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Mon. Jan 15, 2007

Surges, Hearts, and Minds

I had someone mention that they were kind of surprised I’d written nothing about Iraq and the President’s planned surge announced in his speech last Wednesday. What’s to say that I haven’t long ago? So these feel like somewhat obligatory remarks, but I suppose we do know a couple of things we didn’t before. There’s even a timetable of sorts.

Starting a month after we toppled Saddam’s regime, I wrote again and again about our failures in Iraq. Until finally in September of 2004, I wrote, “its too late. Too late to undo the massive mistakes we made early on (like disbanding the Iraqi Army we’re now trying to reconstitute, and putting 400,000 armed and unemployed men on the streets), and too late to change the weak willed impressions we’ve left since then (like the nine lives of the man we vowed to kill or put in jail, Moqtada Al Sadr, who is neither dead nor in jail, and the vaunted ‘Fallujah Brigade,’ who’ve since donated their AK-47’s, trucks and radios to the ‘insurgents’).”

2.3 years after saying “it’s too late,” I’ll expand by saying that I felt it was too late given the displayed incompetence of the civilians in charge of Iraq policy, both in the Pentagon and the White House. In the fall of 2004, it was still possible that a revised plan calling for more forces, improved security and reconstruction efforts, a jobs program, etc. could have turned the tide. But not as the plan would have been executed by the people that were in charge then (if they could have even conceived it).

Can the people in charge now do it? After all, there’s new generals in place working under a new Secretary of Defense. Well, all I can say is that I wish we’d had the chance to find out the answer to that question in the fall of 2004. When it might have still turned the tide.

But, now? It’s way too late. And this “surge” is far too little.

As you can see from my remarks above from September 2004, the problems are in many ways still the same. We’re still trying to reconstitute the Iraqi army and security forces that we disbanded because we thought they might be infiltrated by Baathists, though today we worry they are infiltrated by Shia death squads. We’re still trying to eliminate the influence of Moqtada Al Sadr and his militia, which is now about 25-30 times bigger. And nearly three years too late, we finally have a plan and commitment to deal with these now entrenched problems. One hardly knows whether to laugh, cry, or pray.

It’s also instructive that, before they finally settled on this surge plan, Bush’s first instinct was to ask his advisors why US troops couldn’t just pull outside of Baghdad and let these sectarians forces fight it out. Not exactly the core imperative I would hope for from the President.

Having said all that, I am personally horribly conflicted about the whole mess. Talk about your hearts and minds. My mind long ago said, “it’s too late.” The brain looks objectively and rationally at the options available, the resources committed, and the people making and executing policy, and says, “Nope. Not gonna happen.”

The heart replies, “but, but…”

I believe an individual is obligated to try and fix what they’ve broken, especially when it wasn’t theirs. No matter what their original intentions, or whether they now think they might have made a huge freakin’ mistake … it’s irrelevant. We broke Iraq’s society. Sure, it was already a fragile mess held together by weak glue and tyrannical oppression … but we broke it in an entirely new way.

My heart says we owe the Iraqi people. Sure, Saddam was bad, and he’s gone forever. But recently, up to 3,000 Iraqis are being killed each month by sectarian violence. A 9/11 each month. Morally, we owe them better. Legally, we have a Geneva Convention obligation to provide security and stability to the country we invaded, an obligation we have not fulfilled in 3.7 years. Not from the day the looting began. In fact, Job One in providing real security would have been disarming the militias and securing the borders. Back when it would have been a manageable task. We never even tried.

So pulling out precipitously is not a real option, either, despite the fact it’s an option tossed about freely. “Get the troops out now!” That would be a catalyst for the type of murderous scenes we’ve witnessed in Rwanda, Darfur, and what was once Yugoslavia. And what do we call for in those situations? “Someone must send troops there to put a stop to this ethnic cleansing!” Well, the troops are already there. And to a significant degree, the civil war has begun. Much of this is our fault.

So you see? It is my bleeding heart that wants to stay and fight. Not for George Bush’s legacy. P-too-ee! But because the average Iraqi family deserves one whole hell of a lot better chance of getting through an average day where the parents can go to work and the kids can go to school with a minimal threat of random death.

And it is my cold analytical brain that looks at what it will take to even point Iraq’s current reality in that direction, the resources available to do so, and again says, “Nope, not gonna happen.” And asks if the US Armed Forces don’t deserve to once again have a month where their number killed isn’t in double or triple digits.

Of course, it makes no difference at all what my heart or my brain says, and that’s why I’ve felt no compelling urge to let either organ state its piece here. Because George is going to do what George is going to do, no matter what anyone says. Me. The Iraq Study Group. And probably Congress.

Whether you want to call it sectarian violence, ethnic cleansing, or outright civil war, it appears to me that we will now somehow attempt to manage it, to provide a slightly softer landing in the pits of Hell than if we just pulled out over the next six months. And, for better or for worse, it does set the ground for the events to come.

While Bush completely nixed the idea of having regional talks involving Iran and Syria, I think there’s been some pretty serious regional talks nonetheless. Primarily with Saudi Arabia, perhaps Jordan and Kuwait as well. Given the recent chaos next door, I believe these (largely Sunni) countries have looked into the potential abyss of an ethnically cleansed Iranian puppet state in Iraq (largely Shia), and decided they must also align against the Iranian axis developed with Syria and Lebanon. Before Iraq is added to the axis.

Saudi Arabia in particular could turn the screws in some passive aggressive ways. One wonders if the recent and sudden resignation of their US ambassador had something to do with this new strategy. We shall see. I’d watch oil prices to see if they drop, for one thing (Later: “A 15 percent price plunge since the start of 2007 has many OPEC producers deeply concerned…“)

The real key and early indicator within Iraq is how and whether Moqtada Al Sadr is confronted. The Madhi militia, which, if I recall correctly numbered a couple of thousand men when we first threatened to take Sadr out in April 2004, now numbers more than 60,000. And not only is he now a far bigger player than he was back then, he’s also smart enough to play possum during our surge. Alternately, he could make US forces engage his tens of thousands in the urban combat we tried so mightily to avoid in April, 2003.

So the question remains, where is this all going? What is the endgame?

These pronouncements from Bush seemed to have a few “outs” carved into the process, almost as legacy scapegoats. One is fluid and nebulous, but when I heard Bush say “benchmarks” during his speech, including a specific one about Iraqi forces taking command in all 18 provinces by November, my ears perked up. Because it sounded like he might be setting up an “out” other than his continued insistence on “victory no matter what.” All 18 provinces under Iraqi central command in another ten months? Right. Sounds like a chance to Bring The Boys Home just as the 2008 presidential campaign heats up.

It could even happen before then, if there’s an internal judgement that Maliki’s administration isn’t living up to their commitments to this effort, as many have suggested will be the case. After all, some of the troops in this “surge” will not show up until May or June. If by March or April it’s already clear Maliki’s government wasn’t serious about disarming Shia militias, only Sunni militias, the deployment of those remaining troops may be altered.

And I say “altered” rather than eliminated because I suspect the hope all along in the administration is that this surge will provide enough public perception of a calmer Baghdad within six or eight months that they can announce the beginning of troop withdrawals.

That’s one endgame; the beginnings of a pullout by end of 2007, inspired by [1] a short term perception of improved conditions, or [2] evidence this last ditch effort has failed in a manner that can be blamed on the current Iraqi government. You know, the one we helped put in place.

Because if things go bad despite this surge, and there’s no indication given when troops will begin withdrawing, the strongest pressure Bush will face will be from his fellow Republicans. Some of them who are running for his job may even tell him, “Mr. President, I really don’t want to have to cut you loose all alone in a raft, but that’s what I’m going to do. Because if you can’t finish this from the White House, we’re going to have to do it on the campaign trail. And you’re going to bleed a lot.”

The other “endgame” is a literal timetable, the “I don’t care if it’s just Laura and Barney backing me” timetable, one that is clear today to Al Sadr, Al Qaeda, and insurgents of all stripes (not to mention the Iranians next door).

Suppose by fall it is clear this surge has failed, yet Bush holds stubbornly to current troop levels in the face of continuing de-evolution in Iraq. Sometime in January, 2009, Bush will be taking his remaining two supporters back to Crawford, Texas. And, at this point in time, it’s hard to believe that our next President won’t be faced with an even worse situation in Iraq than we are now, and will have been elected on the premise they will get us out.

For an insurgent who’s been fighting against us … and surviving … for 45 months now, what’s another 24 months, tops?

As for us here in the US, I suspect the outcome will be fairly apparent in one more Friedman Unit. By July, it ought to be clear whether this ill wind has shifted in direction or intensity. And whether Bush is smart enough to finally accept defeat, or stubborn enough to hang on until Laura and Barney say, “it’s time to go, George.”

In closing, I have to quote this one article from before Bush even made his speech, because it is such a laughable complaint: “The chiefs also complain that the surge seems to involve only guys with guns. There is a widespread feeling that the Pentagon has shouldered the entire load in Iraq while U.S. government agencies better suited for reorganizing political and economic systems have dropped the ball. Other agencies, most notably the State, Justice and Energy departments, lag in sending experts and advisers to help the Iraqis pull themselves together. Uniformed officers say they can pull off a surge, but it won’t make any difference if there isn’t a larger, government-wide strategy to mend the broken country.“

It’s been well documented in lengthy books by a half dozen authors that the Pentagon, largely in the form of Rumsfeld and his acolytes, both ignored and forcibly pushed aside a host of good advice and offers for help from other government departments. Starting in 2002. If “U.S. government agencies better suited for reorganizing political and economic systems“ had been allowed to implement policy in post-war Iraq instead of Rumsfeld, perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are. If “State, Justice and Energy departments“ had been allowed to send “experts and advisers to help the Iraqis pull themselves together“ by staffing the CPA, instead of the young and inexperienced political appointees who got and botched those jobs, maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today.

When you hear that kind of laughable revisionist complaint, one can’t help but wonder if the ghost of Rummy won’t be wandering the halls of the Pentagon forever, still delivering his snowflakes.