Right Wing Nut House

This post is a penance of sorts. Consider it an apologia for an overabundance of cynicism on my part about the President’s intentions regarding Iraq. For if reports from the Pentagon and elsewhere in government can be believed, it appears that the President is about to step up to the plate and go for the long ball in this, his last attempt at both defining victory and turning around the situation in Iraq.

The two are interconnected. In order to achieve victory, we must define it in the most realistic terms possible. This will necessitate a total rethinking of our strategy - a process underway as I write this - as well as the realization that what we want to happen in Iraq and what will happen in that country are irreconcilable and that our strategy must change to reflect that fact.

For instance, The goal of bringing “democracy” to Iraq will probably not be up to this generation of Iraqi leaders. Old hatreds, old scores to settle appear to be too much to put aside at the present. The best we can hope for is to stop the slaughter of the Sunnis and prevent a tragedy of historic proportions. We can do this by continuing to fight the insurgency while going after the perpetrators of the Shia on Sunni violence; the militias that are outside of government control and answer only to their warlords. The kind of government that will emerge from this process will not be entirely to our liking. It will be dominated by fundamentalist Shias who will see Iran as a natural ally.

The secular parties in Iraq are too weak, too divided at the moment to fight this trend. The two largest political parties - the United Iraqi Alliance and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) are too well organized and well financed to defeat at the ballot box. We must accept the fact that a united, secular Iraq is a goal for another generation of Iraqis and will not happen while the current crop of leaders govern there.

Where we can succeed is in making Iraq stable. As Tony Blankley so eloquently put it:

If Washington gossip is right, even many of the president’s own advisers in the White House and the key cabinet offices have given up on success. Official Washington, the media and much of the public have fallen under the unconscionable thrall of defeatism. Which is to say that they cannot conceive of a set of policies — for a nation of 300 million with an annual GDP of more than $12 trillion dollars and all the skills and technologies known to man — to subdue the city of Baghdad and environs. Do you think Gen. Patton or Abe Lincoln or Winston Churchill or Joseph Stalin would have thrown their hands up and say “I give up, there’s nothing we can do?”

Absolutely spot on. And that’s what was so extraordinarily disappointing about the ISG’s recommendations. While we may have been expecting too much given the fact that James Baker was in charge, there were other members of that group who should have dug in their heels until “The Way Forward” would have had the addendum “To Victory” attached to it.

I realize I’m raising the hackles of my lefty friends by talking about “victory” in Iraq. You have already decided that because our original criteria for winning the war has been superseded by events - admittedly largely as a result of our own blunders - that there is no honorable strategy that would lead to success. I would answer by saying that while you are technically correct that the kind of victory first envisioned by the Administration is not attainable, the fact is that we can vastly improve the security situation and assist the Iraqi government with training its troops as well as mediating deals on power sharing, reconciliation, and oil revenue - in other words, cobble together a viable Iraqi state. And while you and much of the rest of the world might insist on referring to our “defeat” in Iraq, it won’t matter if we can accomplish those goals in the next few years.

All depends on whether or not the President has it in him to go against the conventional wisdom in Washington as well as a skeptical and even hostile American public and dramatically - dramatically - alter course. Tony Blankley sums up Bush’s dilemma:

For rarely has a president stood more alone at a moment of high crisis than does our president now as he makes his crucial policy decisions on the Iraq War. His political opponents stand triumphant, yet barren of useful guidance. Many — if not most — of his fellow party men and women in Washington are rapidly joining his opponents in a desperate effort to save their political skins in 2008. Commentators who urged the president on in 2002-03, having fallen out of love with their ideas, are quick to quibble with and defame the president.

James Baker, being called out of his business dealings by Congress to advise the president, has delivered a cynical document intended to build a political consensus for “honorable” surrender. Richard Haass (head of the Council on Foreign Relations) spoke approvingly of the Baker report on “Meet the Press,” saying: “It’s incredibly important… that the principle lesson [of our intervention Iraq] not be that the United States is unreliable or we lacked staying power… to me it is essentially important for the future of this country that Iraq be seen, if you will, as Iraq’s failure, not as America’s failure.”

That such transparent sophism from the leader of the American foreign policy establishment is dignified with the title of realism, only further exemplifies the loneliness of the president in his quest for a workable solution to the current danger.

The elites have abandoned Iraq. Democrats want to but don’t want it to look as if they countenance defeat. Republicans are scrambling for cover. The rank and file of his party have all but given up. As Blankley so eloquently points out, the President is quite alone.

Or is he?

Apparently, the President still has the support for victory among the soldiers:

As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to “double down” in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff will present their assessment and recommendations to Bush at the Pentagon today. Military officials, including some advising the chiefs, have argued that an intensified effort may be the only way to get the counterinsurgency strategy right and provide a chance for victory.

The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). But the Pentagon proposals add several features, including the confrontation with Sadr, a possible renewed offensive in the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province, a large Iraqi jobs program and a proposal for a long-term increase in the size of the military.

Such an option would appear to satisfy Bush’s demand for a strategy focused on victory rather than disengagement. It would disregard key recommendations and warnings of the Iraq Study Group, however, and provide little comfort for those fearful of a long, open-ended U.S. commitment in the country. Only 12% of Americans support a troop increase, whereas 52% prefer a fixed timetable for withdrawal, a Los Angeles Times/ Bloomberg poll has found.

“I think it is worth trying,” a defense official said. “But you can’t have the rhetoric without the resources. This is a double down” — the gambling term for upping a bet.

This is most welcome news. And before someone in the comments suggests that there are no troops to send, you are incorrect. There are tens of thousands of National Guardsmen and reserve troops who could be deployed in Iraq within 6 months. The problem is that the political pain involved in dipping even more into the National Guard units and Reserves for forced call ups could very well start a mass anti-war movement that would would be reminiscent of the Viet Nam era. There is also the chance that denuding the United States of these troops, we would be vulnerable if another conflict broke out in the world where American troops would be necessary. And there’s always the chance that the Democrats and some Republicans would cut war appropriations if such a plan were proposed.

But if Bush is willing to give it a shot, I’ll be with him. The military realizes that there’s still a chance for success in Iraq if we gamble that increasing troop strength by 30% will allow us to fight the insurgency as well as keep the peace in Baghdad. We will have increased casualties. And I have no doubt that the insurgents will see to it that civilian casualties skyrocket by hiding amongst them whenever they get the chance and daring us to ferret them out. But if the military can do its job and the bureaucrats can do theirs, there is a chance - just a chance - that we might succeed.

Much will depend on the new Iraqi government that we are organizing - one that will not include Prime Minister Maliki or his puppetmaster Muqtada al-Sadr. And if the Iraqis can put someone in charge that will allow us to go after Sadr and his militia, I would up our chances for success greatly. It will then be up to the Iraqi government to convince the people that they are serious about governing the country for all Iraqis - not just the Shias. For this, national reconciliation is absolutely essential. This would mean bringing to justice some of the worst of the Saddam era gangsters as well as hunting down some of the more recent Shia death squad leaders who have taken such a fearful toll on Sunnis.

This is not impossible. It can be done. But it starts with security for the people. And until the insurgency is cut down to size and the militias and death squads put out of business, the rest won’t mean a thing.

And the only way to better security is by substantially upping our commitment of troops. Argue that they should have been there all along if you want to. All it proves is that you are looking at Pearl Harbor while the rest of us are looking at V-J Day, to use a WW II analogy. And given all that has gone before - the mistakes, the waste, the miscalculations, and yes, the lies told by our government to downplay the seriousness of the situation there - I will support moving forward dealing with the situation we have now rather than criticizing or bemoaning how we got ourselves into this serious crisis.

There’s nothing we can do about what’s gone on the last three years. What is important is what we do now. And in that, I will support the President as long as he is committed to really changing the situation in Iraq for the better and not just fiddling with his policy around the edges.

Boldness will win the day in Iraq. Let’s hope the President, lonely as he might be, has it in him to see this venture through to success.

UPDATE

Justin Logan at Cato at Liberty disputes the idea that any number of troops (save a massive commitment) would make any difference in counterinsurgency efforts.

His reasoning is probably sound but I don’t think mere numbers can tell the story here. Can a 40-50,000 increase in troops for Baghdad improve the security situation enough that more Iraqi troops would be able to do some good there?

This NY Times article would seem to indicate that much of Logan’s numbers deficit might be made up by Iraqi troops. And as far as “defeating” the insurgency, there are other aspects to the “neo con” plan such as the jobs program and a stronger government that might affect his conclusions there as well.

All things considered, don’t give me a “mulligan” as Logan sneeringly refers to this final effort but rather one more round before throwing in the towel. What Logan doesn’t allude to are the consequences of total failure - a place that he believes we’ve already arrived at. I reject that idea completely. Vast improvements can be made if we make the effort and if the Iraqis do their part. And that is definitely worth it.

UPDATE II

Nikolay correctly points out in the comments that the SCIRI and the UIA are the same party.

Technically, the UIA is the governing coalition made up mostly of Shia parties - including SCIRI - as well as Chalabi’s secular Iraqi National Congress, al-Maliki’s Dawa party, and a smattering of smaller Shia and Sunni parties. Al-Sadr’s influence arises from a party that he does not officially endorse but that is made up largely of his militia, the National Independent Cadres and Elites. The hidden hand behind the UIA was at one time the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. But jostling for power by the likes of al-Sadr soured the old man on politics and he supposedly “retired” from the fray last summer.

At the moment, there is no serious rival to the SCIRI although al-Sadr weilds influence in several of the minor Shia parties as well as the Cadres and Elites party. Whether he can emerge as a true electoral rival to the SCIRI remains to be seen.

Thanks to Nikolay for correcting the error.