Iraq: can't 'win' or 'end'

OP-ED: The War as We Saw It, By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY, New York Times, August 19, 2007

Brilliant piece that explains so much better than I have or ever could why pullback to "the margins," as they call it, is the only sensible course now.

We simply have to get off this win-v-lose nonsense (pushed by the right), as well as this idiocy about "ending the war" (pushed by the left) and get realistic about moving this process of soft partition along.

We made our bad choices, and the Iraqis have made theirs. No more turning-back-the-clock schemes. Drawdown and pullback and manage this next inevitable stage with far fewer troops in Sunni and Shiia lands, pulling our people back to remote bases there, plus Kurdistan, where they want us desperately, and Kuwait, where we remain safe and welcome.

It's time to get off this snide.

Thanks to Aaron Brown for sending this.

Comments

[large]

Correction: There is no place in the Islamic World that American Troops are either safe or welcome . .

And will be even less so, should we Walk away from Iraq, leaving a total Vacuum . . that we have had a large part in creating . .

[Jeff J]

I didn't quite buy that a surge of 30,000 troops was going to make a big difference. It seems the Sunnis grew tired of Al Queda and Taliban inspired foreign elements telling them what to do and killing them if they didn't as a more likely reason for the more optimistic atmosphere. Nonetheless, hopefully this situation can provide the necessary political coverage both Republicans and Democrats need to claim victory and reduce our presence.

[Ted O'Connor]

It will be interesting to see if September (Bush's benchmark) brings symbolic attacks designed to generate calls for a pullout from the American public. The insurgents have pulled off some spectacular bombings but the bodies lined up afterwards have been Iraqi. Large aircraft land daily at the airport (admittedly a harrowing experience) and the Green Zone is still the safest place in Iraq. We have seen incidents where isolated American soldiers have been targeted and captured but no attempt has been made to "overrun" and destroy a platoon or company size unit. I don't think the anticipated "report" will have much of an impact on our policy. I think that September's significance will be up to the enemy.

[Tom Barnett]

Large,

I find absolute statements (no place in the entire Islamic world, total vacuum) to be useless, even counterproductive (especially when offered as pure assertion--as in, Really, have you been everywhere in the Islamic world where U.S. troops routinely travel/visit/stay? Like Kurdistan? Like Singapore? Like Djibouti? Kenya?)

If that's your style of attempted communication, this probably isn't a good blog for you.

[Nathan Machula]

This piece sure undermines John Kerry and the left's portrayal of American soldiers as stupid, uneducated, and tricked into joining the military and deploying to Iraq. The authors are junior enlisted personnel (and infantrymen at that!), but their writing is highly articulate and inherently credible (opposed to PVT Scott Beauchamp of The New Republic). I wish the NY Times would print op-eds by military members more often, even when they disagree with their opinion.

[Bread]

Joseph Biden IS looking smarter all the time - despite the fact he can come off as an asshole sometimes (I have seen him in Senate hearings on C-SPAN).

[Christopher Thompson]

"Correction: There is no place in the Islamic World that American Troops are either safe or welcome . .

And will be even less so, should we Walk away from Iraq, leaving a total Vacuum . . that we have had a large part in creating . ."

This kind of pronouncement is a great examples of why we have the problems we do. Start with a false statement that is basically "They hate us" and follow it by the absurd belief that if the US is not present then chaos will ensue. I agree that the "End the war" idea is just as absurd -- believing that if the US left that everything would just end. But you have to remember that these forced symmetrical positions don't exist because of the folks who didn't want to go into Iraq.

I think the article was brilliant because it states the obvious with such clarity. The political discourse in this country has so rejected the obvious reality that it is almost startling when someone states it every once in a while.

I keep thinking back to the 5GW article and idea of it now being a war of intellect. They fact that we are being thwarted by tribes, military remnants and corrupt politicians seems to be a clear statement of our present intellectual inferiority -- which is something we need to fix.

If this had been done right, we would be six years in and the Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis, Afghans, etc. should be clueless as to what exactly happened to them ... be they should be the ones with few options.

[Gilbert Garza]

"--we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day."

Unless these soldiers have an unusal amount of access and travel in Iraq, I think that maybe Tom and others may be giving more weight than is warranted to their observations and their gauging of (and conclusions from) developing conditions in that country.

[Nathan Machula]

Gilbert,I tend to agree with you, that as junior enlisted personnel, they probably don't have as good a grasp of the big picture as senior leaders, and only saw the microcosm of Iraq where they regularly patrolled. That being said however, it is quite possible, if their unit had a good S-2 (intelligence officer), that they were kept briefed on the situation beyond their AO (area of operations). In addition, being in Baghdad probably gave them a better perspective than if they had been stationed in an outlying province. I do wish the media would print columns from military members more often; this piece was the opinion of just one group of soldiers, who happen to agree with the NY Times position. In my experience, their dedication is representative of most in the military, but their position that Iraq is unmanageable is a minority opinion.