OPINION: “Why the Surge Worked (The Weekend Interview with Jack Keane),” by Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal, 20-21 September 2008. ARTICLE: “The Force That Slowed the Insurgency: ‘Fusion cell’ teams have been able to weaken al-Qaeda in Iraq,” by Joby Warrick and Robin Wright, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 15-21 September 2008. OP-ED: “Our Generals Almost Cost Us Iraq,” by Mackubin Thomas Owens, Wall Street Journal, 24 September 2008.

Keane, the hero—along with Petraeus—of Woodward’s book, says the surge works for two key reasons, both of which couldn’t have been exploited to the point of solidification without additional bodies: 1) all Iraqis were tired of conflict and were looking for a way out: 2) the “awakening” due to al Qaeda’s over-reach. Fair enough. The third big argument offered by others is the success of the interagency teams that hunted down and killed senior insurgency leaders. In sum, the usual combination of killing bad guys but also widening the politics of inclusion, with a dash of war fatigue tossed in. Where I part with Woodward, and Mac Owens is the vilification of the Joint Chiefs and Abizaid/Fallon (even as it validates my previous Esquire story) and Casey. In general, the JCS and CENTCOM did what they were supposed to do: think more strategically and not get totally wrapped around the axle of Iraq (Petraeus’ reality now, and just watch him change a couple of stripes as he takes over CENTCOM—as he should). What they “rebelled” against was Bush-Cheney’s total lack of grand strategic vision. In Woodward’s book, Fallon confronts Bush early on regarding some opening to Iran, to chill it somewhat vis-à-vis Iraq. Bush’s reply? “These are assholes.” Quick, ungrammatical, and to the pinheaded point. That’s it. That’s the sum of the strategy. Woodward says Fallon was stunned, because calling them assholes wasn’t a strategy but name-calling. The top military leadership fulfilled its duty just fine. It was the Bush-Cheney White House that screwed the pooch too many ways to count. When the COIN argument swelled up enough (meaning the Army and Marines learned and adapted), Bush was smart enough to adopt it, but he sure took his time (note how Woodward details the delay on action and the emphasis on secrecy until AFTER the 2006 elections, out of fear it would cost them politically—no wonder McCain was pissed), and during that time a lot of American troops were needlessly sacrificed. They were sacrificed because the administration forced them to fight under the worst strategic circumstances, thanks to that idiotic policy of designating an “Axis of Evil” beforehand and then wondering why the other two went out of their way to take advantage while you started in on the first one—duh! Junior “axis” member Syria also went out of its way to pile on in the meantime. The big payoff from declaring the Axis and turning down early local offers of help (the Hadley doctrine)? A lot of dead American soldiers and Iran that much closer to the bomb anyway. Brilliant fricking stuff. And you wonder why the JCS and Abizaid and Fallon found all this myopia dangerous and worth confronting. Hell, NOT to do so would have been the real abandonment of their duty. This was an impossible situation from the senior military leadership’s view: committing more troops to a deteriorating situation while Bush was openly threatening war with Iran next door (yeah, when my president publicly invokes “World War III,” I think that’s pretty serious) and Afghanistan/Pakistan were going dramatically downhill—and the military was coming apart at the seams. Again, I don’t blame them for confronting Ahab, even as I agreed with the logic of more troops (my SysAdmin-bias allowed me no other opinion). My problem with the surge was the lack of the diplomatic counterpart, now bequeathed to the next president, because I felt the lack of one meant—again—too many American lives needlessly lost and whatever gains we achieved logically held hostage to their neighbors and their willingness to wait us out and start trouble once we inevitably had to draw down, possibly making this whole success a complete illusion and thus wasting more American lives to no good end (not to mention those we waste in the future). Additionally, I clearly worried that Bush-Cheney would go through on their many threats re: Iran, because I thought (and still think) their strategic stupidity on the Middle East knew no bounds. I don’t think that about their approaches to Russia or China or India or Africa or a lot of places, but WRT to the Middle East, they were beyond stupid. Within that larger regional context, the opposition of senior military leaders was hardly uncalled for or unpatriotic or “playing for a tie” or any of that sophomoric nonsense. It reflected larger considerations of the sort routinely and consistently bungled by this unimaginative crowd. In the end, Keane did his country a great service by talking the Bush White House in to this easier “out” from their untenable approach (and yes, Bush-Cheney were courageous to make that call), to which it clung stubbornly for three-plus years (i.e., that “short war” crap that denied any responsibility for the long peace that needed to be waged as follow-on). To me, I am especially grateful because it makes the SysAdmin vision a lot more feasible in people’s minds, and because one of my three servicemen nephews directly benefited from the reduced violence during his many miles (50k-plus) of convoy duty across Iraq in that timeframe. I’m also indebted to Keane and Petraeus and Nagl and Mattis and the whole small-wars/COIN crowd because my company, Enterra, placed a significant bet in northern Iraq that depended—to a very real degree—on the surge’s success. Now we’re looking to expand that nation-building activity southward, at the request of our government. So again, I’m plenty in favor of what Keane and others pulled off, but I don’t begrudge those who opposed these steps their right and duty to argue their viewpoint and to make their bureaucratic battles, and I sure as hell don’t consider them bad or unpatriotic officers on that basis. To me, that’s a baseless charge that shifts the blame from Bush-Cheney to our military, when it’s that military that ultimately—after a lot of pain and suffering—came up with the answer that saved those politicians from their own incompetence. Bush-Cheney abdicated on Iraq, and the military was there to pick up the slack—pure and simple. Backdating the blame is simplistic. The military did its job. Bush-Cheney did not.