March 10, 2008 12:28 PM

How many points is each KIA U.S. troop worth? I assume it will be backsliding.

Posted by Gerald Weinand | March 10, 2008 12:37 PM

"The only people who don't see are some beer-addled beatniks hanging out in some dirty blogging Flophouse."

entirely true.

(that is, if 'beer-addled beatniks' means 'residents of baghdad' and 'blogging flophouse' means 'capital city that has limited electricity and clean drinking water.')

Posted by cha cha cha | March 10, 2008 12:43 PM

This is a NYT article regarding Turkey's attachment to Kirkuk.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E0D71F3BF93AA35751C0A9639C8B63

Posted by patrick | March 10, 2008 1:48 PM

Brian Schmidt--every death is a tragedy, but a little perspective is in order. According to DoD via "Harpers Index", 7,500 US soldiers died on duty during the Clinton years. I'll accept that this wasn't peacetime either, as the war in Iraq which started in 1991 required major deployments right along, but I think the numbers you cite lack proper context. Soldiering is a dangerous business. Winning wars is the only reason to have soldiers.

Norther Observer--au contraire mon frere. We need more Liberalism and less fellow-traveling with its enemies.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 10, 2008 1:52 PM

"Can someone give me a link to this? I find it hard to believe this happened, and the Bush Admin didn't trumpet it."

See The Long War Journal, February 25th, 2008: "Inside Iraqi politics – Part 4. A look at legislative progress: Reconciliation via wealth distribution". Excerpt:

"The budget is also considered a measure of reconciliation, because it candidly reflects the government’s willingness to distribute resources equitably among regions and sects. This is especially relevant in the absence of an official agreement about the division of Iraq’s oil profits, which constitute about 95 percent of the country’s revenue."

In other words, although there isn't a permanent agreement on the equitable distribution of oil revenues yet, the budget passed last month represents an agreement by Iraqi lawmakers on an equitable distribution of oil revenues for this year.

Posted by Fred | March 10, 2008 1:59 PM

Actually, the best recent summary of the situation in Iraq I've seen has come from Andrew Sullivan ( http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/the-truth-pleas.html ):

" Last week, while I was sleeping, Charles Krauthammer cited Anthony Cordesman's latest report on Iraq as evidence that the war in Iraq was finally going well. McCain has also made this point. But actually reading Cordesman, you sure don't get that impression. Cordesman loves the surge. He thinks it's been a triumph of violence-suppression, and his data are as solid as we are likely to get (although, as he admits, sectarian violence and cleansing continue beneath the casualty headlines). But Cordesman understands -- and is admirably candid about -- what remains to be done. We need roughly the same amount of troops we have now through at least the next presidency, and probably through 2016 or even 2020. We need to be spending money in the country consistently for the next decade. Here's his poignant to-do list, now that we have only 2005's levels of mayhem:
____________________________

(1) Consolidate gains against Al Qa’ida in Mesopotamia.

(2) Move towards stable accommodation: Change de-Baathification law, provincial powers act and elections, oil law, etc.

(3) Keep Shi’ite militias (Sadr forces) under control, and prevent more sectarian and ethnic cleansing in greater Baghdad area.

(4) Consolidate creation of tribal militias, ensure they get proper central government support, and that central government recognizes importance of Sunni Sheiks.

(5) Stabilize provinces that still have serious conflict -- Ninewa, Salah ad Din, Diyala -- and prevent Al Qa’ida in Mesopotamia forces from moving north.

(6) Avoid major intra-Shi’ite power struggles and conflicts in south. Limit turmoil and Iranian influence in Basra and south.

(7) Limit Kurd, Arab, minority fighting in North.

(8) Resolve the "federalism" issue through peaceful referendums.

(9) Develop truly capable Iraqi Army and regular forces to phase US role down to overwatch.

(10) Find solution to failure to develop effective approach to police force, and to dealing with local security forces, militias, and Facilities Protection Force.

(11) Establish effective local criminal justice system and local, provincial and national government presence.
_____________________________

"That's all. Yes: almost EVERYTHING remains to be done. Note also the Bush-like tendency to reduce the most intractable questions -- questions that have never, ever been resolved in centuries -- to simple topic sentences, as if writing these goals on a piece of paper makes them any less delusional. 'Resolve the "federalism" issue through peaceful referendums.' Okay. 'Develop truly capable Iraqi Army.' No problem. 'Limit Iranian influence.' Damn, we forgot about that. Should we make a call?

"Cordesman calls, euphemistically, for 'strategic patience.' What he means by that is the placement of at least 100,000 US troops, and probably more, at least for another five years, and almost certainly another ten.

"McCain seems to argue that this is no problem. It's not the occupation, he argues; it's the casualties. If casualties go below a certain point, he will decide that this 'war' is now something else. On a date certain it will 'soon be over,' whatever that means. But if McCain thinks that Western troops in the Muslim Arab heartland are not going to be shot at or fought or resented in ways we Westerners do not begin to understand for ever, or if he thinks that they will function as the kind of token symbolic force that exists in Germany or Japan or South Korea, he is -- how to put this politely? -- out of his mind.

"If McCain is going to give us straight talk -- one thing the Bush administration has been completely unable to do -- and believes that Iraq should remain a permanently integrated part of a new, expanding American protectorate in the Middle East, then he needs to say so. He needs to be honest about what his goal of turning Iraq into a stable, non-despotic, unified country, permanently occupied by US troops, requires. It will require trillions of dollars, a bare minimum of another decade of occupation, over 100,000 troops (probably more) committed indefinitely, and no leeway to tackle any major security threats anywhere else on the planet including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, without a draft. Oh, and then there's a need to maintain US public support for the Sisyphean task of nation-building a place where there is no nation, in a place a long way away, where our reward for such an effort will be fathomless contempt and hatred.

"McCain says we all want to leave Iraq. But some obviously don't. It is increasingly clear that the point of the surge and the occupation is to stay in Iraq for ever. Do we want that? Is it in the West's interest? Maybe, after all these years, we can have some minimal honesty in this debate. According to Cordesman, no progress is possible without maintaining the same level of troops of the past five years for the next five years. And we have no guarantee that anything will be saner then. That's the decision Americans need to make clearly, candidly, honestly, for the first time in this war. That's what this election is about. Let's put the choice on the table and collectively decide now -- for empire or retreat. We won't get an opportunity like this again. Everything else is either a pious hope or a serious lie."

Now, about that quisling press...

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | March 10, 2008 4:47 PM

"Empire or retreat....Everything else is either a pious hope or a serious lie".

Yep, that's the Quisling press alright.

We will be able to successfully ignore Iraq and go back to the sit-coms when, a) petroleum is no longer the lifeblood of the world economy; b) Islamic terrorism no longer emanates from the Middle East; and c) we no longer have any interest in a world order that can enforce the generally agreed upon norms of international conduct in terms of wars of aggression, wmd proliferation and use, genocide, and state sponsored terrorism. Somebody drop me a line when that's all squared away.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 10, 2008 6:02 PM

"Winning wars is the only reason to have soldiers."

Not sure how this was intended, but as a standalone statement, that's deeply troubling.

The point of having soldiers, ideally, is for the mere fact of their existence to guarantee the peace. Actually sending them in to fight and die is probably a political failure somewhere.

In Iraq, not only are our soldiers being killed-- at enormous tax-payer expense, and with no real hope for any "victory" this side of 2060--their presence there means they aren't properly able to do their real job with the rest of the world anymore. It's pretty much lose-lose-lose. (Though Iran, Osama B.L., North Korea, et al., are probably all happy enough about it.)

Posted by jack lecou | March 10, 2008 6:09 PM

The point of having soldiers, ideally, is for the mere fact of their existence to guarantee the peace. Actually sending them in to fight and die is probably a political failure somewhere.

I haven't read Clausewitz in awhile, but I believe his take was pretty much that war was a result of the failure of politics. Hell, Bush is pretty much a failure at everything, tho.

Posted by fauxmaxbaer | March 10, 2008 8:26 PM

The point of having soldiers, ideally, is for the mere fact of their existence to guarantee the peace. Actually sending them in to fight and die is probably a political failure somewhere.

I haven't read Clausewitz in awhile, but I believe his take was pretty much that war was a result of the failure of politics. Hell, Bush is pretty much a failure at everything, tho.

Posted by fauxmaxbaer | March 10, 2008 8:27 PM

"We will be able to successfully ignore Iraq and go back to the sit-coms when..."

actually, thousands upon thousands of american men and women who served in iraq will never be able to "ignore iraq and go back to the sit-coms."

Posted by cha cha cha | March 10, 2008 8:32 PM

According to DoD via "Harpers Index", 7,500 US soldiers died on duty during the Clinton years.

If you die on duty in Iraq and it's not combat it doesn't count toward the official count. Further, unless you straight up get shot or blown up it doesn't count. If the vehicle in front of you is blown up and you smash into it it's a vehicle accident and not a combat fatality. If there is any possible way to not classify a death in Iraq it's not counted.

Posted by Ed Marshall | March 10, 2008 8:40 PM

The time has come, now and forevermore, to proclaim that the phrase "Jumped the Shark" has now jumped the shark.

Move on. Nothing else to see here.

Posted by MonicaWolf | March 10, 2008 9:12 PM

The only people who don't see are some chickenhawks shitting themselves in the nearest closet.

Fixed your typo, troll.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | March 10, 2008 9:24 PM

OK; so Robert Powell has decided to go, openly, for empire. Which (as Sullivan pointed out, and as should be obvious) will go over REAL big with the Moslem world, including that part of it which already has or is developing the Bomb. If we're really going to try to set up an empire, one would think that trying to interfere with that latter process would be a somewhat higher-priority justification for it. And our eternal Tar Baby entanglement with Iraq, of course, seriously impedes both our military and our diplomatic ability to do so (as Sullivan, again, has pointed out -- along with a lot of Pentagon officials -- and as, again, should be obvious).

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | March 11, 2008 1:16 AM

As is obvious to any reasonably objective observer, this has nothing to do with "empire". We have an increasingly interdependent international community. Our interests are inextricably tied up with those of others, in particular our principal trading partners. Avoiding the kind of wars we fought in the last century, the casualties from which make Iraq's look like child's play, requires the ability of some force, or combination of forces, that can stand up to aggressive totalitarian powers like Ba'athist Iraq when they invade the neighbors, develop and use banned weapons, commit genocide, rocket supertankers, torch oilfields, defy the Security Council, etc.

Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and just about everyone else recognized that winning without fighting is the best strategy, but this is not always possible to do successfully. We tried it in Iraq for about twelve years. At the end of the day, real deterrence is provided by the ability to fight and win, not just march around in pretty uniforms. Otherwise the Vatican's Swiss Guard would have made war obsolete by now.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 11, 2008 3:54 AM

Sigh. Reading this tread made me sad that we don't have Samantha Power to kick around anymore. There are other ways to look at our long term interests than just picking Empire Jr. from the dollar menu like Powell, for example, does above. Sure, we have a national interesting in setting Iraq right but we have, for example, a greater national interest in, say, squaring Israel-Palestine and reducing our support of dictators in the region.

Posted by numbertwopencil | March 11, 2008 5:37 AM

Acting in concert with most of the world's most important democracies to address the unprecedented challenge of Iraq to the post-Cold War security architecture had nothing to do with "empire", Sr. or Jr.

We certainly have a national interest is "setting Iraq right", which would have been much easier to do in 1991. But it seems a lot less pressing in terms of objective, measurable national interests to be "squaring Israel-Palestine", even if someone knew how to do it. I've always been curious about how people imagine that we're going to force a democratic state to agree for what most of its citizens see as at least potential national suicide.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 11, 2008 11:23 AM

Probably in the same way that we force Iraq to agree to something that most of its citizens see as potential suicide, albeit at each others' hands rather than at the hands of outsiders.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | March 11, 2008 3:32 PM

I'm not sure I'm following you, Bruce. Are you suggesting that we should invade Israel and re-do their constitution? And then perhaps ethnically cleanse the areas specified by Hamas?

I'm not sure you're qualified to express what most Iraqi citizens think about the constitution they voted for. Until something better comes along, I'll go by their votes rather than your opinion if you don't mind.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 11, 2008 6:13 PM

Actually, Bob, most Iraqi citizens can't agree what they think about "the Constitution they voted for". Most Sunnis think the Constitution still leaves them with the upper hand and say so; most Shiites think the Constitution gives THEM the upper hand and say so; and most Kurds think the Constitution makes Kurdistan independent and say so. (Which, of course, is what I meant in my previous comment, since you seem to be deliberately obtuse this morning: the only way we can keep Iraq in one piece is the same way we would force Israel to accept glaringly self-destructive policies -- by occupying the place militarily and then sitting on it. And which is why Iraq will fly apart like a Catherine wheel -- or like the 1861 U.S. -- the moment we leave, no matter how long we stay. I see that O'Hanlon today agrees with Cordesman that we must keep a massive troop presence there for at least a decade to have any chance WHATSOEVER that Iraq will stay in one piece when we leave.)

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | March 11, 2008 6:27 PM

Now, about that "equitable distribution of oil revenues" that Fred is so excited about...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23578542/

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | March 12, 2008 1:18 AM

Bruce--
I don't see how it's in any way relevant to US interests if Iraq is a strong centralized state, a loose Federal structure with lots of local autonomy (especially in terms of security), or a collection of three or more successor states divided along sectarian or ethnic lines. Who cares? Iraqis have the tools at hand to work this out, and its in our interests only that they do so with as little violence as possible.

American interests, and those of the larger civilized world, are served by an Iraq that's reasonably stable, reasonably democratic, at peace with its neighbors, not beavering away on wmd's, and pumping oil. This is not Mission Impossible. We had a hell of a lot less to work with in South Korea fifty years ago, and that seems to be panning out okay.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 12, 2008 9:40 AM

Bruce--
I don't see how it's in any way relevant to US interests if Iraq is a strong centralized state, a loose Federal structure with lots of local autonomy (especially in terms of security), or a collection of three or more successor states divided along sectarian or ethnic lines. Who cares? Iraqis have the tools at hand to work this out, and its in our interests only that they do so with as little violence as possible.

American interests, and those of the larger civilized world, are served by an Iraq that's reasonably stable, reasonably democratic, at peace with its neighbors, not beavering away on wmd's, and pumping oil. This is not Mission Impossible. We had a hell of a lot less to work with in South Korea fifty years ago, and that seems to be panning out okay.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 12, 2008 9:42 AM