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December 06, 2006ZinniNo military expert was more forthright in opposing the war in Iraq than Anthony Zinni. Even in the context of pressuring the Iraq government to 'perform' (whatever that might mean) by intimating troop reductions are likely and that U.S. forces won't be in country forever, and even in the context of focusing more on training and equipping and related capacity-building of Iraqi Forces via embeds (rather reverse or otherwise)--it appears the situation in Baghdad is so immensely critical that sane observers like Tony Zinni favor a short-term surge (such a move would also allow us to dialogue with Damascus and Teheran from a position of greater strength, rather than with the capital city of Iraq capsizing into greater chaos). Posted by Gregory at December 6, 2006 05:30 AMComments
we may not have agreed about going in, but we certainly agree about pulling out. Posted by: neill at December 6, 2006 06:50 AM | Permalink to this comment
Despite his laudable credentials, what Zinni avocates will do little to stem the tide against the resurgence of the Shiites in Iraq. Al-Sadr or someone of his ilk will eventually be the next strongman/dictator of Iraq, whether the Bush administration throws 20,000 or even 50,000 more American soldiers into the Battle for Baghdad.
Despite his laudable credentials, what Zinni avocates will do little to stem the tide against the resurgence of the Shiites in Iraq. Al-Sadr or someone of his ilk will eventually be the next strongman/dictator of Iraq, whether the Bush administration throws 20,000 or even 50,000 more American soldiers into the Battle for Baghdad.
Thank you very much for making us aware of General Zinni's views on this... I was not aware that he held this position. Those of us on the Right who opposed this war from the start should consider this material; it should factor into our analysis of what the current U.S. policy should be towards Iraq, now that the wrong decisions have already been made. Posted by: Aakash at December 6, 2006 08:13 AM | Permalink to this comment
I am a bit young to be able to speak about VietNam with any expertise, but I wonder how many increases in troop levels in VietNam were initially billed as "temporary surges." I see the temporary surge for a battle of Baghdad as a real possibility for getting more troops in Iraq more or less permanently. Now, that might still be ther best thing to do, I don't know, but it seems VERY hopeful to think that the proposed "temporary push" all sensible people are advocating will really be temporary. The original 100,000 troops were supposed to be temporary, too. Weren't they? Posted by: Doug at December 6, 2006 01:50 PM | Permalink to this comment
In colonialist lingo, “temporary” is another way of saying “till the war profiteers are happy.” Posted by: me at December 6, 2006 02:44 PM | Permalink to this comment
Zinni's ideas seem like yet another instance of the desire to do something to improve the situation. But I honestly don't see how you can expect anything this lightweight to make any difference. At the same time, I can see that this could well make things still worse, adding targets and lengthening a failed occupation. He's right--this isn't Vietnam. There was an organized governing body, brutal, but organized, to take power when the Americans were finally driven out. It is like Somalia in that the future looks like a failed state, ruled by local warlords, with an expectation of no government at all for a protracted period. It is not like Somalia in that it is of critical strategic importance. It's the strategic value that Zinni is reacting to. A failed state in Iraq represents a security threat to the region vastly greater than Saddam's regime did, hamstrung by the no fly zones. The real situation is, using the president's favorite term, unacceptable. Good soldier that he is, Zinni wants to fight on. But he doesn't have the resources, and the situation is so dire that even if he had the resources, they may well be insufficient. Short of a draft, there aren't enough soldiers. Even trying to bolster the troop levels with much higher recruitment incentives won't raise the potential force level to Shinseki's projection. Europe is not going to help. A draft is politically unacceptable. Anybody with half a brain (and there was no shortage in the Senate--starting with Feingold) knew that this was going to require a long term occupation and a significant, decades-long commitment to nation building. The American people were never going to accept that commitment. So the administration decided to wing it. Zinni's still trying to wing it. Won't work. The only option that is realistic is to pull out and pray. And hope that the Sadrists will permit a retreat. They may want to keep the armor, which might be problematic...... Posted by: jayackroyd at December 6, 2006 02:48 PM | Permalink to this comment
I think Zinni has been pretty prescient in his views on Iraq the whole time. He is correct that if we pull out now, we've lost the region. But the sad, and truly tragic, reality is that staying in Iraq, even with an increase of 100,000 soldiers will not solve the problem. This is a catastrophic failure. I hope some day (because apparently Americans are not ready to do this now), I hope some day America will truly hold our leaders responsible and punish them appropriately for the horrible failure we see before us in Iraq. To succeed now in Iraq will require an influx of at the MINIMUM 500,000 troops, if not closer to 1 million. We need to flood the country with soldiers. Uncover all the hiding places. Place a soldier on every corner. Let there not be one hiding place left. Let not any militia control any weapon. Let not any illegitimate group meet without the express approval of the leadership. Truly become the monopoly on the use of violence. In other words, do real nation building, not this half-assed crap from the idiot Rumsfeld. Furthermore, America would have to sacrifice today for this occupation. No more putting our wars on credit cards for our children to pay. We must pay ourselves for our own wars! If we cannot make that sacrifice, then we cannot go to war. It is as simple as that. Anything less than this, at this point, will not bring us success in Iraq. As this option is politically impossible, the only viable option left is to leave Iraq. Cut our losses. Any smart business man will close his business when it is failing, and not bringing in his desired results. Yes, we would have seriously curtailed our influence in the region. But that is the price we pay for this catastrophic failure on the part of the Bush administration. I truly hope that this will finally force Americans to truly hold their leaders accountable. Posted by: Dan at December 6, 2006 03:17 PM | Permalink to this comment
Dan, while any smart businessman would close a failing business and salvage what he can, what we're dealing with here is not business but war and politics. Did Jefferson Davis close down the confederacy once he was usre the war couldn't be won? No, he waited for the Union soldiers to find him anid arrest him. Did japan surrender in WWII when they had clearly lost? No, not until the nukes. Germany in WWI or WWII? Italy in WWII? Finland facing any of the russian invasions? Palestine in any of the israeli ground surges? Partly the problem is that when you truly lose a war it isn't like shutting down a failing business, it's like bankruptcy only worse. The creditors can do *anythint* to you including execute whoever they want for war crimes. Losing iraq isn't that bad for us, it isn't like surrendering after a war, but it could lead to us losing big if things worked out wrong. And then there's the politics. We hate to lose. All the sunk costs bug us, if we just hung in there they might pay off after all. So for example we went something like the last 5 years in vietnam with the firm intention to "bug out with honor". Five years when we'd given up on winning and just hoped to have it not be our fault when south vietnam fell, that we'd done everything we reasonably could for them. There are revisionists today who claim we could have won right up to the end, that we were about to win. They're fools. Maybe politically there's no viable option whatsoever about iraq. So all the politicians who can get away with it try to keep their heads down, and only the ones who can't avoid taking leadership roles stand up and explose themselves to the incoming fire.
Every day that we bleed treasure and unity into this stupid adventure brings us closer to the day when we have to face even worse choices, under even worse constraints. Zinni was correct from the start about the idiotic folly of the war. But hey, so was I, so were a lot of people. I think Zinni's wrong now, in the sense that staying longer brings nothing good, and forstalls nothing horrendous that won't happen eventually anyway. We haven't the necessary resources, not least of which is competence. All we can do is apply the ugly logic of triage, and try to get the least bad option. Of course, to our eternal disgrace, the Iraqis are fucked no matter what we do. One can only hope that in the long run the Iraq catastrophe will shut up our Beltway Clausewitzen, although I see no sign of it. Posted by: sglover at December 6, 2006 07:20 PM | Permalink to this comment
Basically, Zinni is arguing that because the strategic consequences of an outright failure - defined as 'withdrawal' - are so dire, we should postpone the day of reckoning. He's right that the consequences will be dire, but that doesn't mean that there's anything we can do about it. It would at least be more honest to admit that the only way his recommendations can work is if something unforeseen turns up. It's almost a certainty that nothing good will come of it, but I guess that beats the 100% certainty of acknowledging defeat and leaving. There is no functioning government in Iraq - isn't that obvious by now? How many more stories do we need to read, spread over how many more years, spelling out the total failure of all attempts to stand up a competent Iraqi military? It isn't going to happen, at least not on our watch - the Iraqis who really want to fight for the future of their country are doing it in the militias. Talk of "integrating" these people into a national guard is frankly idiotic, and Zinni has to know it. Given that reality, what is the point of all this delusional "temporary surges" in troop strength? We will chase easily-replaced insurgents and militia members around, suffer more casualties, grind our military readiness into powder - and all sides will simply wait us out. We have already lost this reckless gamble, and it would make far more sense to do some hard thinking about what comes next. Posted by: Dave L at December 6, 2006 10:04 PM | Permalink to this comment
Gen. Zinni's ideas like the Baker Panel's recomendations are good. The only trouble is that they are two years too late to work. Why these recomendations were not made then? Maybe they were in some cases: If so they were promptly ignored by the "Stuff Happens" & "You go to war with the Army you have" etec. trio of Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld. Situation in Iraq is a lot worse then it ever was in South Vietnam. There at least was a govt, however corrupt, incompentent & thin on support with the peasants who were the majority, that the Saigon govt was. And there was a foe with a central command, the Viet Cong & North Vietnanmese Army. In Iraq, there is no govt, just a collection of Shia Militias posing as one. There is no single foe, the Sunni & Shia miltias have been friends & enemies of the US Military in turn as it has suited their purposes. The middle class educated Iraqis that we counted on to build a stable country have either fled, trying to flee or are reluctantly signing up with whatever miltia of their sect that is around to defend them & their families. Really we need to get out of Iraq as soon as we can, not just the combat troops, but everybody. Idea of leaving Advisors behind embedded with an increasing divided Iraqi Army & Police is a way to get a lot of good people killed when these groups drop the pretense of being something other then a sectarian miltia. That is what happened on a smaller scale in what was then the British Protectorate of Aden in 1967 when the local Arab Army & Police force Mutinied & reverted to their fueding tribal origins. We have lost in Iraq, no fancy conferences, no Iraqification etec. can change that. The sooner we get out & let the Iraqis get on with their Civil War unimpeded, the better we will be. Yes, I know there will be major trouble from this, but that will happen regardless of when we leave Iraq. Since we do not have the troops, 250,000 or more to bring stability to Iraq, we should not continue to bleed our overstreched military in what we will be failure whenever we go. J Thomas: Just one question for you: In the inmortal words of John Beushi in "Animal House":
JT, I'm not clear what exactly you're advocating. Can you boil it down a bit more? SG, The day that we stop investing blood and treasure and unity into this adventure brings us closer to the day when we have to face even worse choices, under even worse constraints. or "Leaving Iraq quickly would strengthen Iranian influence throughout the Middle East, create a sanctuary for terrorist groups, encourage even more sectarian strife in Iraq and risk turmoil in an oil-rich region." "This is not Vietnam or Somalia," said Zinni, who served in both places. "It is not one of those places we can walk away from. If we just pull out we will find ourselves back in in short order." Facing far, far worse circumstances.
we are suffering .01 the casualties we suffered in WW2. With 100% the economy we had in WW2. We know what resources are deficient here. Belief in what we stand for and a willingness to fight to the end for IT. Which is the case for only one side in this fight. Posted by: neill at December 7, 2006 04:45 AM | Permalink to this comment
Then lead the charge, neill. The recruiters are always looking for new material. Posted by: sglover at December 7, 2006 07:00 AM | Permalink to this comment
I'd say it's time to talk turkey, ladies. Don't look now, but the Shia got the taste of freedom that the dizzy democratists envisioned, and the chickens have come home to roost. Oops. Muqtada has suddenly become Baghdad's Torquemada and all his playmates can't wait to join the crusade. Ditto Sadr and all the kings men. Can't say as I blame 'em. Hell, even the old goat Sistani who's played Gandhi to the masses for 30 years as a way of keeping them alive has now become second fiddle. Maybe the fact that they've been peed on, spit on and shat on for a miilenium has something to do with their unwavering fury. Comes now another brain trust, this time the DC think-tank multilateralists, telling us and all the world how we just need to get along. 150 pages of more doubletalk with ten times the wisdom. I'm telling you, ya' can't make this stuff up. So what's the latest word? it's time to kiss Syrian ass, Iranian ass and al qaeda ass. OK. Nice plan. Somebody must've figured it's better than kissing our own.... Look, I want oil in my living room as much as the next poor slob; I'd even dodge a bullet for a piece of Kennedyesque worldview-you know, the "pay any price" mantra that forever has us slaying dragons, chasing windmills and saving the world. Except, Iraq aint happenin' Those guys ain't playing by the rules. The sad truth is, it's time to roll. Now. Not tomorrow, now. 'bout time we looked in mideast vortex and saw the monster was us. Or in the immortal words of another Belushi-ite: "Hey, we fucked up..."
Posted by: reshuffle at December 7, 2006 01:42 PM | Permalink to this comment
Neill, I'm advocating an attitude of calm resignation and sturdy resolve. We have lost in iraq, and our antiterrorism campaign is doing very badly. As a nation we aren't ready to admit it so we'll throw more money and lives in a futile gesture to pretend we haven't lost yet. There's nothing anybody can do about it. We'll just have to accept it, we're going to lose a lot more before we admit we can't get any result thst's worth a small fraction of what our flailing around costs us. The natural tendency is to get enraged. Dammit, how can we be so stupid! Why can't we put an effort into energy independence! Cheap alternative energy! A trade policy that puts America to work! Tighten security on imports! Not fighting over dwindling oil halfway around the world! But that doesn't work. Yes, we're that stupid. We aren't going to do anything sensible. We're going to be relentlessly stupid until reality slaps us down. Live with it. It doesn't help anything to stay enraged another two years. Try to salvage whwat you can. Say I told you so under your breath every now and then. Remember not even impeachment is a plan. We can't stop digging our hole deeper until Bush/Cheney are gone, but after they're gone we still don't have anything like a consensus. There are a lot of people who understand that Bush dug us into the hole, but who still think if they dig deep enough they can win. We'll get a consensus to dump Bush a lot sooner than we get a consensus what to do about iraq. Take it a day at a time. Breathe deep and do what you can. It might take another 5 years before we've lost so bad we truly know it. We'll have lost a lot more than we would have if we cut our losses. Well, government isn't run by hardheaded businessmen who cut their losses. If our politicians were like that they'd be running successful businesses instead of doing politics.
JT, I nominate you flag-bearer of the new Greatest Generation... Posted by: neill at December 8, 2006 03:36 PM | Permalink to this comment
"Leaving Iraq quickly would strengthen Iranian influence throughout the Middle East, create a sanctuary for terrorist groups, encourage even more sectarian strife in Iraq and risk turmoil in an oil-rich region." I agree that Iran's hand with be strengthened....but that was an unavoidable consequence of the invasion of Iraq under any circumstances. But as to the rest of it, I'm not so sure.... Well, if by "terrorist sactuaries" we are talking about places where Hezbollah can hang out, given that they already have lots of other places where they are welcome, one more won't make much difference. If, on the other hand, we're talking al Qaeda -- well, neither Syria nor Iran want to have anything to do with al Qaeda -- and we can expect both nations to be merciless in their pursuit of al Qaeda members who remain in Iraq. The wild card here is Saudi Arabia -- I suspect that a fairly large percentage of the "foreign fighters" recruited by al Qaeda are from Saudi Arabia --- and our "good friends" the Saudis might prefer to fund al Qaeda within Iraq as a means of keeping their now radicalized and experienced guerillas/terrorists from going home. In other words, the nations most likely to have the same kinds of priorities regarding the threat posed by al Qaeda are our "enemies", and its our "friends" who are most likely to screw us over here. Neither Syria nor Iran has anything to gain from further "sectarian strife" and "instability" in the middle east once the US is gone -- one can expect that these two nations will work together to bring stability to Iraq. Only our "friends" (and that includes not just the saudis, but Israel and Pakistan as well) have any motivation to keep the fuse lit on the powderkeg that is Iraq -- which is probably what everyone from A(bizaid) to Z(inni) knows, but can't say in public. Posted by: p.lukasiak at December 8, 2006 08:26 PM | Permalink to this comment
(from "Fully Bakered" on the Power Line forum) So the wise men met and decided that the price of a Normandy invasion was just too steep. According to leaked War Department memos, planners estimate deaths on D-Day alone could reach 10,000. In a lengthy, bipartisan recommendation the commission recommended America unilaterally meet with representatives of Berlin, Rome and Tokyo to develop a reasonable exit strategy. It would probably involve giving some concessions. England was a diminishing power in the world and could be abandoned. Other Allies were of little use to America’s long range interests. There was widespread media opinion that President Roosevelt had made a mess of the War and refused—after repeated requests by key members of the press--to admit it publicly. Those in Congress who had voted in favor of the War after Pearl Harbor were changing their minds now that they suspected White House duplicity in the attack and the original rationale for the War. A number of leading newspapers have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the War is lost and while sympathetic to the plight of millions enslaved people under Axis domination—some being exterminated—that it was just not in America’s best interests to continue to fight and die. After all, apart from several sub sightings off the Atlantic coast and a few rumors of Japanese ships near the pacific coast, no further attacks on the American mainland had happened since Pearl Harbor. The commission’s findings and recommendations will be discussed throughout Washington in the days ahead. Posted by: neill at December 9, 2006 04:36 AM | Permalink to this comment
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