In a rather plaintive post, Glenn Reynolds bemoans the loss of “momentum” in the Iraq War , wishing to “take the war to our enemies.” rather than “sitting on our bayonets.” He believes that the way to recapture the advantage is by going after the foreign support given the insurgency and that perhaps it is time to “revive the pre-emptive war” strategy and take the war to Iran and Syria.
I had to blink and shake my head after reading what Mr. Reynolds wrote. Was he perhaps stuck in some kind of time warp, believing that it is 2004? The idea that any kind of momentum is possible to recapture – or that we ever had it in the first place – is an illusion. And how we can win in Iraq by widening the war to include the two strongest regional powers arrayed against us is, well, mind boggling.
I have become disenchanted of late with Greg Djerjian and his spiteful, hateful, personal attacks on Mr. Reynolds, Hugh Hewitt, Richard Fernandez, and others bloggers and commenters (Mark Steyn being a particular foil for Mr. Djerjian’s over-the-top barbs and rifled bric-a-brats). His disdain for the President and his advisors – unbalanced in my opinion – makes him a bore to read at times.
However Djerjian also offers clarity on many issues relating to Iraq and the War on Terror. And if there is one thing that he has been harping on for many months that rings true above all others is the crazy idea that taking the war to Iran and Syria is going to help the situation in Iraq.
The fallout from an attack on Iran would be especially suicidal. The Iranian backed militias in Iraq would almost certainly take up arms and challenge the Americans, complicating an already desperate situation enormously. And it would be expected that the Iranians would retaliate against our troops with rocket attacks from their stockpiles of long range missiles. And what of the delicate political dance al-Maliki is currently undertaking in his efforts to reform the police and army whose inaction allows Shia death squads to operate with impunity?
As for Syria, while Bashar Assad imperfectly implements our demands that he close off the border to foreign fighters entering Iraq, an attack will actually make the situation worse as he would be under no obligation to continue even the limited cooperation he has shown up to now.
Perhaps most importantly, we might want to ask what form our momentum establishing attacks would take? Would we initiate ground operations against the Iranian army? The Syrians? What would be the goals of such attacks? To punish? To interdict?
Punishment may make us all feel better but would hardly affect the efforts of either two countries to supply the insurgency in Iraq. As for interdiction of men and supplies, only more troops and vigilance on the borders can have an effect on the steady dribble of arms and terrorists that end up aiding the insurgents. A truck here and a bus there moving through a poorly guarded border crossing or making their way through the vast deserts of Iraq make poor targets for any kind of large scale military action.
As we know now (blessed with 20/20 hindsight), the egregious mistakes and numerous blunders by both civilian and military authorities that have led us to our current perilous position in Iraq were made in the context of false assumptions, wishful thinking, and a lack of understanding of the nature of the enemy. It just seems to me to be the height of stupidity to believe that we can improve what’s happening on the ground in Iraq by attacking Iran and Syria.
5:21 pm
The reason we are not ‘winning’ in Iraq is simple: we don’t want to win enough… and by that I mean that we’re not doing what it really takes to win.
We have our troops fighting with one hand tied behind their back, we let Syria and Iran get away with destabilizing the area, and so on.
The concerns you raise about dealing with Iran exemplify the half-way approach. Sure, if you try to deal with Iran and Syria part-way, they have the ability to screw things up. Show them we’re serious, really serious, and surprise, surprise, they’ll cease – one way or the other – being a problem.
5:27 pm
Ever since the 3rd day of the war when the troops ran into a sandstorm and sat around for a couple of days, the MSM has been continually calling the effort a quagmire. About every 13-14 months the conservatives and/or other supporters of the effort fall into despair against the relentless tide of negativism, then recover as they reengage their brains, though the lag time before that reengagement grows longer each time and I suppose one of these times they’ll go over permanently (as has Greg D.) rather than slap themselves up side the head and recall it’s the MSM that causing their skewed outlook.
This, however, doesn’t mean we’re losing, it doesn’t mean that we’d be doing better if we started with 500,000 or 1,000,000 troops (as the potential unintended consequences of that tactic are never discussed to any degree) that is always trotted out confidently by the detractors. Let us remember that the “retired” generals either didn’t speak up when it counted, or were overruled by other opinions, but now feel emboldened to criticize from the safety of their pension and talking head fee financed armchairs.
Were mistakes made? Are they still? Sure, this war should be different than any other in the history of mankind? Did we do the right thing, for the right reasons (plural)? Yes. That’s all we need to know as far as that goes. So now, if all of the loudest critics would shut up in public and offer cogent ideas to the current leadership in private, perhaps a melding of ideas will create better and faster results.
But mouthing off in public to clueless TV anchors is counterproductive to our success—no one of stature in the administration is going to tune in cable news and stroke their chin at the wisdom of shout matches between partisans refereed by clowns. The enemy sure eats that crap up though and the average Iraqi citizen is more than disconcerted by the “cut and run” tactic so often forwarded as the only way to “win.”
So, gimmee a break, lets get this thing won and stop all the undermining.
6:25 pm
Momentum? What does he think this is—a basketball game?
An unserious argument by unserious minds.
5:55 am
I’m just a dumb blonde middle age woman, but I think we are losing in Iraq…. we are losing cuz our guys have been caught there fighting a pc war against the dems and other countries, not against the terrorists… these two have made it very hard on us to kick the ass of the enemy in the right way.
I think its time for our guys to all come home, we need to regroup and defend our own borders in mexico and canada and our intelligence needs to get sharper than a major tac.
I think we outta sanction the hell outta Iran and it sounds like finally the other countries at least agree with that.
The Iraq people are gonna have to fight it out amoung each other, the recent poll there seems to show they want us gone, so be it, no more Americans to protect their whiney butts, we tried so let the nuts kill each other off. We do have ways to find out if there are training camps there and they start that up I say send a big ass bomb and destroy the friggin camps.
I love our troops and they did their best, they just could not beat the moonbat dems, human rights guys who wanna give the enemy more comfort than our guys, the aclu, I could go on and on, just think its time for ALL OF MILITARY TO COME HOME.
THEY FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT BUT NOBODY CAN FIGHT AGAINST THS MUCH HOME RESISTANCE.
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON US ALL AND KEEP OUR COUNTRY SAFE.
8:35 am
Democrats and the strength of their convictions
“Congressman Rangel, if Democrats regain power in 2006, will you consider extending any of the President’s tax cuts?”
8:37 am
The blind leading the blind is the way I see it.
The first blind one is Rumsfeld, who is congenitially incapable of listening to his military advisors when their opinions conflict with his entrenched, invariably wrong don’t-bother-me-with-the-facts opinions.
The second blind one is Bush, who for reasons of pathologically misplaced “loyalty,” or sheer dumb-as-nails stupidity, refuses to fire Rumsfeld. He has “confidence” in him, which is to say that Bush has abrogated his duty as Commander-in-Chief because he is clueless what to do.
I can’t say that I have a solution, at this late stage, but then again I didn’t get us into this mess. Rumsfeld was right about taking Bagdad with minimal forces when the war started, but he has been wrong about virtually everything else in this conflict since then. He should have been fired years ago. Now it may be too late.
1:48 pm
Rick is right, to launch wars on Syria and Iran would require a large troop mobilization and larger expenditures, both of which are in short supply. The conceit that we could accomplish regime change in either country by just air power alone has been proven wrong, as shown this past Summer by the Israeli attempt to eliminate Hezbollah by, initially, only air strikes. Add to this the fact that President Bush has about two years left in office, and the chance for a wider war is unlikely.
Another thing, the problems in Iraq seem to be more than just Al-Qaeda terrorists and the militias. From reading today’s papers, the situation in Kirkuk is also deteriorating and a curfew established due to tit for tat private army attacks battling over who’s going to control the oil. Translation, we’re fighting multiple ‘wars’ in Iraq.
And can we please do away with the canard that the reason for our difficulty in Iraq is because of the Left and the media? If you seriously consider the media and the home front a larger enemy than the jihadis, then well, you’ve got personal issues that even Rick’s site can’t help you with.
7:55 am
tremaine:
If this war was about oil we’d be awash with it and the prices would not have gone up …. get real ….. the left and the media are messing with Iraq like they did in Nam …. wake up, get your head outta the sand and smell the blood, our blood if we all don’t get a grip …... these guys are islamofacists who wanta get over here to kill us and dems and media are simply making it easier for em and IT DISGUSTS ME TO NO END.!!
10:17 am
If history is our guide, and it should be, it isn’t remarkable that there comes a time when we look back at the campaign and see the errors and blunders made. It happens in every war, to every side. The winner is the one that can redirect the fight; the axiom that no plan survives contact being true.
But you can’t tell that to some people.
For example, The Belgravia Dispatches that you cite:
Now this is a great example of war blockheadedness that I have recently read, and it emblematic of the problem with war critics of whatever stripe. They expected things to be perfect. Variations of Stoopid Chimpy McBusHitler that revel in ddeaspair on how screwed up things were…endlessly. And they provide little or no cognitive plan for making things better.
Far more points are scored by bashing the Administration than in actually recognizing that mistakes wre made, we can;t afford to lose, and we need to go forward. It’s called putting on the Big Boy Pants in dealing with reality. And few indeed are teh war critics who have them on. Instead, looking at history as my guide, I see the Athenians censuring yet another victorious general who didn’t win big enough or fast enough.
10:24 am
QM:
I generally agree that war critics demonstrate a lack of ideas for how to turn the situation around.
THe problem is that it is very possible that Iraq is not salvagable at this point. Partly due to our blunders but also a result of the history of the country and of the middle east. There literally is nothing we can do save keep training the Iraqi army and police while planning for a quick exit.
Hindsight suggests that there were errors made at the beginning that led us to this point. Certainly part of that was an inability by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the President to recognize the nature of the insurgency and work in non military ways to confront it.
Too late now…
8:06 pm
Drewsmom,
Where in my post did I say that it was about oil? I challenge you to find the word ‘oil’ in my entire post. You’re even assuming I was against the initial war; I wasn’t. But the assumption that widening the conflict to the surrounding nations will improve the situation in Iraq is faulty logic.
Anyway, the argument is moot. Realpolitik is the order of the day, if Woodward’s latest book is to be believed. Apparently the Bush White House is now heavily consulting with Henry Kissinger and Co. on how to proceed in Iraq.
8:07 am
Great post!
Worse, having the Army there is a catalyst there for terrorists, and bringing them out of the woodwork. It’s creating new ones.
Going regional will only exacerbate this situation.
Note to Mark H: Did we do the right thing, for the right reasons (plural)? No, we did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.
Maybe the intentions were good, but that’s not enough. It’s amazing how many Bushees are in denial and need a 12 step program, and fast.