We've had this conversation before...

Glenn Greenwald and I have disagreed in the past about the journalism of Michael Gordon. Perhaps because I'm interested specifically in security and defense issues, I find much of Gordon's work useful. Cobra II was an outstanding account of the invasion of Iraq, and Gordon helped break news of the North Korean arms shipment that the administration failed, in spite of treaty obligations and good sense, to intercept on its way to Ethiopia. He's also, unfortunately, pro-surge, and for all I know favored the Iraq War. That said, I view his work with the same critical eye that I see Sy Hersh's; they're much different reporters, with different ideological lenses, and they are often wrong in an ideologically predictable way. Both of them are also, in their own way, often quite useful.

I read Gordon's article this morning (on US claims that Iranian backed militants tried to kidnap 5 US soldiers) and found it utterly unremarkable. Similar reports (from independent reporting) had been made on CNN and on several defense oriented blogs. I didn't note that the writer of the NYT article was Gordon, and it certainly didn't occur to me that the author harbored some hawkish, pro-war motive. When the US military spokesman in Iraq makes claims about Iranian behavior, it's news, and the job of a journalist is to report the news. Indeed, I thought that the article had appropriately noted that all of the evidence came from a US source. Call me a cynic, but whenever I read "a US military source indicated" and "Iran" in the same sentence, I'm deeply skeptical of whatever claim is being put forth. I've never bothered to impute motive to this form of sentence, but I guess I kind of assumed that this was a journalist's way of saying caveat emptor. Glenn reads it differently:

The Bush administration's most reliable pro-surge "reporter," Michael Gordon of The New York Times, this morning filed an article -- headlined: "U.S. Ties Iranians to Iraq Attack That Killed G.I.'s" -- that might be the most war-fueling article yet with regard to Iran. Gordon's article is 23 paragraphs long, and makes some of the most inflammatory accusations against Iran imaginable.

Right. There's also a story in AP (also dependent on the same source, Brigadier General Kevin J. Bergner), and a story by Michael Ware at CNN that makes the same allegations using different sources. As I noted above, in reading the article I simply don't see the bias that Glenn asserts; at every point Gordon is quite clear that these are administration and military claims, rather than claims that can be independently verified. Like Ware, Gordon could have done more to verify those claims. However, given that Ware's reporting makes pretty much the same case as Gordon's, it's unclear to me how the alternative manner in which the article should have been written. I suppose he could have included the comments from Pace a while ago that there was no clear evidence that Iran was involved, but those hardly seem appropriate given that we're dealing with new claims and new evidence. Glenn further argues:

Gordon, as is his wont, does not question a single statement that he conveys, does not include a single dissenting view, does not provide a single reason to hold such assertions in doubt, does not obtain or include any responses to the accusations, does not identify any evidentiary gaps in the accusations. Instead, the article does nothing but magically transform the highly provocative yet unverified statements of military leaders into "news" on the pages of The New York Times. Again, read the article carefully -- is there even a single sentence that advances beyond the role of loyal court stenographer to Gen. Bergner?

I don't know; reporting the statements of a US military spokesman, and noting clearly and repeatedly that these are the statements of a spokesman and not independently verified facts, don't seem to me to constitute "loyal stenography" or hawkish Iran warmongering. Nor does it rise to the level of Judy Miller, whose reporting on WMD was far more aggressive and far less qualified than this, and was indeed objectionable in large part because she neglected to qualify in the way that Gordon does here; she wrote as if the Iraqi WMD programs were verifiable facts, and failed to indicate that all of her evidence came from US sources with identifiable incentive to deceive.

But to repeat, "highly provocative yet unverified statements of military leaders" ARE news; I suppose that Gordon could have revisited the WMD fiasco, or pointed out that some in the administration harbor aggressive intent against Iran, but since everyone reading the article already knows those things, it's unclear to me that they had much place. In fairness to Glenn, the NYT had edited the Gordon piece to include some of those caveats, but it's not clear to me that noting that the Iranians deny the allegations is actually a significant improvement in the article. Noting the doubts on the EFPs is an improvement, and probably should have been in the original, but I doubt that the omission has the consequential impact that Glenn suggests.

I also think it's simply absurd to insinuate, as Glenn does, that Peter Pace was silenced for arguing that there's little evidence for a link between Iran and attacks in Iraq. We can't argue, on the one hand, that Pace was fired for being incompetent, while at the same time suggesting that he was removed and silenced for being insufficiently hawkish on Iran. Moreover, it's not even as if he's been silenced; he remains quite capable of describing publicly his views on Iran, and it's quite likely that people will listen if he wants to argue that there's no evidentiary basis for claims that Iran is interfering in Iraq. If the administration wanted to silence Peter Pace, firing him was a bloody stupid way to do it. It's a lot more likely that Gates, like Harry Reid, didn't think much of Pace and didn't think that he could get through his next set of hearings.

Most importantly, I think that Glenn has embarked on, fundamentally, the wrong fight. Khameinei and Ahmadinejad may be personally supervising and planning a guerilla campaign against the United States in Iraq. Elements of the Revolutionary Guard may be assisting some Iraqi insurgents with training and weapons. On the other hand, there may be no connection whatsoever between Iran and the Iraqi insurgency. I really don't know; I'd guess that some elements in Iran are supporting some militants in Iraq with some mixture of training and equipment, but that's just speculation based on realist theory and some knowledge of the Iranian regime. I do know, however, that whatever hand Iran has in the insurgency has no bearing whatsoever on my beliefs about whether it's sensible for the US to attack. Even if Iran is supporting insurgents, I cannot visualize a military campaign that would, at reasonable cost, prevent Iran from engaging in that behavior. In other words, attacking Iran is stupid whether or not Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. Glenn wants to make a consequentialist case against Gordon (indeed, he uses the words "extraordinary", "enabling", and "inflammatory" to describe the article), but he's missing the point; if we allow that the article was all of these things, then what happens if the allegations turn out to be true? The way to fight a potential attack on Iran is not to assail Michael Gordon, but rather to point out that, even if the claims that the American military is making are true, they do not provide a plausible reason for launching a military assault on Iran.

The chemical weapons fiasco has led to a substantial misunderstanding of the argument about the case for invading Iraq. While the allegations about chemical weapons formed the center of the administration's case for war, the real problem is not that the administration was lying (although it was), but rather that Iraqi WMD, even if they existed, did not furnish a plausible reason for war. It doesn't excuse the administration to say that its sin was two-fold; on the one hand, it lied about the existence of WMD, and on the other it lied about the implications of WMD. Even if the United States had found a rump WMD program, it would not have justified the war, and I doubt very much that it would have affected the course of the insurgency. Like an attack on Iran for supporting Iraqi insurgents, invading Iraq for having WMD was stupid on its own merits.

An attack on Iraq is too stupid of an idea to allow it to hinge on the empirical question of whether or not Iran is interfering in Iraq. I suppose it's possible that there are people out there who really will be "inflamed" to the degree that the administration is "enabled" to attack Iraq through the medium of Michael Gordon's reporting, but I really have my doubts. I'm not even sure what the causal logic behind that claim is; the administration cares so much about public opinion that a 3% shift in polling on attacking Iran is going to embolden it to launch strikes? But by describing such claims as "inflammatory", I think Glenn is granting them far too much weight in the calculus of war. If they're inflammatory in an article that quite clearly refused to verify them, what happens if genuinely compelling evidence of Iranian interference comes to light in the future? For me, and I suspect for most people, nothing, which makes me doubt the severity of the attacks the Greenwald is launching against Gordon. Finally, I have to return to the argument that I made the last time; there is danger in imputing motivation based upon what may well be a faulty dispositional diagnosis. Gordon is a loyal, arrogant stenographer, except when he's not, but we never allow the times he's not to change our initial assessment.

Who's Winning in Anbar?

One can rarely peruse a right wing blog these days without reading about how "we're winning" in Anbar. The talking point stems from the decision, in September of last year, of a number of tribal elites in Anbar to focus on operations against Al Qaeda, instead of against the United States military. As Jim Henley notes, crafting an alliance with tribal elites is hardly without risk, and does not constitute "victory" in any meaningful sense for the United States. The US is currently enrolling in Iraqi police and military units tribesmen who were, ten months ago, part of the insurgency. The loyalty of such individuals can hardly be taken for granted; the tribal elite may decide, six months from now, that they are no longer pleased with the US and shift against us.

Even if the tribal elites remain loyal, the alliance poses a larger problem for basic US war aims. The alliance with these tribes serves, necessarily, to strengthen them as political units. Strengthening the tribes invariably weakens the central government. As the tribes are also among the least progressive and least interested in democracy of any Iraqi political constituencies, strengthening them also helps undercut efforts towards democratization. So, to the extent that the US goal remains the creation of a strong, democratic central government, the deal with the Sunni tribal leaders is almost completely at odds with the end that we'd like to see.

Of course, we've pretty much given up the idea that Iraq will have either a strong or a democratic central government. Having accepted defeat in the main aim of the war, collaboration with Sunni tribal elites is probably the next best option. The victory isn't ours, though; it's theirs. Al Qaeda wasn't in Anbar before the war, and it may be gone from Anbar someday, but the Sunni tribal leaders have maintained and perhaps even increased their autonomy. They've also made themselves targets, but that comes with the territory. Rather than create a shining example for the Middle East, US policy is now directed towards enabling the most conservative elements of Iraqi society. The truly sad thing is that this does, compared with the execution of the first three years of the war, represent something of a victory.

Cross-posted to Tapped.

Darkness, Imprisoning Me

This is pretty much the most horrible thing I've ever read.

...seriously, take some time and consider whether you want to read it. The article is about the most horribly wounded Iraq War veteran.

Knock Me Over With a Goddamn Feather

Huh. I guess, maybe, insurgents run away from superior firepower:

The operational commander of troops battling to drive fighters with Al Qaeda from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Qaeda leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week. He compared their flight with the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004.

In an otherwise upbeat assessment, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, told reporters that leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia had been alerted to the Baquba offensive by widespread public discussion of the American plan to clear the city before the attack began. He portrayed the Qaeda leaders’ escape as cowardice, saying that "when the fight comes, they leave," abandoning "midlevel" Qaeda leaders and fighters to face the might of American troops — just, he said, as they did in Falluja.

Wow. Who could have predicted that? And while the challenge to Al-Qaeda's manhood is charming in a fourteenth century kind of way, I seriously doubt that the insurgent leadership is as stupid as, say, Right Blogistan or the braintrust of the Bush administration. Indeed, the idea that fleeing superior numbers, firepower, and technology is somehow "unmanly" is rather quaint; I suspect that insurgents would be happy enough if we threw down our tanks, cruise missiles, fighter jets, and armored personal carriers and settled this dispute by Marquess of Queensbury rules.

Also, it seems that somebody is irritated at the current Golden Child:

Some American officers in Baquba have placed blame for the Qaeda leaders' flight on public remarks about the offensive in the days before it began by top American commanders, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the overall commander in Iraq.

But don't those officers understand that the only real front is the home front, and the only serious battle the PR fight? Compared to the MSM and the Democrats, Al Qaeda poses only a trivial threat to our precious bodily fluids...

The Offensive

I'm as skeptical of the latest offensive effort as of just about all the other offensives that US forces have launched in Iraq, and I'm wondering whether the planning and execution of this operation reveals some frustration in the Army with the Surge. The very first thing that a counter-insurgency expert will tell you is that sweeps don't work; the insurgents always manage to escape, and there's no way to cover all of the exits:

Taking the fight to insurgents from Al Qaeda did not so much destroy them in Anbar Province as dislodge them, prompting the fighters to build up their strength elsewhere, including Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province.

So the planners of this latest operation are attempting to plug the holes that have allowed the insurgents to escape in the past. The goal is not merely to reclaim western Baquba from insurgent control, but to capture or kill the estimated 300 fighters to 500 fighters who are believed to be based in that part of the city.

Now, maybe this offensive will achieve what no other counter-insurgency offensive has achieved (barring perhaps some minor local successes), and actually trap the 500 or so fighters that look like everyone else amid a civilian population that hasn't fled. If history is any guide, however, they won't; they'll catch and kill some, many more will escape, plenty of civilians will either be killed or have their houses destroyed, and little of any significance will be accomplished.

Part of the point of the Surge was to allow the possibility for traditional counter-insurgency operations, in which insurgents were forced to launch their own offensives against American forces, and consequently be destroyed. This was, given the trivial size of the Surge compared to what Petraeus own counter-insurgency manual demanded, a forlorn hope. That the US has apparently returned to pointless and destructive sweep operations may be a recognition of that within the command structure. These operations are emotionally satisfying, but by and large have never worked, and almost inevitably cause more damage than they prevent.

Cross-posted to TAPPED.

Book Review: Chasing Ghosts

Last year I received a copy of Chasing Ghosts, by Paul Rieckhoff. Rieckhoff was a Lieutenant in the Army National Guard, and served in Baghdad through 2003 to early 2004. He founded the group IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America), and now blogs occasionally at Huffington Post. Upon his return from Iraq, Rieckhoff became a strong critic of the war, both in concept and handling. Chasing Ghosts is a record of his time spent in Baghdad, of his early thoughts about the war, and of his activism in the run-up to the 2004 election.

Like several former students of mine, Rieckhoff saw Iraq between the invasion and the escalation of the insurgency. With the exception of serious eruption in November 2003, the early period of the Occupation saw relatively light violence. Rieckhoff's account stresses how important the term "relatively" is. The amount of violence and destruction he saw is small compared to what was happening a year or two years later, but was nevertheless evident of a deeply dysfunctional political and social situation. Rieckhoff was forced, like every other American officer and soldier in Iraq, to navigate not only through a system of literal mines and traps, but also through a system of competing bureaucracies which often worked at cross-purposes. Rules of engagement were vague, and even when clear often of not much assistance. Units were restricted from operating in parts of the city not by any policy but rather because of competing chains of command. Insurgents were quick to understand and exploit these gaps, which frustrated Rieckhoff to no end.

As the wise have pointed out, Iraqis don't tend to care for having their houses rummaged through or having them entered without notice. Then again, neither does anyone else. Rieckhoff's job involved regular forced entry into private Iraqi homes, a duty which clearly wore on him over time. Much of what he did consisted, essentially, of police work. One story that Rieckhoff tells involves the hunt for a group of thieves in Baghdad. His unit managed to capture the thieves (bank robbers who may have had connections with the insurgency) without too much difficulty, although they did manage to annoy the neighbors. Rieckhoff and his men recovered tens of thousands of dollars, along with consumer electronics and a pair of brand new motorcycles. Unfortunately, a soldier in Rieckhoff's unit had worked out a system, and had stolen about $30000 from various Iraqi sources. The money had been partially split up through the platoon. After being tipped off by a seargeant, Rieckhoff was forced to create a sting operation that caught the leader of the gang. Although the soldier was put in jail for awhile and demoted, he wasn't kicked out of the Army; Rieckhoff's chalks this up to a shortage of experienced soldiers.

After his deployment ended, Rieckhoff felt no compunctions against criticizing the war, both in conception and execution. He became a voice of some note during the 2004 election campaign, receiving some attention from the Kerry campaign. Rieckhoff wasn't impressed with Kerry as a candidate, however. I think this was a bit of a mistake; whatever problems there might have been with Kerry's personal approach, his policies were quite likely to be different (and better) than those of the alternative. Since the election, he's been a strong advocate for war veterans, and remains a vigorous critic of the war. The book is well worth reading, both for a description of the early part of the Occupation on the military side (it's a fitting companion to, say, Imperial Life in the Emerald City or Assassin's Gate), and as a genuinely intriguing personal narrative.

Reputation and the Vote

Several of the comments on this post make what is essentially a reputational argument about the failure of the Democrats to establish a timetable or create other limits on the ability of the President to carry out the war. Since I reject reputational arguments in reference to international politics, I'm not sure why I should take them seriously in the domestic context, either. If I can summarize (and I understand that I may do violence to the intent of some commenters), the argument goes something like this: By backing down, the Democrats in Congress displayed a lack of resolve, and the President will take advantage of this lack of resolve in future conflicts over war funding. I'm skeptical for several reasons:

• The Democrats didn't display a lack of resolve. They displayed a lack of votes. I fail to see how reminding everyone of this by failing to stop the war in a prolonged legislative fight improves the situation of the party or begins to end the war.
• Resolve is important in a theoretical sense because it changes the behavior of the adversary. If the enemy believes we possess resolve, then s/he will be deterred from some behavior that we find unpleasant. That’s fine as far as it goes, but it makes no sense in this context. First, I doubt very much that the President’s beliefs about Democratic resolve or lack thereof are going to change his behavior regarding the war. His own rhetoric has left him with very few options. I don’t really see how, if the Democrats had displayed additional resolve at this juncture, it would have changed Presidential behavior down the line. Moreover, the behavior of the President doesn’t really matter. The next fight over funding will be determined by the ability of Reid and Pelosi to hold the caucus together and to chase down Republican defectors, which is another way of saying that capability instead of resolve will decide the outcome.
• The theoretical case for the importance of resolve is, in any case, indeterminate. There are multiple ways in which the President (and anyone else) could have interpreted the series of votes on the war. It's certainly possible that the President believes that the failure of the Democratic Congress to press the withdrawal vote is evidence of lack of will or lack of resolve. But people don’t always view such events in this way; it's also quite possible that the administration (and other Republicans) understood this as a preparatory effort to a later fight. In any case, like I suggest above, the point is probably moot; I doubt very much that anything about the President's behavior depends on the behavior of Democrats.

Fighting the tough fight now doesn't necessarily make the next fight easier, and it can make that fight harder. A demonstration of resolve makes little difference either way. Pressing a fight at an inopportune time can actually prove counter-productive. While Atrios may be right that the oft-mentioned defection of a group of Republicans from the war party will never happen, the practical meaning of this is that, until January 2009, a withdrawal won't happen, either. The Democrats cannot force a withdrawal without Republican support. Were they to force Bush into some funding shenanigans in order to continue the war, they would still need Republican support in order to punish the administration. The sad fact of the American political system is that what the Democrats want to do cannot be accomplished without the defection of some Republicans. Did the course of events make it easier or harder for marginal Republicans to support the President come September? It's difficult to say, but my guess is harder; barring a radical transformation of the trends, Iraq will look as bad then as it does now.

I also quite strongly disagree with the contention that nothing was accomplished by the initial vote for a withdrawal timetable. While no formal restriction on the President’s powers was achieved, rhetorical position obviously matters in politics. Pelosi and Reid have taken a party that, a year ago, was confused and disoriented regarding the war have placed it quite clearly on the side of withdrawal. It’s now more obvious than ever that the war is, fundamentally, a Republican war, to be continued with the active support only of the Republican Party, and perhaps only part thereof. This is work that needed to be done in preparation for later funding battles, and is the central achievement of the last several months.

Finally, I quite agree with this, from Terence Samuel:

The war is obviously unpopular, and President Bush's job approval rating is at historic lows -- it would be tempting to just play the strongest available hand. That would be to force him to keep vetoing bill, and to force unpopular votes on the GOP in Congress. That would be easy, but it wouldn't end the war. The vetoes would be sustained, and at any rate wars don't end at the conclusion of a roll call vote. It will take Republican votes to force the president into the corner. Those are starting to come; cutting off funding would turn back that support.

So even though the supplemental compromise had the look of past weak-kneed Democratic surrenders, there was a strategic rationale to it that should make the opponents of the war, if not proud, at least hopeful. The slow build from a series of failed non-binding resolutions last summer to a presidential veto this spring shows a level of persistence -- and strategery -- among Hill Democrats that would make the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue proud.

Art of the Possible

Put me squarely in the Meyerson camp:

Many of my antiwar friends were furious at Democratic congressional leaders last week for their failure to attach withdrawal deadlines to or cut funding from our occupation of Iraq -- a failure chiefly attributable to the simple fact that the votes weren't there for either option. What they should recall, however, is that the much more heavily Democratic Congress that hastened the end of the Vietnam War during Richard Nixon's presidency did so by passing a series of incremental measures, each of which constrained Nixon's warmaking powers a bit more than the last. In succession, Congress banned the use of funds for military actions in Laos and Thailand, then (after Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia) banned the use of ground forces in Cambodia. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, one of the Democrats' foremost doves, three times introduced an amendment that would have ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam within nine months of enactment, but it never passed.

It took the Democrats, and their dovish Republican allies, four full years to pass a cutoff of funds for U.S. ground forces in Vietnam, by which point Nixon had already pulled all ground forces out (though the legislation kept him from putting those forces back in, which was not a mere academic possibility). That hardly means that Mansfield betrayed the cause of peace, any more than Nancy Pelosi's failure to shut down the war last week means that she sold out to the Bush administration. Mansfield put one antiwar bill after another to a vote, winning more and more support each time around, leaving Nixon with fewer and fewer options. Pelosi is steering the same course, for a war even more reckless and absurd than Vietnam.

Right. It's all well and good to point out that Bush and the war are politically unpopular, but while doing so we can't forget that we live in a Madisonian anti-majoritarian system that privileges the status quo. Combine that with a two party system that has only weak incentives for party discipline, and the ability of a small Congressional majority to change the course of a war becomes quite limited. Frankly, I'm impressed that Reid and Pelosi did as well as they did in resettling the Democratic Party in Congress firmly on the side of withdrawal, and I see little point in excoriating them for not doing enough.

Niall Ferguson, Wanker

Fergie, 9 February 2005

That is why the president is more right than he knows to reject calls for an arbitrary departure date. The price of liberty in Iraq will be, if not eternal vigilance on the part of the United States, then certainly 10 years' vigilance.

Fergie, 21 May 2007:

[T]he decision to overthrow Hussein was one of history's great non sequiturs.

Most Americans didn't know who Niall Ferguson was in Spring 2003, so -- unlike those emanating from the Great Singular Orifice of respectable liberal punditry -- his views were doing nothing to drive American public opinion toward supporting this moronic war. So on that count, at least, I don't suppose Ferguson has much for which to atone. And he's not speaking in Friedman Units, so there's something.

Nonetheless, from the publication of Empire onward, Ferguson has relentlessly advocated that the United States bear the White Man's Burden in Iraq and elsewhere, and he can't be let off the hook for that. Smart people bought his book and repeated his elegant phrases, and -- whether he's directly at fault or not -- here we are, still feeding the pig. Fergie's had his misgivings, of course, and has been claiming for nearly three years that the US has been doing a poor job of it -- but his complaints, as best I can tell, have always centered on the unwillingness of the US to commit the time and resources to the war in Iraq. Now, at preceisely the moment that one presumes Ferguson would be castigating the war's opponents for not bearing their imperial responsibilities like real Englishmen Americans, he at last declares the war a "tragedy" and a "nonsequitur," denouncing Bush along the way for wreaking "havoc" with his doctrine of preemptive war.

It says a lot, though, that Ferguson still conceives of Bush as the victim in this drama. (It is, after all, the "Tragedy of King George" rather than "The Folly of Empire.") Sure, Ferguson makes passing reference to the "tens, if not the hundreds, of thousands" of bodies coughed up by this "tragedy," but the real story for Ferguson resides in the "corpses" of Wolfowitz or Tony Blair and in fragile lives of Bush, Olmert, Musharraf and Prince Bandar -- "the only principals left standing." Not to be too obtuse, but all the other "principals" appear to be standing quite fine on their own. Wolfowitz lost his job at the Defense Department and then the World Bank, but he's looking pretty healthy to me. He'll probably even find new love by month's end. Same for Tony Blair, who (aside from a little arm cramping after five years of trans-Atlantic reacharounds) seems positively radiant by comparison with the hundreds of thousands of people condemned to die by his and King George's war -- a war, Ferguson would rather not highlight, that he also thought was "winnable" until quite recently.

Condi's dream and "the second surge"

Is Condi's dream about to become a reality?

The Guardian has a story today with this headline: "Bush may turn to UN in search for Iraq solution." It is filled with quotes from "a former senior administration official...who is familiar with administration thinking." A "senior US diplomat" also chips in anonymously as well.

So, what's the forthcoming plan -- apparently to be outlined this September when the UN meets in NY?

· Expanded UN involvement in overseeing Iraq's full transition to a "normal" democratic state, including an enhanced role for UN humanitarian agencies, the creation of a UN command, and possibly a Muslim-led peacekeeping force

· Increased involvement in Iraq policymaking of UN security council permanent members, Japan and EU countries - in particular, the new conservative government of French president Nicolas Sarkozy

· A bigger support role for regional countries, notably Sunni Arab Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, and international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF

· Renewed efforts to promote Iraqi government self-reliance, including attainment of national reconciliation "benchmarks"

· The accelerated removal of US troops from frontline combat duties as the handover to Iraqi security forces, backed by an increased number of US advisers, proceeds.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf recently "proposed the creation of a UN-flagged peacekeeping force for Iraq to be drawn from Muslim nations."

Would it be bad form to note that Juan Cole fleshed out something like this in July 2004 -- and referred to it as "the Kerry plan."?

In any case, call me skeptical about Bush's prospects at the UN. The very same Guardian piece details the simultaneous escalation of the counter-insurgency effort in Iraq. Via some manipulation of troops deployments, the US is planning a "second surge" to increase forces in Iraq from 160,000 to 200,000 by the end of the year.

Europeans and Muslim states are unlikely to be enthused about peacekeeping in the context of escalating war.

And, of course, the entire policy is framed cynically as a method for Republicans to avoid electoral disaster in 2008.

Note: cross-posted at Duck of Minerva.

On Turning a Corner...

Between March 2003 and August 2006, there was never a period in Iraq in which Coalition casualties exceeded 2.5/day for each of three consecutive months.

Since September 2006, Coalition casualties have exceeded 2.5/day every single month. Barring a remarkable downturn in violence, May will be the ninth consecutive month at 2.5+.

Surge advocates have argued that higher casualties since February are evidence that the insurgency is coming out to fight; an increased tempo of operations leads to higher casualties, but hurts the insurgency more than the Occupation. Lost in this argument, however, is the fact that casualties were at a prolonged, historic high before the Surge even began.

!!!!11!ONE1111!!EXCLAMATION POINT!

Here's what I learned from winguts in a mere 15 minutes:

(1) Terrorism is down almost everywhere!
(2) Olmert is a pussy!
(3) Holy crap, it's May Day!
(4) War is good for babies!
(5) AAAH! Brown menace!
(6) May Day!
(7) Brown people!

I'm breathless.

Olmert

Everybody has something to say about the commission report that excoriated Ehud Olmert and his government for badly botching the war against Hezbollah last summer. Olmert and his advisors obviously deserve the criticism, as Israel's offensive was politically disastrous even if you believe it was justified. The most interesting aspect of the report is the contrast between Israel and the United States, a contrast that Haninah Levine depicts quite starkly:

What I want to emphasize right now, though, is how vastly different this report is from anything that's been seen in the U.S. Less than a year has passed since the events described, the same people who were running the country then are still in power (only the Chief of Staff got the axe) – and yet already a harsh, detailed, scathingly public review of the government's actions has been produced.

This report is expected to serve not only as a collective report card for Israel's military leadership, but as a highly personalized one: personnel decisions in the General Staff have been effectively frozen pending the results of the Commission. The Baker boys, by contrast, famously felt that even their statement that "our political leaders must build a bipartisan approach to bring a responsible conclusion to what is now a lengthy and costly war" was inflammatory enough to warrant holding off publication till after Election Day.

In other words, countries that believe they face genuine security threats don't piddle around with nonsense about how "criticism hurts the morale of the troops", and "What's important is the situation now, not how we got into this mess". As should be obvious, the decisions that lead to a disaster like Iraq reflect very poorly on the capabilities of leaders in power. No one dumb enough to think this war was a good idea should have been trusted with its execution.

This reminds me of another point that I talked about a while ago, and that I was recently debating with John Noonan of Op-For (we're thinking of cross-posting elements of the debate). Believing that the Surge is a good idea, and the key to victory in Iraq, is in and of itself a denunciation of the manner in which the war has been executed over the last four years. For almost four years the President and his Secretary of Defense steadfastly refused to deploy more troops to Iraq, or to use the troops there in a particularly vigorous fashion. In other words, even on the narrow grounds that wingnuts evaluate such things, the President has demonstrated himself to be a miserable failure. Given that, why would you trust he, his allies, or his appointees with any job more complicated that pouring a scotch-on-the-rocks ever again?

Kingdaddy makes this point a bit more succinctly:

Why do we keep returning to the events of 2002 and 2003?

• Because no one has paid. That's important because...
• Until someone pays, there's no reason to think something equally bad won't happen again.

Another Downside of the Surge

Sam Dagher at the CSM has a good article on the potential detrimental effect of having large numbers of US troops in close quarters with Iraqi civilians. Invariably, in a counter-insurgency conflict, civilians are going to be killed by US forces. This is particularly true of a country like Iraq, in which the general populace tends to be quite heavily armed. The Surge exacerbates the regular problem of US-caused civilian deaths by putting troops who are less well trained and less well equipped than they should be in extremely dangerous situations. While it's true that the Surge could reduce civilian deaths in Baghdad by making it more difficult for sectarian militias to operate, it's not a 1-1 swap; every person killed by the US causes more damage than each person saved by US forces. Moreover, since much of Baghdad seemed to rely on the sectarian militias for defense, even their suppression is double-edged.

Oh, and the insurgents are very, very desperate. If they weren't, a suicide bomber wouldn't have just killed nine Americans and wounded twenty more in Diyala province.

Fuck.

What? I Thought Congress Was Full of Traitors...

Via Drum:

...."The debate in Congress ... has been helpful in demonstrating to the Iraqis that American patience is limited," Gates told Pentagon reporters traveling with him in Jordan. "The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive impact ... in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment."

Who knew that democracy could have a "positive impact"?

Casualties

Tom makes a good point; over the last Friedman Unit, US casualties in Iraq have been really, really bad. The increase preceded the Surge, but the Surge hasn't had any apparent effect on the death rate. Casualty rates aren't a great way to evaluate the success of a counter-insurgency operation, because more deaths may result from an increase in the tempo of activity on either side. However, allowing that it might not be evidence of escalating disaster doesn't mean that it could be good news; casualty rates that either go up or stay the same can't be considered progress.

You can do just about anything with Sea Ponies except sit on them

Meantime, I think it's time the Bush administration considered a new strategy. Patience is a virtue, certainly, but if we've got the Sea Ponies at our disposal, I see no reason not to go ahead and use them. I predict that the next six months in Iraq -- with the Sea Ponies standing up so America can stand down -- will be a critical period in the history of this war.

Why I'm not buying your crap on eBay

This could have paid off a good chunk of my student loan, but the stuffed shirts at eBay shut down the auction and permanently suspended my account. It's been three years, and I'm still bitter.

. . . Broke the server. Working on it . . .

Surge-tacular!

Here's what I love about the wingnut-o-sphere:

Step 1: Read on Instapundit that "the surge is working."

Step 2: Learn (via Rubble Boy's link)that former Bush/Cheney webmaster claims in a Townhall column that "It hasn't been reported on widely, but murders in Baghdad are down 70%."

Step 3: See that webmaster links to Trekkie Clausewitz Dafydd ab Hugh on the 70% figure, among other "incisive" matters. Read Trekkie Clausewitz and learn that "attacks in Baghdad have now "plummeted more than 70%." Impressive.

Step 4: Follow Trekkie's link to unsourced military strategy blog a guy who makes military board games.

Step 5: Realize that a shitload of people are citing this mysterious "70%" figure, all without attributing it to an actual source.

Step 6: Learn that not only has the 70% drop in Baghdad's murder rate not been "widely reported," it appears not to have been reported anywhere. It has been reported, however, that diarrhea rates among children have increased as much as 70 percent in Anbar province since 2006; attacks in Diyala against American troops have increased 70 percent since last summer; and about 70 percent of Americans oppose the surge.

Oh, and a big car bomb just killed a bunch of people.

. . . I should also add that these the very people who devoted so much pointless wristwork to "debunking" not liking the discovery by public health researchers that higher death rates in Iraq had likely produced hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.

More on Luck

Rob's post on luck and wingnuttery reminded me of a Times editorial written four years ago by historian Jackson Lears on the subject of George W. Bush and his Providential sense of history. Lears points out the obvious, which is that Der Preznit doesn't believe in luck -- or, if you like, he will not profess such a belief because it would ruin two aspects of his public reputation that he's aggressively cultivated over the past decade: (a) his conviction that fate is guided not by chance but by the hands of the Divine; and (b) that his decisions, while coming from the gut, are correct because he believes them to be so. Needless to say, these delusions are perfectly compatible with the pathologies of the gambler; they're also the pathologies associated with other addictions that don't require much elaboration here. So Lears may have overstated the differences between the President-as-divine-vessel and the President-as-reckless-gambler, but in my view he gets one thing terrifyingly correct:

[S]oldiers know the arbitrary cruelties of fate at first hand -- maiming this one, leaving that one alone. They know the power of luck.

There may be no atheists in foxholes, but there are not many believers in Providence in them either. Combat soldiers have always been less confident than politicians that God is on the premises. They have paid homage to an older deity, Fortuna. From the Civil War through the Persian Gulf war, American soldiers have festooned themselves with amulets and lucky charms -- everything from St. Christopher medals and smooth stones to their girlfriends' locks of hair. And why not? Ritual efforts to conjure luck speak directly to their own experience.

If, as Rob points out, people at the Weekly Standard or Investors' Business Daily are calling for a "high risk, low reward strategy," it's for the obvious reason that (as Ogged pointed out in the comments) they're betting with someone else's money. People who by virtue of their distance from actual risk should be--ok, ok, unless you're Hugh Hewitt, Mark Steyn or Jeff Goldstein -- the people who by virtue of their distance from actual risk should be thinking and planning and acting with great sobriety are in fact doing nothing of the sort. They could at least have the good sense to admit that they evidently don't believe in God anymore.