Sticking out your neck
Posted by Ron Coleman on May 2, 2007
Big day for being wrong. Ara Rubyan says he was wrong, too — wrong in predicting that
the President would not go through with his veto threat. He then more than makes up for it with this very reasonable, moderate and yet politically astute post: What The Dems Should Do Next.
But you know, Ara, being wrong is no crime. Sometimes you stick your neck out and you get to be historically right. Sometimes, true, the price of doing that is a broken neck; and understandably not everyone is up for that. Hitchens (via Hydralisk):
So one day we’ll all see just how right you all were about Iraq?
No, I don’t think the argument will stop, perhaps forever. But when it does become the property of historians rather than propagandists and journalists, it’ll become plainer than it is to most people now that it was just. Most of what went wrong with it was that it was put off too long. What a lot of people wish is that the thing could have been skipped.
And we can understand how the nihilist left would rather that the Saddam problem all just went away — and can convince itself, as it always has with its powerful appetite for myth (no matter how inconsistent with other myths in the treasury), that it just would have gone away, anyway, if only we would have sent more unicorns. And too the fascist-friendly right; it’s not that Pat Buchanan is anything but a realist about the containability of Saddam Hussein; he just didn’t consider the bad outcome from letting Saddam fester all that bad.
But how do we understand people of evident good faith who say they believe the Saddam problem, and the WMD’s that everyone knew he had, was despite that not really “our problem” — “our” meaning America the hegemon — at all? Could they actually be stupid? Possibly, but I don’t think so. Is there a fine point of strategic vision, some twist of James Baker / Cyrus Vance type “realism” that explains it? It claims to constantly; yet I have never heard an actual rational explanation, but merely self-delusion and self-congratulation from that camp. They merely go home with their Nobels and leave the problems for the next guy.
So are politics, and political ambition, and the lust for power, and cynicism, really that corrosive — so much so that, as Hitchens says, people with power and responsibility would rather just stick those necks and what’s on them deep into holes along the beach despite the solemn seriousness of their obligations, and vote as the Senate and the House did for a policy as utterly bad for long run foreign policy as the vote to capitulate in Iraq?
They are, they are.
Ara Rubyan said
Hitchens (as usual) has an interesting take on it. Wrong, but interesting.
If there is an “original sin” related to the Iraq War, it is better described by Mark Bowden, author of Blackhawk Down:
“When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country. We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained.”
Bowden was ahead of his time when he said this nearly four years ago. Since then, events have proven him correct. I believe that, as time goes on, it will be one of the principle templates used by historians to examine this entire shameful episode.
P.S. As for Hitchens’ point that “we waited too long,” well, he’s looking at the past through the prism of 9/11.
Bob Miller said
It’s still unclear where the main source of our problem in Iraq lies. Possibilities include:
Goals
Strategy
Tactics
Execution in the field
Military manpower
Iraqi leaders
The Iraqi people
Media emboldening the enemy
Congress emboldening the enemy
and so on
Looking at the world after 9/11, was it logical for the US to give the Saudis a free pass? This may have been our worst error, telling the Arabs up front that we would bow to their will in the end to keep the oil flowing.
Ara Rubyan said
It’s still unclear where the main source of our problem in Iraq lies.
We underestimated our enemy AND we’re not learning from our mistakes in that regard. As a result we are being ground down and bled dry. Our enemy, on the other hand, is adapting and learning and getting stronger.
In short, we are fighting a third-generation war, while our enemy is fighting a fourth-generation one.
The highest form of third-generation war is the blitzkrieg: an initial bombardment followed by the employment of mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense.
Sound familiar?
We did quite well with that in the period leading up to Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech four years ago yesterday.
However…
…our enemy is fighting a war from a newer generation, a fourth-generation war, which is characterized by “a blurring of the lines between war and politics, soldier and civilian, peace and conflict, battlefield and safety…Unable to withstand direct combat against bombers, tanks, and machine guns, non-state entities used tactics of secrecy, terror, and confusion to overcome the technological gap…
“a fourth generation war is most successful when the non-state entity does not attempt, at least in the short term, to impose its own rule, but tries simply to disorganize and delegitimize the state in which the warfare takes place. The aim is to force the state adversary to expend manpower and money in an attempt to establish order, ideally in such a highhanded way that it merely increases disorder, until the state surrenders or withdraws.”
…and so forth. Sound familiar? Recent examples include (but are not limited to) US vs. Vietnam, Soviets vs. Afghanistan, Israel vs. Lebanon, and US vs. Iraq.
Until we find a way to fight them on their own terms, and soon, we are going to lose this war — if in fact the war is not already lost.
Bob Miller said
It appears that no one on our side planned ahead to deal with a guerrilla war in Iraq that would continue after Saddam Hussein’s capture or execution.
How this could happen in view of our knowledge of the various Iraqi factions, and of the insecure borders with Syria and Iran, is puzzling. As if we were mesmerized by our own gadgetry.
hydralisk said
Terrorism — the strategy of the future! Now why couldn’t all those Pentagon highbrows come up with an idea so brilliant?
But seriously, Ara, what do you mean by our enemy getting stronger? Which enemy is that?
And which mistakes are we not learning? What lesson exactly should have been learned? That fighting an insurgency can be pretty tough? Yeah, I think we learned that one.
Maybe I’m naive to think that training the Iraqi Army to little by little take more responsibility for security was as good a plan as any, but Congress seems not to agree.
Ara Rubyan said
But seriously, Ara, what do you mean by our enemy getting stronger? Which enemy is that?
Why, whoever is killing our soldiers and Marines. What’s the mystery here?
And which mistakes are we not learning?
Thinking that a surge will pacify and/or defeat the enemy.
training the Iraqi Army to little by little take more responsibility for security was as good a plan as any
Only if it gets, you know, actual results. Which it hasn’t. Notice how our leaders don’t even talk about it anymore.
hydralisk said
There are a variety of different groups killing our soldiers and Marines but I don’t see any of them getting stronger. Rather I see them duking it out with each other as much as with us.
Not even the military leadership thinks that the surge by itself will defeat the enemy. General Petraeus is on record saying that success depends on the Iraqis learning how to compromise. It’s up to them in the end…but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do increase the likelihood of success. (do I get any points for saying that, Ron?) That’s why the surge.
So what do you propose instead? “Do nothing” is no alternative to “Do something that may or may not work.”
Ara Rubyan said
There are a variety of different groups killing our soldiers and Marines but I don’t see any of them getting stronger.
The last few months of the war have been among the deadliest since it began — both for Iraqis and for American soldiers and Marines.
Not even the military leadership thinks that the surge by itself will defeat the enemy.
But Bush does, and that’s all that matters.
That’s why the surge.
As long as we’re quoting Gen. Petraeus, let’s stipulate that the book he wrote on counter insurgency has apparently gone unread by the White House. They haven’t even come close to deploying Petraeus’ estimate of the fighting forces necessary to pacify a region the size of Baghdad.
Why not?
So what do you propose instead?
That Bush sign the next Iraq war appropriations bill presented to him by Congress. I trust them more than I trust Bush — his credibility is in tatters.