Some of you may have noticed that an awful lot of respectable terrorism experts ranging from Rohan Gunaratna to Evan Kohlmann to Reuven Paz to B. Raman, many of whom opposed the war in Iraq for a variety of reasons, have nevertheless frequently prefaced many of their comments to media outlets with a Cato the Elder-style formulation that while the war in Iraq may have served as a boost to terrorism, a premature US withdrawl from Iraq or Iraq degenerating into civil war, a failed state, or a terrorist haven (or all of the above, as I sort of sketched out earlier) will serve as even more of an emboldening factor.
Here's the thing, though: that's true no matter what kind of premature withdrawl it is or who it benefits politically.
I see the White House has released its National Strategy for Victory in Iraq that you can all read and weigh the merits of yourselves. It's a lot better than anything that the White House has released to date as far as its strategy for Iraq is concerned and as such I welcome its publication, but I still share the misgivings I discussed in my previous posts that a lot of the timetables for US withdrawl in Iraq appear to be heavily influenced, if nothing else, by the 2006 Congressional elections that I will continue to address in this post. As a political strategy it sort of makes sense (though I would hold that it's both morally and politically repugnant because it allows the Democrats to get away with accusations that the administration has been assuring us are both false and detestable for about 3 years now) - Democrats have made the war one of their key political themes, so deprive them of that by bringing large numbers of troops home and you can literally cut the ground out from under their feet. The problem is, in order to accomplish that, you more or less have to do one of the things that the GOP argued that Senator Kerry would do in reasonably short order if elected and of late has extensively criticized Representative Murtha for, i.e. the idea of cutting and running.
Eric Martin, in his latest take on this trend, writes the following:
The indispensable Hilzoy has a great post on the fast food helpings of "crow" being served to some of the blogosphere's usual suspects. Poor guys got all worked up about Biden's planned withdrawal timetable, only to be left high and dry by the Bush administration which was quick to claim Biden's plan as their own. Doh!!! Any Bush administration led withdrawal could create a double inverted, reflective loop of cognitive dissonance for the partisan hacks. After all, aren't Bin Laden and Zarqawi waiting for the conclusion of the timetable to take the throne in Iraq? Isn't our presence in Iraq allowing us to "fight 'em over there" not "over here"? What gives?
Since I'm not one of the ones singled out by Hilzoy, let me just reinterate yet again that our leaving Iraq before the new Iraqi military is ready to take up the proper responsibilities as far as counter-insurgency are concerned is still a Very Bad Thing, particularly if we're now so eager to leave that we're now willing to leave the Iraqis to deal with an established al-Qaeda network (with Zarqawi still at its head, no less) so entrenched that we ourselves were unable to crush it - not exactly my idea of a good parting gift. Cordesman writes that even if things go swimmingly in Iraq that the country is still in for at least another year of violence from Zarqawi and his followers, bottom line. These are serious reservations I am have about the current strategy, particularly since I was pointing out just last week that I don't consider the establishment of an al-Qaeda enclave inside Iraq to be half as implausible as much of the commentariat seems to be saying.
As I noted before, I have no particular desire for US troops to remain active in Iraq in their current military-security capacity once either the new Iraqi military is ready or the government states that they want us to leave. Unlike others, I'm not opposed to the idea of a negotiated US military presence inside Iraq, since I think that can be negotiated the same way we do with every other state, though if we are in fact running away from Iraq as fast as we possibly can that issue would seem to be irrelevant in any case.
Now the usual counter-argument to this is that we can't stay in Iraq because the American people don't have the political will, that the military is over-stretched, and so on. I'll agree that these are definite problems to any long-reaching Iraq policy, but pardon me for saying that if we actually believed all that stuff we said about wanting to provide a safe future for the Iraqis, let alone defeat an enemy that has sworn to destroy us, we cannot let political expediency trump either victory or principle on this one, especially since failure in this particular instance is altogether likely to lead to the re-introduction of US troops in Iraq at some future date.
One other element that is also being completely ignored in all of this discussion is what exactly a swift 2006 withdrawl in Iraq for political considerations tells our enemies. While there are some who would argue, perhaps correctly, that al-Qaeda will claim victory no matter what we do, some claims ring louder than others, particularly, as in the case of Somalia in 1993, when they're sort of, you know, actually true. As any number of commentators have pointed out, bin Laden has long sought to draw the US into a protracted guerrilla conflict modeled after the Afghan War against the USSR. What few have discussed, however, is what the implications are going to be if it appears that this kind of approach works and what lessons that a lot of people in the Middle East and other parts of the world who have previously been more or less on the fence as far as al-Qaeda goes. This is particularly true given all of the claims that have come out as far as the issue of Iraq increasing the global terrorist threat is concerned. If there is indeed a far greater pool of terrorists today than there was in 2003, are we honestly supposed to believe that there will be less of them or that the threat is going to decrease if they are seen as having sent the US home with a bloody nose? Note that their own success or failure in Iraq is irrelevant to this equation - Afghanistan turned into even more of a hellhole than it already was after the Soviets vacated, but that fact in and of itself does not appear to have dampened their fame across the rest of the Arab world.
What bin Laden understands, even if a majority of Western pundits do not, is that popularity is irrelevant when you're leading a totalitarian movement so long as you're able to present the impression that you're winning. A premature US withdrawl from Iraq gives them just that, emboldening al-Qaeda that their tactics have merit, and sending a horrible message to our allies and additional enemies alike in the region. Also, pace praktike, there is more than sufficient reason for believing that a premature US withdrawl from Iraq will end any serious efforts at democratic reform in the Arab world, particularly if the regions' governments feel that they are going to be under seige from a renewed terrorist wave.
All of this has been said again and again, sometimes by me, often by others, when discussing the prospect of premature withdrawl from Iraq. I don't think I need to reinterate them or my concerns, as well as my continuing skepticism towards the Pape-esque that occupation causes terrorism. As such, I want to emphasize before I'm accused of either hackery or defeatism that I'm going to raise these same concerns until I'm satisfied that our withdrawl is based on the performance of the new Iraqi military rather than some preconceived political timetable.
One final point that does need to be made, however, namely that it has long been a conservative assertion that things are going better in Iraq than the media has generally been reporting. Near as I can tell, this belief, rather like any claims of US military success against the insurgency, are regarded as something akin to a collective delusion in some quarters. For myself, I do think on the basis of conversations with soldiers who have served in Iraq and some who still are that the situation there is far from ideal, but nor is it the hell on earth that some would have it be. Building a new Iraqi military, security forces, and police from more or less scratch involves a good deal of time, money, training, and effort. Cordesman has written quite excellently about how ignoring any one of these areas is ultimately going to come back and bite you in the butt and I think we are seeing some of what will happen if we move too fast on that process now with the discoveries that have been recently been made concerning some Shi'ite Interior Ministry units that have detained and tortured Sunnis.
Premature withdrawl must be avoided at all costs if we have any serious concern for the sacrifices that both our own soldiers have made as well as those of the Iraqi people.
I commented this at Eric Marin's Total Information Awareness site in response to his post regarding the Bush's bizzare posturing in the face of an inevitable and soon withdrawal, I'd really like to hear you address the the issue of cost and cost sustainability. You'd be the first on the right to do so:
Iraq is most likely going to be a tragic meltdown whether we stay or go. The question is how much will the meltdown hurt us directly and in what ways.
I'm with Murtha. We've done all we can. The best we can hope for is that, after enough Iraqi blood has flowed, the Iraqis end up with a situation that permits relative peace and stability for a few decades.
You mention an "I told you so" with Djerejian. A couple of comments on that; our viewpoint has been correct since day one - day one being pre-invasion - about how things would turn out. The Bush supporters and Hawks have been almost perfectly wrong in all of their predictions and estimations. They haven't been even within a reasonable margin of error.
I find this curious.
This "stay the course" nonsense is...well nonsense. Just how does someone like Greg (or Dan Darling or a host of other ditto heads) think we can maintain the bulk of our combat forces deployed in combat overseas indefinitely?
They can't tell you what that costs. They can't tell you anything about the logistics involved.
They just "know" that it has to be done.
Well it can't be done. It could be done if tax cuts were repealed, if various spending programs were budget slashed and perhaps if there was a draft. Essentially, it could be done if there was a will to make the sacrifice on the part of both elected government and the people.
But no one, not even the most strident neocon, is calling for this.
Old saying, "put your money where your mouth is" . If you won't, you don't mean it.
Finally what puzzles me about people like Djerejian is that they seem to totally lose their sensibilities when they discuss the Iraq situation.
Greg is supposedly some kind of capable well educated high finance guy. He's a lawyer too. I'm pretty sure he would never approach investment projects involving clients' money with anything like the cavalier hope based perspective he espouses on Iraq.
"Yeah sure, let's buy the entire city block. True, all the buildings are vacant. We don't have any leases in place. One anchor tenant expressed an interest, don't mind that its CEO was convicted of fraud and has been talking to another landlord down the block. Just jump in with all you've got and keep paying the mortgage. Oh yeah, we're going to do a lot of remodeling. I'm going to contract with my friends to get that done for you. Just pay the bill when they submit it. No no, I don't know how long it will take. I don't know when we'll get the buildings occupied. Just stay the course. Keep paying."
Right, sure, he'd be out of work; in jail more likely.
Djerejian knows better; has to. As must many of similar folks.
Yet, in my travels across right blogistan not one single proponent of staying the course can present anything resembling a grown up risk/benefit analysis or cost/benefit analysis regarding Iraq.
Not one. As much as Americans are prone to talking out their asses -or having an uninformed opinion if you prefer - the deficit of cold analysis pertaining to Iraq is just too bizarre.
No such thing as anglo-american troops being prematurely ejaculated out of Iraq. The sooner the better for the world.
avedis:
To answer your questions:
1) I'm not Greg Djerejian, I'm me. He and I have had our disagreements in the past, so please don't conflate his opinion or views with my own the same way you seem unable to distinguish between myself and Ledeen.
2) I'm not clear on who the "we" that were right is supposed to be here - opponents of the war constitutes a pretty sizeable and diverse category in and of itself, unless you want me to throw you all together into a monolithic bloc. Isn't one of the criticisms often made by opponents of the war that we are all to eager to throw you guys together in order to highlight the worst tendencies of the groups like ANSWER?
3) You don't have to maintain the bulk of US troops in Iraq indefinitely, but you do have to do so directly in porportion to the readiness of the new Iraqi military, police, and security forces. Otherwise you're simply creating a power vacuum without any responsible people to fill it, which in turn ensures that irresponsible people will fill it.
4) Potential costs/logistics are dependent on the circumstances, but Cordesman is as good a place as any to begin. As I stated in an earlier thread, if you look at how much pork exists today I have no doubt that if cut even half of that we could be able to pay for operations in Iraq for quite sometime. As for a draft, I have mentioned before that this is the absolute last thing you want if you're concerned about winning or counter-insurgency campaign or minimizing the number of American casualties.
5) If "put your money where your mouth is" is supposed to be yet another chickenhawk comment, I would refer you to my thoughts on that in the previous thread.
6) Oh, I'll be more than happy to agree that there's a lot of ignorance concerning the situation in Iraq - our own Arthur Chrenkoff did what he could to try and correct it, a move that got him widely derided and villified throughout much of lefty blogosphere. Such are the realities of war.
I have a couple of quetions, actually. First - you and AL it seems - are convinced that withdrawl is imminent. From what I can discern out of media the Republicans are much closer to drawdown, then complete and fast pull out.
Secondly, and arguably most importanty - I suppored the war and I agree with your assessment of the likely outcome if US withdraws prematurely. However, I also find much merit in the strategy outlined by the Administration - i.e. Iraqization. What troubles me is that it seems almost impossible to discern whether or not the Iraqi units are capable to take over.From your post it appears you are sceptical.
Wise words. I agree.
Sacrificing our considerable gains at this point would endanger the world for generations to come.
Is it now called a "gain" when you attack a country for a lie? And if you think it wasn't a known lie, read the excellent book entitled "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" by William Rivers Pitt with Scott Ritter, a former U.N. Weapons Inspector.
This book was printed before we attacked Iraq. And certainly, as the title suggests, Bush's team did not want anyone to know of its contents. I read it before we attacked, and have almost been brought to tears many times as everything that this book and Scott Ritter have predicted has unfolded as they said it would; no WMDs.
Ritter is a card-carrying Republican, he voted for Bush in 2000. But that didn't stop him from speaking the truth he knew. He was then slandered and pushed to the side, because we had great 'intelligence' that said Saddam could attack us anytime.
If you attack a country for a lie, if you could be THAT wrong about something THAT important, how can you possibly presume that your judgement of when to leave will be right. Bring our troops home now! Even the Iraqi puppet government has acknowledged that the insurgents are justified in their attacks! If you want to support it, go fight yourself instead of idle chatter on websites.
Grogh:
Not skeptical so much of the Iraqi units' ability to perform (they handled themselves pretty well in Tal Afar, for instance) as the sheer nature of the task we're looking at here. Recall, if you will, our earlier attempt at Iraqization in the form of the Fallujah Brigade and how easily Zarqawi chomped them up and took over Fallujah. If we sacrifice effectiveness and professionalism for expediency we are going to get neither - as I think the recently-discovered exploits of the former Badr Brigades indicate. And that doesn't even begin to touch on what happens if we withdraw before eliminating the al-Qaeda presence inside Iraq.
In June Iraq had 3 battalions ready for action.
Today Iraq has 1 battalion ready for action.
One may rightfully ask who will eventually be in their gunsights.
The Iraqi Defense Force contains guerillas belonging to four different Iraqi guerilla groups.
AlQueda is not a factor in Iraq.
@Dan#3;
"put your money where your mouth is" This is not a chickenhawl argument - not at least as I see it.
I am merely saying that the war in Iraq has costs and those costs must be paid.
Those of us in the reality based community know that whatever you do in the material world costs money and the bill has to be paid. Very simple. It sort of a pre-req. understanding for home econ 101. Maybe you should divert your attention from the shadowy world of terrorism and take some classes based more in the meat and potatos of life.
Lest you end up like your fantasy fueled intellectual trainers (e.g. Pual - the war will pay for itself with oil procedes - Wolfowitz). LOL wrong, wrong, wrong like everything else the Bush admin. said about Iraq.
You say there's pork to be cut and that war funds could come from cut pork. I'd be curious to hear just what you consider to be pork. Last we heard, congress was debating cutting education and safety ney programs.
If that's your idea of pork, then your team is in trouble big time. What are your polls right now? Only 35% approval of Bush/Iraq. You cut those programs you might see the polls go lower yet. BTW - as an aside - I think NIxon was around the level on the day of his resignation.
Why are huge corporate tax breaks and tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans not "pork", but college funds for poor kids are?
Why is a Halibutron no bid contract that results in the same product that an Iraqi or other foreign contractor could produce - but at a fraction of the cost - not pork.
Regardless, you have met my lowest expectations.
You throw out the word "pork" because you know that it gets your base all riled up. Really, you have no idea of where the money would come from. If you did you'd throw an accounting and a business plan in my face.
Too bad, I was actaually beginning to think I was seeing glimmers of a quasi-reasonable human being in your person.
Alas, you must default to rigtwing/neocon nonsense.
This is a very simple topic. It's not theology. It shoud be straight forward. If you can't be relied on to make sound assessments in an area that is fairly cut and dry, why should you be relied on to do so in an area that involves much more personal judgement, careful weighing of facts and nuance?
I absolutely agree with that. There is nothing wrong with a war tax set on a year by year basis until the war is over. One of the big missteps by the Bush administration was making Iraq and the GWOT prefaced on the condition that no-one in the country feel any pain whatsoever unless they are in the military or military family. One of the reasons the Vietnam meme keeps rearing its head is that for long stretches Iraq became the forgotten war, at least to those who dont search the casualty lists daily praying like hell not to find a familiar name. Things like a war tax and keeping the country briefed by giving them metrics of victory keep the country plugged into the war. If we somehow lose the war politically at home, you can lay the no-pain strategy at its doorstep. A wartax is a small pain compared to what the military community is suffering, but something is better than nothing. I've felt an air of Rome in America the last few years, as our warrior class are off in distant lands fighting desperate battles while our citizenry is oblivious half the time.
avedis:
"Those of us in the reality based community know that whatever you do in the material world costs money and the bill has to be paid. Very simple. It sort of a pre-req. understanding for home econ 101. Maybe you should divert your attention from the shadowy world of terrorism and take some classes based more in the meat and potatos of life."
First of all, your invocation of the term "reality-based community" isn't exactly the best way to win friends and influence people, since the way it's usually formulated is that those who disagree with you are part of the "faith-based community," a term that is almost always stated with contemptuous overtones. If you're going to simply hold those who disagree with you in contempt, then there isn't much point to continuing the discussion.
On the substantive issues, no one is disputing that there is a bill for Iraq that has to be paid. What you seem to be asking for is for me to provide some kind of a cap figure for how much Iraq is going to cost, something I simply cannot do given that it's going to be a situation-based rather than money-based calculation for how long we're there and how much we have to spend to begin with. Same goes for the current US deployments in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo for that matter.
"Lest you end up like your fantasy fueled intellectual trainers (e.g. Pual - the war will pay for itself with oil procedes - Wolfowitz). LOL wrong, wrong, wrong like everything else the Bush admin. said about Iraq."
That's nice. But I'm not them and never said anything like that.
"You say there's pork to be cut and that war funds could come from cut pork. I'd be curious to hear just what you consider to be pork. Last we heard, congress was debating cutting education and safety ney programs."
The Cato Institute routinely compiles listing of which government programs serve no viable purpose, IIRC. They opposed the war, so presumably you can accept their findings without fear of being tainted by icky neoconservativism. If it were simply the tax cuts, we would not have the huge deficit from government spending that we currently do, so why not kill two birds with one stone?
"What are your polls right now? Only 35% approval of Bush/Iraq. You cut those programs you might see the polls go lower yet. BTW - as an aside - I think NIxon was around the level on the day of his resignation."
How wonderful. And if you believe all policies should be determined exclusively by polls, you've just created a wonderful argument against a democratic system of governance. If government programs are unnecessary or wasteful then they should be cut, bottom line.
"Regardless, you have met my lowest expectations."
Dude, you frequently accuse me or at least strongly imply that I am arguing in bad faith at the behest of another man as part of a propaganda/disinformation campaign to get the US riled up for a war against Iran. And now because I'm saying that you can cut pork to help pay for the war effort I've met your lowest expectations? Wonders never cease.
"Really, you have no idea of where the money would come from. If you did you'd throw an accounting and a business plan in my face."
Sorry, I wasn't aware I had to come up with those when replying to questions in the comment box ...
"Too bad, I was actaually beginning to think I was seeing glimmers of a quasi-reasonable human being in your person.
Alas, you must default to rigtwing/neocon nonsense."
Which is to say, any opinion that differs substantially from your own. About the only real argument you made against my proposal was your claim that it would lead to a further drop in Bush's polls numbers.
"This is a very simple topic. It's not theology. It shoud be straight forward. If you can't be relied on to make sound assessments in an area that is fairly cut and dry, why should you be relied on to do so in an area that involves much more personal judgement, careful weighing of facts and nuance?"
Just a guess, it's probably the same reason that I can't be relied upon in an area that's even more cut-and-dry like mechanical engineering - it simply isn't part of my expertise. I have never claimed vast levels of economic or financial knowledge and have routinely explained my ignorance on such subjects. I bet you would show yourself to be profoundly ignorant in any number of other equally cut-and-dry fields, but I'm certainly not planning on using that as a rhetorical device to try and discredit you in a given area in which you do have expertise.
Couple of thoughts:
First, Dan you said this:
Also, pace praktike, there is more than sufficient reason for believing that a premature US withdrawl from Iraq will end any serious efforts at democratic reform in the Arab world, particularly if the regions' governments feel that they are going to be under seige from a renewed terrorist wave.
Actually, if you read Prak's post I think he is saying the opposite of that. That whatever democratic change there has been should continue apace regardless of our troop presence, that most of the change was not the result of such troop presence, and that some of the other cosmetic moves weren't much anyway.
In addition, I think the Tal Afar successes are very overhyped and that gives me cause for increased skepticism. The Iraqi units there were dependent on American units who led the charge, provided the support, drafted and executed the plan and basically did everything else of substance.
Bush's characterization was rather exaggerated. And if that's the readiness they're holding up, we're all in a lot of trouble. For an in depth analysis of the train and equip process, I recommend this article by James Fallows:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-army
The guy has a pretty good track record on this war so far. Better than most in the administration in fact.
And for the record, again, I will say that I would favor Fallows' prescription of a long term, financially strong commitment to the train and equip process. I don't think a premature withdrawal would do us any good for many of the reasons Dan has pointed out and others (even if we disagree, slightly, on the likelihood of Al Qaeda taking over Iraq - even by proxy).
A war tax, or repeals of a fraction of the multi-trillion dollar tax cuts that went to the wealthiest Americans, would serve us well on this front. It might even give Bush a boost at the polls if more Americans got the impression that his "base" were meant to sacrifice as well. The disparate impact of the war is no doubt grating on the sensibilities of many average Americans.
Eric Martin:
If Middle Eastern governments believe that they're going to be facing a renewed wave of terrorist attacks, there is little if any motivation for them to liberalize. If an overly swift troop withdrawl leads to an increase in terrorism because we left al-Qaeda with an enclave in Iraq, I think it's very naive to think that it won't affect the Arab democratic reform process.
On Tal Afar, whether or not the performance of the Iraqi units was over-hyped, it's still a good idea to get them out in the front as far as the security situation is concerned. If you and Fallows are right, however, then that's yet another reason to suspect that they won't hold up in the absence of the US - in other words, yet another argument against premature withdrawl.
Right. I'm opposed to "premature" withdrawal, although the term "premature" would need to be further defined. In general, I want to make sure any withdrawal actually comports to the situation on the ground, unless we have reached a point where our presence is doing more harm than good in terms of realizing those benchmarks or factors.