“Surge” Is Another Word For FLUSH
Djerejian reads Baker-Hamilton tea leaves:
The most contentious issue, of course, will be what to do with the approximately 140,000 troops in Iraq. Some observers, including this one, believe that forces must be increased by at least 30,000-50,000 additional men, at least for a temporary massive ‘surge’ style operation in Baghdad. This, however, not only will put greater strain on the military, but also will be hugely controversial with Democrats who see their victory in the recent elections as a mandate to begin troop withdrawals in Iraq. To persuade the Democrats to entertain introducing greater troops into Iraq, so as to have a fighting chance to re-assert order in Baghdad (an absolutely critical goal)–the Baker-Hamilton Commission will likely have to introduce the notion of benchmarks–so that Democrats can point to achievement of certain goalposts as constituting conditions for continued deployment of significant numbers of troops.
Any surge-style operation in Baghdad is doomed. A pleasant fantasy. At most it will provide a little relative calm for a short period of time. When the “surge” subsides, violence will flow back in. For all his considerable intelligence and training, Greg Djerejian and the centrist policy tendency he represents still haven’t absorbed that Iraq’s political contenders interpret the occupation as damage and route around it. There is lethal fratricide in Iraq because there is violent disagreement about the appropriate nature of the state. The stakes are huge and the historical record is dire. “30,000-50,000 additional” non-Arabic speakers in mirrorshades and body armor can not effect a permanent change in that problem.
Two clarifications. First, Greg and (probably) the ISG do advocate more than just a “surge,” including direct negotiations with Iran and Syria. Plus the ever-popular “benchmarks.” Presumably the ISG will advocate some version of the popular “Tell that al-Maliki bastard that he needs to get his ass in gear and do what we’ve proven ourselves unable to do in three and a half years, which is bring peace to Iraq, and right now dammit.” I don’t see the “surge” contributing meaningfully to that.
Second, a quick look at iCasualties seems to reveal that not everyone in Iraq is “routing around the occupation.” I think we need to consider that killing US troops is “status theater” for the groups who do it. It’s a way insurgent groups impress local anti-American populations. (”Impress” includes inspiring admiration or fear.) The real work of organization and intimidation then happens away from US eyes. This is what the Green Lantern School and even mainstream foreign-policy opinion in the US has never quite gotten. The key audience for insurgency theater is not in America. It’s in Iraq. The mechanism of asymmetric victory is not “They kill us until they sap our will to win” but “They make the strong, distant power recognize the fulity of its aims.” This is the flipside of Peter Feaver’s theory. America can only be defeated there, not “at home.” Defeat comes as an understanding that political goals are out of reach. It’s a process of learning, not shirking. But that only happens if the other side first achieves political victory among key sectors of their own population.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
November 14, 2006 @ 8:16 am
This phrase: “certain goalposts as constituting conditions for continued deployment” — is ludicrous. Any imaginable goalposts are already not being met; the hawks’ response is not to realize that “continued deployment” is unjustified, but rather to agitate for additional deployment. Why would anybody believe this would change going forward, if once “the Democrats” (for the sake of the argument) acceded to the hawks’ demands?
Comment by Barry —
November 14, 2006 @ 8:57 am
Bruce Jentleson’s post is a data point in favor of the bankruptcy of ‘centrist’ political science: “Let’s assume for the sake of analysis that it is not just this, that the administration genuinely believes that its policy is succeeding and that it will succeed even more if the public just hangs in there and stays that course. ”
Is there anything in the history of the Bush administration which would support this? Is there anything in the history of the Bush administration which would *not* strongly support the *opposite*?
Comment by quasibill —
November 14, 2006 @ 9:30 am
“Democrats who see their victory in the recent elections as a mandate to begin troop withdrawals in Iraq.”
In what alternate universe is this true in, and can I move there?
Oh yeah, and I agree that there is nothing short of installing Saddam II that we can do to restore order in Iraq.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
November 14, 2006 @ 9:49 am
Every day it feels a little more like 1966.
And Iraq looks a little more like Vietnam.
And Hillary looks a little more like Hubert Humphrey.
We are so screwed.
Comment by Nell —
November 14, 2006 @ 10:43 am
@quasibill: “Democrats who see their victory in the recent elections as a mandate to begin troop withdrawals in Iraq.†In what alternate universe is this true…?
Presumably that’s a reference to this:
Granted, Levin’s talking about a nonbinding resolution, not a cutoff of funds, but it’s a bit over the top to characterize the quote as describing an alternate univese.
I was glad to see Levin not drinking the “wait for the ISG” koolaid, although I think a better immediate move is a public Congressional reaffirmation that the U.S. will leave Iraq completely and not establish bases.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
November 14, 2006 @ 11:08 am
Are you sure that any of this is sincere? To me, it seems like it’s more about setting up for a backstab myth later. If the Democrats don’t try every last half-assed one-more-try policy that some punidt comes up with, then they were the ones who “lost the war”. Are the pundits who go along with this really so stupid that they don’t see it, or do they just know what their real purpose is?
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
November 14, 2006 @ 11:50 am
I dunno, Nell. I have a hard time seeing a non-binding resolution being the result of a mandate. “Ooh! I’ve got a mandate! I know! I’ll submit a non-binding resolution!” Yeah. That’ll show some resolve.
In one respect, I’ve got to agree with the “surge” folks (in a way): if only you could jam enough meat in the meat grinder, you could make it stop.
Comment by Grant —
November 14, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
The great thing about benchmarks, as we’ve seen with No Child Left Behind, is that they are equally good at motivating increasing or decreasing resources.
The first time a benchmark is missed, watch half of Congress spin it as a failure that demands that resources be cut and the other half of Congress spin it as indicating a “needs improvement” area where additional resources are best targeted. Which half is which depends on the current direction of the political weather vane.
For instance, if the number-of-schools-painted-pink benchmark is missed, expect hawks to say that this proves that SchoolPaintCom needs additional troops, while cut-and-runners say that the failure of SchoolPaintCom prove that no troops should be anywhere near the area. The likely result? Troops withdrawn from Iraq to appease the doves, but those troops remaining disproportionately retargeted to school-painting. This cleverly minimizes both the effectiveness of the remaining troops while also minimizing the incentives of anyone to do better.
Comment by Walt —
November 14, 2006 @ 1:39 pm
Grant: That is a really good point.
Comment by Nell —
November 14, 2006 @ 1:55 pm
Gsnorgathon, I didn’t say Carl Levin’s statement was an impressive bid to end to the occupation, I said that the story I quoted, which was in every Sunday paper and led the TV news, made it over the top to say that “Democrats seeing their victory as a mandate for troop withdrawals” describes an alternate universe.
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
November 14, 2006 @ 3:15 pm
Iraq looks like Vietnam? Really?
In Vietnam, there was a single clearly organized force with a popular program opposed to the US. Vietnam was a country with a long, independent hisory, a well-defined culture and a clear sense of national identity. Vietnam had a strong state with a functioning administration ready to take control as soon as the war ended. Vietnam had a crappy 20th century, but looks to have a very good 21st century by any standard.
Is any of that true of Iraq?
Comment by Happy Jack —
November 14, 2006 @ 5:06 pm
a temporary massive ’surge’ style operation in Baghdad
There’s two problems with this scenario. First, to produce any form of order, the Shiite militias would have to be dealt with. How easy would this be, when our wagon train that supplies the troops runs through Injun country?
Secondly, even if we prevail militarily, we end up losing politically. We’ve already been down this road before, in Fallujah. The Iraqi government, such as it was, would not have held together if we had continued to pound Fallujah. What kind of legitimacy would al-Maliki have if we moved into Sadr City and started kicking ass?
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
November 14, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
lemuel: Iraq had a crappy 20th century, too!
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
November 14, 2006 @ 5:19 pm
Iraq looks like Vietnam mainly in the approach of America to intervention. Hubris, followed by disillusionment, then fatigue, and finally (projecting this in the case of Iraq) withdrawl in defeat. Season a bit with “they can’t beat us in a straight-up military confrontation” and voila. While Iraq and Vietnam may bear little to no relationship to each other, America’s Iraq experience is a ringing endorsement of the aphorism/misquote ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’.
Comment by J. —
November 14, 2006 @ 5:38 pm
I wouldn’t be so sure that “a surge-style operation” would be doomed nor that the Dems would protest to that, as long as it was relatively short (less than a year) and as long as it temporarily increased security for our forces. Remember, we only need “a short period of time” to get out with some degree of care. If we’re pulling out, sure, we all know that the violence will get worse before it gets better, until the three sides stake out their provinces and people move to their own teams. We just need to put a tourniquet on the American casualties until we pull out of those massive bases.
Our future role, and one that Murtha has already suggested, is to keep Iran, Turkey and Syria honest. If any nation state tries to move in their troops to change the borders, we need to go in and smack them hard. Other than that, hey, the Iraqi govt is on their own.
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
November 14, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
Mr. Obscura:
That was my point, actually. I agree that we need to End the War Now! but the American habit of using “Country X” as shorthand for “America’s involvement with Country X” kind of bugs me…
Comment by sean —
November 14, 2006 @ 9:28 pm
Henley’s analysis is good so far as it goes, but the issue is a little more complicated. Sometimes an occupying power wears down the insurgents, as in Northern Ireland. The question is: what is the strategy that produces such a result? My guess is that it requires that the occupying power have the support of the majority elements of the indigenous population, including the most extreme elements of that majority. So we need to be at least as friendly with al Sadr as the British have been with Ian Paisley.
Comment by Jim Henley —
November 14, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
sean, there’s a good point in there. Insurgents can fail. What they’re failing with, though, is the local audience. This seems to have happened in Malaysia in the 1950s when the Brits fought an actually successful counterinsurgency campaign.
In Northern Ireland, BTW, one of the things that seems to have worked is . . . appeasement! Allowing the Republic of Ireland to champion the interests of the Catholic minority, allowing the IRA to demobilize and get functional amnesty, things like that.
In Iraq I think the local political sitation is too much more fractured than Northern Ireland’s to have as much hope of resolution. I count at least two opposed factions in each of the three contending camps: two Kurdish parties that have fought hot wars against each other within the last dozen years; the nativist/Baathist and foreign/al Qaeda wings of the Sunni resistance; and the Badr/SCIRI vs. Sadrist jockeying among the dominant Shiites.
Comment by Eric Scharf —
November 15, 2006 @ 12:42 am
Perhaps predictably, this thread inspired me to Google the phrase “pomeranian grenadier.” The first result was not what I was looking for, but now I’m even more curious.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
November 15, 2006 @ 9:36 am
Iraq looks like Vietnam mainly in the approach of America to intervention.
Yes, that was my point–I (obviously, I think) wasn’t comparing the two countries but rather the US’s involvement therein. Even more specifically, it was a comment on US politics. My great fear is that 2008 will, in fact, mirror 1968 in that respect: the Republicans run on “We can win this thing!” while the Democrats tear themselves to pieces over it.
Comment by Barry —
November 15, 2006 @ 11:10 am
Jim, one additional feature is the level of killing. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Casualties:_brief_summary), “Between 1969 and 2001, 3,523 people were killed as a result of the Troubles”
That’s probably one month in Iraq, these days.
Comment by theCoach —
November 16, 2006 @ 11:29 am
This is certainly wrong. Once the ethnic cleansing is complete, some level of order will naturally emerge, mostly likely not in the form of a secular strong man, but in factions of hostile fundamentalists
Comment by theCoach —
November 16, 2006 @ 1:25 pm
Barry,
what figures are you using? If you use Lancet, the only ones available as far as I know, but with a pretty wide range, it looks more like about the weekly rate.
Although I think Jim here does his best, it is easy to sugercoat the problems in Iraq.
Comment by quasibill —
November 17, 2006 @ 8:47 am
Oh certainly – but note, that’s NOT something which WE can do – ethnic cleansing and the eventual partition into ethnic mini-states will be done be those who live there.
Again, the only thing WE can do to restore order is install another strongman and let him go to town (which really, when you think about it, isn’t really US doing the restoring either, but…).
Oh, and BTW Nell, still think the Dems are going to be itching for withdrawal after Murtha got torpedoed? I’d still like to move to that alternate universe where they actually viewed their mandate as anti-war. It certainly ain’t this universe.