My bottom line: Fish or cut bait.
Of course we can win the war in Iraq. But neither the 'Publicans nor the Demos--nor the electorate, without terrific leadership--has the stomach for the sacrifices required to do so.
It would probably require reinstating the draft, in the form of national service, with military service being one option within that. It would certainly require rescinding every single tax cut for the very rich that has been the single most important "accomplishment" of the six year Republican hegemony. It would also require putting the nation on a war footing, instead of just the volunteer military and their families. I would support doing what it took to win in Iraq, not because we should have gone in--and we surely shouldn't have gone in the way we did--but because we have spent the last four years teaching our enemies everywhere not to fear us, and in the long run that is way too high a price to pay for temporary surcease.
Too bad the Republican administration doesn't really want to win. Sure, they'd love to win if they could do it on the cheap. But when it comes to choosing between our long term position in the world vs. helping Republican donors acquire more wealth today--well, that's a no-brainer for them.
And too bad the Demos in Congress don't seem to grasp the importance of being feared by our enemies, either. It's like having to choose between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dum-Dum.
The details:
The Demos say we've lost. Well, at least Senator Reid says so. Meanwhile the Republican leadership has been saying we've won or victory is just around the corner--and that it's only biased "mainstream media" coverage that portrays Iraq as a disaster.
That's a smokescreen. Winning the war requires sending enough troops to establish order everywhere and train the Iraqis to take care of their own country. The Republicans have been claiming for years that sending a lot more troops--not just 20K or so--would just encourage the Iraqis to stay dependent on us, make us look like occupiers, only provide more targets for those "few dead-enders" and (in a whisper) cost too much. Of course if we'd sent enough to begin with we might well be out of there by now. Von Clausewitz says never wound your prey--deck him. We didn't, and we and our troops have been paying the price ever since. This is why General Powell loathes Bush--I think even more than for his retrospective humliation at the UN.
And we are occupiers. That's how most Iraqis have seen us since about a month after we invaded. Remember, those lands have been dominated by foreign occupiers for hundreds of years, and everyone else came in claiming they weren't occupiers. It was up to us to convince them otherwise, and we didn't. Installing Proconsul Bremer just sealed the deal. Overall, the Republicans' war plan just made us look like incompetent--or even malevolent--occupiers. When you keep over 200,000 troops (counting those morale-destroying armed civilian contractors) in a country for four years how do you expect to be seen?
The trick is to be good occupiers who provide security and electricity and water--normal life for normal people. If we'd done that most Iraqis would be intensely relieved. You aren't a good occupier when more than half of a country's physicians and literally millions of its middle class flees the country, when neighborhoods are in control of militias, when hundreds of thousands of a country's religious minority (Christians) get ethnically cleansed from places they've been for a millenium.
Here's a centrist stance on Iraq:
1. Invading Iraq had exactly nothing to do with the Islamic fascists who attacked us. Saddam hated and feared them, and only had the most superficial contact with them. The money to families of Palistinian suicide murderers was political theater to let Saddam posture as a pan-Arab champion. Iraq's being a locus of Islamofascist attacks on the West resulted from our prolonged occupation of the country, with our huge permanent-looking bases and use of Saddam's palaces making us look to Arabs like "meet the new boss--same as the old boss."
2. In order to invade Iraq the Republican leadership diverted needed men and materiel from the war against the ones who had actually attacked us, in Afghanistan.
3. We had a causus belli for going to war with Iraq: we were not at peace with the country, only had a truce from the 1991 war, and Saddam had been violating the terms of the truce constantly. We could have gone back to war on that basis. But there was no hurry. We could have lined our ducks up, marshalled actual international support, and trained and provisioned the troops sufficiently. The Kurdish area was already freed. Instead of taking over the rest of the country in one swoop, we could have occupied the Shiite region in the south, on the same basis as the Kurdish region. And then gone after Baghdad and the Sunni region only after consolidating the Shiite south.
4. But whatever the battle plan we didn't have to rush into war with Iraq with the troops and their commanders ill-provisioned and undertrained in Arab language and customs. And no plan B in case they didn't greet us with flowers. And not enough troops. If we'd waited nine months or so we could have done the job right. And Saddam wouldn't have been any more or less prepared for our coming. He didn't need time to prepare. We did.
5. So--what now? If the Republican leadership were serious about winning they'd put America on a war footing, bring back the draft (actually, national service with military service an option), rescind all the tax breaks for fat cats, kick our army out of Saddam's old palaces and spacious enclaves and put them in dusty, less fortified encampments throughout the country, seal Iraq's borders, and quit playing whack-a-mole with the insurgents. And publicly apologize to General Shinseki, who called it correctly in 2003 and got publicly humiliated and shoved aside for his pains.
6. And if the Democratic leadership were serious about supporting the troops they'd kill multibillion dollar weapons programs designed to fight the Soviet Union and focus instead on troops and training and the devices needed to support urban combat and counterinsurgency. Armored cars to replace Humvees to start with, along with an upgrade to the M16 that already exists and is vastly more resistent to jamming in sandy conditions. And a gazillion little tactical UAVs. Beyond strictly military issues, the Democrats could cut off funding on the basis that half measures kill troops and civilians for no good cause. We should fight to win or walk away from it, and if the administration isn't willing to tick off the selfishtarians who fill its coffers by killing their tax breaks, you could argue that the Demo legislature shouldn't throw good money after bad. Though of course if they cut off funding the Republicans will claim that the Demos lost the war in Iraq.
7. However, we can only win in Iraq with the agreement of the partisan Shiite theocratic Iran-leaning government that our blundering democraticization installed in Iraq. Right now the people who most want us to leave are the Shiite factions who believe they can count on Iran to help them subjugate the Sunnis. Sunni noncombatants are the ones who most want us to stay, along with Al Qaeda, since our continued incompetent presence is their best recruiting tool. Honestly, I bet Osama Bin Ladin thanks Allah every day that George "Huh?" Bush is President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States. From Osama's viewpoint, Bush is the gift that keeps on giving.
8. So what we can do in Iraq will be constrained by its goverment, which isn't really on the same page with us. They want us there to help them subjugate the Sunnis, not to help give the Sunnis enough of a say--and, most critically, a share in the oil revenues from outside the Sunni region, where nearly all the oil is--to blunt the insurgents' appeal. So anything we do we'll do at an angle to what the Iraqi goverment wants from us. It will take adroit diplomacy to outmanuver them. And that's a hallmark of the Bush administration, right?
9. And what we can do there will also be constrained by the president's ability to rally the nation behind the sacrifices required to truly win there. Von Clausewitz (still the preeminent military theoretician of the last two centuries) insists that the military must go to war with the public's support. Bush has squandered that support, which was overwhelming on September 12, 2001. Then he could have put the nation on a war footing. Instead he told us to go shopping--the path of maximum profit for his patrons. Reinstituting the draft was possible then. It's a very, very tough sell now. Likewise diverting military expenditures from costly weapons systems that make lots of money for political patrons, in favor of arming and training our troops better. No lobbyists are trolling Congressional hallways seeking support for Arab language classes for soldiers.
10. So in the real world it may not be possible to do what's necessary to save the situation in Iraq. It will harm America for many decades to lose there, and in terms of getting a government in power that's going to do us good in the long run, I suspect we've already lost irrevocably. The biggest winners are Iran and Al Qaeda (not the original organization, but as a movement that's metastasized worldwide.
11. So what should we do at this point? If I were leading the Democrats I'd give Bush exactly what he's asking for, but in a package that rescinds all his tax cuts. I don't think his plan will suffice, but in the long run his failure needs to be complete and without excuses. If I were leading the Republicans I'd say Bush failed in execution in Iraq and try my best to get the country behind what it would take to actually win. If I could talk to America as a whole I'd say we have to either fish or cut bait. Make the sacrifices needed to win or withdraw to Iraq's borders and confine ourselves to cutting off transnational insurgent and Al Qaeda supply lines. And put all the saved resources into Afghanistan, currently the world's #1 supplier of heroin--and victim of endless incursions from Taliban bases located within the boundaries of our "ally" Pakistan.
12. And the next time you talk to a partisan Demo or 'Publican about Iraq, here's what to ask:
To the Demo: Say we pull out in short order. What do you see happening then, in Iraq and anywhere else where it's come down to force of arms? Like Afghanistan? And if we are not to be the world's cop, are you down with China becoming that? Or no one? Do you really believe that peace is the natural state of the human race? Ask the ghosts of Europe's Jews what happens to a people who rely on sweet reason alone to defend themselves.
To the 'Publican: You say you're for victory unlike those Defeatocrats. Well, prove it. Are you game for killing all those tax cuts, reinstating the draft, and shouldering the enormous cost in blood and treasure that would be required to actually achieve victory? Or are you like Bush--all hat and no cattle?
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