Watching McCain's Ahab-ian meltdown on Iraq ...
Friday, April 13, 2007 at 7:55PM
ARTICLE: "McCain Calls War 'Necessary and Just,'," by Michael D. Shear, Washington Post, 12 April 2007, p. A1.
Is just plain sad.
It's like the guy is working out some demons from another life.
I think the war was "necessary and just."
I also think the way we've screwed up the peace is unnecessary and unjust--to both our troops and Iraq.
We're locking ourselves into self-destructively small boxes with this language.
We won the war.
We've struggled to segue that clear victory (Saddam's regime is gone) into a stable peace that makes our pull-back from combat serve as something other than the expected trigger for further--and perhaps expanded--mass violence.
We have that definition in Kurdistan. Our combat troops should increasingly pull back to that venue.
We are close enough on the Shiite south, and no, Iran's not gonna to run the place any more or less depending on what we do now. Iran will have influence there, but Iraq's Shiites didn't wait so long for this moment of autonomy to hand it over to the Iranians. In the end, a relatively free and functioning Shiite Iraq will "ruin" Iran more than vice versa.
The Sunni-based insurgency, plus al Qaeda Iraq remain as serious-but-getting-somewhat-better-with-the-surge problems in Sunni Iraq and around Baghdad. These sources of instability both regularly cross swords with Shiite militias, which we're also working in the surge.
Those problems, no matter how the surge goes, I just don't see America owning forever, because I don't see trying to do so as being a particularly realistic or winning strategy. So long as we're there, we remain everyone's target, and that just delays the fight (Sunni v. Shiia, both straight-up and as proxies for regional wannabees Saudi Arabia and Iran) that needs to happen and ultimately will happen anyway, largely because Iraq the central government can't/won't control it and because we can't stop it with the troops we are willing to commit.
Can we quiet Iraq with the surge? Somewhat. Can we make it last? Doubtful.
If Bush hadn't done so poorly in attracting allies--both old and new--for the postwar, we might have been able to obviate that fight, but this administration did do poorly there, creating the inescapable dynamic we now need to rethink.
I mean, what's the finishing line we're defining now?
Strategically speaking, we truly don't have a dog in that Sunni-Shiia fight, as we proved for years during the Iran-Iraq war (we supported Saddam, but--quite frankly--we were cool with both sides losing as they did). I mean, it doesn't really benefit us particularly to choose sides. Frankly, if forced to choose I go with the Shiia, partly out of guilt (from post-Desert Storm) and partly out of revulsion that I'd otherwise be choosing to align myself with al Qaeda (Sy Hersh's point).
But McCain seems to have lost all such perspective and I'm not sure anymore what "war" he sees us winning or losing.
Reader Comments (6)
But you got one part wrong. The United States won a battle against an apparently prostrate foe, but did not win the war. The foe avoided conventional tactics, and went Guerilla. Saddem had some 500,000 Al Quds paramilitary read to fight in 2003. See pages 5 and 6 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85301-p40/kevin-woods-james-lacey-williamson-murray/saddam-s-delusions-the-view-from-the-inside.html
The war is near lost now, as the United States Army cannot recover its losses without a draft and the American public will not support a draft.
Last night on Bill Maher, former Senator Bill Bradley, despite all the distracting chatter, laid it out simply: The Second Iraq War was the greatest American foreign policy mistake in the history of the Republic.
The reality now is that the only possible future in Iraq is the return to the status quo anti. Your own analysis essentially agrees with this
Except for those scoundrels that enriched themselves by the looting of Iraq and the US Treasury, this is not any kind of victory; it’s a tragic waste of treasure and lives.
What is the insiders assessment of it being able to survive our withdrawal (which will happen after GWB's term probably, if not sooner)?
What is your assessment Tom?
I say, no, the second Iraq war was to topple Saddam and set something beyond him in motion that would be to our benefit, as well as the region's.
The cynic in me not only sees the victory in the first instance, but retains ultimate judgment on the second.
We have to move beyond 20th-century definitions of victory, which McCain seems stuck on.
Our real purpose in Saddam's fall is change in the Middle East. That process has been dramatically set in motion and/or accelerated. No reason to expect that path to always be in our favor, but there is a huge need to play the board as it unfolds in front of us, and that's what's missing right now with Bush. He and Cheney have no capacity for deal-making.
But the greatest mistake in the history of the Republic? That's pure nonsense and goofy hyperbole of the worst sort. I'm surprised to hear Bradley say anything that stupid.
This doesn't even come anywhere near Vietnam.
Mike:That's a decent question that I would answer by saying, we can never stay long enough to make the central government really strong. It can only grow strong by our leaving. Occupation forces tend to kill capacity, historically speaking, than to create. Same with aid.
Fenderdeluxe (preemptively, as I read your comment in Moveable Type): Please don't assume some insanely fast timetable on my proposal. I don't advocate anything faster than what you're describing, but thanks for making me clear that up.
Let take a look a the Ten Commandments of globalization:
1. Look for Resources an ye shall find2. No Stability, No Markets3. No Growth, No stability4. No Resources, No Growth5. No Infrastructure, No Resources6. No Money, No Infrastructure7. No Rules, No Money8. No Security, No Rules9. No Leviathan, No Security10. No Will, No Leviathan
'No Security, No Rules' and 'No Rules, No Money.' That's where we're at here, right now. The quickest way in my view to move the situation along in the chain is to give a stronger Iraqi government the opportunity to win that inevitable Shiia-Sunni battle. And that means, in the here and now, letting Patreaus play out his hand and at the same time letting the current Iraqi government know that all we're doing is giving them is time to ready themselves for that inevitable fight. Time, and the opportunity to better organize and prepare - that's what the Surge provides. At that point the Iraqi government's job is to create Security and Rules by going to any lengths necessary - any - to put down the bad actors present in the country. This thing is such a mess, and this mess could ultimately backfire so badly for Core interests (assuming long as the Iraqi government is willing to connect to the rest of the world at the end of the day) that it doesn't even matter how they put it down at that point. No Rules, No Money - assimilate a Gap area into the Core, create a market, make money, improve lives - that's the finish line.
Moving to Kurdistan NOW without giving the Iraqi government one last chance to really ready themselves this time for a fight that they have to win, creates a situation with a greater likelyhood of them failing to be able to finally put down - for good, and for the sake of being able to create Rules and Security - all of the bad actors in the country. IMV, letting an unstable situation develop on it's own means its more likely to take LONGER to get to a point where Rules and Security are created. If our goal is to assimilate Iraq into the Core as quickly as possible, I'm against anything that makes it take longer and less likely to happen.
Where we're at is where we're at in Iraq right now. Bush has flubbed the peace royally with the other Core countries. Heck, I doubt he even communicated well the overall strategy of Core vs. Gap to other Core members before invading. It stinks to high Heaven, no doubt about it. But that's beside the point now. If Patreaus thinks he can help here - not win it mind you, but help here - I'm willing to let him and all of the others who are putting their lives on the line for us, try.
We can always take another look moving things to Kurdistan at the end of the year and let events develop on their own after that.
"We must gain the active support of modernizers across the Muslim world, who want to share in the benefits of the global system and its economic success"
"The United States needs stronger alliances, coalitions, and partnerships worldwide to engage this long and multidimensional struggle."
Basically, support for winning the war is the only Republican issue that McCain has going for him. Since no credible Republican candidate is advocating the Democrat "cut and run" position, that is probably not going to be enough for McCain. Nevertheless, that is all McCain has so expect him to pound on it pretty hard.