Talk in the Senate about forcing a withdrawal from Iraq is obscuring a potent reality: Petraeus's "surge" tactics are working. Military scholar Kimberly Kagan offers details on the indispensable opinion page of the Wall Street Journal, which column the WSJ wisely offers today to a wider public for free.
We note that the calls for withdrawal now are based on the lack of political progress in the Iraqi Parliament, not on the allegedly dire military situation in which we find ourselves. We agree that the feckless politicos of liberated Iraq continue to disappoint most egregiously, and we wish that our earlier remarks about the lack of indigenous leadership in Iraq were not so constantly true. However, we doubt very much that an American withdrawal will have any effect in speeding political decisions. We suspect that increased infighting for a bigger share of the spoils is all the more likely.
Some analysts have offered that political progress in Iraq is moving at a culturally appropriate pace for its setting, that people of an ancient Middle Eastern culture will simply not move at a pace that suits speedy Americans. Perhaps. We again defer to the patient British, whose long occupation of Northern Ireland through its troubles seems finally to be coming to a satisfactory and peaceful conclusion.
Kagan sums up the military situation and its political corollary: "To say that the surge is failing is absurd. Instead Congress should be asking this question: Can the current progress continue?" The answer to the latter is that it can, as long as the American public is willing to pay the price for its own safety in the future.
8 comments:
In N. Ireland, peace only came with demilitarisation. Furthermore, when claims of American imperialism are already prevalent, why would the British invasion and occupation of Ireland (lasting over 800 years, not just since the Troubles, mind you) be a desirable example or even comparisson?
Let not the fearful spectre of Thatcher haunt our foreign policy!
We attempt to view the British response to the Troubles apart from the romantic notions of Irish nationalists. 800 years can also be applied to Iraq, if one names the Crusades as a starting point for all this conflict between Islam and "Christendom."
We cite the example not because the British are beloved globally but because their dogged persistence has yielded what appears to be in the process of becoming a good outcome. In fact, we cite the British precisely because they persisted despite global disapproval. Like all empires, benificent empires must put up with criticism.
Demilitarization came because of, not in spite of, the British occupation: the IRA had to agree to lay down arms and did so only after the UK forces outlasted them. We would add, however, that the Republic of Ireland's economic miracle has certainly played a significant, if subtle, role. When both sides in the North realized that they could get rich like the Republic if they could just stop acting like fools, they found a reason to lay down arms.
I believe the comparison is a hasty one, even still. For certainly the United States has no intention of ruling Iraq as Britain still rules N. Ireland. The British government has been successful to a great degree because it is able to act with political authority as well a military power. Unlike Britain, we may not dismiss Iraq's Parliament when it begins to take a shape we disapprove of.
Furthermore, I would think we would not like to be linked with terrorist Shi'ite counter insurgents in the way the British government is to this day linked to Loyalist paramilitaries. I would like to think that our country has learned its lesson in regards to funding or supporting such organizations (Bin Laden and countless failed coups in S. America being the pertinent examples).
"In fact, we cite the British precisely because they persisted despite global disapproval."
Yes, but should they have? Hitler and Stalin both continued their struggle against resistance movements "despite global disaproval." Are they equally laudable or not so only because of their ultimate failure (and one cannot say it was a lack of sheer determination that felled them)? Or are these examples to be shunned conversely because the goal of their regimes was a sinister one. Imperial colonization seems to me no more innocent than global domination or Communist totalitarian revolution.
It is America's purpose in Iraq that should set us apart from Britain, Germany and the USSR. Such a notion is critical especially when the main objection to our efforts—at home, abroad and in Iraq itself—is that we are no different than they, a bully flexing his muscles. It is not forthcoming to be dismissive as such objections when they themselves are the very thing we must struggle against in order to succeed in Iraq.
The critical case to be made at this point in time is not whether or not victory is possible, although that seems to be the main focus of our out-of-touch political representation, but whether or not it is right that we be in Iraq killing and dieing as we are.
In addition, you reject the "800 years" slogan (for, admittedly, that is what it is) as the "romantic notions of Irish Nationalists." Yet this is exactly what we struggle against today in Iraq. Those notions must be understood and perhaps even indulged in order for us to succeed. Perhaps the Times' David Brookes is not too far off in his opinion here: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040512/news_1e12brooks.html
Certainly we should not be too unfamiliar with the notion of losing something in order to gain something better.
Lastly, and this comes most painfully from a self-diagnosed capitalist, it is a sign of the hubris of the capitalist West that we believe money (the economic success you speak of in Ireland, which I might add came only at the expense of British failure) to be the ultimate motivator. Certainly as a Christian I would hope not. Money is not the solution to Iraq and the hatred which causes its violence. Perhaps you would agree with me that only Christ's love is the only possible solution (see St. Miroslav Volf).
"Just when we're winning" seems right on, according to this article, posted yesterday at nationalreview.com. The following quotes might be enough to encourage a full reading.
Al Qaeda on the Run
Feasting on the movable beast.
By Michael Yon
...According to the AP:
"Several large Iraqi insurgent groups publicly denounced al-Qaida, saying its fighters were killing theirs and pressuring them to join the Islamic State. One group, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, has begun overtly cooperating with U.S. forces and Sunni tribal leaders to attack al-Qaida."
The words were true: I was standing there with Abu Ali, with American soldiers and 1920s people milling all around. We had certainly killed a lot of his people, and the 1920s certainly had killed many American soldiers. During severe fighting with al Qaeda in April 2007, the 1920s reached out to American soldiers, and together they have been dismantling al Qaeda here in Baqubah and other places. If we had to fight an allied force of 1920s and al Qaeda, there is no telling how many soldiers we would have lost.
[snip]
Abu Ali said that on April 1, 2007, he and his people attacked al Qaeda in Buhriz for their crimes against Islam. He also said something that many Muslims have said to me: Al Qaeda are not Muslims. (Both Sunni and Shia have said nearly the exact same words, at times on video.) Abu Ali said they fought hard against Al Qaeda, and on April 10, they asked the Americans to join the attack. It worked.
Great to interact with two well informed gentle readers.
Without going into a point-by-point discussion of Ireland v. Iraq, yes there are differences. However, there are also differences between Britain's "occupation" of N. Ireland in the recent past (always the will of a majority of the citizenry in those counties) and just about anything that Hitler or Stalin did. The recent objectives of the British have been simply to establish equitable peace and ongoing human rights, no different from what we and they seek in Iraq. Granted that the English were once Ireland's oppressors, that notion hardly applies to recent history. Granted that Britain made mistakes since the Troubles began, it is, to put it mildly, a stretch to lump them with the fascists and commies. My friends from Poland and Latvia would love to explain the differences.
As to the British legal mandate to be in N. Ireland, it at least is arguable that the United States and what's left of its coalition has a similar mandate. They are there with the permission of the UN (despite the revisionist history at work on this) and with the permission of the current, democratically elected Iraqi government. Said government is currently most concerned that we might leave.
Of course money won't redeem Ireland or Iraq, any more than it has redeemed this country. Of course. However, politically speaking, we are impressed athow economic opportunity neutralizes tribal conflict. In a zero-sum economy, people fight over how big will be their slice of the never-growing pie. In a growing economy, people want to ignore their differences and get on board. On this point, we insist that Ireland's recent prosperity is hardly at Britain's expense, were that even relevant to the discussion. Ireland has pursued an enlighted policy of lowering taxes that has spurred development to the point that a nation once famous for its global emigration is now host to one of the biggest immigrant communities in the EU. They didn't steal Britain's share of the pie; they just pursued more vigorously than the Britain of Baroness Thatcher and soon-to-be Lord Blair a less socialist path than had been recently been their legacy. For both nations, the pie grows. Ireland's grows faster.
MattC points us to the freelance journalism of the intrepid Michael Yon, whose work we have lacked time to link over the last few weeks. Yon is doing what the mainstreamers refuse to do: cover the battles. He points out that "al Ameriki" is now for many the "tribe" trusted to deal honestly with matters.
SWNID out, and back to our real work.
Bryan D said:
The critical case to be made at this point in time is not whether or not victory is possible, although that seems to be the main focus of our out-of-touch political representation, but whether or not it is right that we be in Iraq killing and dieing as we are.
If it were a choice between winning for its own sake versus leaving so that we stop doing something immoral, your question would have some relevance. But that's so obviously not the issue that I hate to bring it up.
It's a question whether the US military can help to establish something resembling peace and liberty for Iraq, with the consequence of more peace and liberty for the rest of the middle east, with the consequence of better long-term security for all humans everywhere. Then it's a question whether the prospects for that outcome are worth the cost.
You can't just count up casualties to draw that conclusion. No one knows how many might die in the future, and under what circumstances, if we don't act (which is another form of action, by the way: you don't make yourself pure by refusing to send your army, as Hotel Rwanda reminds us). At any rate, I learned from Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings that there are some things worse than death and so some things worth dying for.
Am I a membe of the SWNID Fiction Club now?
Monsieur Shoes,
I think you've misunderstood me here. All I'm saying as that for those whose issue with the Iraq conflict is not pragmatic but idealistic, as it seems to me the majority of the opposition is these days (for whatever reason, I'm not endorsing their sincerity), this is the question that must be answered first.
Otherwise, arguing to the effect that we can win in Iraq (or are indeed already winning) is irrelevant because that is not what so many objectors are primarily concerned with.
Fair enough, Bryan D. But the media that I read and hear keep talking about American presence in Iraq as having a foregone conclusion, not about the moral basis for the war. The folks who objected morally have been pretty consistent from beginning to end and have never constituted more than a small segment of the populace. The decision on the war's future will be made pragmatically by that vast majority of the populace who think that it's OK to use military force.
Post a Comment