Wonder what the current population of Ramadi is?

It's growing. People are moving back.

Which is why its important to remember zero violence is not a reasonable goal. As people move back in, jihadis will have a chance to slip in. It seems the locals won't put up with them for long, by they can probably manage some mischief before they are revealed. Not to mention the normal criminal element. In other words- a small uptick here or there is not necessarilly an indication of a trend.

If the people are "coming back" to Ramadi, how can its population still be over 400,000 as you claim, Michael?

There were only 400,000 living there before our invasion.

It looks like a ghost town in your photos.

I wonder if we're being sold "the peace of the wilderness" that Tacitus talked about during the Roman Empire?

alphie asks,

If the people are "coming back" to Ramadi, how can its population still be over 400,000 as you claim, Michael?

Alphie, I searched Michael's text and couldn't turn up the 400,000 number, or indeed any assertion as to the population of Ramadi. Perhaps the Dark Lord of the Left is sending you visions.

chuck,

"Iraq has 18 provinces, but until recently almost a third of all U.S. casualties were in Anbar alone.1.3 million people live there, mostly along the Euphrates River, and roughly a third live in Ramadi."

1.3 million divided by 3 = 433,000.

insert pro forma stab at the math skills of the faith-based crowd here

and roughly a third live in Ramadi.

Do you understand the concept of "roughly" in this context. What exactly does the fraction 1/3 mean? Is it the exact quantity, and if not, how many significant figures does it imply. All us quantitative types expect error estimates, which Michael roughly supplied with the 'roughly'. So what errors does your number 400,000 come with and what is the source? Can you cite a recent census of the population of Ramadi? I don't think Michael was making an exact claim about the population, nor was the population of Ramadi the point of the article, he just noted the importance of Ramadi in Anbar province so we could judge the significance of events there.

faith-based crowd

This lifelong atheist salutes your penetrating perception. Guess I should return that mathematics doctorate too. Your uncanny insight into my background gives me total faith in your other opinions.

Why anyone can look at the situation in Iraq and not reevaluate the idea that our military can fix political problems is beyond me. That's not a military role. It is a role for politicians and chekists. There is no model of success for this type endeavor, but the wreckage of dozens of attempts. If we don't use equivocating language we have an ability to reason this out. Once we leave Iraq, now, ten years from now, or whenever, Iraq will sort itself out: violently. Our efforts are counter-productive and futile. We have been unattacked at home for 6 years, when we have no reserve forces to throw at a problem. So I think this war on terror is madness. People should stop pissing themselves over these terror metaphors and be a little bit brave and resilient, and a sane good neighbor.

chuck,

When the U.S. military claims to have pacified a city the size of Miami or New Orleans and all we see are blown up buildings and a few folks out on the street (even though nobody is allowed to drive), I worry about what "pacified" means is all.

I agree that an Iraqi census would be helpful.

Tom, I disagree, If we leave them with a good enough foundation they should be able to sort out their differences peacefully. We can do it, why can't they? They can, they just need our help to build the foundations that we've had centuries to construct. It won't happen overnight but it will happen.

"There is no model of success for this type endeavor"

Oh?
Reconstruction?
Japan post WW2?
You seriously think military power has never effectively imposed political solutions? About 10,000 years of human history begs to disagree with you.

And for the record for every failure i'll name you a political failure at least as disasterous. Starting with post WW1 Germany.

And another thing- to imply what is happening right now in Iraq is some sort of purely martial imposition is ridiculous. Iraq has a freely elected government- which is a major part of this discussion.

Finally- for all those tethered so tightly to the 'political failure' branch, a word of advice: political deals can be brokered almost INSTANTLY. Security and infastructure solutions take time. The anything opposition ('what are you opposed to? what does Bush got?') would do well to consider that. For anyone listening closely to the General and the Ambassador, they spoke quite a bit about the de facto and behind the scenes compromises that have already been struck on issues like debathification, militias, and oil revenues. Considering the failures of the past these baby steps may be well advised- but quiet deal making can become headline grabbing national reconcilliation with one phone call.

I know that would depress some people immeasurably, so be prepared for the possibility.

Nicholas

Well we disagree. I suggest that a people cannot build a foundation for another people. We also cannot hold off the internal fight like some sort of political cofferdam.

Mark:

I don't know you , so I don't know the underlying reason for your beliefs. But here goes: Reconstruction failed.

Japan attacked us, Iraq did not. Japan fought like hell and lost, Iraq did not fight for Saddam. The Japanese government was taken over, intact by MacArthur, whose rule constituted a shogunate, very Japanese. The current Japanese government is the direct lineal descendant of the wartime govt. We disbanded the Iraqi government and left some collaborating thing without credibility in its place. An election under those circumstances is farcical. It is clear we are not interested in democracy, but puppetry.

You have reworded my argument re the military and the political then argued against your recapitulation as tho it were mine. I said: that the military cannot fix political problems.

If you need elaboration it would be this. The military can conquer and destroy and slaughter. But thats not fixing anything. The fixing is done politically thru Marshall Plans and political deal making on the one hand or thru NKVD type police operations, and secret police. So far, we dont have the latter, therefore the Army is left hanging when it accomplishes (brilliantly) its task of defeating the enemy military. This is a huge point. Americans do not have these sicherheitdienst type troops as part of their military, therefore when Americans execute military operations they should have realistic expectations. Now if we convert fighting troops to become a para military constabualry, they will a/ do it badly and b/ lose their perishable combat skills.

So argue against my point if you like. But please dont argue against your argument construction and call it mine. Thanks. Goodnight.

#12

I welcome those political deals. Those deals have helped in Anbar already. The surge was an empty gesture at best, and a public relations disaster because expectations were built up and dissapointed again. The impression left is that we have shot our bolt.

Tom Perry writes: "An election under those circumstances is farcical. It is clear we are not interested in democracy, but puppetry."

This is baseless. You do not present any argument for your claim that the election was not legitimate.

Tom Perry continues: "The fixing is done politically thru Marshall Plans and political deal making on the one hand or thru NKVD type police operations, and secret police. So far, we dont have the latter, therefore the Army is left hanging when it accomplishes (brilliantly) its task of defeating the enemy military. This is a huge point. Americans do not have these sicherheitdienst type troops as part of their military, therefore when Americans execute military operations they should have realistic expectations. Now if we convert fighting troops to become a para military constabualry, they will a/ do it badly and b/ lose their perishable combat skills."

This does not make any sense. You claim that either there are "Marshall Plans" or "NKVD type police operations" to "fix" the political issues. And then you whine on about why the military operations conducted are not the kind of operations ( thankfully )that you seem to believe are necessary.

Ignoring for the moment that you seem to be advocating war crimes to "fix" political problems, you seem to be ignoring that we are in fact conducting a lot of "Marshall Plan" like work in programs to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure at national and local levels. Our military are heavily involved in this work and have gained a lot of local support through those programs. I am more than a little puzzled as to why you are not aware of those operations.

As an aside, your claim that a way to "fix" political problems are the kind of Communist or Nazi oppression you reference is just too outrageous for me to respond politely to.

you seem to be ignoring that we are in fact conducting a lot of "Marshall Plan" like work in programs to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure at national and local levels.

Don't you remember about that? Bush cut off the funding for that stuff, and now what gets done is scraped together out of the military budget.

Hundreds of billions for occupation. Not one red cent for reconstruction.

#16

The grown ups are talking. Please dont interrupt. Someday you can participate when you can bring comprehension and understanding to a discussion, instead of ignorance, suspicion and fear.

#17

Yes. I remember that. I also remember that Gen. Anthony Zinni, the prior centcom had a plan for occupation, which thte Bush administration discarded. I also remember that Gen. Jake Garner was oriiginally going to ride herd on the post Saddam government, but he was fired for lack of national chauvinism and replaced by that low grade hack Bremer, who brought a certain incomprehension and toadyness completely absent in Garner.

he was fired for lack of national chauvinism and replaced by that low grade hack Bremer, who brought a certain incomprehension and toadyness completely absent in Garner.

What's that about adults?

It's true that Bremer set back any political solution by over a year. And a year of waiting with no momentum probably set it back a lot more than that. It's sort of subjective to guess what he was trying to do, but there are a lot of facts available about what he actually did.

#20 Please explain how L. Paul Bremer actd and Robin Roberts postings correlate?

#21 Meh. Of course.

#23 Regardless of Bremer's competency or lack of same, namecalling without argument or evidence seems to rather childish to me. By the way, reading Robin's comment, I can see s/he slightly misread your comment, but in an adult conversation, that calls for clarification and addressing the arguments made based on the misunderstanding, not childish namecalling and dismissal.

Tom P (#18 and 23) - that's not quite the house style here, fella.

Feel free to explain to all of us why Robin's points, conclusions, or facts are wrong, and be prepared to defend your explanations in argument.

The only person who gets to backhand people as you're doing here is the host - me - and when I do that they vanish from the premises.

So step up and make some arguments, sit back and read some, or head for someplace where what you've written passes for wit.

A.L.

Fred, I'm not sure I understand how I misread Tom Perry's comments. Although his later ones do make me doubt the value of further effort.

I see, you have a little club. So it is ok for a club member to initiate name calling, without even comprehending let alone arguing against my point, but I am the bad guy for not playing along. That's rich. I initiated no name calling, but I will always respond as I feel best.

Every one of you are free to disagree with me entirely. Note that I made no personal comments, first. If Robin will criticize my actual point and say nothing of her unimportant opinion about me, I will address just that and only that. But she has got to argue my point, and not phony up a straw man.

The great thing about me is that I will argue my point, and well I think, and I do not take disagreement personally. I will concede if you are persuasive. I will not quit if you are wrong. This is your best chance to dialogue with someone with whom you disagree.

And to the name callers who can't take it, and masquerade as if they have made a point: Pot, kettle, black.

Tom. It's more a bar than a club. Walk in and condescend the way you did, get the concomitant response. Telling someone that "the grownups are talking" is not mature behavior. That you cannot see this is perhaps indicative of your own maturity.

To be honest, people who have a long history of constructive participation will get more of a pass on a bad comment then someone who walks in and tosses one out. I like having strong arguments made against my positions, as well as against the positions of others here. Those arguments and debates are really the reason I put the work into this place.

So before you wrap yourself in your aggrieved feelings, think about whether what you're writing here adds to the body of argument or just makes you feel better about having written it.

This isn't a place for everyone - right, left, or anything else. But it's our place, and we'll keep it the kind of place we want.

A.L.

#28/29

Well, I believe what I said was that I did not start the name calling. This could also be considered as immature. For example you could say that you think it immature to use the tactic that I used, plain declarative statement. But you added a subjective value judgement, purporting to indict my maturity. Normally i would consider zinging you for that NM. But I infer from your opening that you comment was constructively meant. We all ahve the right to defend ourselves, and we all should perhaps be reluctant to attempt to dehumanize anyone as Robin inexplicably initiated.

The bar metaphor is a interesting one, I think of my own blog as my front porch. What about a park, or meeting hall? A group blog without membership requirements up front, is a little like a group who have frequent use of a public space, who then see that space as their own. Anyway leave the door open and you never know who may breeze in, hey.

It is fair enough AL to say those who are known get greater latitude; I have no problem with that. Why do you think you know my feelings. I am not wounded or hurt, but that is what Robin seemed to be hoping to accomplish. It came across that way. (She could have just disagreed with me, if she got my point.) For example if a man pokes me in the chest, I slug him, but I am not hurt.

In any case could we discuss what evidence there is to suggest our military forces can ever possibly succeed to the 'goals' America is supposed to have for Iraq? Seriously. When examining Western nations interventions in the third world, can anyone elucidate an unambiguous success?

"When examining Western nations interventions in the third world, can anyone elucidate an unambiguous success?"

Malaya. Panama. Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo. I think the problem is the term 'unambiguous'. If you mean complete, utter, without caveat.. i havent run into those kinds of successes anywhere in life sadly.

I expect we need to agree on what would constitute success before we talk about the odds of achieving it. If success means permanently maintaining a presence and political veto (at least) in Iraq- then no, we cant win. But thats not the goal. If we can stabalize Iraq and turn it into a stable, democratic, multicultural state that is a good member of the international community- that is a huge success. Can that be done? Thats the question.

But lets talk about managing defeat- if nothing else. Can we do better than abandoning Iraq to a certain civil war where Iran and Al Qaeda are the strongest players to emerge- while all the world holds us to blame? Yes. If you believe Patreaus certainly we can do better. But not in 6 months.

The problem a lot of us have is that in their position as instant opposition to whatever Bush happens to be doing at the moment- Democrats are invested heavilly in ensuring that outcome. As at least one Democratic Congressman has freely admitted, if we manage to stabalize Iraq and withdraw in good order over the next few years, Dems have a major 'political problem'. The fact that we are fighting this political battle on those terms is, frankly, sickening.

#30: Regarding signs being posted. Off the main page here there is a permalink to the comments policy. It is indicative but not all-inclusive. I recommend it for your perusal.

Tom Perry: "... we all should perhaps be reluctant to attempt to dehumanize anyone as Robin inexplicably initiated."

and: "I am not wounded or hurt, but that is what Robin seemed to be hoping to accomplish. It came across that way. (She could have just disagreed with me, if she got my point.) For example if a man pokes me in the chest, I slug him, but I am not hurt."

Nonsense. I directly addressed Tom Perry's point and did not do any namecalling. And have yet to see a substantive response.

For anyone listening closely to the General and the Ambassador, they spoke quite a bit about the de facto and behind the scenes compromises that have already been struck on issues like debathification, militias, and oil revenues.

"I expect we need to agree on what would constitute success before we talk about the odds of achieving it."

Before the war, I was fond of saying that if we managed to make Afghanistan and Iraq as stable and pro-American as Columbia, and with as much hope for a peaceful, democratic future, then we should count it an overwhelming victory.

What thin skins these young new whipper snappers have these days. Someone says, something like, "You do not present any argument for your claim..." and they get all snappy and sniffy and melt like they've really been insulted or something.

Back in my day, when you logged into the net you'd get a message that said, "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here" (tis troof), and you wore asbestos underware a foot thick because there was a guy with a flame thrower hiding in every thread just waiting to ROTFLSOIAKTC at you when you got blackened and crispy.

Back then, men were men, women were men, lesbians were men, and people really really knew how to be insulting, and if you couldn't take it, you went away crying and everyone laughed at you for being such a baby.

Then again, I guess that last part hasn't changed all that much.

Before the war, I was fond of saying that if we managed to make Afghanistan and Iraq as stable and pro-American as Columbia, and with as much hope for a peaceful, democratic future, then we should count it an overwhelming victory.

You know, if we'd offered Saddam the kind of deal we gave Musharraf, he'd almost certainly have jumped at it.

We were heading that way while he was at war with iran, and then we double-crossed him.

But he would have gladly given us bases in iraq, and kept the lid on the ethnic problems, and so on. It wouldn't have been great but compared to a trillion-dollar war where overwhelming success looks like colombia....

Or then, my own plan was to buy iraq from him. Give him a few billion dollars and let him retire to LA or the riviera or wherever he wants. Tell the iraqis they're now a US protectorate and every year or whenever they can vote whether to become independent, apply for statehood, or keep the status quo. No bombing, no violent invasion, we run things our way until the local elected governments take over the cities and towns.

But even apart from Bush, the trouble was we were still so upset over 9/11 we wanted to bomb someplace and iraq was too tempting a target.

"You know, if we'd offered Saddam the kind of deal we gave Musharraf, he'd almost certainly have jumped at it."

I'm deeply uncomfortable with the deal we imposed on Musharraf and I'm quite certain its going to come back and bite us in the butt. Musharraf is dangerous thug, and I've every sympathy for a Pakistani that wants to get rid of him. Moreover, our support for Musharraf is predictated on him handling his internal affairs, and he isn't. He's thugging around stirring up discontent when he should be arranging a legacy and the restoration of democracy. He's supposed to be cleaning up the tribal regions, but he's allowed the Taliban to create a virtual state within his own country. And he's supposed to be purging the IIS of Islamists, but instead he just obtained a truce where the two sides agree not to kill each other.

In short, we are getting a very raw deal out of our comprimising our principles on the alter of expedient politics. Working with these thugs has never worked out in the past, even with the most progressive, pro-Western and legitimate ones like the Shah of Iran. Musharraf is neither progressive, pro-Western, or legitimate.

Yeah, if what we really wanted was simply to steal the oil, cozing up to Saddam would have made sense.

But Saddam is the sort of thug that makes even Musharraf look like a boy scout. From the very beginning of our relationship with him during the Iran-Iraq war, it was always a 'enemy of my enemy' alliance and not any mutual respect for each other. We didn't double cross him. We had a niave spokesperson give him the wrong impression about how we'd respond to aggression toward a neutral third party.

You can talk about how great it would be to have had Saddam as an ally, but if you go there you are far beyond the bounds of Liberality and decency as far as I'm concerned. Even with Musharraf, there is a really serious question of whether supporting him is in the best interest of both the Pakistani people and ourselves. The problem is that in Pakistan's case, cutting that Gordian knot is obviously not bbenevolent toward the ordinary Pakistani citizen either.

As for buying Iraq from Saddam, at a minimum, you clearly don't understand the fascist mind at all. I strongly suggest you read something like Vernor Vinge's 'Fire Upon the Deep', for insight into the mind set that makes these guys tick. But more importantly, you haven't learned any lessons from this war either if you think that the problem was Saddam.

Celebrim, we double-crossed Saddam with Iran/Contra.

More later, have to go.

#31

Well, Malaya and Panama, maybe, if as you say we allow less than unambiguous success. But you're surely right that we have to have a definition of success, and I would add a definition of what is in our own national interest. I'd suggest we leave countries to manage their own affairs unless they present a threat or opportunity. For example I think it is unlikely we could go into Iraq or anywhere and impose American style democracy on another country. It is wasteful and unwise. We can assist democratic governments fighting external conquest, and that may be worth it. Many countries formerly administered by western countries need an opportunity sort themselves out. So why not just defend ourselves and allies and leave the world sort itself out, as we cannot micro manage these other peoples. Now a nation can conquer another certainly, but that entails certain unsavory policies that need must follow. If we are willing to consciously execute these polices we have no business conquering another country. I personally am not willing to see the necesary security apparatus created. Thisis one ongoing reason I am agianst the adventures. I don't have any particular respect for either major party. I don't defend either party policies, and I don't watch TV news because I think it is disinforming. To my understanding neither party's leadership blowhards has any of their sons and daughters in harms way.

#34

Right, the 'surge' nothing to do with the current minor successes.

#35 #38

This doesn't seem to actually work.
why not keep some marine/naval forces around Qatar a nd leave it at that? We have meddled in the middle east/ southwest Asia for many years and all we have to show for our efforts are ashes. Our goals need reassessment.

#39

Yes. Our foreign policy is not very good. But is it simply incompetant or is it insane?

"You know, if we'd offered Saddam the kind of deal we gave Musharraf, he'd almost certainly have jumped at it."

I'm deeply uncomfortable with the deal we imposed on Musharraf and I'm quite certain its going to come back and bite us in the butt.

That's a good point. When we make deals with local strongmen it then gets a little uncomfortable when we want to overthrow him. We ran into that in the philippines, where our tacit support for Marcos probably delayed indigenous democracy, in panama likewise, in greece, argentina, egypt, etc. Here's Mubarak riding a tiger, and if he falls off he'll probably get eaten. And we've been telling him for 20 years "We don't want you to let go completely, just let go enough for tiger-democracy to take over." You bet.

On the other hand, we pulled Saddam off the tiger. "You're bad man trying to force that tiger to go where you want it to! You have to let the will of the iraqi people run free!" And now we have tigers running around iraq and the US army is trying to herd them.

And he's supposed to be purging the IIS of Islamists, but instead he just obtained a truce where the two sides agree not to kill each other.

That's not great for us, but it is a foundation for pakistani democracy. Get politicians arguing it out and making deals and that's a lot better for the paks than killing each other over it.

You can talk about how great it would be to have had Saddam as an ally, but if you go there you are far beyond the bounds of Liberality and decency as far as I'm concerned.

Sure. It was a much cheaper option, though. It would almost certainly have worked well in the short run. Far less bloodshed, far less expense. But not good when Saddam was ready to fall and we wouldn't want to openly work against him. And not particularly moral. But then, we'd have been in an even better position to try my own plan.

As for buying Iraq from Saddam, at a minimum, you clearly don't understand the fascist mind at all.

These guys aren't all alike. Saddam was depressed, he spent a lot of his time avoiding government, writing romance novels. He was riding a tiger and he had a very firm grip, and he had nowhere in particular to go. Running iraq under sanctions looks like it was no fun, but he couldn't step down and expect to live.

He might have accepted that deal. He might very well have accepted it when it looked like we were about to invade. He came close to accepting a surrender offer, but GWB insisted on carrying him personally away in chains, and he refused. Would he have accepted an honorable exit? He gets to avoid the war and the sacrifice of his people. A good deal for them and a good deal for him personally. He might have accepted. And if he refused we could still invade and eventually pull him out of his spiderhole. We had nothing to lose by making the offer except that it isn't the sort of thing we do, and it particularly isn't the sort of thing that Bush does.

But more importantly, you haven't learned any lessons from this war either if you think that the problem was Saddam.

You don't know how many of the problems were there while we had no concept, and how many of them developed out of our mishandling. Say we started out with Saddam on iraqi TV handing over iraq to a US governor. The US governor tells everybody to keep things going about the same for now, and we're going to make a lot of changes. Just, to start, no torture and no killing except by court order. And we'll have election every year or so where iraqis can vote whether to go independent, apply for US statehood, or keep the status quo. Then we start making changes.

No government censorship. People start telling stories about the atrocities under Saddam. So we get the iraqi courts to hold trials for people accused. Presumably a lot of Saddam's (mostly sunni) bad guys would leave the country, and good riddance. In a nation with rule of law you don't get ethnic cleansing for what Saddam's bad guys did, you arrest the bad guys you can find and give them fair trials.

Meanwhile we do reconstrution. Easier when we haven't had to bomb much. Easier when the iraqi police are still keeping order. Easier when potential insurgents know all they have to do is get a majority to vote for us to leave and we'll go. What do they get by shooting at americans in that case? Shooting at americans is just another criminal act, no patriotism to it.

The current problems might not have been inevitable. It took years of our occupation to create them. Like, in the early years iraqi bloggers told us that ethnic tension wasn't a big deal. They'd been living in peace for a long time, there was lots of sunni/shia intermarriage, they got along. One prominent iraqi blogger had a sunni father and a shia mother. Maybe it took AQ and USA to change that; it definitely took years to change it. Hard to be sure what was possible without going back and re-running the experiment, but all that stuff might have worked out just fine.

Up above you argued that Saddam was enough of the problem that we couldn't deal with him. And for a good long time Bush claimed that Saddam was the problem. The claim was that people were still scared of Saddam and after he was found they'd settle down and everything would be fine. In hindsight part of the reason that didn't happen was that we were a lot of the problem. Hard to be sure we couldn't have done it right, particularly if we'd gone in from the start without a war.

And Saddam's followers would have had a lot less incentive to fight us if they got occasional videos of Saddam relaxing on the beach in florida or the bahamas or wherever, surrounded by young women in bikinis and tapping away at his novel.

J Thomas writes "You don't know how many of the problems were there while we had no concept, and how many of them developed out of our mishandling. Say we started out with Saddam on iraqi TV handing over iraq to a US governor ..."

I find it typical of criticisms of how the Iraq War was handled that people have no realistic alternatives to offer. This is probably the most egregious example I've seen of a complete fantasy being offered as a "smarter" alternative.

Sheesh, let's just postulate that Superman was on our side in WWII ...

Robin, I find it frustrating that many americans wouldn't recognise a realistic alternative if it bit them on the -- nose.

I claim that my approach was far better than the one that was actually attempted. Not least because if at some point it starts to fail then it gracefully morphs into something similar to the current approach. So it can hardly be worse.

Do you have any realistic arguments against my proposal? Of course not.

So OK, if you don't like my alternative, let's hear your own better alternative.

#46

So far I have found that people who say that they haven't heard any new ideas as the previous poster did, should probably say simply that there is no way she will reconsider the viepoint to which she has bought in. Then further state that they do not undertsand it, or recapitulate it then criticize it. There is simply no way to persuade someone who has their first principles grounded in 'belief' rather than evidence. In point of fact doing nothing would havce left us in a stronger position than our leadership personally wetting themselves then selling th ecountry of a neverending war. All our groubd troops are in some way tied up in Iraq now. And still no one attacks us. We are stuck between the two kookery's thos ewho believe in a diabolical new world order, and those who believe in a diabolical worldwide revolution of terror. Maybe they are reading comic books instead of history books.

Great short fiction story to provide some perspective.
http://wapurl.co.uk/?OMCQWI7

For J Thomas's benefit: Steve Martin on how to make a million dollars and not pay taxes: First, get ahold of a million dollars. Second, dont pay taxes.

"In point of fact doing nothing would havce left us in a stronger position than our leadership personally wetting themselves then selling th ecountry of a neverending war."

Assuming your own conclusions. There's a great way to advance a debate.

"All our groubd troops are in some way tied up in Iraq now"

Our forces in Afghanistan, South Korea, and Kosovo will be amazed to learn of this.

Mark, Robin here has criticised everybody for not posting good alternative plans to the utterly botched plan that led to our current fiasco.

So what's your good alternate plan?

#50

Thnaks Mark for bringing to our attention the short comings of blog comemnts and why it is so hard to hav eintelligent discourse. No one can make every comment book length yuo might have to intuit some of the meaning a little bit better

"Mark, Robin here has criticised everybody for not posting good alternative plans to the utterly botched plan that led to our current fiasco."

"So what's your good alternate plan?"

Contact Doc Brown and build a time machine. You guys can do what you want but im tired of the mental masterbation involved in playing the counterfactuals with this war. Im far more interested in figuring out to do going forward.

But I do feel the need to point out the 'you just do this' type of proposals so prevalent in the anti-bush arguments. You just get Iran and Syria to stop blowing up Americans and start helping. You just get the Iraqi government to solve all their problems. You just withdraw the troops and 'only' fight Al Qaeda. Its worse than juvenile- and frighteningly that is the level of discourse we are getting from CONGRESS and our presidential contenders.

"No one can make every comment book length yuo might have to intuit some of the meaning a little bit better"

Thats dangerous and difficult when you are trying to look into the head of someone who's assumptions are radically differenct than your own.

Case in point- being so sure that our military is hopelessly overextended in Iraq to such a point we can't operate elsewhere. Meanwhile someone like myself immediately thinks, gee, we have thousands of troops all over the world and our military is radically smaller than it was 30 years ago. So should I assume he is:
A)Ignorant of our military matters or
B) Aware, but intentionally making a misstatement that he thinks conforms to conventional wisdom.

Kind of a tough decision. I just fall back on snark and demand clarity.

Mark, compare my estimated results for my plan with Bush's estimated results for his plan. He said, not in quite these words, "We'll go in and take out Saddam, and the people of iraq will greet us with flowers. They'll make a democracy. the other despotic nations will be scared." Wolfowitz said that the oil would pay for the invasion and reconstruction and it would make bring lots of wealth to the iraqis. International oil companies were going to pay the $20 billion or so needed to get the oil pumping and all back on schedule. After the war had already begun Bush finally estimated that it would cost around $80 billion, total.

After the invasion was complete Cheney broadcast specific warnings to iran and syria that they were next.

Bush's planning and his predictions were both utter failures. It's likely that a lot of the problem here came from the iraqi reactions to the USA following this failed plan.

So now you want to assume on no evidence that any other plan would have the same result?

Anyway, I agree that we need to look at what to do now that we're already in the souppot, rather than how we could have stayed out of the souppot.

I have a plan for that too. Would you like to hear it? Of course the devil is in the details. I'd rather go over the big picture first and add details later, rather than include all the boring details that you might not be interested in at the very beginning.

I agree with Mark.

There was a time when the winds' board was dominated by military geo-political professionals, professors, engineers and other types with overseas experience, soldiers and former soldiers, and other people who had a clue.

It's rather depressing. It might be less depressing if even the clue could construct arguments that didn't vacillate all over the place with various self-contrictions, but it would still be depressing.

I'd be happy to hear your plan.

J Thomas, "Do you have any realistic arguments against my proposal? Of course not."

Your proposal wasn't realistic to begin with. Saddam and the Baathists were not proposing to cooperate at all with any method of resolving the issues that the US had with Iraq and their regime, much less the kind of cooperation your "proposal" required. Saddam and his sons intended to go out shooting with no negotiations and nothing about your "proposal" changed their intentions or dealt realistically with them. Your "estimated" results are simply fantasies of the worst kind.

Plan for victory in iraq.

First, move the goalposts. We don't want control of iraq's oil. We don't want permanent bases unless that happens to work out. We don't want to prevent religious input into the iraqi government. An acceptable endpoint is iraq as a sovereign democratic nation, not necessarily a US ally, or even a collection of sovereign democratic nations that get along.

So the intention is to stop the violence, start up reconstruction, establish democracy, and go home.

Methods

First, we announce that we do intend to go home, fairly soon, and someday after we've gone home if the iraqi government will lease us bases we might come back as guests. This is central. A withdrawal schedule that says we'll leave in 2 years or less sounds about right to me. It helps a lot with insurgents. If they think we want to stay then they want to keep up the pressure to make us leave. If they believe we're leaving soon regardless, then it's a lot less attractive to maybe die to get us to leave a little faster.

So, to stop the violence, first allow armed militias and neighborhood watches. Get each of them to register with the US forces and tell us what area they control. When two of them have conflicting territories, point out the conflict to them and suggest they resolve it.

Get at least cell phone numbers for each militia, and coordinate with them as we approach their areas. We tell them we're coming, and we expect them to cooperate with us. When we come through they should know it's us.

When they call us and tell us they're being attacked maybe we show up and help them. Maybe we coordinate with nearby militias and catch the attackers while they retreat. Maybe we don't do anything. But the guys we say we're going after are the ones who're outside their own area. We act to improve the defense and hinder the attack.

If people are getting protected by a religious-extremist militia or otherwise one they don't like, they can look for another place to live. In the short run we can't protect people from their militias.

We pay the militias a little bit to control their areas. And we expect them to cooperate with iraqi police. If they want to arrest somebody, they call the police and explain what happened so the police can take the alleged criminal to jail.

This is obviously not ideal, but it's a first step. militias that can catch attackers in their own areas, that don't do much attacking outside their areas. That could help reduce the violence. They don't want to harbor insurgents who'd hurt their relations with us when we're leaving soon anyway. They don't want to attack other areas when the other areas are alert and well-armed and if they get caught it hurts their relation with us and with the other areas.

We can do that much mostly alone. For the rest we need to coordinate with the iraqi government, and they might not go along. Or they might have their own workable ideas we can build on. Possibly they'll get so badly deadlocked they can't get a quorum and have to call for new elections and pick a new PM and generally stay out of the way for months. The sovereign iraqi government is a problem for any US plan, and it just has to be handled somehow.

So, we want local elections. Ideally the local election districts should correspond with the areas controlled by one militia. They won't all be the same size but then US towns aren't all the same size. So we have elections, and presumably the militia leaders will win. Now they have to manage their areas. They get money from the iraqi government and likely from us and also they can collect a little bit of tax from their local citizens (who can move away). They have to arrange garbage pickup and sewer line maintenance and so on. They don't get enough to pay their militias and run their towns both. They need to turn most of their militia members into deputies who show up as needed, with a small paid core that trains the others and organises them and does first-response. If they see that need they'll work at coordinating with neighboring militias. They'll cooperate about unfamiliar traffic and plans to catch attackers and so on. The ones who don't cooperate will wind up with annoying checkpoints on their borders and higher expenses. The more they get organised the less actual violence they'll face and the heavier the burden they'll feel from their active defenses.

Meanwhile local militia leaders are morphing into politicians. The better they handle all the demands of local government, the fewer of their citizens vote with their feet and the more others may want to move there. People on the edges of territories might want to switch. An unpopular militia might find its territory shrinking one city block at a time. To the extent that neighboring militias trust each other and cooperate, they make things better. So for example checkpoints are a giant irritation for commuters and transport guys, and areas that don't need checkpoints on their mutual borders are better off. The more the violence dies down the louder the requests for quick transport and fewer restraints on trade. The more practical it gets to build things in iraq instead of importing them, the better the iraqi economy works. The more men who put in a full day at work the fewer want to skulk at night taking their chance at getting shot. The more prosperity the less need to blame the poverty on the US military.

Meanwhile, we pay for civic improvements. Electricity and water and sewage are primary. With local people reporting sabotage to their local militias, crimes like stealing electric cables should go down.

When we first invaded, iraq had all the technicians they needed. They'd been holding the systems together without adequate parts. We could have given them what they needed and gotten things running quick, but instead our contractors chose to do nothing until they had a full list of the problems, then they chose to replace the whole electric grid with american equipment the iraqi techies weren't familiar with, and before they actually got much of the new equipment installed the violence got so bad they didn't bother. I don't know how many of the iraqi techies are still alive and in iraq. But if enough of them are there, we could go a long way by asking them what they need and getting just precisely that for them and mostly staying out of their way. We can offer to replace whole systems for them later.

Back to the violence. Currently most of the violence that doesn't involve us is small-scale. A group of 4 or fewer vans moves in, kidnaps some people, and leave. Later the bodies are found with signs of torture. When there are too many attackers they find it harder to coordinate and there's too much chance one of them will be caught and reveal who they are. Any area that can find out about an attack quickly and set up roadblocks can catch those people when they try to leave. Catch one set of raiders and the next guys will look for an easier target. The better nearby neighborhoods cooperate, the harder it gets for raiders. We've tended to keep them from doing this because when we find an unofficial checkpoint run by a militia that isn't on the approved list, we tend to kill them as insurgents. So, put all the militias on the approved list and it all gets easier. We wind up not being the conquerors who try to disarm everybody. We wind up more like referees. We know the militias and we know where they are -- they told us. They play by the rules. If they break the rules we come in and help arrest the one responsible and let the iraqi police keep them for trial. And if they don't cooperate in that we can raid them. And even if they damage some of our vehicles or kill a few of us, they can look at their losses and figure out whether it's a victory for them -- when we're heading home soon anyway.

We don't win by winning battles. We win by persuading the enemy they don't gain by battles. We let them -- anybody -- campaign for whatever they want. If they can get their goals politically then they don't need to fight. If they can't win politically they can expect to be outnumbered in a fight too. No guarantees but they might tend to go with politics, and the more they go that route the less violence for us to deal with. Then the less violence, the less useful it is to be prepared for violence, and the militias start decaying as military bodies as they morph into political interest groups.

The anbar thing fits this model. We traipsed across anbar repeatedly, killing people and blowing stuff up, and somehow it never persuaded them to stop laying mines. Then we made peace with them and they're fine with us for the moment. If we could get them real political representation they'd have a good excuse not to fight. They might still choose to, but it doesn't take long to see the guys who choose fighting over politics have a worse time of it. They'll tend to use politics to try to get their share (and more if they can) than oppose the politics with violence.

Costs

First there's the cost of announcing we do intend to leave in the foreseeable future. That tends to mean we give up plans of staying in iraq forever. I don't regard that as much loss, but someone else might consider anything but permanent occupation a defeat.

Second there's the problem that when we legimatise militias we give power to militia leaders. They will tend to become local politicians and minor warlords. I think things run more orderly if we recognise their existing power, but some of them will not be competent at running local governments. There will be some bad examples. That's a cost.

Third there's the problem that paying for local government and paying for reconstruction costs money. I expect we could reduce costs by sending part of the army home. But the biggest part of what we spend on our army goes to US contractors. If we give the money to iraqis they won't buy from our companies, they'll buy from whoever they want. That costs us more. So for example their power plant guys are likely to buy french and russian spare parts for their old generating plants and buy new french and russian generators rather than buy american. So the same dollars cost us more. And we wouldn't get the political support from the contractors that we do now.

I don't see any other costs worse than we're already paying, except that it might not work. If it doesn't work then that would be roughly plan #11 that we tried in iraq that didn't work. I guess in that case we'd have to try something else.

Summary:

1. Our goal is only to leave iraq a stable democratic nation that's rebuilding its strength.

2. We will stay there a strictly limited time, unless the iraqi government asks us to stay longer and then we still won't stay much longer. insurgents who attack us to make us go home are wasting their efforts.

3. We recognise pay, supply, and train militias and other armed groups who control specific areas. We demand their limited cooperation -- and we take quite a dark view of them attacking outside their own areas.

4. We pay iraqis to do reconstruction.

5. We pay iraqis to do local democratic government. Militia leaders will tend to win elections. Them's the breaks. Eventually they will lose unless they do a good job of local government.

6. We can try to coordinate with the iraqi national government. They might cooperate or have some better ideas, so give coordination a solid try.

I'm stunned. I'm not being snarky- that sounds almost word for word what Patraeus and the administration are saying and doing (since the surge began at least).

"We don't want control of iraq's oil. We don't want permanent bases unless that happens to work out. We don't want to prevent religious input into the iraqi government. An acceptable endpoint is iraq as a sovereign democratic nation, not necessarily a US ally, or even a collection of sovereign democratic nations that get along."

First check- these goals only exist in the brains of the conspiracy minded. If you look at our stated goals in the reconstruction- its exactly this- to the point where the President has publicly affirmed that if this Iraqi government asked us to leave today, we would comply.

"First, we announce that we do intend to go home, fairly soon, and someday after we've gone home if the iraqi government will lease us bases we might come back as guests. This is central."

I agree completely- and one thing is certain, the alliance we have formed with the Sunni tribes has hinged on the fact that we ARE leaving Iraq in the near future- that is readilly apparent even to the Sunnis. In a sense, they have already won that battle, if it needed winning.

I do completely agree (and have advocated for years) setting up a metrics driven plan for withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq. And in fact Patraeus presented exactly that to Congress this week.

"Get at least cell phone numbers for each militia, and coordinate with them as we approach their areas"

This is already happening, and they are doing one better. Biometric data is being taken. Everything you said about establishing neighborhood militias is the exact plan being executed.

J, seriously, do you read Michael Totten and other on the ground reports? Everything you listed is dead on right and its happening right now. I agree, it certainly wasnt happening in 2005 or 06, but this is Patreaus's plan, and it is what the army and marines individually have learned is effective.

"We can try to coordinate with the iraqi national government. They might cooperate or have some better ideas, so give coordination a solid try."

I did want to individually address this point- this is something that has failed for a number of reasons (or at least not been as fruitful as we hope).

1)the Iraqis- the government is corrupt in nearly every facet. This is a problem, not just for us, but for the Iraqis down the pipe we try to work with. I remember specifically a story about the Sunni mayor trying to get his allotment of food from the Shiia ministry, he was quite convinced if he went without US troops he wouldnt come back alive. Now THATS corruption. It makes the army and the police less effective and way more dependent on the US for logistics, which hence makes them appear all the more beholden to the US. Thats a majorly bad thing when fighting an insurgency.

2)The US- I certainly feel the frustration that a deal hasnt been cut. BUT, we have to recognize that this is a vastly different culture, and that public pressure from the US (Congressmen on CNN for instance) is counterproductive. It makes them look weak by jsut doing what we ask. We have to learn to understand and play by there rules.

For instance- Patreaus and the Ambassador talked a lot about de facto deals that have already been cut that address a lot of the Sunni greviences. This is a very Arab way of saving face all around. We've done a lousy job of expecting things to be done our way and probably hindering our own goals.

Mark, there's a big difference of emphasis here.

We are trying to stop the violence by main force, using our troops and our trained iraqi troops. We don't have enough troops to do that except in limited areas, notably around Baghdad.

We are not tolerating many of the militias, particularly in sadr city. Our big argument with Sadr's people is they want us to go away, and that needn't be an issue. And we don't like their religion. Ditto, needn't be an issue. And they don't need us to organise them, they're already organised. We're attacking them instead of co-opting them.

I haven't heard that we've started any significant reconstruction anywhere. And not much effort to get militia leaders into local government.

But yes, a lot of it is what Petraeus says he's doing. It's the completely obvious approach. We don't usually win COIN by beating the insurgents and keeping them from achieving their goals. We stop them from being insurgents by letting them compete for their goals politically. There's always the chance they'll win politically, as the sandanistas did (for awhile). But an honest democracy doesn't need insurgents -- if they can compaign openly and win if they get enough support, they don't need to fight with bombs.

One of the early mistakes was outlawing the Ba'ath party. We should have let them run. When they're the party of antidemocracy and torture and secret police and all that, the people who vote for them anyway need to be heard. Even if their representatives get voted down at every turn, still they deserve to have them there representing them.

Iraqis- the government is corrupt in nearly every facet.

Well, but so is ours. Maybe if we figure out how to clean up our own government we'll have some advice for them.

US- I certainly feel the frustration that a deal hasnt been cut. BUT, we have to recognize that this is a vastly different culture, and that public pressure from the US is counterproductive.

Sure. On the other hand we have to recognise that when we set metrics we need to go along with consequences rather than excuses. The surge has failed with respect to the iraqi government. Essentially none of the important goals have been met. The goals that have been met were things we were doing in the hope that the real goals could be met, and they have not.

Patreaus and the Ambassador talked a lot about de facto deals that have already been cut that address a lot of the Sunni greviences. This is a very Arab way of saving face all around.

Indeed it is. When there's no progress to report, make up secret progress and report that. Save face. There is no convincing evidence of any secret deals besides Petraeus and Crocker claiming at the last minute that they exist. But what else can they do? The surge has failed by the metrics Petraeus defined himself.

Maybe if we give it more time we can make up for the lost time. When a software project slips a year behind schedule, you can always hope that although their progress has been slow so far, still maybe if you fund an extra year they'll go real fast and get a successful completion. Half of all large software projects go that route, limping farther and farther behind schedule, until finally the guys with the money pull the plug.