Further Iraq
At the risk of redundancy I am going to essentially repeat the argument of my post from 25Jul07. Abandoning any feint towards subtlety and as well harnessing the power of lists, ain't nothing like a good list. After I wrote that post there appeared an opinion piece by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, both of the Brookings Institute, titled
A War We Just Might Win - New York Times . While they took care not to observe the turning of yet another corner, and sighted no express light at the end of the tunnel. It was at the same time a familiar Washington exercise in opportune credulous optimism. Perhaps the war in the middle east will turn out all right, and to the writers of history its proponants will crow that the war was won. 'All right' will have little resemblance to the terms with which the war was sold to us
Dems want to keep GOP from votes on Iraq - Yahoo! News. And it will seem little right to what is left of Iraq Why the latest good news from Iraq doesn't matter. - By Phillip Carter - Slate Magazine. I would not want to seem like a "glass half full guy" as the President likes to term it. I am willing to see the glass as half full by any measure, but I see it is full of dead sand and not living water and you can't drink your thirst away from it. I see in the new Iraq strategy 7 red flags. - The founding concept of a limited surge made to seem painless, to seem do-able. A compartmentalized clear and hold strategy focusing only on a handful of critical Bagdad neighborhoods. Which would somehow leave the insurgents unable to regroup and continue an as effective insurgency in (or from) other locations. It presupposed the ability to hold which was to be Iraq responsibility. It presupposed a uniqueness to certain Baghdad neighborhoods. That controling them would matter. It presupposed a lack of adaptive reaction from the insurgency.
- The related need for the surge in US forces to essentially double as it got under way, to overcome these initial internal even deliberate faults.
- Comprehending that the genuine force level in Iraq is twice as large as commonly understood with over 250,000 armed individuals answering to American strategy. That this has produced only the result that can be seen today
- The changing nature of the military mission. Of the surges goals. From violence suppression to facilitate political progress, political reconciliation. In the near absolute abeyance of which, to population protection, even to force protection
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraqi progress 'disappoints' US. A program of pacification indeterminate of political progress.
- A simplified singular enemy for public consumption. Encompassing by day and turn various actors on Iraq's complex battlefield. It's all al qaeda (but we will leave out telling you that individually these al qaedas are often Saudi's). It's all Iran or trained by Hezbollah for Iran. It's the Sunni militia's (supposedly our allies now). No, it's the Shiia militias' (essentially one with the government we are backing).
- Then there is 'being behind the power curve', the notion of a conflict being fought by two forces chasing each other along a logarithmic curve. Underpinning this somewhat metaphoric notion is the reality that it cost the U S ten times as much money and effort to ameliorate the effects of the disruption the insurgency inflicts on Iraqi civil society as it does the insurgency to cause it
Budget for 'Surge' Is Hill Topic - washingtonpost.com.
- Judging the surge. Proponents of the surge have spent great rhetorical effort keeping the surge from being examined. Saying that even though the surge was proffered as a months-long operation. We needed to give it six months then a year or two years. That it only really started when troop numbers arrived at the full surge level. They worked to soften any date given for assessment and to reduce expectation. Yet they are quick to point out with triumph any new element which appears favorable. This behavior reveals a brittleness to their opinion and doubt and uncertainly as to the final outcome.
All these are bright red flags of warning Now I would be willing to admit - on a purely theoretical basis that All in or All out are preferable options to halfway in or out
Kuwait Facilities Could Handle Big Troop Pullout, General Says - washingtonpost.com. Both of the former serve the purpose of transforming this into a primarily Iraqi political struggle (that would conduct itself as a political struggle) with reduced outside interference. Both would get the job done. Ulterior motives aside. For the purposes of the administration and those pressing this line to have an Iraqi government that will acquiesce to long term US occupation is good. In its absence the goal is to prevent the accumulation of national political power in Iraq that might tell us to leave, and quit our enduring presence in their land
The Cost of 'Enduring' in Iraq - washingtonpost.com. At the same time there are signs that the Administration sees or would like to see new Grand Strategy covering their middle east affairs. Where some see only that grand strategy confirming a grand imperialism in arab and persian eyes
A New Mideast Military Alliance? - Early Warning. Secretary Rice's last trip to the Middle east played like the old Warren Zevon song: Lawyers guns and money. Now perhaps the Saudi's will join her push for a Palestinian settlementment
Rice says Israel ready to talk peace fundamentals. We are selling who planes, guns and bombs? The Saudi's and Gulf States. To do precisely what with? The Administration, inspired by the cold war, is testing strategies of opposition and containment. By turns they consider some or all of Sunni v. Shia (Sunni's v. Shi'ites), Moderate Islam v. Extremist Islam, National coalitions: Israel Saudi Arabia the Gulf States v. Iran. And finally Nationalism v. well what exactly... sub-nationalism, transnationalism, intr/a/nationalism. Who and what is it that fights us and why? Perhaps not these last, it makes The Struggle seem too much like police work They should take a rubric from al qaeda and consider first: The near enemy and the far enemy.
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