Tuesday, August 12, 2008
MISSSION ACCOMPLISHED
As this item makes clear, it is really possible now to say that “the war in Iraq” is all but over, and that we won. Five years after the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner, that mission – the mission of deposing an insanely cruel and dangerous tyrant and replacing him with something stable and better – has been accomplished; at least for now.
While the politicians “debate” how quickly we should draw down our military forces in Iraq, I look back and ask, could it have been done more quickly and at a lower cost in American blood and treasure? Until fairly recently, I was all but certain that the answer had to be “yes”. Now, I’m not so sure.
That certain “yes” was premised on the assumption that the initial invasion was carried out with too small a force, and that the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Saddam regime was mishandled in many ways, not least of which in disbanding the Iraqi army, total de-Baathification, and a general failure to impose security throughout the country. Clearly, so this thinking goes, the surge in troop numbers and implementation of General Petraeus’ anti-insurgency tactics that have proved so successful in the last year could have and should have been implemented much sooner.
But is this right? I can at least make the case that the changes in general approach and specific tactics adopted in the last year would not have been nearly as successful before then. Perhaps Iraq had to “bottom out” into the bloody chaos and civil war of 2005 to 2007 before the native ethnic groups and traditional tribal and religious centers of power would have been willing to make the sacrifices and compromises that have been the foundation of the success of the last few months.
Perhaps the various Shiite gang leaders never would have given up their dreams of seizing complete control of the country if they hadn’t had to face the reality of just how violent and self-destructive such a power grab would be. Perhaps the Sunni tribal leaders never would have given up their hopes of regaining power if they hadn’t had to see the practical results of the kinds of devil’s bargains they would have to make with the likes of al Qaida and the Tikriti mob to achieve a return to minority control of the country. And it seems certain that al Qaida and Iran would have both maintained their hopes of infiltrating and dominating Iraq by playing a waiting game if we’d been more effective in containing sectarian and ethnic violence in the country before now. We certainly wouldn’t have had the opportunity to inflict such massive damage to a major al Qaida initiative as we’ve had these last two years or so, if we’d put a tighter lid on the country at the very beginning. Instead, we might well be facing now the prospect of having to go back in to do the same job we’ve now largely accomplished in that regard.
I don’t claim that these thoughts are original to me. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ve seen them expressed elsewhere. And I’m all but certain that this point was not an intentional part of the over-all plan for the liberation of Iraq from Saddam – much more likely is the possibility that it is an accidental result of what would have been perceived even by the central figures of the Bush Administration as a “mistake” if they could have known in the first quarter of 2003 what 2006 would be like.
But maybe not. I’m reading Doug Feith’s book War and Decision. Depending on how you look at it, Feith was the number three person in the Pentagon at the time of the invasion and has been demonized by the anti-war left as one of the chief “neocon warmongers” and by Bob Woodward (and apparently Tommy Franks) as a bumbler. Naturally, this book will have no impact on the mainstream discussion of the decision to go to war in Iraq and how post-invasion activities were handled. What Feith has to say – for instance, that hunting for existing stockpiles of WMD was not one of the primary aims of the war – simply doesn’t “fit the narrative,” so it will be ignored.
I’m thinking here, though, of one of the main themes of the book: That Rumsfeld and his crew consistently opposed taking a “strong-arm” approach to the US post-invasion role in Iraq, because, they argued, to do so would only create animosity toward the US as an occupying, imperial power and, perhaps more importantly, because it would create long-term dependency on US forces to provide security. This isn’t speculation or after-the-fact rationalization. Feith documents that this was a consistent policy position of the Pentagon in pre-invasion discussions with other agencies and within the highest counsels of the Bush Administration. Again, this evidence will have no influence on popular perceptions, because it’s inconsistent with the view of the neocons as imperialists out to dominate the world. Of course, this doesn’t make sense in terms of logic, since under-manning the post-invasion occupation is inconsistent with the idea of dominating the country on behalf of Halliburton and Exxon. But never mind the lack of logic and the evidence to the contrary – we KNOW what the truth is, right?
For now, I offer these thoughts merely as something to put into the category of historical speculation. In one sense, of course, we’ll never know the answer to the question of whether adopting the “salvation and surge” strategy would have worked had it been adopted earlier – history is what it is, and we have to live with the fact that alternatives always exist in the netherworld of alternative “if-history.” But perhaps, someday, when the horror of MoveOn.org and “General Betray-Us” are dim memories, perhaps, there will be a chance for a sober second look that perceives the pain of 2005 and 2006 as the necessary precondition for what was the real goal of the 2003 invasion – breaking the terrible negative balance of terror and hopelessness in the Middle East.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:36 AM
