Right Wing Nut House

He said all the right things. He said them in the right way. He said them with conviction. He was humble where he should have been. He was firm where he should have been. He was vague where he should have been (Iran). He was specific where he should have been (Anbar).

I largely agreed with the President’s assessment - as far is it went. Why he kept mentioning “sectarian elements” rather than militias and not mention al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army by name is a minor point but telling. What it says to me is that despite al-Maliki’s assurances, we’re still not sure what the consequences will be when we start going after Mookie’s Army. If the Mahdi Militia comes out swinging, the Iraqi army will have its hands full with no guarantee that they will actually fight them. In fact, this entire plan is dependent on an Iraqi army that has yet to prove it can do anything much at all. Deploying 18 brigades to Baghdad when the largest combat action that the Iraqi army has been involved in has been company sized engagements will test the new army to the limit.

Still, there’s no time like the present for the Iraqis to get their feet wet. Now all we have to do is hope that they’ll show up in Baghdad as ordered. Last summer when Maliki tried to deploy troops to Baghdad, many of the units mutinied and refused to serve. Let’s hope they have that little problem ironed out as well.

I would have hoped that we somehow could have engineered al-Maliki’s downfall and replaced him and his government with a much broader coalition of Sunnis, Kurds, and secular Shias. But the Grand Ayatollah Sistani nixed that idea because he feared the Shias would lose power in any arrangement that didn’t include the flaming Shia nationalist al-Sadr. This was unfortunate since the fear of absolute Shia dominance is one of the things driving the insurgency. Sharing oil revenues, which the President mentioned in his speech, is only part what has to be a sustained and serious effort by the Iraqi government to assure all factions that the Shias will not ride roughshod over everyone else. The sharing of revenues is a start. We await other moves by Maliki that will prove his statesmanship with other factions in Iraq.

So we refine our strategy in Iraq. Now what? Fewer people will die, hopefully. But the President barely touched on the consequences of this sectarian violence; the depopulation of Sunnis from the capitol as well as the mass exodus of Sunnis from the country. There are 1 million in Syria, 700,000 in Jordan, nearly 100,000 in Egypt, about 40,000 in Lebanon, and about 20,000 in Turkey. Another 50,000 have fled the Middle East all together and ended up in Europe and the US.

And since Sunnis generally made up the most skilled and most educated part of the workforce, this is a brain drain of immense proportions. What is driving these people away is the fact that, despite what the President said about Shias wanting to live in peace with the Sunnis, the fact is there is a sizable minority of Shias who don’t believe that, who either want to kill Sunnis or have them gone from Iraq.

This is the biggest challenge facing the Iraqi government and it won’t be solved by sending troops to Baghdad or even taking the guns out of the hands of the militias. This is a sickness in the Iraqi soul and only some kind of national reconciliation a la South Africa could make a start toward healing these wounds. America can’t do anything to help here either except perhaps create an atmosphere where such a process would be possible.

What Bush is proposing could lead to a limited success in Iraq; saving the Sunnis from annihilation and giving the streets back to the Iraqi government. Beyond that, any democracy that emerges from our involvement there will also be up to the Iraqi people. We’ve done just about all we can do in that regard as well.

I believe the President should get a bump in support from this. And support for the war may increase a couple of points as well. But the days of moving the American people en masse towards a belief in victory are long gone, crashed on the shoals of unfulfilled promises and the disheartening realities of the violence in Iraq. But if what the President proposes is the very best we can hope for - and I believe that it is - then perhaps it will eventually be seen by both the Iraqi and American people as having been worth the effort.

After three years of carping, harping, caterwauling, criticizing, not to mention spinning ever more outrageous and fantastical conspiracy theories about the war, it is time for the Democrats to stand up and do what they say they’ve been sent to Washington to do; get us out of Iraq.

Now is the time we find out whether the Democrats are a bunch of gutless cowards whose political calculations about “supporting the troops but not the mission” has any meaning beyond the sound bite culture of Washington and political campaigns. Now is the time we discover whether Democrats have the courage of their convictions and truly believe that the war is a lost cause, necessitating the immediate withdrawal of our forces.

Not “redeployment” or other weasel words that the Democrats have used in the past in attempting to hide from the gales of history that are blowing ever more fiercely through the Middle East and beyond, but the physical withdrawal of our troops from the fighting. In other words, a halt to combat operations, an admission that the war was not only ill advised, ill considered, and carried out with spectacular incompetence but also that we have lost the conflict and that the terrorists, jihadis, and murderous thugs in the Sunni insurgency have won.

Along with this admission of total failure must come an acknowledgement of success by our enemies. This is the nature of war. One side comes out the winner. The other, a loser. And if the Democrats had any balls at all they would be just as loud and obnoxious when complaining about al-Qaeda’s “victory” against us as they are when complaining about everything else having to do with the war.

They won’t do it, of course, It might lose them a few votes. So despite the fact that they believe the war a failure, that Bush an incompetent fool, that our men are dying needlessly in Iraq, that civilians are being butchered in a lost cause, that there is nothing we can do to stem the tide of victory by al-Qaeda and the jihadis, they will sit back on their over fed, overly ample haunches and kibitz like a bunch of old maids at a bridge game, maintaining a high moral tone while abjectly failing to act in a moral fashion.

For if the Democrats really believed all they say about Iraq - and there should be no doubt that they do - then the only morally defensible position to take is to cut our losses and bring our troops home. Not in 6 months. Not in three months. There should not be one more American soldier who dies or is wounded because of what they see as the illusory notion that there is any kind of victory to be had in Iraq.

But no. The Democrats want to have it both ways. They want an “out” just in case the security situation really does improve as the result of our sending an extra few thousand men to Baghdad. They don’t want Republicans to take political advantage of their moral stance regarding the withdrawal of our troops. They want to be able to claim that they “succeeded” in making Bush change direction in policy - especially if their is a significant improvement in the security situation.

Frankly, I don’t know what they’re so worried about. The chances that an extra 20,000 troops will make a difference in the long run are slight indeed. Three times that many and there may have been a chance to alter the cycle of sectarian violence that now claims far more lives every day than al-Qaeda terrorists or Sunni insurgents. As it stands, the extra troops are little more than a symbolic gesture by the President, a sign to his supporters and the Iraqis that he is still committed to achieving some kind of “victory” - whatever that means.

And lest you think I am any more satisfied with the Administration’s plans than I am with the stance of cowardly Democrats, think again.

The President has been saying for three years that we cannot fail in Iraq, that it is absolutely vital to our national security and to the future of our country that Iraq be seen as a success in the War on Terror.

If this is so, why has he been so lethargic in defending his actions? Why hasn’t he answered his critics with anything except platitudes and rosy scenarios that bore little relation to the reality of what was actually happening on the ground? Why did he resist any review of his strategy for so long, even after it became clear that we were failing in Iraq? And why for the love of God has he dithered for more than 4 months as the violence, already severely disrupting Iraqi society by making more than half a million refugees and record numbers of civilian dead, reached new heights of savagery and brutality?

George Bush is a failure on many levels as President but he has reached the zenith of incompetence as a moral leader. His apocalyptic rhetoric about the consequences of failure in Iraq has not been backed up by the kind of leadership that would have given the American people a stake in this conflict beyond the families of our soldiers who have born the entire burden of sacrifice in this war. This has meant that support for his policies was bound to deteriorate if things went south in Iraq. And, like the moral cowardice of the Democrats who refuse to take their rhetoric about the war to its logical conclusion by advocating an immediate withdrawal, the President has demonstrated his own moral laxity by opening a huge chasm between what he says the stakes are in Iraq with his actions.

For if, as the President contends, these stakes are so high, why not call up every National Guard member and every reservist we have? If our equipment is being slowly ground down by overuse in the hot, desert-like conditions of Iraq, why not ask for a crash program to have American industry turn out new equipment? Why not constitute a new “War Production Board to prioritize and order American manufacturers to turn out what is needed to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion? Despite the loss of much of our manufacturing base, you can’t convince me that this couldn’t be done - if there was the will and the leadership to do it.

Why not rationing? Why not raise taxes? Why not put his cherished domestic agenda on hold while the American government bends every effort and concentrates almost exclusively on winning the war in Iraq?

How unrealistic am I being by hearkening back to the domestic tactics we used in World War II that successfully gave every American a stake in our victory or defeat? Obviously, very little of what I proposed above would be possible or even practicable. But I listed those actions because they illustrate a point; that the President has not tapped the enormous reserves of patriotism nor the deep, traditional well spring of self sacrifice that the American people have demonstrated they are capable of if they believe the stakes are high enough. And this President has failed miserably in doing that.

Because the President lacks the political courage to take these kinds of actions that would unite us in a common cause and call forth our best effort, we are losing the war. And now, at this late date, the best we can do is send a paltry 20,000 more men to a failing state that is in danger of falling off a cliff and turning into another Somalia - a haven for roving gangs of thugs with guns and terrorists to plan and train for their next mission against the United States.

The time for evasion by all sides is over. What we need is an up or down vote in the House and Senate on continuing this war. Either we decide to do everything in our power to prosecute the war to the fullest extent possible in order to achieve even a limited victory (defined as a stable Iraqi government in charge of its own streets) or we begin the immediate withdrawal of our forces and let the Iraqis stew in the mess we have made. Move some troops to Afghanistan where at least there is a fighting chance for success. But get them out of Iraq and allow the regional players who have done their best to undermine our efforts there to pick up the pieces themselves. We will just have to deal with their success as another aspect of the general War on Terror.

The aftermath will not be easy to overcome. But if we decide enough is enough, we will have to face the consequences of our failure and move on from there. And if we decide to do whatever it takes to win through to a limited victory, then it’s time to make the President responsible for his rhetoric.

Whatever the decision, no more straddling, no more evasions, no more hiding behind political doubletalk. For both the President and the Democrats, half measures won’t cut it. It’s time to stand up and be counted - no matter what side you’re on.

US AC-130 gunships attacked some fleeing al-Qaeda members along the Somalia-Kenya border wreaking havoc, sowing confusion, and evidently killing several terrorists - including a possible al-Qaeda financier who may have assisted the bombers who destroyed our African embassies in 1998:

A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship attacked suspected al-Qaeda members in southern Somalia on Sunday, and U.S. sources said the operation may have hit a senior terrorist figure.

The strike took place near the Kenyan border, according to a senior officer at the Pentagon. Other sources said it was launched at night from the U.S. military facility in neighboring Djibouti. It was based on joint military-CIA intelligence and on information provided by Ethiopian and Kenyan military forces operating in the border area.

Sources said last night that initial reports indicated the attack had been successful, although information was still scanty.

“You had some figures on the move in a relatively unpopulated part of the country,” said one source confirming the attack, who, like several others, would discuss the operation only on the condition of anonymity. “It was a confluence of information and circumstances,” he said. The attack was first reported by CBS News.

This is more like it. First, we had cooperative intelligence sharing from both Ethiopia and Kenya - the two major players in that part of the world and both of whom want nothing to do with al-Qaeda and radical Islam. Secondly, the operation appeared to be well planned and expertly carried out. Third, the bonus to the operation may be the timely deaths of two higher ups in al-Qaeda who have been responsible for aiding the perpetrators of attacks on American interests:

One target of the strike, sources said, was Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese who is married to a Somali woman and has lived in Somalia since 1993 — the year of the attack against U.S. troops that was chronicled in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.” In a 2001 U.S. court case against Osama bin Laden, Sudani was described by a leading witness as an explosives expert who was close to the al-Qaeda leader.

More recently, Sudani was identified by U.S. intelligence as a close associate of Gouled Hassan Dourad, head of a Mogadishu-based network that operated in support of al-Qaeda in Somalia. Dourad is one of 14 “high-value” prisoners transferred last September from CIA “black sites” to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence then disclosed that Dourad “worked for the East African al-Qaeda cell led by . . . al-Sudani” and carried out at least one mission for him, related to a plan to bomb the U.S. military base in Djibouti.

And that’s not all. US intelligence has fingered Sudani as the financier for the terrorist attack on our embassies in 1998. And the terrorist who was the beneficiary of that financing may have been killed in the raid as well:

Others have identified Sudani as the financier for Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, believed responsible for the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. All are among the senior al-Qaeda operatives the Bush administration has charged were sheltered by Somalian Islamic fundamentalists controlling Mogadishu, the country’s capital. They are believed to have fled late last month when Ethiopian troops drove the fundamentalists out of the capital and toward the Kenyan border.

[In an interview early Tuesday, Abdirizak Hassan, chief of staff for Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, confirmed the strike. Hassan said he heard from American officials that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed had been killed, although U.S. officials said he had not been in their immediate sights. "Among the targets was Fazul," he said, "and we understand that Fazul is no more."

Hassan also said Somali officials authorized the strike. "We gave permission for actions that are more than airstrikes," Hassan said. "Whatever it means to rout these people out, we have given them permission."]

So to sum up; a multi national effort to destroy fleeing al-Qaeda terrorists, carried out with precision and our military’s usual deadly efficiency, with the permission of the UN approved and backed Somali government, may have sent two major al-Qaeda figures along with several others to hell.

One would think that such an operation could be supported by all Americans who wish to fight terrorism. In fact, I would say that this is a no brainer - even for the left.

But what do I know?

These men are believed responsible for acts of terrorism, and the people who were attacked were believed to be the men in question. Evidently that forms a sound basis for administering (or, at least, attempting to administer) the death penalty, at least by U.S. standards.

While this person represents the loopy left, even “mainstream” liberals are clucking their tongues and wagging their fingers in disapproval:

See, here’s the thing. The US, again, refused to talk directly to the ICU. The ICU, like Hezbollah, wanted, needed, recognition (even more than Hezbollah). A deal could have been made. But it wasn’t. Instead what the US has done is back a foreign invasion in support of a puppet government with no popular support…

If the ICU had taken over Somalia they could have been dealt with as you deal with nations - pressure, sanctions, maybe even bombing runs - plus the carrot of aid and trade relations. As a guerilla movement there is nothing the US can do to them that it has not already done.

The ICU will win in the long run. A lot of people will die in the meantime. Al-Qa’eda will have another haven, and the US will be reviled for putting a bunch of bloodthirsty raping monsters back into power.

All in a day’s work in the Bush administration.

I don’t know whether to fisk this idiocy or simply sit back and laugh at the breathtaking naivete and appalling ignorance.

First of all, we spent the last 6 months urging the Transitional Government to talk with more moderate elements in the Islamic Courts Union:

Frazer, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, had said late Sunday in Nairobi that Yusuf’s government, which was formed by an international conference in 2004 and has never controlled Mogadishu, needed to bring moderate Islamists into the regime.

“I support reaching out to the … Islamic Courts,” Frazer said. “We see a role in the future of Somalia for all who renounce violence and extremism.”

The message signaled a more conciliatory U.S. stance on the Islamic Courts Movement, which had seized Mogadishu in June from U.S.-backed warlords. Initially U.S. officials based in Kenya had some contact with moderates within the movement, including Sheik Sherif Ahmed, a geography teacher who emerged as their leader.

But Ahmed soon was edged out by hard-liners, led by suspected al-Qaida operative Hassan Dahir Aweys, who laid claims to territory in neighboring countries and called for jihad against Ethiopia. Frazer made a series of statements starting in November claiming that al-Qaida terrorists had overrun the courts movement.

U.S. officials think that the militants are sheltering three terrorists who masterminded the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Bush administration is widely thought to have given neighboring, Christian-led Ethiopia the green light to expel the Islamists.

Funny how the Agonist writer failed to mention that tiny detail of a declaration of jihad against largely Christian Ethiopia by the radicals in ICU long before the invasion. But then, that just doesn’t fit the narrative of the US as bloodthirsty warmongers so it could be safely jettisoned in favor of a comparison of the those gentle souls in the ICU with democratic reformers from Hizbullah.

The stupidity of such a comparison boggles the mind. Hizbullah was enormously unpopular in Lebanon even before they declared their intention to overthrow the legitimately elected government of Prime Minister Siniora. The overwhelming majority of Lebanese place the blame for starting the destructive war against Israel right where it belongs; in Hassan Nasrallah’s lap. To say that Hizbullah has any “popular support” at all beyond the Shia minority (and a sizable segment of secular Shias oppose them as well) is laughable and demonstrates a towering ignorance of what Hizbullah is doing in Lebanon - mainly the bidding of their masters in Syria and Tehran.

And the “popular support” for the ICU in Somalia?

Jubilant Somalis cheered as troops of the U.N.-backed interim government rolled into Mogadishu unopposed Thursday, putting an end to six months of domination of the capital by a radical Islamic movement.

Ethiopian soldiers stopped on the outskirts of town, after providing much of the military might in the offensive that shattered what had seemed an unbeatable Islamic militia. Islamic fighters fled south vowing to continue the battle.

“We are in Mogadishu,” Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi declared after meeting with local clan leaders to discuss the peaceful hand-over of the city.

The ICU had been taken over by radical foreign Islamists in the previous months. Whatever “law and order” they brought to the country came at the expense of the security of their neighbors in Ethiopia and Kenya as the direct threat of jihad against Ethiopia proves conclusively. Not only that, it became apparent that the ICU was setting up a safe haven for terrorists who could strike US and western interests (and friends) in the region:

“We had seen intelligence evidence these three al Qaeda operatives were very much influencing the leadership of the council of the ICU — for example providing logistics, fuel and arms to the militias,” said Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. State Department’s Assistant Secretary for African Affairs.

U.S. officials in East Africa said earlier this week that al Qaeda operatives were developing the ability to attack U.S. targets just as they did when the embassy bombings killed hundreds.

Intelligence shows al Qaeda stepped up its operations in Somalia in June after an Islamic militia took power.

Their camps taught radical Islam to young men, weapons flowed in from eastern European arms dealers and money arrived from the Middle East, U.S. officials said.

“What we were really concerned about was there seemed to be much more recruiting, much more training going on. They were positioning themselves to expand their area of influence beyond Somali borders,” said Rear Adm. Richard Hunt of Task Force Horn of Africa.

Before I condemn the entire left for the stupidity exhibited above, let’s wait and see if any liberals cheer this victory against al-Qaeda. I am hoping that there is some sanity both in Congress and among the netroots who recognize that as flawed as the Transitional Government might be, they are a damn sight better than an Islamist-backed, radical fundamentalist outfit like the ICU running things.

And if we can convince the legitimate government to talk with more moderate elements in the ICU and perhaps bring them into the government in some sort of power sharing arrangement, even the left might celebrate.

Analysts who had been critical of U.S. policy in Somalia said the Bush administration might be focusing on achieving political stability there after years of being preoccupied with preventing al-Qaida cells from taking root.

“If the U.S. is indeed doing more than making a few public statements in support of dialogue with moderates, then it does represent a shift in the public face of its policy,” said John Prendergast, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, a research center on global conflict.

The Islamists’ ouster left a power vacuum in Mogadishu, where the transitional government has little support. The city’s powerful Hawiye clan accuses Yusuf, who’s of a rival clan, of being a puppet of Ethiopia.

“If southern Somalia is to stabilize, it is essential that the transitional government hold substantial power-sharing talks with the Hawiye clan elders and Islamic Courts officials,” Prendergast said.

Trying to sweeten the deal, the U.S. has pledged $40 million in new aid to Somalia, including $14 million to support a proposed African peacekeeping mission. Frazer said the money wasn’t conditional on the transitional government negotiating with the Islamists.

We appear to be undertaking a substantial, determined effort to make the right moves in Somalia now - both militarily and diplomatically. As to the latter, patience may be a virtue that I would urge on my lefty friends. Somalia has resisted efforts to coalesce into a nation for the past 15 years and it will take time for our policies to bear fruit; that is, if we can sustain them.

But if the above excerpts from lefty blogs is the kind of mindless, knee jerk reaction to our efforts and the efforts of a sizable portion of Africa to defeat the ICU and establish a viable government in Somalia, then we can do well to ask our lefty friends a very pointed and pertinent question:

Just what will it take for you to support military action to kill our enemies?

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey:

The Ethiopians did us a big favor by dislodging the Islamists from Mogadishu. Once on the run, the US could bring all of its technological assets on line to track them, and the Air Force waited long enough for all of them to run into the trap. The Navy positioned the USS Eisenhower in the waters nearby Somalia just in case it finds even more targets to strike.

It may have taken us a long time, but we do not forget. Let’s hope that our attack took out these high-value targets and plenty of their followers to boot.

I haven’t written anything about Iraq recently and there’s a reason for it; I’m waiting until we hear from the only guy who counts - the Commander in Chief.

Bush is set to unveil his proposals to improve the situation in Iraq on Wednesday night. I will say this; it’s about damn time. The current uptick in violence started at the beginning of last summer and by August, we had begun transferring more troops to Baghdad to deal with it.

In September, the Iraqis and our military came up with another plan to deal with the sectarian killings because the one we had drawn up in August not only wasn’t working but wasn’t being implemented thanks to the refusal of some Iraqi army units to deploy to Baghdad. Out of 3,000 troops promised to assist Americans in their “sweep, clear, and hold” operations, only 1200 had deployed. Meanwhile, the President, fearful that any change in plan would be seen as a political downer, let things simmer in Iraq as the number of deaths skyrocketed.

After the election, the idea was that the Administration would wait for the recommendations from the Iraq Study Group to change policy. Once it became clear that the ISG was not the answer (except, perhaps for Syrians and the Iranians), only then did the President initiate this in-house review - about 6 months too late in my opinion.

But better late than never. And amidst all the talk of surges and jobs programs, I have yet to hear much about the political initiatives that we need from the Iraqis that should go hand in hand with any surge in troops. For in the end, it is only at the conference table that the various factions in Iraq will find peace - not using the barrel of a gun.

So I have taken a wait and see attitude regarding what the President will do. Couple that with the track record of most major media when it comes to these leaks actually reflecting the President’s thinking rather than one faction or another playing cheerleader by publishing recommendations they want to see included, I’ll keep my powder dry and hold off on commenting until the CIC speaks.

Have I lost faith in Bush? The answer, I’m afraid, is yes. It will take a jaw dropping speech along with imaginative and realistic ideas on how to tamp down the violence for me to believe that the Administration has a clue on how to save the situation from getting even worse much less making a start toward healing Iraqi society.

I’ll have much more to say in the days and weeks following the President’s speech. I hope that we can have a civil debate on those proposals here without having the conversation degenerating into conspiracy mongering or name calling.

Somehow…I’m not optimistic about that last part.

I can’t really get too upset about the rank triumphalism being exhibited by our lefty friends over the official opening of the 110th Congress. After all, if the shoe were on the other foot, I would be writing something similar (albeit much better written and a lot funnier).

But having said that, in perusing lefty blogs this morning, there is a distinct whiff of grapeshot in the air - an undercurrent of self righteous smugness that goes beyond triumphalism, beyond gloating, even beyond the left’s usual exaggerated self image of saving the country from Republican tyranny.

What is on display is not the understandable human desire for revenge born out of more than a decade of slights and insults at the hands of their enemies but rather the cold, calculated hunger for a reckoning, a settling of accounts. It isn’t enough to put Republicans in their place. It isn’t enough to humiliate them, to poke fun at them, to kick them in the head while they’re lying on the ground. It is time to rack the bastards, to stretch their necks and watch them dangle and twist slowly, slowly in the wind.

I am referring, of course, to the braying and crowing emanating from the left in response to the news that Jamil Hussein has probably been found - and right where he was supposed to be:

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP’s initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein’s identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.

My two posts on the AP are here and here. I was wrong about Michelle Malkin debunking the possible problem with transliterating Arab names into English for as Allah posited at the time and points out here, that appears to have been the reason for the inability of the Iraqi Information Ministry and CENTCOM to track Hussein down.

It does little good to point out that the real story is not whether Hussein exists but rather whether the information he was a confirming source for in 61 stories is true or false. That’s because the left doesn’t seem interested in whether or not the news from Iraq is real or imagined. “Fake but accurate” is fine with them. And no, even if every one of the Hussein sourced stories was a lie, that wouldn’t change the grim reality that Iraq is a bloody, violent mess. For the left to make that charge is ridiculous. There aren’t more than a handful of right wing blogs who have been stupid enough to make that claim. But for liberals to willfully self delude themselves into thinking that there isn’t a problem with the AP or any other news outlet who knowingly or unknowingly prints the propaganda of the enemy is incredible.

And the fact of the matter is that the story that set this hunt for Capt. Hussein in motion - that six Sunnis were burned alive and that 4 mosques were destroyed by rampaging Shias - is still open to question. The New York Times was unable to confirm the story and CENTCOM has stated that patrols in the area were unable to confirm the destruction of any mosques much less 4 of them.

But our unquestioning lefty friends - who apparently don’t care if the news is true or false just as long as its bad for Bush and America - have jumped on the Hussein story and, as only leftist twits can do, ignored the implications of the real story and instead directed their venom at bloggers who questioned Hussein’s existence:

And, to their great credit, AP — which continues to aggressively defend its imprisoned-without- charges Iraqi photojournalist Bilal Hussein (whom right-wing bloggers repeatedly accused of being a Terrorist) — fought back against these accusations. And now the right-wing blogosphere stands revealed as what they are — a pack of gossip-mongering hysterics who routinely attack any press reports that reflect poorly on their Leader or his policies, with rank innuendo, Internet gossip, base speculation, and wholesale error as their most frequent tools of the trade. The operate in packs, constantly repeating each other’s innuendo and expanding on it incrementally, and they then cite to each other endlessly in one self-feeding, self-affirming orgy of links, as though that constitutes proof.

And they are wrong over and over and over — and not just in error, but embarrassingly so, because so frequently their claims are transparently, laughably absurd, and they spew the most righteous accusations without any sort of evidence at all. The New Republic has its Stephen Glass and The New York Times has its Jayson Blair. But those are one-off incidents. The right-wing blogosphere is driven by Jayson Blairs. They are exposed as frauds and gossip-mongerers on an almost weekly basis. The only thing that can compete with the consistency of their errors is the viciousness of their accusations and their pompous self-regard as “citizen journalists.”

Yes, I know it’s Greenwald and that his over the top, laughable exaggerations of the vast majority of righty blogs are usually fodder for snarky commentary. But notice the hint of hysteria in his attack. You really should read the whole post because the feeling of smug superiority drips from almost every word, not to mention the paranoia, the tiresome falsehoods, and the outright lies that only our Lambchop can feed to his ravenous, sycophantic readers who hang on every out of control word as if from Gaia herself.

And then there’s this:

Nothing yet from TIDOS Yankee, though I would point out that today is the anniversary of the National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer, declared by President James Buchanan in 1861. National “Days of Humiliation” were a regular feature of Anglo-American political life from 1648 until the early 20th century; although such days are still declared every now and again, the political language has shifted somewhat to the use of the word “humility” rather than “humiliation.” Nevertheless, for Bob Owens, Michelle Malkin, the guy from Flopping Aces — and every right-wing soldier in the Army of Davids who linked to these wankers over the past month — today must certainly a day of humiliation in the traditional as well as the more contemporary senses.

One wonders if admitting error is enough for these folks. Obviously not. Nothing less than self flagellation and a knee walk up the cathedral steps while wearing sackcloth and choking on ashes will do.

And for all the ink and snark and failed attempts at humor, there is still the elephant sitting in the settee; how good a job is the media doing reporting from Iraq?

To not ask the question shows an incuriousness bordering on somnolence. I will take a back seat to no one in expressing my admiration for those reporters who have braved the wilds of Baghdad and done a thankless job while risking life and limb to ply their craft (Jill Carroll comes to mind). And for those reporters who, by necessity, rely on local Iraqi stringers for news and background, I sympathize with their plight. Confirming information in that bloody nightmare of a country must be an extraordinarily difficult undertaking.

But where is it written that reporters are infallible - even if they have the best of intentions? Are we to simply accept what we read and hear about what’s going on in Iraq from some in the media when others (not associated with the government or Administration) are telling a different story or, as in the case of the AP, the information can’t be confirmed?

It would seem to me to be the height of irresponsibility as a citizen not to question the sensationalism, the myopic obsession with body counts, and the almost total lack of context that accompanies every story out of Iraq. It is beyond belief that this is the best our journalists can do even under the trying circumstances in which they are forced to work - especially when there are stories coming from people like Bill Ardolino, Bill Roggio, and other embeds that, while still giving a horrific picture of what’s going on, also seem to be able to give a context to their stories that is missing from almost all the reporting we see and hear from Iraq.

I don’t think any righty blogger is looking for miracles when it comes to getting news from Iraq. Despite what many lefties are saying, no one that I’ve read on the right thinks that if only the “real” story of what’s going on could be “revealed,” the American people would do a 180 degree turn and support the war. But is it too much to ask that what is disseminated to the American people is a more complete and accurate picture of what is going on when we have 140,000 of our sons and daughters in harms way?

Apparently for the left, that is too much to ask.

It may be hard to swallow but the Iraq Study Group may have done the Bush Administration a big favor.

The fact that the ISG Report was so defeatist and so pessimistic about the future in Iraq means that any significant improvement to the security situation will greatly exceed expectations engendered by the report, thus giving the President a modest but welcome success.

Of course, achieving success will depend mostly on the ability of the Iraqi government to address the tangled web of political problems that are fueling much of the violence. But it is significant that the effort to cobble together a new coalition - more broadly based than the current Shia dominated regime - will continue despite the resistance of the iconic Ayatollah al-Sistani.

The old man may have given up on the United States already which could explain his failure to give his blessing to the plan to marginalize Muqtada al-Sadr by booting him out of the governing coalition. If Sistani is looking to the day that Americans are no longer in Iraq, he may see the Iranian dominated SCIRI as a bigger threat to Iraqi sovereignty than the ambitious nationalist warlord al-Sadr in which case, he will need the Mahdi Militia to fight off the expected lunge for power by the Badr Organization, the military arm of the SCIRI. Or, he may simply hate the idea of reducing the power of Shias in any Iraqi government. Regardless of his motives, his approval may not be required in order for a new government to begin taking the steps necessary to dramatically reduce the violence that threatens to destroy the Iraqi state.

And the problems faced by any new government will be formidable. If you only read one thing today, read this piece on Iraq from StrategyPage.com. A sample:

There are several wars going on in Iraq. The most violent one is the war against Sunni Arabs. This community, which was about twenty percent of the population in 2003, is now fifteen percent, and dropping fast. Most of those Sunni Arabs that could afford to get out, already have. Those that remain are either too poor, or too stubborn, to leave. The stubborn ones are the Sunni nationalists who, for personal or altruistic reasons, do not want Iraq run by its majority population, the Shia Arabs.

[snip]

Another war is Irans attempts to dominate the country. Iran is doing this through Shia Arab factions it has influenced, or bought. While the majority of Shia Arabs oppose Iran pulling strings in Iran, there is a realization that Iran is a natural ally against Sunni Arab efforts to put Iraqi Sunni Arabs back in charge of Iraq. This, oddly enough, is where the United States come in. Iraqi Shia Arabs look to the U.S. as a guarantor of Shia Arab dominance in the country. The U.S. is expected to keep both Iran, and foreign Sunni Arab, influence from interfering in Iraq.

[snip]

Islamic radicals, both Sunni and Shia, are also at war with infidels (non-Moslems) and less devout Moslems…

Warlordism is alive and well in Iraq, as it is throughout the Arab world. But in most countries, the tribal and religious factions have been disarmed, and kept in check via favors or fear (or both.) That’s what Saddam did, and with Saddam gone, all the factions got their guns and went into business for themselves. Some of these private armies are there mainly to protect a criminal enterprise. Most of the criminal gangs have political wings, since the gangsters want to make money, not war, and are willing to pay off the government. But the criminals will fight to keep their loot. Some of the gangs provide support services for terrorists (making bombs, transporting weapons and people, whatever). The most notable warlords are those that lead political militias, but even these groups have “business” units that engage in extortion (or “taxes”) and theft (often of oil). Fighting the gangs is a war that can wait, but it will eventually have to be fought.

Viewed in this context, one can immediately see how military force can only be part of any solution to the violence in Iraq. There must be corresponding political moves by the Iraqi government that will mitigate the anger of the Sunnis while blocking the militias from walking the streets and enforcing their will with impunity. This is an extremely tall order for any Iraqi government, no matter how it is constituted. And all of this is happening in the shadow of the ISG Report that many Iraqis and neighboring states see as a defeatist document that will mean the precipitous withdrawal of American forces. Arnoud de Borchgrave:

“WatchingAmericadotcom” conveys a bleak picture of how the rest of the world views the 79 recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG). Whichever way you slice ‘em and dice ‘em, the report’s 104 pages spell failure. Some of its harshest critics in America say they’re a recipe for surrender. Abroad, they’re seen as a tacit recognition of defeat.

From Buenos Aires to Berlin and from Brussels to Beijing, ISG was a devastating indictment of a multibillion-dollar boondoggle. In Tehran and Pyongyang, the two remaining capitals in the “axis of evil,” and in Damascus, axis of lesser evil, cliches bristled about paper tigers and giants-with-feet-of-clay. That is precisely why President Bush is not about to accept ISG’s findings. Mr. Bush sees himself as a lone Winston Churchill figure from the 1930s railing against his somnolent colleagues as they appeased Adolf Hitler. And like Churchill at the end of World War II, he was not elected to preside over the dissolution of the American empire.

Reinforcing Mr. Bush’s gut feeling recently was a paper by Gen. Chuck Wald, recently retired as EUCOM commander, and Chuck Vollmer, President of VII Inc, which does strategic analysis for the Pentagon. “With the entry of Iran into the equation,” they wrote, “the next phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom could possibly include… a major invasion of Iran and pro-Iranian forces against Western forces in the region and Israel, and/or a global energy crisis.

“Rather than planning withdrawal from Iraq,” says the Wald-Vollmer paper, “we may be better served to plan for repositioning in this strategically important region. While withdrawal may be necessary in Iraq, withdrawal from the region would precipitate a global balance-of-power shift toward the Iran-Russia-China axis, which would be very detrimental for the energy dependent West.”

It is a continuing mystery to me why, if the stakes are as high as the President says they are in Iraq, that there has not been an urgency to the deliberations on what to do to change the situation on the ground. The President is proceeding as if the situation is stabilized and he has all the time in the world to come to some kind of decision. Instead, the blood shed has increased dramatically since our elections, the government of Iraq has sunk deeper into chaos and ineffectiveness, and our enemies in Syria and Iran grow bolder by the week. I realize Bush wants to achieve some kind of consensus within the Administration, but time’s a’wasting.

As if to underscore this point, it appears that al-Qaeda in Iraq is planning something spectacular. Counterterrorism Blog:

In response to yesterday’s audio message from Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, commander (or “emir”) of the Al-Qaida-led “Islamic State of Iraq”, Al-Qaida and its Iraqi insurgent coalition partners have announced the start of a “Mighty Raid on the Soldiers of the Crusaders and Apostates.” A statement circulated today by fighters loyal to the “Islamic State” declared, “We are at your service, Our Emir” and indicated that “new strikes by the legions of mujahideen–at their head, the Martyr Brigades, the Anti-Aircraft Brigades, the Assault Brigades, and the Fixed Weapons Brigades–are in progress targeting the fortresses of the crusaders and apostates.”

While the statement did not list any specific targets, there are general ongoing concerns about Baghdad’s international zone, otherwise known as the “Green Zone.” Only two months ago, the U.S. military announced that it had dismantled an Al-Qaida cell in Baghdad that managed to infiltrate the high-security Green Zone and was “in the final stages” of preparing to launch suicide bomb attacks.

A large, successful attack in the Green Zone will only make matters that much more difficult for the President. And the sooner his Administration can come to an agreement on what to do next, the better.

I don’t know if anything we do over the next few months will make a difference in Iraq. I know that we have to try. It’s not bluster or grandiose posturing to admit that things are bad and getting worse, but wanting to alter course in order to try and address the problems that have arisen as a direct result of our invasion and occupation. Many war opponents are accusing Bush of not facing up to reality and advocate withdrawing now before any more soldiers or civilians suffer as a result of our blunders in Iraq. But if, as the President has said time and again, the stakes are too high in Iraq to fail, then Bush would be a poor commander indeed if he threw in the towel now.

If the best that can be achieved is to exceed the lowly expectations engendered by the ISG Recommendations, I would take that over a precipitous and humiliating withdrawal. But time is running out. And sooner or later, our efforts will have to be seen as accomplishing something positive if the continued sacrifice of blood and treasure can be justified.

This story has been given the predictable spin by the Washington Post; that Bush and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are at odds over the strategy of putting up to 30,000 more troops in Iraq.

But if you read the entire article, you realize that, in fact, the Chiefs are worried about how to define the mission as well as placing a time limit on their deployment - not on whether or not the troops should be dispatched:

But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public.

The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion.

At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq — including al-Qaeda’s foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias — without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.

The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

These are certainly fair questions and realistic concerns. And it is important to see any surge in troops as an adjunct to the absolutely necessary political progress that must take place in Iraq if our efforts there are to have any impact whatsoever.

Is there anyone in Iraq who can bring all the factions together to hammer out the numerous issues that stand in the way of a peaceful, viable, Iraqi state? There seems to be some progress on the problem with finding an equitable way to share oil revenue But other issues like federalism and autonomy, amnesty for insurgents, justice for the victims of Saddam’s tyranny, as well as how and when US troops will disengage from the country are proving far beyond the ability of the empty suit of a Prime Minister who currently inhabits that office to even begin to deal with.

Nouri al-Maliki has got to go. His craven kowtowing to Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army has made the security situation in Baghdad worse by preventing American forces from fully engaging the Mahdis when they catch them stirring the sectarian pot. The Iraq Crisis Group - a European-based informal think tank - has pointed out correctly that Maliki is part of the security problem and not the man we want helping us to get control of the capitol:

“What is needed today is a clean break both in the way the U.S. and other international actors deal with the Iraqi government, and in the way the U.S. deals with the region.”

The Iraqi government and military should not be treated as “privileged allies” because they are not partners in efforts to stem the violence but rather parties to the conflict, it says. Trying to strengthen the fragile government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will not contribute to Iraq’s stability, it adds. Iraq’s escalating crisis cannot be resolved militarily, the report says, and can be solved only with a major political effort.

The report also offers some interesting solutions, all of which are probably non-starters with the Administration but nevertheless represent some original thinking about the political problems in Iraq:

The International Crisis Group proposes three broad steps: First, it calls for creation of an international support group, including the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Iraq’s six neighbors, to press Iraq’s constituents to accept political compromise.

Second, it urges a conference of all Iraqi players, including militias and insurgent groups, with support from the international community, to forge a political compact on controversial issues such as federalism, distribution of oil revenue, an amnesty, the status of Baath Party members and a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. Finally, it suggests a new regional strategy that would include engagement with Syria and Iran and jump-starting the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process.

Why the foreign policy elites of the world are so enamored of the Palestinian-Israeli “peace process” and believe that any progress (or lack thereof) in that arena will affect what happens in Iraq is beyond me. It’s almost as if both the Iraq Study Group and now the Iraq Crisis Group have included that recommendation to satisfy the internal biases of specific members of their respective groups, bartering its inclusion in both final reports in order to achieve consensus on other matters contained in the documents. That seemed to be the internal dynamic of the Baker Commission and I have little doubt that something similar occurred in the European group.

But the idea of a “Grand Conference” - if it was possible - is intriguing on a variety of levels. Getting the rest of the region as well as the the Security Council involved in what is happening in Iraq in a more direct way may prove to be the best way to deal with both the insurgency and the scourge of sectarian violence at the same time.

If such a conference could take place in the 18 months or so that many analysts are saying that we can safely commit our extra troops; and if the political situation in Iraq can be improved by booting Maliki and replacing him with someone who wants to confront the security and political problems in the country and not run away from them or seek to finesse them; then there is hope that our increased commitment of men will contribute to stability.

The White House sees the Chief’s questions as the normal give and take in any policy discussion of this magnitude, which is the correct way to view the criticism. I would be a helluva lot more worried if the Chiefs didn’t seek to clarify this commitment and pin the politicians down by clearly defining what the mission of these extra troops would be:

A senior administration official said it is “too simplistic” to say the surge question has broken down into a fight between the White House and the Pentagon, but the official acknowledged that the military has questioned the option. “Of course, military leadership is going to be focused on the mission — what you’re trying to accomplish, the ramifications it would have on broader issues in terms of manpower and strength and all that,” the official said.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said military officers have not directly opposed a surge option. “I’ve never heard them be depicted that way to the president,” the official said. “Because they ask questions about what the mission would be doesn’t mean they don’t support it. Those are the kinds of questions the president wants his military planners to be asking.”

The concerns raised by the military are sometimes offset by concerns on the other side. For instance, those who warn that a short-term surge would harm longer-term deployments are met with the argument that the situation is urgent now, the official said. “Advocates would say: ‘Can you afford to wait? Can you afford to plan in the long term? What’s the tipping point in that country? Do you have time to wait?’ “

I would say that given the state of the insurgency and the growing influence of the militias, there simply isn’t time; we must act now:

The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its highest level on record and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved a “strategic success” by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq’s political institutions.

In its most pessimistic report yet on progress in Iraq, the Pentagon described a nation listing toward civil war, with violence at record highs of 959 attacks per week, declining public confidence in government and “little progress” toward political reconciliation.

“The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace,” said Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed journalists on the report. “We have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian violence. . . . That is the premier challenge facing us now.”

This report is from our own military. It is not generated by the media. It is not compiled by a left wing think tank. It is not a figment of someone’s imagination.

We are losing the war - on the ground. Not in a tactical sense, of course. We win every engagement in which we are involved. But our efforts are not making the government stronger or the Iraqi people safer.

Driven by sectarian fighting, and a Ramadan surge, attack levels in Iraq hit record highs in all categories nationwide as the number of U.S. and coalition casualties surged 32 percent from mid-August to mid-November, compared with the previous three months, the report said. Over the same period, the number of attacks per week rose 22 percent, from 784 to 959.

Iraqi civilian casualties also increased, “almost entirely the result of murders and executions,” the report said. Since January, before the mosque bombing, ethno-sectarian executions rose from 180 to 1,028 in October; ethno-sectarian incidents rose from 63 to 996 over the same period.

And what of problems with the Iraqi Army and Police? Again - this is from our own military:

The report noted problems with Iraqi forces, however, saying the number of soldiers and police actually “present for duty” is far lower than the number trained and equipped.

Subtracting those Iraqi forces killed and wounded, and those who have quit the force, only 280,000 are “available for duty,” Sattler said. About 30 percent of that number are “on leave” at a time, he said, leaving fewer than 196,000 on the job.

Iraqi police forces in particular are increasingly corrupt, according to the report, which says that some police in Baghdad have supported Shiite death squads. The police “facilitated freedom of movement and provided advance warning of upcoming operations,” it said. “This is a major reason for the increased levels of murders and executions.”

As a result of mass defections or police units being pulled off duty, the number of Iraqi police battalions rated as having “lead responsibility” in their areas fell from six to two, the report said, although officials said that number has since increased.

The Iraqi army has steadily increased the number of its battalions in the lead, from 57 in May to 91 in November, although some units have experienced high attrition when ordered to deploy to different regions of Iraq, such as Baghdad and Anbar.

“High attrition” is an understatement. Most units, according to the Iraqi government itself, refuse to go to either Anbar or Baghdad. Some units simply vote not to deploy - in other words, mutiny. Other units suffer 70% of its soldiers going AWOL and are unable to go.

The point is simple: There is no purely military solution - either American or Iraqi - to the security problems in Iraq.

Sattler implied that no number of U.S. or Iraqi troops would be great enough to quash the revenge killings. “I don’t know how many forces you could push into a country, either U.S. or coalition or Iraqi forces, that could cover the entire country, where these death squads wouldn’t find somebody,” he said.

Indeed, the report documented that major U.S. and Iraqi military operations in the fall did not quell sectarian violence in Baghdad. Attacks dipped in August, but rebounded strongly in September after death squads adapted to the increased U.S. and Iraqi presence.

Any actions we take to increase our troop strength must be taken in concert with political moves by the Iraqi government and - if it can be done - with other countries in the region who have either an involvement in the conflict or a stake in the outcome. I am not overly optimistic about a regional conference to help resolve the problems. But there is simply no alternative to working with the Iraqis on the political problems that fuel the insurgency and the sectarian violence. If the Iraqis refuse to help themselves by trying to heal the numerous cracks in their fractured body politic, I fear that any additional American troops would simply add to the problems and not accomplish much of anything.

I can’t tell you the number of slings and arrows that have been flung my way for advocating dialogue with Syria and Iran in the context of a regional conference on Iraq. When I give the reason for my advocacy - a burgeoning refugee problem that threatens to overwhelm those two Iraqi neighbors which might make them more amendable to helping us stem the violence - I have been pilloried as a tool of the enemy or worse, a closet lefty.

For those who don’t think that there’s trouble a’brewing in both Iran and Syria as a result of the uncontrolled flight of Shias and Sunnis from Iraq due to the violence,think again. Here is a map published in the New York Times based on figures compiled by the UN:

(HT: American Footprints)

Talking to both Iran and Syria the same way we dealt with North Korea in the 6 party negotiations would be different than carrying on bi-lateral discussions - something I vigorously oppose. The violence in Iraq is causing enormous problems for Syria and soon will become a very big problem for Iran. Neither wants a failed state on their borders where the refugee problem - already at crisis levels - would spiral out of control and begin to affect the internal politics of both countries.

This has been the basis for my advocacy of dealing with Iran and Syria in the multi-party context of regional security and stability. And Syria especially, may be willing to discuss measures to assist in tamping down the violence in Iraq:

[Syria] can’t maintain its open-door policy without international support. Refugees already strain social services. Yet, the international response to the Iraqi refugee crisis has been dismal. Despite numbers that rival the displacement in Darfur, there has been scant media attention and even less political concern. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is doing little.

An increase in resources for UNHCR could make a huge difference. As winter approaches, the need is growing for portable heaters, warm clothing and help in paying electric bills and warm clothing. Mental health services for traumatized Iraqis are equally needed. And legal and financial help to maintain their visa status would prevent deportations back to a precarious life in Iraq.

One thing these refugees bring to the countries where they flee is instability. And authoritarian regimes like Syria and Iran detest instability. The question is do they fear it enough to stop stirring the pot in Iraq?

Obviously we won’t find out unless we join with other countries affected like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt to find solutions. And that can only be accomplished via some kind of regional dialogue.

And what of the tens of thousands of Iraqi “collaborators” who have so bravely assisted us for the last 4 years? Are we to abandon them to the tender mercies of whatever forces emerge in the wake of our withdrawal as we did our South Vietnamese allies 30 years ago?

We should start issuing visas in Baghdad, as well as in the regional embassies in Mosul, Kirkuk, Hilla, and Basra. We should issue them liberally, which means that we should vastly increase our quota for Iraqi refugees. (Last year, it was fewer than 200.) We should prepare contingency plans for massive airlifts and ground escorts. We should be ready for desperate and angry crowds at the gates of the Green Zone and U.S. bases. We should not allow wishful thinking to put off these decisions until it’s too late. We should not compound our betrayals of Iraqis who put their hopes in our hands.

I honestly don’t think that kind of effort will be necessary - at least I hope not. If it is then it will mean that we’re being run out of Iraq on a rail - something I doubt will materialize. We will not abandon our embassy regardless of when our troops leave. And I suspect that no matter who is in power in Iraq, we will maintain relations with them.

But it does open the question of not abandoning those who might suffer in a post-occupation Iraq as a result of their cooperation with us. The idea that we are only allowing 200 Iraqis a year to enter the US is absurd. It should be at least 10 times that number. The author of that article has the right idea; no betrayals of those who risked their lives to help us.

Those refugee numbers will only start to get worse as Sunnis continue to leave Iraq for good. An estimated 15% have left in the last 3 years alone. And with so many internally displaced by the violence directed against them, it may be only a matter of time before they leave the country for good.

The refugee problem in Iraq is a symptom. And since it involves all of Iraq’s neighbors, a regional solution would logically seem to be the answer. That, and a brake on Iran and Syria’s efforts to keep the violence at a high level.

Whatever we do, we better start doing it sooner rather than later.

“Iraq needs a Pinochet” is the name of a column written by one of the supposed leading lights of the conservative movement, Jonah Goldberg. The sub-head is even better: The general was no saint, but he’s a better model to follow than Castro.

Saying that Pinochet was “no saint” is something akin to to saying that Genghis Khan had an anger management problem. There are more than 3,000 families in Chile whose loved ones were “disappeared” (a Pinochet gift of nomenclature to the English language) who might take issue with Goldberg’s milquetoast denunciation of truly one of the more brutal dictators of the late 20th century. And then there were the tens of thousands who were jailed and tortured - most of whom committed no crime save that they were to the left of Mr. Pinochet on the political spectrum. Considering that your average Short Haired Marmoset in Chile was to the left of Pinochet, it’s amazing that most of the country didn’t end up in one of the dictator’s torturing hospitality suites during his ignominious rein.

Here’s the gist of Goldberg’s argument regarding Pinochet being preferable to the soon to be mummified Castro:

I

THINK ALL intelligent, patriotic and informed people can agree: It would be great if the U.S. could find an Iraqi Augusto Pinochet. In fact, an Iraqi Pinochet would be even better than an Iraqi Castro.

Both propositions strike me as so self-evident as to require no explanation. But as I have discovered in recent days, many otherwise rational people can’t think straight when the names Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet come up.

Let’s put aside, at least for a moment, the question of which man was (or is) “worse.” Suffice it to say, both have more blood on their hands than a decent conscience should be able to bear. Still, if all you want to do is keep score, then Castro almost surely has many more bodies on his rap sheet. The Cuba Archive estimates that Castro is responsible for the deaths of at least 9,240 people, though the real number could be many times that, particularly if you include the estimate of nearly 77,000 men, women and children who have died trying to flee the “socialist

Frankly, I think that all “intelligent, patriotic and informed people” should throw a metaphorical pie in Goldberg’s face. This cutesy argument about body counts is meaningless - unless you’re a Cuban or a left wing Chilean who lived during the time of Pinochet’s tyrannical regime. On the International Thuggery Scale, both men rate around a 4 or 5 on a 10 point scale. Castro would be ranked slightly higher for being stupid enough to believe that not only Communism works, but that he should export that ideology to his reluctant neighbors.

Neither brute enters the truly sublime territory occupied by Mao, Stalin, Kruschev, or Pol Pot (in that order). But while we’re at it, why not make the argument that what Iraq really needs is a Mao? Now there was a guy who knew how to put down an insurgency! If a peasant from some village casts a sideways glance at the authority of the Chinese government, don’t bother with the dissident or his family. Wipe out the whole village and raze it to the ground.

Of course, Goldberg isn’t advocating that, is he?

But on the plus side, Pinochet’s abuses helped create a civil society. Once the initial bloodshed subsided, Chile was no prison. Pinochet built up democratic institutions and infrastructure. And by implementing free-market reforms, he lifted the Chilean people out of poverty. In 1988, he held a referendum and stepped down when the people voted him out. Yes, he feathered his nest from the treasury and took measures to protect himself from his enemies. His list of sins — both venal and moral — is long. But today Chile is a thriving, healthy democracy. Its economy is the envy of Latin America, and its literacy and infant mortality rates are impressive.

I ask you: Which model do you think the average Iraqi would prefer? Which model, if implemented, would result in future generations calling Iraq a success? An Iraqi Pinochet would provide order and put the country on the path toward liberalism, democracy and the rule of law. (If only Ahmad Chalabi had been such a man.)

On the plus side, Goldberg only writes columns for the LA Times once a week. Otherwise, we’d be forced to endure this kind of sophistry far more often. And yeah, Pinochet made the trains run on time and infant mortality went down, and his “free market” reforms (short hand in Latin America for enabling crony capitalism and other kleptocrats) created some trickle down wealth - after he left. And while I understand the realpolitik reasons for the US supporting this thug, I think to wish his kind of rule on anyone - especially an ally - is the height of idiocy.

First of all, to even think that a secular anything will emerge from the current chaos in Iraq is loony. Whatever kind of government shakes out will almost certainly be dominated by fundamentalist Shias allied to either Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) or Mookie al-Sadr and his merry band of cutthroats. Those two will eventually fight it out; hopefully in the halls of government rather than in the streets but don’t count the latter out.

So we can dispose of Goldberg’s fantasy that some kind of benevolent tyrant will emerge from the current violence and lead the country to some kind of “liberalism” or “democracy.” As for “the rule of law,” if you’re talking about the application of Sharia law, it’s already happening in the southern part of Iraq, the stronghold of our new buddy al-Hakim who is laboring to form another governing coalition as we speak. In some areas, Islamic courts have been set up to mediate disputes and religious “police” patrol the streets enforcing dress codes.

Finally, Goldberg tries to make the point that because only “bad options” are available in Iraq, what he’s proposing is actually “moral” because it is “less immoral” than other alternatives - like a Castro style government:

Now, you might say: “This is unfair. This is a choice between two bad options.” OK, true enough. But that’s all we face in Iraq: bad options. When presented with such a predicament, the wise man chooses the more moral, or less immoral, path. The conservative defense of Pinochet was that he was the least-bad option; better the path of Pinochet than the path toward Castroism, which is where Chile was heading before the general seized power. Better, that is, for the United States and for Chileans.

I bring all this up because in the wake of Pinochet’s death (and Jeane Kirkpatrick’s), the old debate over conservative indulgence of Pinochet has elicited shrieking from many on the left claiming that any toleration of Pinochet was inherently immoral — their own tolerance of Castro notwithstanding.

This might be termed the “Kirkpatrick Doctrine” - a strict reading of which would put Goldberg’s argument in the garbage where it belongs. Kirkpatrick’s “double standard” was a response to an existential threat to the United States; that not only Castro but Soviet Russia would gain a foothold on the South American continent. Castro has been a burr under our saddle for nearly 50 years but never posed a direct threat to our existence. Salvador Allende on the other hand, made it clear that he would happily take on the mantle of a Soviet client state - a turn of events that the realpolitikers in the Nixon Administration realized would be a strategic setback. Hence, their support (and the support of subsequent administrations) for Pinochet.

How this translates into a more or less moral lesson for Iraq is a little murky. Iraq itself presents no threat to the US anymore. And while there are some scenarios where Iraq could degenerate into a failed state unless order is re-established and become a base for al-Qaeda and perhaps even Shia terrorists, the fact is that Iraq’s neighbors will probably not allow that to happen. Of course, the only way such a scenario could take place is if the US leaves precipitously - something our lefty friends have been agitating for.

There are other options in Iraq that are bad but don’t involve a Pinochet-inspired thug to rise to power. Groveling before Syria and Iran, begging them to help us pull our chestnuts out of the fire is bad but not as bad as siccing a Castro or Pinochet on the Iraqi people. Mookie al-Sadr running things would be almost as bad as a murderous strongman like Pinochet or Castro in charge. The point being, while there may be only bad options left in Iraq, some bad options are worse than others. And Goldberg’s Pinochet fantasy is about as bad as it gets.

Goldberg has now confirmed every nasty thing that the Glenn Greenwalds, Dave Neiwerts, and Jane Hamshers have been saying about the right being in love with authoritarianism and dictators. For that, he should be criticized roundly by all sides of the political spectrum. But let’s also keep in mind that the left’s love affair with the lickspittle Castro has been one of the most astonishingly stupid and ignorant manifestations of moral blindness in the post World War II world. It will be marvelled at by future historians who may very well wonder what magic spell the strutting, arrogant, murderous tyrant in Cuba cast over the western left that caused them to ignore so much suffering and death dealt out by the evil and barbarous men who kept that beautiful island imprisoned for so many years.

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.