Post Petraeus.
The Iraq war is not figuring into the present election as much as people thought it would, even recently. But not so recently that other more looming events haven't eclipsed it. The surge gets name-checked, as attempts are made to form it into a touchstone of sorts. The surge was just that: a device of domestic consumption. For the purpose of moving the war into neutral, moving it off the front pages, parking it. A suppression of violence that allows the rhetoric of victory. A move that likely precluded victory of the kind they desire in the long run. Placing the eventual genuine resolution of Iraqi affairs more firmly in Iraqi hands. Underscoring the redundancy of the US presence. All this moved the Iraq war into a new phase, a post Petraeus phase, even before the General took command in Iraq and long before his recent upward move to Centcom
Odierno Succeeds Petraeus as Iraq Commander. A position from which he may gain the measure of perspective that Admiral William Fallon gained Petraeus sees value in talking to Taliban | International | Reuters. Seeing the focus of the war against terrorism being most in those places where poverty, nationalism, radicalism and the meddling interests of regional established powers combine in loosely governed regions to ferment cultures of violence. Afghanistan and the Pakistan border, but no less Kurdistan, Palestine or the slums of Cairo
Book Review - 'Tell Me How This Ends - General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq
What the surge wasn't was the Petraeus Plan. The surge, General Keane and Fredrick Kagan's idea, facilitated, but is not synonymous with the rededicated (redirected) effort to defeat the insurgency by General David Petraeus and his staff. For the sake of simplicity they came together to form a Baghdad-centered and population protectionist stance. However the surge would not have happened if General Petraeus had not agreed to, even publicly supported the idea. The connotations of such unconditional support for contested political policy are heightened by every trip to Washington General Petraeus makes
This round, Pentagon may keep General Petraeus offstage and groups he talks to when there (such as the Heritage foundation as he did last week
Petraeus cautious on Iraq progress - Los Angeles Times).
Here are two links to Google graphs recapitulating his internet public-figure career. I include
Google Trends: General Petraeus and
Google Trends: General David Petraeus variants to capture how the searches differ by country and region. The surge likewise should not be mistaken for the Iraq Civil war. Either it's initial stage, the Shiite civil war for control of the majority population of Iraq. For which both the Sunni's and Kurds were on the sidelines of, and in regard to ethnic cleansing in defensive positions for. Or for the civil war phase two. This begins when the Shiite victors take up what Iraq will be. Nor is the surge the end of, the defeat of the insurgency. What we see in Iraq currently is the result of the determination of Sunni leaders that violent and foreign insurgents complicated their position. Shiite leaders also largely came to that view, in view of U S Armies posture in Baghdad, and success of the Iraqi government in controlling cities like Basra. These are the events known as the stand down of the JAMM and the Sunni awakening. Which left the US with one opposing force to confront and control: the foreign insurgency - Al qaeda in Iraq together with Syrian, and Iranian interference
Odierno takes charge in a 'fragile' Iraq. For what is considered low tech warfare, the insurgency has leveraged consumer electronics into quite deadly equivelencies (If you didn't read it at the time check the Post's Left of Boom series from last year especially the description of DoD's db of detonation frequencies). The unfortunate reality is for every sawbuck this insurgency spends, they make us spend one hundred thousand dollars keeping up. There is no angle this can be viewed from, that really make the war in Iraq a succesful or worthwhile use of American power and prestige. Saddam was a spent force, his sons dissolute hedonists not leaders. Keeping Iraq from interfering in the neccesary enterprise of dismantling Al Qaeda and other radical militarized Islamist groups ought to have been a diplomatic task. That war was brought to Iraq was done for other reasons, by shameless and amoral ruses.
Those who advocated and brought about this war know all this. For all the military success of the past year military success is no longer the measure
Iraq Index - Saban Center for Middle East Policy - Brookings Institution. For all the talk of timetables, of withdrawal against tables of observed achievement, neither guide now when or how we'll go. We will leave when the Iraq Government tells us. The architects are sacrificing Iraq-the-Model to preserve Neoconservative Imperialism. The concern now is for saving their New American Century and what's left of their reputations. Towards this end now the bargaining proceeds on the lines of Production and Service Agreements (PSAs)
Iraqi government fuels 'war for oil' theories with biggest ever reserves sale | Business | The Guardian and permanent bases. Although if perhaps (quite unlikely) Chinese oil concerns win contracts for the Iraqi oil fields and feel they would rather their military garrison the region for security it would be something about which we would have little to say. The ultimate point is very simple: if we regard our interest as requiring the abridgment of the self-determination of others, whether we believe we are gifting democracy by it or not, we breed only resentment and become its object.
11:47:31 PM  ;;
|
|
