President Know-Nothing

Ilan Goldenberg flags Bush talking an unusually strong brand of nonsense:

Out of such chaos in Iraq, the terrorist movement could emerge emboldened -- with new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America. An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

Ilan focused on the implausibility of al-Qaeda gaining control over Iraq's oil fields (they're not in the Sunni Arab parts of Iraq, among other things). I would also note that were this bizarre scenario to unfold, it would be pretty trivial for the U.S. military to capture or control any AQI-held oil fields -- a poorly equipped guerilla force can't defend a fixed position in the open.

On top of that, though, this business about al-Qaeda securing a recruiting boon from us leaving Iraq is bizarre. According to MNF-Iraq, the occupation of Iraq is the main fact driving recruits to join AQI. Absent the occupation, there's no recruiting pitch. Pearl Harbor was a boon to U.S. military recruiting, VJ Day wasn't. And what's this business about them acquiring "an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America." Does Bush really think they lack determination now?

It's striking how much of conservative thinking about national security these days centers around subjective factors -- determination, emboldening, "claiming victory" -- rather than on objective assessments. Objectively speaking, withdrawing from Iraq would cut off a major line of recruiting for al-Qaeda while simultaneously freeing up vast quantities of American manpower and other resources. How "bold" that makes al-Qaeda leaders feel (and you've got to figure these fuckers were pretty "emboldened' already when they blew up the twin towers, right?) has nothing to do with anything.

Comments

It's not that he knows nothing, it's that he knows America knows nothing. We'll buy up his bullshit once again, and bam! More permanent bases in the Muslim world.

Posted by Monster | March 20, 2008 9:28 PM

Did anyone catch the NYT article yesterday, as part of the 5 year reflection on Iraq, titled Iraq's Insurgency Runs on Stolen Oil Profits .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/world/middleeast/16insurgent.html

The Iraqi oil money is a consistent, reliable resource for the Insurgency generally and Al-Qaeda in Mesopatamia. Why would the insurgents want to deal with having to run oil fields and refineries when they are already getting profits for free.

Posted by nattyb | March 20, 2008 9:32 PM

Scotty, we need more power!!

Posted by steve duncan | March 20, 2008 9:34 PM

ah, if only the media did their jobs instead of letting us "decide" what the facts are

Posted by tanks | March 20, 2008 9:40 PM

There are some oil fields in Sunni areas of Iraq, though most are in Shiite and Kurdish areas. Not all oil is in the South.

See for instance an oil fields near Fallujah or West Tikrit:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/security/esar/esar_bigpic.htm

I've not been able to find production numbers by field.

Posted by stefan | March 20, 2008 9:52 PM

There are some oil fields in Sunni areas of Iraq, though most are in Shiite and Kurdish areas. Not all oil is in the South.

See for instance an oil fields near Fallujah or West Tikrit:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/security/esar/esar_bigpic.htm

I've not been able to find production numbers by field.

Posted by stefan | March 20, 2008 9:55 PM

Points like this need to be kept alive. I get so tired of people on TV agreeing that (a) al Qaeda members are Muslim, and (b) Iraqis are Muslim, so (c ) if we leave they'll all become complacent to al Qaeda! It's not even al Qaeda, it's al Qaeda in Iraq, a group that adopted what was essentially a brand name. A fucking brand name, it's trademark infringement. It keeps this myth alive that Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

This failure to understand even the basics of the different facets of Iraqi culture and Islamic culture is what got us into this war, it's what keeps us in this war, and it's what is going to get us into Iran, too, if we don't start calling out the rhetoric more often.

Posted by socctty | March 20, 2008 10:01 PM

Why would AlQaeda bother trying to get control of Iraqi oil fields when all they have to do is sell a couple of pounds of opium from Afghanistan to buy any weapons they want from Pakistan.

Posted by CParis | March 20, 2008 10:24 PM

No matter what goes on in Iraq today, or what may transpire in future, first causes must always bear scrutiny.

"The only thing new under the sun, is the history you don't know." -Dwight D. Eisenhower: http://theseedsof9-11.com

Posted by Peggy McGilligan | March 20, 2008 10:25 PM

State Department employees caught illegally looking at Obama's passport. God, the government sucks.

Posted by Monster | March 20, 2008 10:56 PM

This is a super good and important argument that I personally make all the time, and that we need to hear from Barack Obama on national television. Even better, I can actually imagine him making it.

In the meantime, my hat is off to you, sir. The wild overinflation of the significance of emboldenment has to stop somewhere.

Posted by glasnost | March 20, 2008 11:06 PM

The Iraqi oil money is a consistent, reliable resource for the Insurgency generally and Al-Qaeda in Mesopatamia. Why would the insurgents want to deal with having to run oil fields and refineries when they are already getting profits for free.

An excellent point, and a strategy not limited to AQI:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/02/henry-okah.html

Welcome to 4GW.

Posted by anonymous | March 20, 2008 11:07 PM

Anyone have a solution to how trying to load any webpage with an embedded QuickTime video - using Firefox - crashes Firefox immediately, by trying to force you to upgrade your QuickTime version via some very very buggy dialog box?

Even if I wanted to perform that upgrade, I can't do it without XP SP2. Basically, since this QT upgarde came out, Firefox self-destructs when Matt links to a video. arg!

Posted by glasnost | March 20, 2008 11:10 PM

Yeah Matt, because perceived victory always wreaks havoc with your recruiting. Seriously, do you read your own words?

Posted by James Robertson | March 20, 2008 11:32 PM

Matt is of course right that Republican rhetoric about Iraq is heavy on chest-thumping.

But I wonder whether he thinks that the factors motivating, say, a McCain administration to stay there would really be the same "subjective" arguments about victory, emboldening the enemy, etc. etc., that they offer in public.

Personally, I think this war has always been about oil. We knocked off Saddam because we thought (wrongly, as it turns out) that he was on the fast track to be a regional hegemon in the world's chief oil-producing region. And we're staying in Iraq to ensure stability (of a US-friendly kind) in the world's chief oil-producing region.

The chest-thumping is for public consumption, but I don't think Cheney or Rumsfeld thought that way. Whether McCain does is less clear to me.

Posted by Ted | March 20, 2008 11:37 PM

In any case, the mixture of resource-grabbing self-interest and sincere ideological fervor only reinforces MY's thesis about the parallel to 19thc. imperialism. Then, as now, the two things got so interwoven that they were hard to disentangle.

I do think the "oil" part of the equation is going to be harder to solve, in the long run, than the "romance of empire" part. Even an Obama administration is going to have a hard time backing away from all that oil. If we pull out, and the resulting chaos causes gas prices to go up, it could play badly at home.

Just to be clear: I do think we should pull out, and the sooner the better.

Posted by Ted | March 20, 2008 11:52 PM

Good, we need a crisis. We're far behind many parts of the world in terms of weaning ourselves off oil. Alternative energy would only help our national security.

Posted by Tony Hussein | March 21, 2008 12:00 AM

There is oil in Anbar. That's the place AQI took over in 2006. Here is the first graf of the Times story from 13 months ago.

"In a remote patch of the Anbar desert just 20 miles from the Syrian border, a single blue pillar of flanges and valves sits atop an enormous deposit of oil and natural gas that would be routine in this petroleum-rich country except for one fact: this is Sunni territory." Here's the link. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/world/middleeast/19oilfields.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

Also there was a draft during World War II.

Posted by Eli Lake | March 21, 2008 12:05 AM

Absent the occupation, there's no recruiting pitch

---------

Al Qaeda seemed to be recruiting pretty well before Iraq. conservative chest-thumping and Clauswitzian views of conflict are obviously totally out of place here, but the common anti-war rationale of "if we withdraw from Iraq it hurts Al Qaeda" is foolish. Al Qaeda will claim a victory no matter when or how we withdraw. that's just a fact. the "defeat of Americans in Iraq" will be paralleled to the "defeat of Russians in Afghanistan" that bin Laden participated in, and will be used as a (probably effective) recruitment narrative.

using this to support an argument for staying in Iraq indefinitely is absurd, of course; but so is claiming it won't happen should we withdraw. progressives need to be fully aware of what could and will happen once we withdraw for Iraq.

Posted by BA | March 21, 2008 12:23 AM

An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

I'm sure Iraqi's would just simply keel over and yeild control of their oil fields to AQI. If there's anything they can all agree on, it's that nobody else but them owns the oil, especially not a rag tag group of Saudis and Syrians.

Posted by BCM | March 21, 2008 12:57 AM

An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

I'm sure Iraqi's would just simply keel over and yeild control of their oil fields to AQI. If there's anything they can all agree on, it's that nobody else but them owns the oil, especially not a rag tag group of Saudis and Syrians.

Posted by BCM | March 21, 2008 12:58 AM

Isn't the worry that AQ will be able to demand protection money from the oilfields?

No one expects Osama to be out there wildcatting, but his organization (or at least the Iraqi offshoot) would be happy to take the oil companies' money.

As I understand it, this style of natural resource parasitism fuels most of the conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the difference being that those militias have strictly local interests. Bush is (as per usual) exaggerating the danger, but it would be foolish to dismiss it out of hand.

Posted by heedless | March 21, 2008 2:39 AM

BA - Well said.

heedless - A very good point. I seem to recall something similar happening in Nigeria a year or so ago...?

Posted by socctty | March 21, 2008 4:12 AM

Lots of info here on the Nigeria situation: http://threatswatch.org/analysis/2006/02/nigerias-oil-war/

Posted by socctty | March 21, 2008 4:17 AM

Thought-experiment: do you think we could make George W. Bush disappear by simply refusing to utter or type the word "emboldened" ever again?

Maybe we should all just talk about the danger of an "italicized" al Qaeda instead.

Posted by STS | March 21, 2008 4:31 AM

This may be worth paying some attention to, at least to pass the time until some other Democrat-affiliated preachers says something controversial:

From "Sunni militia strike could derail US strategy against al-Qaida," Maggie O'Kane and Ian Black, The Guardian, Friday March 21 2008

The success of the US "surge" strategy in Iraq may be under threat as Sunni militia employed by the US to fight al-Qaida are warning of a national strike because they are not being paid regularly.

Leading members of the 80,000-strong Sahwa, or awakening, councils have said they will stop fighting unless payment of their $10 a day (£5) wage is resumed. The fighters are accusing the US military of using them to clear al-Qaida militants from dangerous areas and then abandoning them.

A telephone survey by GuardianFilms for Channel 4 News reveals that out of 49 Sahwa councils four with more than 1,400 men have already quit, 38 are threatening to go on strike and two already have.

Improved security in Iraq in recent months has been attributed to a combination of the surge, the truce observed by Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, and the effectiveness and commitment of the councils, which are drawn from Sunni Arabs and probably the most significant factor, according to most analysts.

In his speech marking the fifth anniversary of the war George Bush highlighted the significance of what he called "the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden". Iraq, he said, "has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out."

But dozens of phone calls to Sahwa leaders reveal bitterness and anger. "We know the Americans are using us to do their dirty work and kill off the resistance for them and then we get nothing for it," said Abu Abdul-Aziz, the head of the council in Abu Ghraib, where 500 men have already quit.

"The Americans got what they wanted. We purged al-Qaida for them and now people are saying why should we have any more deaths for the Americans. They have given us nothing."

In Dora, a southern suburb of Baghdad, the leaders of a Sahwa group of 2,400 men said they were considering strike action because none of the 2,000 applicants they had put forward for jobs with the police and military had been accepted.

The Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki has found jobs for only a handful of the Sahwa fighters.

"We need to get all the Sahwas in the country together and organise a national strike," said Ahah al-Zubadi, leader of 35 Sahwa councils, the largest group in Iraq. "When the areas started to cool down and the situation began to get better the Americans really cooled to us."

In the area south of Baghdad where more US troops have been killed than anywhere else in the country the Sahwa forces have formed the backbone of the surge. The councils first appeared in Anbar province a year ago when tribal leaders turned against al-Qaida and were tempted by offers of cash and jobs from the Americans, attracting many former insurgents to their ranks. Anbar today is one of Iraq's safest provinces.

But the movement's driving force, Sheikh Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, was killed in September. In Diyala province al-Qaida delivered videos of beheaded Sahwa members to their families to try and stop others working with the Americans.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/21/iraq.alqaida

It's bizarre that a major newspaper would still consider doing actual journalistic research, given that press handouts from government and think tank offices are so much more convenient, but, I guess some people still have a thing for it.

On the other hand, there is an interesting theoretical question: will the Bush Jr. Republicans allow their deep and psychopathic hatred of any sort of government economic intervention to help with jobs for non-elites and non-cronies to endanger the "Surge" strategy which heretofore they've presented as one of the boldestest military interventioneerings ever done?

Posted by El Cid | March 21, 2008 5:07 AM

El Cid,

That sounds phenomenally stupid. If we paid those guys at their full demand for a year, that's only 292 million dollars. In the war budget, it's a rounding error.

I wouldn't put it past us, but I thought Petraeus, at least, was smarter than this.

(I'm not sure how your last paragraph fits in with the rest though. Is there a statutory requirement for leftist boilerplate that I didn't know about?)

Emboldened.

Posted by heedless | March 21, 2008 5:29 AM

heedless: Okay, I'll simplify it. Here in the same article you have an allegation that a key component of the "Surge" strategy is in danger of being abandoned by the same U.S. authorities who pushed the "Surge" itself.

That component is described as a U.S. initiative to directly pay those described above to work with the U.S. forces. That in essence is a government jobs and direct payment, i.e, "subsidy" or "welfare" program.

Republicans are hysterically opposed to jobs programs for regular people (meaning, not including giving government-funded jobs to Dick Cheney's companies or Michael Brownie doin' a heckuva job type cronies). It's one reason the U.S. moved from the extremely effective New Deal style jobs programs to the much less efficient and more successfully socially divisive welfare programs of the Great Society.

Therefore, a number of hypothetical scenarios could be posed as to why the same ideologues who pushed and supported the "Surge" strategy might -- granting the article's allegations, a separate matter -- allow its endangerment.

Is it, as you suggest, a money issue? Also, as you suggest, unlikely. Maybe there are other reasons.

But although I somewhat made the point in jest, given how much of the Iraq invasion & occupation have been determined by sheer ideological fixations of the Bush Jr. Republicans in charge of it, one cannot noticing the contradiction inherent in a situation in which the Republican-backed "Surge" depends in essence on a U.S. government jobs & welfare program to ordinary working class Iraqis. That is the sort of thing which they are usually maniacally opposed to, and one can certainly imagine the howling against this "socialistic" jobs / welfare scheme were it a Democratic president and a Democratic Party-supported "Surge".

Easier now?

Posted by El Cid | March 21, 2008 5:46 AM

Re: Even an Obama administration is going to have a hard time backing away from all that oil.

What good has all that oil done us? All we’ve done is drive the price of oil sky high with our bull-in-the-china-shop Middle Eastern adventure. Iraq could fall under the rule of Satan himself and he’d still need to sell his oil to make money, so I don’t think we need to fear that the oil spigot will be shut off if we leave.

Posted by JonF | March 21, 2008 8:05 AM

Richardson endorses Obama.

You couldn't do that BEFORE Texas?!

Posted by Monster | March 21, 2008 8:19 AM

I agree that what W said was stupid, but not nearly as stupid as "it would be pretty trivial for the U.S. military to capture or control any AQI-held oil fields -- a poorly equipped guerilla force can't defend a fixed position in the open." Would it be "trivial" to operate those oil fields, assuming they're in the middle of a country run by AQI? Or, worse, "trivial" to get the oil to market?

Posted by ostap | March 21, 2008 8:22 AM

El Cid, nice try, but I have a feeling it's:

In one ear--->heedless's brain--->Out the other

Alternate scenario:

In one ear--->Brick wall

But at least you made the effort.

Posted by BlueStreak | March 21, 2008 8:29 AM

It stands to reason that Iraq would pursue a policy similar to one of their neighbors once the US leaves. They could resemble Iran (most likely in my opinion), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Jordan. I think the current administration hopes and believes it will look like Dubai. What are the odds of that? Isn't that a pie in the sky scenario? Isn't Iraq looking like Iran most likely? And would that be good for the "war on terror" as there is no al-Qeada in Iran, despite what insane McCain says?

Posted by freddiemac | March 21, 2008 8:55 AM

If the US were really concerned about al Qaeda, alignment with Iran would be a good thing. But the US military occupation of Iraq is not about fighting al Qaeda, or peace in the ME, or the freedom of Iraqis to govern themselves. In fact, the continued occupation has only helped al Qaeda, promoted violence in the ME, interfered with the will of the Iraqi people, and as a dividend, bled the US economy and its military. In short, it is a gift to bin Ladin that just keeps on giving.

US out of Iraq. Now.

Posted by Joel | March 21, 2008 9:40 AM

AQ has always had access to Saudi oil resopurces

Posted by novakant | March 21, 2008 10:00 AM

AQ has always had access to Saudi oil resources.

Posted by novakant | March 21, 2008 10:02 AM

Maybe Eli Lake can explain to me how 15 million Iraqi Shi'a will embrace AQI.

Posted by mike | March 21, 2008 11:52 AM

Al Qaeda seemed to be recruiting pretty well before Iraq. Conservative chest-thumping and Clauswitzian views of conflict are obviously totally out of place here, but the common anti-war rationale of "if we withdraw from Iraq it hurts Al Qaeda" is foolish. Al Qaeda will claim a victory no matter when or how we withdraw. that's just a fact. The "defeat of Americans in Iraq" will be paralleled to the "defeat of Russians in Afghanistan" that bin Laden participated in, and will be used as a (probably effective) recruitment narrative.

Bin Laden's message has two main points with regard to the United States:

1) The United States is engaged in a war against Islam. Muslims did not seek this war; it was forced on them by American aggression. Muslims have a religious duty to fight in this war.

2) This is a war that Islam win if Muslims show sufficient determination because the United States is weaker than she appears. To put it another way, bin Laden rejects the argument that the United States is so powerful that it is pointless to fight against the United States.

Staying it Iraq helps bin Laden make the first of his points. He claims that Iraq is the central front in the American war against Islam.

Withdrawing from Iraq helps bin Laden make the second of his points. I agree with your assessment that he will portray a withdrawal as a defeat of the United States.

My impression is that al Qaeda is more interested in selling point 1 than in selling point 2. Al Qaeda achieved a victory when the United States withdrew its troops from Saudi Arabia, but I haven't seen al Qaeda playing that up. The failure of the United States to gain control of Iraq has, I think, led people around the world to conclude that the United States is less powerful than they once thought.

In any case, religious believers are not easily discouraged because they believe that God is on their side. When facing a religiously inspired movement, I don't think you win by convicing people that you are so powerful that even the Almightly cannot tip the balance of power against you.

So I think that the real limitation on the ability of al Qaeda to recruit is its ability to convince people of point 1. Here is where al Qaeda in Iraq has an advantage over the original al Qaeda. AQI can bring people to Iraq in order to fight against the United States there, and then try to make the case that Iraq is just part of a larger crusade against Islam.

My prediction, then, is that withdrawing from Iraq will significantly reduce the ability of al Qaeda and related groups to recruit. It is certainly possible that I am wrong about that, so it is important to point out, as you do, that the case for withdrawing from Iraq doesn't depend on that.

Posted by Kenneth Almquist | March 21, 2008 2:32 PM

CParis asks why Al Qaeda would need oil when they can see opium in Afghanistan to buy guns in Pakistan.

Actually, opium is now being planted IN IRAQ. So in due time they won't even need Afghanistan opium.

In other words, the US invasion is now turning Iraq into another failed narco-state - just as it did with Afghanistan and as it is supporting in Kosovo.

But, really, this is all academic. Nothing Bush says is even remotely true or has anything to do with what he believes. He's a-lying to you, folks. It's that simple. He's a deliberate, malicious, bare-faced liar and bullshit artist (except he's not much of an "artist" about it - even Powell is better than Bush is - and he's a hack propagandist.)

There's nothing difficult about this. The neocons and the Bush administration and much of the rest of the Republicans (and most of the Democrats) are a criminal organization whose goal is to suck taxpayer's dollars out and give it to their cronies who in turn will keep them in power.

It's not rocket science. It's a delusion to pretend anything other than this is going on. I can't comprehend the level of idiocy of people like Matt who really believe that ANY of these assholes gives a flying fuck about either this country or the people in it, let alone any other country and some "filthy Ay-rabs."

It's a criminal enterprise. People who call the Bushies the "Bush crime family" have it exactly right. The Bush family has not stopped robbing this country since they came here. They only take time out once in a while to get a good citizenship award from some other morons.

The same applies to the Kennedys, the Clintons, and most every other "national family" you can name, as well as the rest of the lesser known crooks in Congress, not to mention self-righteous bozos like Elliot Spitzer.

Meanwhile, the oft-reviled Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have spent eight million dollars on their charity foundation, have actually handed out serious amounts of it to real recipients - not PR campaigns, and only spent $27,000 running it.

I say run Angelina Jolie for President.

She may be bi-sexual, but she's not a criminal like our current President.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 21, 2008 8:00 PM

El Cid (if you're still reading)

I actually agreed with your point about paying the militias. But I do think there's a distinction between what makes for good domestic economic policy, and what makes for a successful occupation. Whether the Bush administration would recognize either of those is questionable.

I hope you'll forgive the whimsy, I've never learned to turn it off entirely.

Posted by heedless | March 21, 2008 8:15 PM

A big part of the problem here is that many Americans don't understand the complexities of the Middle East. Bush talks of terrorists as a monolithic enemy like the Nazis or the Imperial Japanese. Besides Al Queda, who is our enemy?, Hezabolla, Hamas, The Shiite extremists or the Sunni extremists? If we leave Iraq, different extremist factions will simply turn on each other. Al Queda can no more take over Iraq than the Klan can take over the US.

Posted by George Arndt | March 21, 2008 8:41 PM