The Belgravia Dispatch: Is "Strategic Patience" Based on "Luck" Good Enough?

August 15, 2007

Is "Strategic Patience" Based on "Luck" Good Enough?

There are other reasons for patience. While all the half truths and spin of the past have built up a valid distrust of virtually anything the Administration says about Iraq, real military progress is taking place and the US team in Baghdad is actively seeking matching political and economic progress.

Fair enough. So I read his report in that spirit and with respect for his intellectual abilities and competencies, as compared to many of the blow-dried parvenus preening for airtime on Fox. In his report, he stresses we've been rather lucky, as the surge has only really been able to enjoy relative, localized success because of the (largely unanticipated) Anbar “Awakening”.

There is a real opportunity that did not exist at the start of the year. What is critical to understand, however, is that while the surge strategy has had value in some areas, much of this progress has not [been] the function of the surge strategy, US planning, or action by the Maliki government. In fact, the “new” strategy President Bush announced in January 2007 has failed in many aspects of its original plan.
The increase in forces (5 Brigades ~ 20,000 U.S. troops plus 30,000 additional Iraqi troops in Baghdad) did enable the MNF-I to make some gains against AQI and sectarian violence. So did US military planning that developed and implemented a counterinsurgency doctrine, and a strategy based on that doctrine, that emphasized the primacy of population security and the political line of operations. These measures did help to enable the Sunni tribal “awakening” and its spread. This would not have been possible without the tribes’ new hope of success that resulted from the arrival of additional forces. More importantly, it would not have been possible without the change in employment of US forces to deploy and remain in neighborhoods and rural areas versus the previous strategy of operating only from large bases. The IA did deploy all of the 30,000 soldiers that it had agreed to. While the initial units were not at full strength, they soon fully deployed and continued to deploy units at excess of 100% strength. The non-Kurdish Army units, however, have had mixed loyalties and some have had ties to the JAM and Shi’ite militias. With some exception, the police have failed to act as a national force and provide enough paramilitary capability to “hold” in the areas where the US and IA have won. The fact that the Iraqi Army and police forces would fail to provide anything like the reliable support required was all too predictable.

The fact remains, however, that the increase in US forces alone could not have dealt with the rising Al Qa’ida threat outside Baghdad and in the Baghdad ring. Without the unplanned uprising by the Sunni tribes, the US simply did not have enough forces to carry out the present level of operations if it had had to rely solely on the real-world capability of the official Iraqi Security forces. It has taken the mix of forces the US and Iraq deployed over six months to establish a limited kind of security over half of Baghdad. This security has so far been local and has not stopped sectarian cleansing. The US has sharply reduced cleansing in the areas where it effectively sits over the ethnic fault lines, partly due to US military efforts and partly due to the fact the US has put up T-walls partitioning the city The Sadr militia continues to take advantage of the US and ISF campaign against Al Qa’ida to push Sunnis out of northwestern Baghdad. Some elements of Iraqi Army and police forces, except the Kurdish units, are clearly in collusion with sectarian cleansing, although the US watches those units and their commanders closely, and attempts to minimize any unlawful behavior. Many, including some US officers in the field, feel the Prime Minister’s office, Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Ministry of Interior (MoI) are still colluding actively or passively in this ethnic cleansing, as well as in similar efforts in Diyala and various pockets throughout the country.

So let’s recap: 1) most of the ‘successes’ we’ve had since February 1 have been due to luck (though to be fair, better implementation of counter-insurgency doctrine has helped sustain improvements with regard to the Sunni Tribes), and 2) these successes themselves (and here I’m speaking of purely the military ones, which have been the most ballyhooed by impressionable analysts), have led only to “local” improvements and have “not stopped sectarian cleansing”.

But regardless, as even surge cheer-leaders like O’Hanlon aver, it’s the political prong that matters most. Absent political reconciliation, or at least some basic compact/accommodation (someone tell Hakim and Maliki to make peace already w/ the dreaded ‘tafkiris’--broadly defined, as is their wont--OK?), this project simply isn’t going anywhere, unless we count “strategic patience” in many years, rather than months, and even then it’s far from assured. And again, even the military side of the equation remains hugely problematic, with cleansing still underway, and security improvements very localized, and dare I say, highly reversible.

As Cordesman writes:

The political and economic dimensions of the surge strategy have also failed to materialize at anything like the rate planned in Washington before the President announced his new strategy in January. Iraq has not made anything like the political progress required, and the effort to expand and revitalize the US aid effort to help the Iraqi central government improve its dismal standards of governance and economic recovery efforts have already slipped some six months and are far too dependent on the US military…
….Prime Minister Maliki may sometimes tell us what we want to hear, but he is at best weak and ineffective and may well be far more committed to sectarian Shi'ite positions than he has publicly stated. The almost universal criticism of Maliki's office during a recent trip to Iraq showed that it is seen as too closely tied to the sectarian cleansing effort in Baghdad and south Baghdad, as involved in freeing JAM and Shiite detainees, as refusing to work with the Sunni tribes out of fear they will gain power and as refusing to bring Sunni fighters into local security forces and the police for the same reason. US commanders in NW Baghdad and in the southern ring, and both Sunni and Shi'ite officers in the IA were equally critical of the PM's office as were Iraqi officers. There are reasons Sunnis and Kurds, senior US officers and officials, and high-ranking Kurdish officials do not trust the Prime Minister.

And so there’s the rub, really. Because if Maliki doesn’t give the Sunni tribes a real stake in the central government (anyone want to place some bets on this?), the honey-moon is going to end over in Anbar, as frustration steadily mounts and patience wanes. 6 months on, say, we’ll be in a situation where strengthened Sunnis are girding for conflict with the Shi’a, and the Shi’a are getting increasingly acrimonious vis-à-vis the U.S. (translation: you gave us a shot at crude majoritarianism, now bugger off…). Meantime, relations with Iran will worsen, as well as the Kurds and Turks. And we'll still be in the middle of this huge mess, strategically adrift, but with the predictable actors tut-tutting about tactical improvements amidst the Baghdad 'belts' or such. Look, what this Administration, and its allies, simply can’t wrap their heads around is that the war is, for all intents and purposes, already lost, and we must now focus like a laser on containing the damage via region-wide crisis management and diplomacy.

Cordesman, more optimistic seemingly, writes:

Sunnis that were shooting Coalition and ISF forces six months ago now want to work with the central government if the central government will work with them. They will sign loyalty oaths, join the regular police, and join the army if the government will give them money, status, and a share of power. The problem is that this shift is tenuous and depends on reasonably rapid central government action to give the Sunnis what they want. (US officers put the limit of tribal and Sunni patience at 130-180 days).The fact remains, however, that luck has paid off so far and could pay off even more in the future.

But don’t we owe our men in uniform better than “luck”? I mean, is luck really good enough, as we approach 4,000 dead and billions squandered? Why not a strategic re-calibration of our regional position via the bipartisan consensus of Baker-Hamilton (or something close to it)? Wouldn’t that be wiser, all told, and fairer to our men and women in uniform? (Of course this isn't possible with the current blundering national security team in power, I'm really just watching the clock run here, and suggesting whomever inherits this massive mess think in terms of containing the damage rather than fantastical notions of "victory.")

This approach too, in my view, can serve to better prevent regionalization of the conflict, as well as provide for 'over the horizon' assets that can strike at al-Qaeda targets as necessary. And genocide, you say? The sectarian cleansing would quite likely get worse, before it got any better, but forgive me if I find protestations from Administration flaks on this score unconvincing. For one, we might only be making the going forward killing fields worse by arming two (or three) sides to a civil war that is likely to intensify. But beyond that, our "Stuff Happens" Rumsfeldian adventure has created the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948, with 2 million Iraqi refugees having been forced to flee to neighboring countries like Syria and Jordan. And they, relatively speaking, are the lucky ones, as there are another 2 million "internally displaced persons" actually forced to vacate their homes but still in a tottering Iraq.

And we've taken in what, a few hundred of these refugees? Sorry, but I don't want to hear anything about morality from this crew, in terms of how much worse it might get if we begin to gradually re-deploy. What's been unleashed, with over 100,000 Iraqis dead, at least, and millions displaced, that's quite awful enough. So spare us the sanctimony, and let us not waste more American lives to this unfolding disaster in seeming perpetuity on the back of half-baked calls for "strategic patience" based mostly, it would appear, on that elusive thing called "luck". This isn't the Bellagio, after all.

Or does Ryan Crocker have detailed information showing us that Dawa is capable of surmounting its crippling insularity, endemic suspicions and profound weaknesses so as to busily forge a bona fide central government among all the key factions, and in the next 6-12 months? C'mon, people! I'm afraid the gig's up, and "victory" passed us by quite a while ago. I know, it's painful to admit, but we Americans don't always "win", alas. Which means one has to be a realist, and weigh the costs and benefits of continuing to pursue a maximalist agenda propelled forward on the flimsy hopes that we'll pull a rabbit out of our hat, meaning a miracle called political reconciliation, one which will allow for a real central government to take root in Baghdad allied to Washington, and which respects Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish aspirations--absent a massive diplomatic effort involving all of Iraq's neighbors, as well as using non-American players to mediate among the local factions. Without such an approach, and based simply on quixotic Green Zone politicking, localized yet reversible security improvements, sundry factions stockpiling arms, and likely a trend-line towards greater sectarianism--not to mention evidently a brewing storm with Iran--do any experts who follow the ins and outs of Iraqi politics believe this is remotely possible? If so, scream the good news from the rooftops so we can all hear it...

(NB: My emphasis throughout)

Posted by Gregory at August 15, 2007 08:53 PM

Comments

So I read his report in that spirit and with respect for his intellectual abilities and competencies....

Sure have been a lot of foreign policy reputations run aground in Iraq. But that has to be one of the sweetest gigs ever. So many Beltway Clausewitzen are on record spouting delusions that no 7-11 clerk could get away with, yet they never seem to lose their jobs.

Posted by: sglover at August 15, 2007 11:00 PM | Permalink to this comment

Greg:

OK, I admit to being puzzled about where you are right now. (And you may be puzzled yourself).

Is it: "out now?" It almost sounds that way.

Is it still ISG now? (Which, given our admistration, is like having Chevy Chase do brain surgery).

Or is it impeachment now? (remember, you have to impeach them both).

Or is it, "Hell, we can't do anything anyway until 1-20-2009, so I'll just be po-ed." In which case, have a little mercy on folks trying to make sense of the senselessness of Iraq. I don't think Cordesman's thoughtful, tentative, reluctant support of strategic patience deserves "half-baked". "Well-meaning, well-reasoned, but, well, wrong" would have been sufficient.

Posted by: Appalled Moderate at August 15, 2007 11:09 PM | Permalink to this comment

Only Israel benefits from these endless Middle East wars. Iraq is the beginning. As we commit war-crimes in Baghdad, the US gov't commits treason at home by opening mail, eliminating habeas corpus, using the judiciary to steal private lands, banning books like America Deceived (book) from Amazon and Wikipedia, conducting warrantless wiretaps and engaging in illegal wars on behalf of AIPAC's 'money-men'. Soon, another US false-flag operation will occur (sinking of an Aircraft Carrier by Mossad) and the US will invade Iran.. Then we'll invade Syria, then Saudi Arabia, then Lebanon (again) then ....

Posted by: Mike D at August 15, 2007 11:11 PM | Permalink to this comment

I don't think Cordesman's thoughtful, tentative, reluctant support of strategic patience deserves "half-baked". "Well-meaning, well-reasoned, but, well, wrong" would have been sufficient.

If there's a better Newspeak euphemism than "strategic patience", I'd love to hear it. And at this point, advocating any course than withdrawal as soon as possible IS half-baked. Cordesman only represents the mangy, shank end of the same disinfo game that Colin Powell pulled in the beginning. His arguments are vacuous, but he's hoping the audience is over-awed by his reputation -- which he thereby sacrifices.

Posted by: sglover at August 15, 2007 11:17 PM | Permalink to this comment

sglover:

For your terminology: enhanced interrogation techniques.

As for other -- understand that pulling out of Iraq means saying to the people there, "Sorry guys, you're screwed." That's a lot to ask someone who has spent a few weeks being friendly, making nice, absorbing the culture.

I would push for out now, myself. But the Dems tried and failed, and the Repubs now have enough evidence the surge is "working" that they wlil not change their position in September. The only thing that changes that is getting the word out to major media that, despite what you've heard, the surge ain't working, and not much has changed.

Greg, unfortunately, may not be the vessel. In his heart, he believes the ISG talking option would work, if given the chance, and that's affecting what he writes. And he's right that it might work, and he's wrong that it will be given the chance. Time to consider other options.

Posted by: Appalled Moderate at August 15, 2007 11:37 PM | Permalink to this comment

I've believed for some time that Vietnam is the perfect analogy for Iraq, but the French experience, not the American one. If that is the case, then to see one possible outcome of the US support of various Sunni militias I’d recommend reading Chapter 5 of Alfred W McCoy’s 1972 book “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia”.

Posted by: aiontay at August 16, 2007 12:06 AM | Permalink to this comment

Appalled Moderate writes: "I don't think Cordesman's thoughtful, tentative, reluctant support of strategic patience deserves "half-baked". "Well-meaning, well-reasoned, but, well, wrong" would have been sufficient."

Just for avoidance of doubt, please note I didn't mean to personalize this to Cordesman. The phrase 'strategic patience' has apparently become something of a common usage among many counseling a continuation of the surge to achieve 'sustainable security' (another phrase making the rounds), or such.

Put differently, 'half-baked' wasn't meant as a dig at Cordesman personally, or his trip report. Compared to the nakedly boosterish O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed, say, it was a well nuanced report.

That said, its almost complete lack of specific analysis on the different Iraqi political factions and the state of play as among them (re: gauging the prospects for any real conciliation process), while not Cordesman's area of expertise, nonetheless risks making the calls to hold out for more "luck" rather hollow, I'm afraid.

Posted by: greg djerejian at August 16, 2007 03:55 AM | Permalink to this comment

I also had the impression after reading Cordesman's paper that the distance between his views and those of Pollack and O'Hanlon are not as great as some people, not to mention any names, had evidently assumed.

The Cordesman paper really does deserve to be read all the way through; it contains much more detail on the tactical situation, on what has worked and what has not, than the typical newpaper account, and gives an indication of what at least the Sunni Arab tribes now working with the American military in Anbar and a few other places want, or at least what they would settle for (this is less a "seat at the table" in a national government in Baghdad than a high degree of local autonomy, plus a share of oil revenues).

But Cordesman is unable to get past the central dilemma of what the Americans led by Crocker and Petraeus are trying to do in Iraq -- trying to buy time for Iraqi factional leaders to do things they have no intention of doing. They may get around to doing them eventually; as I said when the "surge" was first announced, we could get very lucky and see the mutual exhaustion that was so helpful in the Dayton negotiations over former Yugoslavia set in in Iraq. All the evidence, though, suggests this point is still somewhere in the future.

He doesn't get past this dilemma, but at least he doesn't seem to be oblivious to it. It is still easily possible to switch on the television and see analysts declaiming about how Iraq needs a political solution, and leaders who will promote reconciliation, without acknowledging how much water has passed under the bridge even since 2003, let alone in all the years before that. After decades of a Sunni-dominated government that suppressed Shiites' religion, assassinated their clerics and launched periodic massacres of their people, and several years more now of a Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency that has very deliberately targeted Shiite policemen, government officials and civilians, we are debating whether the problem in Iraq is a Shiite Prime Minister who is insufficiently committed to a national reconciliation that might reduce but could not eliminate mass casualty attacks on Shiites and includes no accounting for all that community has suffered.

We could be waiting a really long time for a reconciliation of this kind. We'd be waiting a long time even if Maliki dropped dead tomorrow. What Cordesman would have us do is commit to the Big Wait, continuing to pour money and resources into one, mid-sized Arab country until we simply, physically can't do it anymore. I noticed that in his paper and his public statements about it Cordesman has taken pains to dissociate himself both from administration officials he disdains and pro-withdrawal politicians he regards as shallow and preoccupied with domestic politics. He's entitled to his views, but his "strategic patience" not only accepts the dominance of Iraq over all other American interests in the world but embraces the perpetuation of that dominance into the indefinite future. Despite his careful study and often perceptive observations, Cordesman is still fighting the problem, not deciding it.

Posted by: Zathras at August 16, 2007 05:01 AM | Permalink to this comment

"Patience" sounds kinda insulting, especially after the coordinated bombings a couple days ago. Looks like patience is benefiting the terrorists far more than it's helping us. We hope to leave Iraq some day (supposedly). The terrorists have no intention of ever leaving. So in the end, how can we "win"? All they have to do is wait us out. I think any successes of the "surge" will be temporary and thus illusory. That doesn't negate the efforts of the troops there, but they're trying to achieve militarily what can only be done through non-military efforts.

Posted by: LL at August 16, 2007 05:14 AM | Permalink to this comment

I always like your comments, Zathras, but I think you're missing the real strategic goals. Crocker and Petraeus may believe they're trying to do what you say, but honestly, among the people who matter -- both of them -- there is exactly ONE objective: Running out the clock, passing the blame on to the next crew. Of course, they might have the additional objective of handing off a wider and even worse war.... In any case, the only real function Petraeus and Cordesman et al serve is to put lipstick on the severed head of the pig.

Posted by: sglover at August 16, 2007 06:03 AM | Permalink to this comment

I read the articles/reports and tried to absorb as much of the commentary as seems reasonable to me. I also listened to O'Hanlon and Cordesman on radio. It is sad to note that all the fine arguments, the rationalisations, the hair splitting and explanations are being conducted against the background of such a terrible amount of death and destruction in Iraq. We are engaged in a mind boggling exercise in nuanced analyses while Iraqis are dying. Is is a wonder they hate us? And some of us are making a living off it. I guess I have had it with the foreign policy crowd.

Posted by: Alan at August 16, 2007 03:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

"What's been unleashed, with over 100,000 Iraqis dead, at least, and millions displaced, that's quite awful enough."

Sorry, but it really could get much worse, and withdrawing US forces won't improve matters. *Luck* may not be a strategy, but running away from luck may not be the wisest course of action either. Cordesman's tenuous case for strategic patience makes sense, in my view, as the least bad option at the moment.

Posted by: Paul Finegan at August 16, 2007 03:38 PM | Permalink to this comment

Sorry, but it really could get much worse, and withdrawing US forces won't improve matters.

Says who? How can you possibly make this statement so matter of factly?

You may be right, but you are guessing.

One things for certain, jingoism and silly phrases like strategic patience or sustainable security aren't going to improve things.

Here's a hint, when you have to make up terms from whole cloth to support your claims (not you individually of course) there's most likely a flaw in your argument.

Is there evidence that the surge is indeed at least partially working? I can't tell, since neither the military nor the Iraqi government will release data to support their claims. Data, I might add, that in the past was released on a regular schedule.

Posted by: Davebo at August 16, 2007 04:10 PM | Permalink to this comment

Zathras,

This is not offered in an aggressive manner by me...however, that said. You wrote: >>>>>>The Cordesman paper really does deserve to be read all the way through; it contains much more detail on the tactical situation, on what has worked and what has not, than the typical newpaper account, and gives an indication of what at least the Sunni Arab tribes now working with the American military in Anbar and a few other places want, or at least what they would settle for (this is less a "seat at the table" in a national government in Baghdad than a high degree of local autonomy, plus a share of oil revenues)

Well, yes and no. First, the paper does deserve to be read in full. For sure. But it does not contain "what has worked and what has not". It contains, I suppose, both what Cordsman has been told "works" and what he surmises "works". They are, in some cases, dramatically, different concepts from "what works". And that's the rub...is it not? Its, at best, a snapshot, in time, of one place, in Iraq. I have no solution to this lack of intel. But we seem to be blind. We are always sure we are not blind at the moment....but when we look back at the same snapshot 6 months or so later, we/they ("we" being the military and political forces in charge of Iraq) turn out to have been blind. Its the story of the last 4 years or so. Or so I would argue.

Posted by: jonst at August 16, 2007 04:13 PM | Permalink to this comment

What gets me about this is the "luck" is essentially an assessment that the civil war is progressing in a way that US leaders are happy with. This same "luck" would have been in play if the US wasn't there at all. If we are going to betting on more "luck" then why don't we make that bet by withdrawing entirely, and hoping that things will just work out fine?

Hope is not a plan, but if that is all we've got, why not do it without our forces at risk?

Posted by: jayackroyd at August 16, 2007 05:34 PM | Permalink to this comment

I do see one way that the current policy can be justified...

In exchange for US help/support, the "Sunni tribesmen" (formerly known as Baathist terrorists) are providing the US with a great deal of information regarding the membership and operation of their militias.

If the US uses this information to disarm these Sunni militias as part of its withdrawal strategy, a bloodbath in Iraq can be avoided -- the Sunnis will have no choice but to accept the dictates of the central government.

The US should also disarm and disband all of the Kurdish militias it has been working with....

Only by doing everything in its power to ensure that Sunni and Kurdish factions cannot resist the authority of the central government in Iraq can the US get out of Iraq ethically. Otherwise, we are simply creating a timebomb whose explosion will slaughter millions of Iraqis

Posted by: p_lukasiak at August 16, 2007 05:49 PM | Permalink to this comment

Accoring to the Los Angeles Times yesterday ( http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pullback15aug15,0,1634199,full.story?coll=la-home-center ): "Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government."

I'm happy to say that the Dems have now gotten wind of this fact and are starting to raise hell about it ( http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/016663.php ). I imagine, however, that -- just as with the recent FISA fiasco -- just enough of them will fold to keep us firmly stuck in Iraq throughut 2008. I actually rather hope so; it may allow the voters not only to finish off the GOP in that election, but to first finish off Hillary for agreeing with the GOP on this.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 16, 2007 07:13 PM | Permalink to this comment

Well, jonst, how dare you. You're lucky I don't cast you out, or smite you, or something.

However, what you write about Cordesman's report could be said truthfully about any similar report written by anyone at any time during any war in the whole of our history. Certainly there are things in Iraq that Cordesman could not see; very likely there are some things he got wrong. I'm not about to criticize someone for not being omniscient or infallible.

Posted by: Zathras at August 16, 2007 08:19 PM | Permalink to this comment

Strange I've never heard of military success or failure attributed solely to luck. Preparation or lack thereof, tactical skill, numbers, intelligence, etc are factors that determine victory or defeat.

The fact that the insurrgency has not been able to secure a hold on the population,; that you have a better chance of being a fatality in New Orleans than as a US serviceman in Iraq, and the failure to gain and hold territory does not seem to be indicators of a successful insurgency.

But then a movement that depends on suicide bombers clearly has neither broad support or popular support when its targets are not allied troops but Iraqi civilians.

Sorry but your analysis is found lacking.

Posted by: Thomas Jackson at August 16, 2007 09:01 PM | Permalink to this comment

No, I don't think it (the same thing) could be written with the ease it could be written with this war. There are degrees of differences that make a difference, after all. No one is asking for "infallibility". That is a straw man argument. Cordsman's track record has been mediocre. It usually ends the same as I recall: 'Things are bad...worse than they are telling you...but don't get out'. Certainly his record is not as good as the guy down the corner from me who sell pizzas and wine and who said "it a fool's errand' from the start. And my mailman who said its 'a waste of fine men and women, to say nothing of the money'. From the start. From my barber who said 'we'll be looking for a way out in 10 months and it won't be there' from the start.

Posted by: jonst at August 16, 2007 09:20 PM | Permalink to this comment

In an op-ed in today's NY Times, Andrew Cordesman claims

"Saudi Arabia is the only meaningful military power there that can help deter and contain a steadily more aggressive Iran".

Who is he trying to kid? The Saudi military largely consists of Pakistani mercenaries with most of the very expensive military hardware that the Saudis buy from America turning to scrap in the desert. Arms sales to the Saudis are a protection racket. With Cordesman making comments like this, is he deserving of any respect?

Posted by: blowback at August 16, 2007 11:53 PM | Permalink to this comment

"the failure to gain and hold territory does not seem to be indicators of a successful insurgency"

Any fool knows that the last thing an insurgency does against vastly superior conventional forces is to try and hold territory.

Posted by: blowback at August 16, 2007 11:55 PM | Permalink to this comment

The fact that the insurrgency has not been able to secure a hold on the population

clue time. the insurgency now controls anbar, diyali and a few other provinces.... and considerable swaths of Baghdad as well. The insurgency is, and always has been, primarily composed of Sunni former Baathists --- the exact same people who the US is now providing support to. Calling them "Sunni tribes" doesn't make them any less dedicated to overthrowing the elected government, and installing a new baathist dictatorship.

Posted by: p_lukasiak at August 17, 2007 01:27 AM | Permalink to this comment

Let's also keep in mind, shall we, Mr. Jackson, that the central problem in Iraq is -- and has always been -- that the Shiites and Kurds hate the Sunnis and vice versa. If this WASN'T the case, of course we could mop up our opposition pretty easily. But we are not up against just a "guerrilla insurgency" that most of the populace hates (as with the Shining Path in Peru) -- we are up against an ongoing civil war that features at least four different sides (the Shiites, the Kurds, the native Sunnis, and the al-Qaeda forces more or less allied with the native Sunnis at the moment), all of which dislike or flat-out hate each other and most of which have strong regional bases, which means that our chances of holding Iraq together are approximately zero. When you say that "we're" winning in Iraq -- as the Administration keeps frantically repeating -- the obvious question (which they obviously hope we'll overlook, despite the fact that their answer keeps changing day by day) is: which "we" are they referring to?

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 17, 2007 09:02 AM | Permalink to this comment

BM,

your analysis is found lacking (excuse the echo).

didn't aqi intentionally start and continually stoke sectarian attacks with spectacular violent (and often anonymous) provocations against the rival groups, most notably the destruction of the Golden Dome in Samarra?

Was there a "Civil War" before aqi's heinous actions?

Of course there wasn't.

your selective argument merely props up an increasingly frail defeatist narrative. however, it has little to do with what's actually happening on the ground there as a result of the change in our strategy/tactics.

speaking of ground, it is shifting beneath the liberals' feet. An unpleasant sensation, I'm sure.

the final hurdle is, of course, Iraqi reconciliation.

Weigh for us, if you please, the short- and long-term consequences of 'strategic patience' versus the consequences of 'flee, flee!!!' or the alternative of your choice on:

a) Iraqis
b) the region
c) al quaeda
d) Iran
e) the U.S.

Posted by: neill at August 18, 2007 03:08 AM | Permalink to this comment

There's not the slightest sign that it's "shifting beneath the liberals' feet", Neill. In particular, the evidence is swinging ever stronger against political reconciliation -- which is not only the "last hurdle", but was always the ONLY important hurdle. And as for there not being any chance of a civil war before the Golden Dome's destruction: need we mention the little matters of the Sunnis' half-millennium repression of the Shiites, the Shiites' consequent enthusiasm for al-Sadr, and the fact that the Kurds were determined to have an independent state from the start (with good reason)? Even if the Golden Dome explosion really DID initially set off that civil war, it's quite capable of going on indefinitely now. Your argument amounts to saying that, since you can set off a forest fire with one campfire, you can then put out the forest fire by snuffing one campfire.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 18, 2007 09:20 AM | Permalink to this comment

yo, BM, news from the front....

saddam's #2, izzat ibrahim al-douri, is turning on aqi and throwing in his lot with the government.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1225974555

there's shiftin' goin' on all right...and it ain't good for Harry "if it bleeds it leads" Reid and San Fran Nan.

Posted by: neill at August 23, 2007 02:36 AM | Permalink to this comment