Bush: Clear and hold

So, Bush gave his speech about his new strategy for Iraq:

The most urgent priority for success in Iraq is security, especially in Baghdad. Eighty percent of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis. Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

Even supposing the U.S. is successful in clearing Baghdad of insurgents, a dubious assumption at best, what's to stop the insurgents from moving to another city and resuming their terror campaign? Does Bush think that the insurgents will just give up because the Americans have concentrated their forces in the capital the bulk of the country unprotected?

Apparently, Bush thinks the reason we haven't secured Baghdad yet is because our troops aren't camping out in the neighborhoods they clear:

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents, and there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

Incidentally, did you hear that most of these new troops will be sent to Baghdad without body armor?

Clear and hold, just like Vietnam.

Comments

[John Lucid]

I think you'll find the General's visual aid much more useful in this discussion.

[Tyler DiPietro]

A more dubious assumption than that is that Bush is fighting some "insurgency" ball of wax rather than dealing with long standing ethnic rivalries a la the former Yugoslavia (which was, incidentally, also held down by a totalitarian dictator and set loose once his reign ended). When one looks at Iraqi history, from it's creation by the British in the heyday of their colonial empire to the overthrow of British favored autocrats (leading to the ascent of Hussein with the aid of the CIA), it's very obvious that the outbreak of a sectarian and ethnic civil war is almost inevitable in the absence of a powerful central authority. That is something that Americans (and, coincidentally, the British, who had to occupy Iraq twice in the early 20th. century), with a long-standing tradition of rule according to law and against statist-absolutism, have a hard time understanding.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

(snicker) Our local news station's ad for the 11:00 news said: "President Bush promises a Bigger War." Gee, thanks! Was that the Christmas present you were talking about?

[cfrost]

Bush's "new plan" is likely to be stillborn nonsense. Now if he got a 21st Century homestead act passed to open Iraq up for settlement and ordered the army to put the natives in reservations, he might be getting somewhere.

[citizensteve]

This whole Iraq invasion thingy was lost the day Rumsfeld told us we were watching the same vase being looted over and over again.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Didn't he give us a sound bite--a couple of years ago--like, "My goodness! Heavens to Betsy! I listened to the news reports today, and if you listen to those, you're hearing that it's Chaos in Iraq!"

[Franz]

Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. Where the Viet Cong had large popular support for a war of national liberation, the enemy we fight today is a distinct minority of the population (20% at best) who will either be slaughtered or marginalized if or when we leave. Our presence in Iraq is only slowing the inevitable ethnic cleansing of Sunni by Shi`a.

The cliche about those doomed to repeat history is getting pretty tired. Different times, different circumstances, and history is not cyclical.

[Sven]

But stone fucking cold stupidity is eternal.

[Njorl]

I heard someone reading the TV listings from last night:

President Bush's Speech: Deal or no Deal
President Bush's Speech: In Case of Emergency
President Bush's Speech: 'Til Death
President Bush's Speech: Criminal Minds

Maybe he should have picked another night.

[Njorl]

"Our presence in Iraq is only slowing the inevitable ethnic cleansing of Sunni by Shi`a."

I believe the opposite is true. Our presence is making the slaughter easier.

Think back to the first siege of Fallujah, following the killing of 4 Blackwater mercenaries. Convoys of Shiites hauled food and water into the town to aid the Sunnis who were besieged. Sectarian violence is not necessitated by prevailing conditions. Cooperation is possible.

Our presence trumps all political process. No attempts at reconciliation are worth the risks as long as we are there to impose our will (however feebly) on the situation. The only meaningful political activity Iraqis can engage in is the alteration of future demographics. So that's what they are doing, and it is very ugly. I don't think for one minute that they will change gears the minute we leave. Things will get much worse. But they will never get better until we leave.

[Franz]

Cooperation, or high-profile PR stunts like the one you mentioned, are possible when you have a common enemy -- the Zionist/American Conspiracy -- to blame for all your problems. And you won't find many examples like that today. "Reconciliation," talking things out, is almost non-existent in an Arab world where debate is seen as just another battlefield to prove you have a nutsack.

IF we leave Iraq, all the violence currently perpetrated by armed gangs like the JAM will spiral exponentially as the institutional security forces (most of which probably moonlight for militias anyway) -- and, lest we forget, their ARMORIES -- dissolve into sectarian militias. The only chance we have to prevent Iraq from backsliding into total chaos is to keep these institutional forces alive, if not improve them. Once the Iraqi government can competently wield a monopoly of organized violence, it can solve the greater problems ahead.

I'm not a Bushite, but I'm willing to give the troop surge some thought, considering most of it is aimed at reinforcing Iraqi Army units with American advisers.

I have yet to see any well-thought out ALTERNATIVES from the Left. Wishful thinking on how the Iraqis will all get together and hold hands once we leave is not a viable option.

[B-Money]

"I have yet to see any well-thought out ALTERNATIVES from the Left. Wishful thinking on how the Iraqis will all get together and hold hands once we leave is not a viable option."

I am not Bushite either, but why must the Left come up with an alternative that satisfies the war mongers. Here is an alternative, get our troops out and let God sort out the Iraqis! It's theri problem now. They do not want us there anymore as it is. So screw em! Bring our people home. That's a very logical alternative.

But, as I have pointed out in other threads, Bush and his cronies have let this situation come to a point where we basically cannot pull out. They screwed the pooch with the uncalled for invasion of Iraq. So now we are stuck. Pulling out now basically ensures that a war will ensue between Israel and the Arabs in very short order. But our presence there is useless when it comes to "fixing" Iraq. So it is a real cluster f**k!

[Tyler DiPietro]

I have yet to see any well-thought out ALTERNATIVES from the Left. Wishful thinking on how the Iraqis will all get together and hold hands once we leave is not a viable option.

It's not up to the left to come up with some cockamamie plan to renovate the cluster-fuck. We as Americans need to get over this largely collective delusion that we are omnipotent on the world stage. Anyone familiar with the ethnic rivalries in Iraq knows that a bloody civil war and ethnic cleansing are inevitable, as is Iran's spread of influence into the Shia portions of Iraq (more than half the country).

I do, however, think we can do one thing: support independent Kurdistan. We can't stop the Shia and Sunni from ripping one another to shreds, we should support the one place that hasn't fallen apart. And I think it would be a moral disgrace to once again betray the Kurds when they are on the brink of achieving an independent nation after centuries of oppression.

[Doyle Saylor]

Tyler writes;
I do, however, think we can do one thing: support independent Kurdistan.

Doyle;
How? I think one of your comments is related to the HOW part though: "We as Americans need to get over this largely collective delusion that we are omnipotent on the world stage."

That constitutes the barest bones of a national reconstruction of the U.S. So I propose that is only possible via a mass movement that is organized starting now.

No one is gonna get hundreds of thousands out unless a lot of small stuff starts happening in the centers of opposition. For example NY. There have to be a lot of people out in the public all the time trying to pull more and more people into overt public opposition.

People like Lindsay are doing their part to report the reality, now it's up to Tyler and Doyle to start doing something besides typing. You want to save anything, then we need the power here to do it.
Doyle

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

IF we leave Iraq, all the violence currently perpetrated by armed gangs like the JAM will spiral exponentially as the institutional security forces (most of which probably moonlight for militias anyway) -- and, lest we forget, their ARMORIES -- dissolve into sectarian militias. [...]

I have yet to see any well-thought out ALTERNATIVES from the Left. Wishful thinking on how the Iraqis will all get together and hold hands once we leave is not a viable option.

Actually, you should say, "lest Bush forget." Last night on the news, a former commander in chief of California's National Guard was mentioning that if there's no plan to disarm the militias, then what are the 20,000 troops going to accomplish??

And did you really just charge the _Left_ with fixing this mess? The one that half the f------ country, the Leftist half, _screamed_ at the President not to get into in the first place, because we knew full well that it would turn out like this (don't make me find links from the time, I will)? You've got a _LOT_ of nerve. President Bush used our arms to make the country punch itself in the face. He severely injured us, and the only question is--as it was from the moment we went in without a proper plan to pacify the place, which was Bush's and Rumsfeld's responsibility, not ours--when shall we stop punching ourselves? I prefer right now. When your car is stuck in the mud, revving the engine gets you in deeper, that's all. More troops will solve nothing. It's a lunkheaded idea from someone who's run out of them. Are you seriously saying these 20,000 troops will turn _anything_ around? If so, I think it's obvious that you're completely wrong. If not, then it is you who bear the responsibility for coming up with a better plan. We advised against this--God, how we advised against this--precisely because it was such an incredibly stupid idea that it could _only_ lead to choices between awful and more awful.

The _Left_ has to fix the right's mess? _Please._ All right then, here's the fix: the idiot, amateur, armchair general, as we know from Hitler and Stalingrad, is the one who insists that one must never, ever retreat. We need to retreat now.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Tyler, sensible suggestions. We have lost Iraq, and pretending that the Iraqis will all get together and hold hands if we stay--but with 20,000 more troops!--is not a viable option. We still have the Kurds' goodwill, and we can possibly provide them a safe space. We won't be immune from the same Iranian sabotage that's ruining us in Iraq, but we'll have the goodwill of most of the public, at least (we sure as heck don't have that in Iraq now).

[Njorl]

"Once the Iraqi government can competently wield a monopoly of organized violence, it can solve the greater problems ahead. "

The current Iraqi government is never going to be in that position. The next one might. That will be the one that achieves it's position by a combination of force-of-arms and negotiation with it's rivals. That will not happen while the US is there to arbitrarily alter any results.

[Franz]

Agreed, it's not fair to ask the left for a real alternative after Bush drove the invasion.

That said, this is national, not partisan, policy, and saying "Fuck the Iraqis, let God sort them out" because someone else started this war is pretty childish. You may be able to credibly wash your hands of the decision, but not addressing the situation we're in with reasonable alternatives to minimize loss of life on both sides is hardly responsible.

The argument also forgets opportunity costs. The original alternative you're talking about, "don't go to war in the first place, dumbass" -- what would that have meant today?
Saddam still in power, torturing and killing thousands of political prisoners, Kurds and Shi'a each year? Thousands of Iraqi children dying or suffering from malnutrition and disease because of his reaction to hamhanded sanctions? How many years would this continue? And if he died of natural causes after a long and prosperous reign, what do we have to look forward to? Uday and Qusay, or the loosening of the same sectarian shitstorm we're seeing today? There are obvious limits to this kind of counterfactual speculation, please don't tell me "doing nothing" would have been sustainable foreign policy either.

[Franz]

And before you respond with glib comments that withdrawing the troops now is the most reasonable way to minimize death and destruction on both sides, please try to think long term.

Like, the bloodbath of a civil war that would follow our withdrawal, not just between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq, but across the Middle East as Iran and Saudi get dragged into the conflict, the arbitrary suffering and death imposed by a Taliban mini-state that will flower in the subsequent power vacuum in Sunni provinces, and very real possibility that given a base, al-Qaeda could resume the offensive (oh, you thought the only reason they haven't launched a successful terrorist attack on American soil in five years was because they haven't been -trying-?), and force a future American administration to begin the whole thing over again.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>That said, this is national, not partisan, policy, and saying "Fuck the Iraqis, let God sort them out" because someone else started this war is pretty childish.

It would be, but that's not what we're saying. We're saying that, as the Financial Times put it today, this escalation is "far too little, much too late," and that this 20,000 troops is not a third of what it might take to clear and hold Baghdad. It is, as the paper put it, certain to fail. It would fail even if someone we liked started the war.

The fact is that it's a _horrible_ situation to be in: if we stay, we fail. If we -- excuse me, _when_ we -- leave, Iran is likely to have a weak Iraq as their satellite, unless we attack Iran after all, in which case Iran will probably take over Iraq entirely. In either case, the only constant truth is that Iran is the predominant power in the region, period. We know we'll have to leave, because as you probably know, 400,000 troops is the number that the generals originally war-gamed, and we went in with 150,000, so we were doomed from the start. This will leave Israel and Saudi Arabia, a very nervous Israel and Saudi Arabia. Bush fucked up mightily. There's nothing for it but to cut our losses.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>That said, this is national, not partisan, policy, and saying "Fuck the Iraqis, let God sort them out" because someone else started this war is pretty childish.

I mean seriously, do you really think that we're objecting to the war in order to puncture George Bush's ego?? Admittedly, I think that is the reason a lot of people (including Bush himself) defend the war so strenuously, and I'll admit that some leftists' egos got bruised when our own suggestions were met--constantly--for the last three years by "screw you, we'll do what we want and we're not listening to anything you say because you didn't vote for us," but this war is not about protecting or attacking Bush's stupid ego. It was beyond our capacity to wage this war. Yes, we were right to point it out before the war, but now that we're in it, it's still true. We didn't have the manpower then, and we don't now. How long are we supposed to pretend otherwise, just in order to spare the President*'s feelings and keep from saying "I told you so"?