J. McCutchen

Bush's strategy is simple...divide conquer stay

Nothing will change...No retreat no surrender...he's gonna run out the clock. US strategy and tactics in Iraq have always been a function less of facts on the ground in Iraq than Bush's political aggrandizement.

Rosen on Shiite Execution of Saddam (cole)

Nir Rosen at Iraqslogger has a fine analysis of the Sunni Arab reaction to the hanging of Saddam, and includes a partial transcript of the highly sectarian, Shiite chanting at the scene by Iraqi politicians in attendance. I can confirm that Rosen's partial transcript is accurate.

Cindy Sheehan's son died fighting the Mahdi Army; Bush delivered Saddam into the hands of MA's political wing.

With the coming escalation, Bush seeks to divide and conquer the Shiite block...the so-called surge is but the first installment, down payment on the Wider War to come

This surge idea is piling insanity on top of insanity. It won't accomplish anything except more deaths. There's only one way to stop Bush. Cut off funding for Iraq except for the safe return of our troops. Congress can do this.

Tom

I noticed you didn't mention the "opposition" party. There are no limits to Bush's power because of the cowardice of the Congress. You can't expect generals or justices or heads of agencies to buck the Decider in the absence of political courage on the Hill.

If Bush is simply sending a few troops so he can ignore the Baker-Hamilton Commission and can avoid acknowledging defeat he needs to be stopped. It is indecent to continue with the half measures in incompentence that have only made the situation worse with each passing day.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I know it's cynical, but I don't think they mean much by the surge. They just mean to keep up a steady stream of promised changes. They used to do that with matters like voting, and they may have been hoping they could get another turning point by executing Saddam Hussein; it may be that his sudden execution comes from their realizing it wouldn't play with anyone, so no use holding it for a good time.

They played out the promise of Baker et al. for a couple of months, but they couldn't act on it. (It was contrary to plan, and it wouldn't have helped.) So now they're onto a new theme to float in the headlines, surge. Maybe they'll even find a way to extend a few troop stays and call it a surge by manipulating numbers for a month. (And no, that's not the Democratic party's fault, idealists, even if they were in office yet. Bush doesn't need authorization for such games.)

But you wait: come February, it'll be a new game for them to talk about to the media. The whole idea is to keep the games coming while Bush is in office, or at least until a party candidate is close to November 2008.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Among those who do not share Kagan's confidence in the escalation proposed in the op/ed piece is a guy named Fredrick Kagan:

In short, American soldiers and Marines can provide all of the essential services necessary to keep a defeated society functioning, to stave off humanitarian disasters, and to prevent the population from becoming resentful at the destruction of their lives and society and the collapse of order. They can establish the critical preconditions for a relatively smooth transfer of power from the defeated regime to the desired one — but only if they are there from the outset. The current Defense Department programs make it unlikely that they will be.

J. McCutchen

Hagel calls it an "Alice in Wonderland" strategy but I think there is more intentionality to it myself. Note the sequence here. Meets with that snake in the grass al-Hakim in the Oval Office then hands Saddam over to the Maliki/Sadr lynch mob at which the Sunnis go ballistic.

The McCain Escalation as John Edwards so aptly christened it is not intended to achieve peace and stability in Iraq but to bring increased instability. One good tilt deserves another and the next one goes to Hakim and the Sunnis ..they're going after Sadr.

This is divide and conquer at work. The objective is to divide the Shiites and neutralize if possible the influence of Iran. That's the plan anyway....The next step is to bomb Tehran. That's the strategy ...

Dan,

 Good, but I would like to add: don't assume (not that you do) that Republicans are in lockstep on the issue, either. Check it out:

President Bush and McCain, the front-runner for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, will have trouble finding support from more than 12 of the 49 Republican senators when pressing for a surge of 30,000 troops. "It's Alice in Wonderland," Sen. Chuck Hagel, second-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, told me in describing the proposal. "I'm absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly."

Full article here.

Best,
Ticia

"Consistency is the hob goblin of little minds",
no little mind that FK .

Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute? Arguably, AEI and flacks like Kagan have done more damage to this country than the CPUSA and KGB ever dreamed of.

Of course, Kagan and AEI aren't the real problem. The problem is policymakers who seize on AEI blather as a basis for specious arguments leading to an increase in their political power.

The "surge" propaganda is merely one more link in a string of simple-minded attempts to gain political maneuvering room. Of course, they're attempting to back the Democrats into a corner. This has been one of the right wing's primary objectives from day one of the Bush administration.

If congressional Democrats don't get off the dime and find a way to cut funding for this nonsense, the 2006 elections were completely in vain.

Thanks, I feel better now. Canadian immigration anyone?

"When Nixon was shown the door, a bi-partisan delegation of Hill leaders went to the White House, telling him it was all over."

No, the delegation that went to the WH to tell Nixon the state of things was by no means bi-partisian. The three members were, John Rhodes, Minority leader of the House which was then Democratic led, Senator Hugh Scott of PA, the then Minority Leader of the Senate, (and member of the Chowder and Marching Society), and Barry Goldwater who then held no leadership position, but delivered the statistics -- Nixon had perhaps 15 votes in the Senate, plus or minus a few, and Goldwater wasn't at all sure that support included his vote. They didn't ask him to resign or suggest any other avenue; They refused to be drawn into an argument about the evidence. They just delivered the plain truth, that his support had totally collapsed within his own party, and Barry Goldwater had drawn the straw that said, "You get to play Brutus." It was Al Haig who wrote the script, and met with the delegation before they went in to see Nixon.

Nixon's response was a short monologue about how Gandhi had done some of his best writing in prison. (An odd thought at such a time, no?)

Nixon told his family he would resign a few hours after this meeting -- Kissinger came for evening prayers in Nixon's study -- and the next day it was all set in motion.

I doubt that anybody is proposing to surrender the Sunni triangle to the jihadis and Baathists. Recent withdrawal from Anbar to Baghdad was a salutory reminder to Sunnis that this would not be pleasant for them. It was part of the pressure towards realignment of Sunni leadership abandoning the insurgency along with Saudi threats to back insurgency if US withdraws - a sharp reminder that the consequences of US withdrawal would not be restored Sunni domination as they hoped, but ethnic cleansing forcing Sunnis to leave Iraq or live squalidly in desert areas with no oil revenue under the protection of Saudis.

The proposals for escalation are clearly stated to be aimed at preventing militias from establishing Beirut like Green lines which is happening in the absence of adequate security forces. If Ellen believes the true intention is opposite to the stated intention she should provide an explanation. But simply assuming the opposite intention without explanation implies just not being interested in what the issues actually are.

The Lebanese civil war involved sects turning to foreigners for support against each other - particularly Israel and Syria (both of whom were encouraged to intervene by the US). With both unable to intervene now, Lebanon looks like being able to transition (bumpily) to a more representative government (including a major role for Hezbollah) without a resumption of civil war. Offering Syria a "role" would be inviting more strife in Lebanon rather than solving any in Iraq.

BTW its interesting to note that in the current political confrontation in Lebanon, where Sabra and Shatilla was baked into the cake, there are Maronite Christians previously allied to those directly responsible for Sabra and Shatilla on both sides. The Israelis have no collaborators available at all and neither side is calling for foreign intervention or civil war (though exchanging accusations of doing so).

Even with the US troops in Iraq primary orientation to "force protection" instead of actually providing security for Iraqis they still deter any of the neighbours from intervening and any of the sectarians from hoping for such intervention.

At least Ellen is being honest in admitting that advocating prompt withdrawal means "let them have at each other, now". But the flip remark should be expanded to "Let's embroil the Persian Gult and rest of the region in a war including at least Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey".

As an answer to "what's best for America." that seems counter-intuitive.

No argument has been presented as to why it is inevitable that will happen if the US withdraws after a viable political settlement has been reached or why it should be impossible to reach such a settlement when the only other alternative is inconclusive strife.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding a sarcastic remark.

"I say let them have at each other, now" is exactly what one might say sarcastically to advocates of prompt withdrawal.

It goes well as sarcasm along with the claim that more troops are proposed in order to turn Baghdad over to sectarian militias.

But its really hard to tell when an "argument" about Iraq is intended to be sarcastic given all the venting.

jex--

Do you have a source attributing that quote to Hagel? I've only seen it attributed to a senior Congressional Republican.

maintain our presence long enough either to root out the hiding enemy or to defeat him when he becomes impatient.

Time is on the insurgent's side, not the US's. Impatient, my foot.

A surge that lasted at least 18 months would achieve that aim.

Perhaps. But it would absolutely (and conveniently, Kagan) achieve the aim of enabling Bush to pass the buck.

Arthur, I replied to this below, but accidentally posted it as a separate comment instead of putting it in a reply thread.

The use of the word "surge" is to purposely make it look like something electric; a jolt. But don't surges also fry your electronics? The word that should be used is "escalate" over and over again.

"Loyalty to your country always; Loyalty to your government when it deserves it." Mark Twain

I doubt that anybody is proposing to surrender the Sunni triangle to the jihadis and Baathists. Recent withdrawal from Anbar to Baghdad was a salutory reminder to Sunnis that this would not be pleasant for them. It was part of the pressure towards realignment of Sunni leadership abandoning the insurgency along with Saudi threats to back insurgency if US withdraws - a sharp reminder that the consequences of US withdrawal would not be restored Sunni domination as they hoped, but ethnic cleansing forcing Sunnis to leave Iraq or live squalidly in desert areas with no oil revenue under the protection of Saudis.

I had trouble parsing this paragraph, Arthur. The US reminder to the Sunnis, if that's indeed what it was, pushes in a different direction than the Saudi threat. Correct? While US-supported or US-tolerated Shiite (including national army) action against Sunni communities might be designed to discourage Sunnis about their prospects in Iraq, the Saudi statement encourages them to believe that they can fight and win a civil war following a US withdrawal. (Clearly Prince Bandar and his coterie want us to stay in Iraq.)

My understanding is that much of the insurgency is made up of people who were once in the Iraqi military. That's where most of the army went when it was disbanded. They are confident of their fighting ability, militarily trained, mindful of their success in suppressing the Iraqi Shiites in the past, and now reasonably assured of receiving outside help from the Saudis, and probably other Sunni allies in the region. Some of those people are current or former Baathists and Saddamists, even if they don't always go under that name. I'm guessing they like their chances in a full-out civil war.

But many accounts also indicate that much of the insurgency has been Islamized, with domestic Salafist and jihadist groups taking a leading role - maybe even the leading role. Most of the insurgent groups with known names, and who issue manifestos, have avowedly Islamist goals. Such people tend to fight on through whatever means possible, without regard to the balance of power considerations that drive more pragmatic fighters. I sincerely doubt that the Sunni triangle could every be subdued by the Iraqi government or Shiite militias, and forced to submit to Shiite or central government authority, any more than it can be subdued by the US marines. Without a negotiation political solution, even if they don't win a civil war, they will fight on for a very long time - in the same way the Palestinians despite being outgunned.

So my guess is that Sunni triangle is in fact going to be run eventually by a governing coalition with very heavy representation, at least initially, from Islamists (not necessarily all eager jihadists) and current or former Baathists (though probably going by some other name). Who is left? Those are the organizations who seem to have all the power and sway in that part of Iraq. Perhaps this governing coalition will be folded into the current government. Perhaps it will stand apart from it somehow. But I can't see where else things could be realistically headed.

Outside Kurdish Iraq, I don't see much hope for secularism. The roots of that kind of thinking don't seem to be very deep in the country, and the organizations who back it are tiny. There is no People for the Iraqi Way. There are no equivalents of Harvard and Yale Universities, with roots sunk deep into the American liberal tradition, feeding the country with a steady stream of leaders dediucated to upholding that tradition. There is no venerated Bill of Rights. There are no Founding Fathers, who dominate the ancestral totem pole as icons of a revolutionary struggle for liberty and democracy. Secularism, such as it existed in Iraq, was established by Saddaam and the Baath, who were influenced by Western Socialism and Nationalism. They were modernizers, who ran a state that was somewhat "progressive" and not terribly religious by the standards of much of the Arab world at the time. Unfortunately, they also had a proclivity for gangster-like brutality.

Even before the war, Saddam was already losing the battle against Islamism in the Sunni Arab parts of the country, and had to grant them a series of concessions - including adding "God is Great" to the flag. And in the decade following the Gulf War, the US succeeded in weakening the Baathist Iraqi government, and its ability to govern recalcitrant parts of the country. Since the major Shiite social and resistance groups were Islamist, that added to the Islamist trend. Once the war blew away the Saddamist state, Islamist movements became the main players in two thirds of the country - although they have competing agendas. And many of the more secularly-minded and liberally-minded Iraqi have already left the country for more attractive climes.

Some of them try to convince us that there is still great promise for secular, liberal, western-style democracy in Iraq. But I've heard that song before form Ahmad Chalabi. He was supposed to be poised to assume control of Iraq, along with a "secular Shiite" coalition. But his actual power in Iraq rturned out to be quite small.

Responding to Dan K out of sequence:

As far as the Sunni Arabs go, their power is represented by the diverse groups making up the insurgency, and the insurgency is one big death squad.

The Sunni insurgency is still potent but is already staring at defeat. The jihadis engaged in mass murder of Shia civilians are following a strategy aimed at forcing the Sunni rejectionists as a whole to fight alongside the jihadis by provoking a civil war with Shia indiscriminately attacking Sunnis and so forcing Sunnis who were willing to compromise with the elected government to fight it instead.

That was a desperate strategy resulting from the Sunni insurgency running out of steam. It has worked to the extent of provoking Shia militia to start doing targeted assassinations to suppress jihadis, Baathists, fundamentalists and other Sunni insurgents and then moving on to untargeted ethnic cleansing of Sunnis as such to protect Shia areas from the threat of mass murder by jihadis sheltered by the Sunni population, including Shia death squad mass murder activity aimed at forcing Sunnis to move.

That results in a very grim situation in Iraq but it is certainly not a sign of strength in the Sunni insurgency. Nobody is worrying about whether Sunni insurgents might overun Baghdad. They are worrying about whether the Sunni population might get driven out of Iraq into Syria, and Jordan (an appallingly large number are already refugees). Neither the Iraqi government, the neighbours nor the Sunni rejectionists want that to happen so there is every basis for a political settlement.

As far as the Shiites go, the militias form the bulk of the actual power and taken together probably represent the majority of the Shiite population in Iraq. The only way to stop the death squads is to get these militias to clamp down on that kind of activity internally, and that means somehow neutralizing their motives for engaging in it. The motives aappear to be retribution and ethnic/sectarian cleansing.

Yes, only the Shia militias can clamp down internally on the death squads. No, the motives fot the Shia death squads is not retribution and ethnic cleansing. Those are appalling tactics resorted to as a result of failure by the Government and US forces to stop the mass murder of Shia by jihadis, That failure was due to the refusal of the Sunni insurgency to decisively break with the jihadis and deprive them of shelter within Sunni communities. The motive of the Shia death squads is to stop the mass murder of Shia by jihadis. The method is ethnic cleansing including mass murder of Sunnis.

This distinction is important. It is only the (numerically tiny) jihadis that are committed to mass murder. The wider Sunni insurgency and even its Baathist and Sunni fundamentalist components have little in common with the jihadi objectives but did nothing much to stop jihadi mass murder of Shia until faced with the consequences. The Shia death squads will stop when the mass murder of Shia stops.

The consequence of the jihadi success in provoking Shia death squads is not Sunnis uniting with the jihadis for an all out war against the "Persians" as they hoped. The insurgency is not "one big death squad" and many of the rejectionist Sunni tribalists (and some Baathists) are now abandoning hope of restoring social dominance by insurgency and facing the reality that they cannot win together with the jihadis and have to do something to stop the civil war the jihadis have been provoking or face being driven out of Iraq entirely.



It is hard to envision how that [a strong national unity government] can take place. It would require finding a "secular" component of the Iraqi leadership and Iraqi society that possesses sufficient strength to take on and defeat the militias that are involved directly in death squad activity, or affiliated with these death squads. It doesn't seem to me that there is any such component.

Even the Baathists have been draping themselves in Sunni fundamentalist rhetoric but the sectarian conflict is not actually much to do with religion. The Sunni tribalist and fundamentalist leaders have to be prepared to support the Iraqi government in taking on and defeating the jihadis to enable the Shia islamist parties to suppress the death squads. The non-Baathist secularists (eg Alawi's bloc) already support this but are not the main leadership in either the Sunni or Shia communities. The problem is not that either Sunni islamists or Shia islamists are determined to fight a religious war but that neither have been willing to do what is necessary to smash the elements within their own communities that are attacking the other.

That is what the realignment currently in progress is about. Its happening right now. Two of the main Shia islamist, not secularist parties, Daawa and SCIRI are already on board and are giving an ultimatum to the Sadrists.

Any sort of structural framework for political settlement in Iraq must begin with a recognition that the Iraqi government is inadequate as a forum within which to achieve that settlement. The Sunni Arabs are not part of that government, and will never join it - or at least they won't join it until after their interests have been guaranteed by some political settlement. So there is a need for some sort of talks inside Iraq among the major power groups, and outside the framework of the government, where Iraqis themselves can negotiate the future of the country.

Iraqis are negotiating the future of the country. Calls for "aggressive US diplomacy" and "involving the neighbours in stabilization" reflect the failure to grasp that only the Iraqi people can govern Iraq.

Although the Sunni population was still dominated by rejectionists at the last elections it did not boycott as it did in the previous elections but sent representatives into the Parliament where they form a hostile (as opposed to loyal) opposition with one foot in the Sunni insurgent camp (both Baathist and tribalist sections but not jihadis). The talks are already happening with concrete hammering out of deals concerning fair distribution of oil revenue by the national government rather than locally (since there is hardly any oil in Sunni areas) and allowing ex-Baathists back into government jobs etc.

What the "realists" both in the Baker Commission and the Sunni rejectionist camp are finally starting to understand is that the only structural framework for a political settlement must begin with recognition of the Iraqi government formed through democratic elections. The talks are precisely about the Sunni leadership joining the government.

These would have to be accompanied by the formation of some sort of working group of all major involved powers outside Iraq, and meetings of that group in parallel with the internal Iraqi talks. As part of the process of the internal Iraqi negotiations, one can expect Iraqis to ask for various kinds of agreements, assistance and assurances from outside parties, so those parties have to have a channel through which they can communicate publicly, and work together constructively. Creating such a working group will require a diplomatic effort that gets Iran and Syria into the same room with the US.

Rejectionist Sunnis have been holding out for the hope that "normality will be restored" by deals brokered by neighbouring Arab (Sunni) tyrannies. That hope is fading fast. Even the Baker Commission had to bow to the Iraqi government's position that the only involvement open to neighbours is in support of the elected Iraqi government. Both the government and the opposition have far better channels to neighbours as well as to each other than the US government ever will.

But outside powers cannot resolve the civil war themselves without concurrent internal negotiations, because unless these powers can get their natural allies inside Iraq to stop fighting, they will be drawn into the war.

The mere threat of US withdrawal and consequently getting dragged into a regional war has already concentrated the minds of neigbouring Sunni states to the point where Saudi Arabia has had to drop its rhetoric and publicly demand that the US stay. That is also Jordan and Syria's position. Iranian rhetoric remains unchanged but that is because Ahmadinejad is really into rhetoric (the regime hasn't got much else going for it with mass demonstrations already breaking out against it). With SCIRI calling for the US not to withdraw there really isn't much the Iranians can do to prevent the realignment that is taking place even if they genuinely want to. Sadr has already had to back off from his boycott of cabinet.

Given the fact that the surge is to be relatively small, and represented even by its backers as temporary, it is very unlikely this message will be received. If the idea is that the US must communicate some sort of eternal resolve to the Iraqis, it's not going to happen. Iraqis and everyone else can see what is happening in America, and it is obvious that our commitment to Iraq is very finite.

The "small temporary surge" is about as convincing as the pretence the war was about disarming Sadaam. I used the term escalation since that is what it actually is. We can at least agree that nothing said by the administration should be taken as anything but spin.

What you seem to have missed is the Baker Commission representing mainstream Democrats as well as Republicans consciously assisting the administration in that spin by unanimously agreeing that it could (ie would) support such a "small temporary surge". Not only many Iraqis but many Americans appear to be under the delusion that there is some American exit possible from Iraq other than the consolidation of the democratically elected Iraqi government or a major catastrophe for both the US and the whole region.

The mainstay of that illusion is based on the idea that the Democrats will force the Bush administration to withdraw. A freshly Democrat controlled Congress voting for an increase in the size of the US armed forces and an increase in the number of troops in Iraq will certainly puncture some illusions among peole posting at this web site and I dare say it will make an impression in Iraq too.

Many of the new members of Congress were elected on the basis of explicit campaign promises to force a drawdown and begin the process of wrapping up the war. There is some flecibility in their positions, but they do not include the option of escalation and re-committing to total victory.

Nobody ever explained what "total victory" meant. Congress only authorised the use of force on the pretext that it was a negotiating chip to help get the Security Council to threaten Sadaam so he would disarm. They never signed up for a war aimed at transforming the region to be run by popularly elected governments instead of the traditional tyrannies. The only victory ever possible in Iraq is a government freely chosen by Iraqis and therefore destabilizing to the whole tyranny infested swamp of a region. The only defeat possible is a catastrophic regional war.

The breast-beating rhetoric about the US being the only superpower and seeking "total victory" by spreading America's light to the rest of the world is now being replaced by more modest rhetoric about facing reality and avoiding catastrophe, But the only viable outcome is the same - consolidation of a freely elected (and therefore islamist and anti-American) government in Iraq (with obvious consequences for the rest of the region).

When the UN bargaining chip stuff became simply preposterous Congress was stuck with having voted to "disarm Sadaam". When the WMDs became preposterous they were stuck with the war aim being "democracy", but could still imagine that "democracy" was code for pro-American regimes. That is what most of the corporate liberal types supporting the war were going along with. They never contemplated a war actually aimed at allowing the people of reach country in the region to choose their own governments.

Since the elections in Iraq, the Palestinian National Authority and Lebanon it has become obvious that democracy is not code for pro-American regimes. The Baker Commission has already reframed the bipartisan consensus into one of accepting the new reality. The "realists" are stuck with the new reality which includes an elected government of Iraq that cannot be pushed aside.

Bush is one of the last to get this message. He is under the impression thatif he just continues to show resolve and unwavering commitment, eventually the tide will turn and the insurgency will "give up". Yet this is never going to happen. [See: Palestine]

Yes, see Palestine. Of course the Palestinians are never going to give up. It is the Israelis who have to give up on occupying them. Likewise the Iraqis are never going to give up. It is the Sunni rejectionist minority that is going to have to give up on restoring its social dominance. If you believe Bush's rhetoric you would believe he is more Zionist than the Democrats. If you look at the actual results you will find that there is now a majority of Israelis seriously willing to give up the West Bank, which simply did not exist under Clinton.

With unwavering commitment to free elections in Iraq even the "realists" of the Baker Commission have given up on restoring the old social order there. The government America is allied with in Iraq is led by the Daawa party that is roughly equivalent to Lebanon's Hezbollah, (with the same historical origins) and Hezbollah itself is now becoming a major part of the government of Lebanon and Hamas is already a major part of the government of the occupied territories (and Fateh is now treated as something like an American ally). There is no way Congress would ever have agreed in advance to such a foreign policy, but its a necessity given the actual consequences of the old policy and they are stuck with the results.

The Congress must make clear to Bush that we are at the beginning of the end of the US commitment of forces, that the money will dry up, and that he had better get to work immediately on an aggressive diplomatic campaign to salvage something and avert disaster.

This sounds like John Kerry's campaign proposal to call a meeting and tell other world leaders that America is ordering them to contribute troops to Iraq so America can pull out. Get over this "aggressive diplomatic campaign" stuff. The US is a declining superpower attempting to execute an orderly retreat from its previous policy of propping up tyranny in a region strategic to it. Nobody takes US orders any more.

You used the word "must" rather than "will". Would you agree with me that actually voting for an increase in the size of US armed forces and a "small temporary surge" in the commitment to Iraq would be a strong indication that Congress is not actually making clear to Bush what you would like them to make clear to Bush, regardless of any "signing statements" they may make while voting for the escalation?

If we are agreed about that, then let's see what happens.

My prediction is that the Democrat controlled Congress will authorize both an increase in the US armed forces and an increase in the troops in Iraq, whether you like it or not. If I'm wrong about that we'll know soon enough and you can say "I told you so".

Are you prepared to predict that Congress will in fact refuse the funds, despite the announcements by both Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi prior to the election, and despite the bipartisan Baker Commission having paved the way for the "small temporary surge"?

If so, "must" was an odd choice of words. Say "will" and acknowledge that I will be entitled to say "I told you so" if you turn out to be wrong about that.

The alternative to an orderly retreat protecting an elected government that is far from what the US foreign policy establishment would like to see governing Iraq is a disorderly rout from a region torn apart. That reality is why I do not believe Congress wil cut off the funds.

If you do believe they will cut off funds you need to spell out why the "realist" Baker Commission was wrong in predicting catastrophe in the event of prompt withdrawal.

Demanding that Congress "must make clear" that "the money will dry up" is symptomatic of the dilemma Democrats now face. You no longer have the option to keep waffling in the same manner as when in the minority. Saying the "money will dry up" is waffle. You have to vote up or down on authorizing the funds or refusing them. Those are the choices.

Do you believe that Bush will spare Congress from having to make the choice? Are you confident enough that Congress will make the choice you want to say "will" instead of "must"?

If so, are you confident that you really understand what's going on in Iraq and the region well enough to take responsibility for precipitating what the bipartisan Baker Commission unanimously declares would be a catastrophe. If so, what makes you think the DLC types share your confidence?

The mobilization has in this case not been in the form of street protests or "direct action", but been a word-of-mouth and word-of-blog campaign that has utilized setbacks in Iraq to wear down the wars supporters, to eviscerate their arguments, to transform public opinion and as a result to pull the carpet of political support out from under the Congress.

True enough. The "realist" opposition didn't just fade away. But the difference between what is required to mobilize street protests to block a government determined to wage war and what is required for the establishment to undermind a government by convincing "opinion leaders" is that the former requires a better understanding of politics than is required for going along with establishment consensus.

The political support for invading Iraq that existed before was largely based on either believing lies about WMDs and "disarming Sadaam" or believing lies about democracy understood as a code word for pro-American regimes. Those arguments were absurd so eviscerating them did not require getting to grips with what's actually happening but merely "utilized setbacks in Iraq to wear down the wars supporters".

So now realists find themselves in a position to vote to cut off funds and so force a prompt withdrawal. But in the time it took to get there, the old order in Iraq has been irretrievably smashed to the point where the "realist" traditional foreign policy establishment can no longer pretend it could be restored.

There was negligible support in the US foreign policy establishment for a policy of replacing traditional Arab tyrannies with freely elected (and therefore islamist and anti-American) governments before. There was almost complete unanimity in the foreign policy establishment that suppressing the Baath party and its armed forces and holding free elections was an unbelievably stupid mistake that contradicted any hope of establishing the sort of "moderate Arab allies" the US and Israel have in countries like Jordan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Confusion remains rampant but even the "realists" know they are stuck with it now and know that the US quite simply doesn't have the option of preferring a catastrophic regional war to helping consolidate a freely elected democratic government in Iraq.

This incidentally has a lot of parallels to the American civil war. The republican President then never admitted the aim was anything but restoration of the Union including slavery in the South, until it had become obvious to all that the Union could not be saved without the abolition of slavery in the South as well as the North.

If you think the current mess in Iraq is bad, think about what the explosion would have been like after another decade of the "realist" policies that as Clinton's CIA Director, James Woolsey said brought the US "shame, disdain and September 11".

The jihadis you see operating in Iraq were bred in "moderate Arab allies" like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There is no long term solution other than modernity with freely elected governments for the whole region.

If it isn't yet obvious to all that freely elected governments are viable in Iraq and the rest of the region, it is already obvious enough that the alternative is catastrophe. The "setbacks in Iraq" are an illustration of that, not a refutation.

Sorry, yes that paragraph was rather impenetrable.

My view is that things are pretty grim for Sunnis in Anbar where the jihadis have been allowed to flourish and it isn't the sort of future for Sunnis in Iraq that the rejectionists were aspiring to (no development, negligible income and fanatics running amok).

My view is that Saudi Arabia demanding that the US not withdraw and warning that if the US withdraws then the Saudis would be obliged to protect the Sunnis from being massacred by the Shia isn't very encouraging for the rejectionists either.

Hence I was suggesting that both these developments encourage realignment of the Sunni leadership to abandon the insurgency and join a national unity government. That was just a (poorly expressed) throw away remark about those two developments, not a position I could argue in depth.

The Sunni rejectionists were under the delusion that the old order (improved by getting rid of Sadaam) could be restored by their intransigence. Whether my interpretation of those two specific events is correct or not I think it is clear that dream is fading.

I broadly agree with your understanding of the Sunni insurgency - but in the past tense. The Baathists were confident that they could defeat Shia rabble. The Shia are no longer a rabble. They have an army and have learned to fight. The Baathists no longer have tanks, helicopter gunships, poison gas etc and have not been doing too well without them.

Secular Pan-Arab nationalism was always a cover for (secular) Sunni supremacism and especially so for Baathists. Like Sadaam himself the Baathists have been dressing up as Sunni islamists. Genuine Sunni islamists are also a significant force (overwhelmingly Hanafi, not Salafi). Neither Baathists nor Hanafi islamists are jihadis.

Jihadis are taking the leading (more or less exclusive) role in mass murder of Shia civilians but not in the wider insurgency resisting the Iraqi government forces and its US allies. The wider insurgency is basically tribal, not religious though flying religious colours (cf "Loyalists" and "Nationalists" in Northern Ireland).

I sincerely doubt that the Sunni triangle could ever be subdued by the Iraqi government or Shiite militias, and forced to submit to Shiite or central government authority, any more than it can be subdued by the US marines. Without a negotiation political solution, even if they don't win a civil war, they will fight on for a very long time - in the same way the Palestinians despite being outgunned.

So my guess is that Sunni triangle is in fact going to be run eventually by a governing coalition with very heavy representation, at least initially, from Islamists (not necessarily all eager jihadists) and current or former Baathists (though probably going by some other name). Who is left? Those are the organizations who seem to have all the power and sway in that part of Iraq. Perhaps this governing coalition will be folded into the current government. Perhaps it will stand apart from it somehow. But I can't see where else things could be realistically headed.

Again I broadly agree, except that there is no question of any jihadis joining in such provincial coalitions. The point you are missing is that the Sunni insurgency is not about Sunni provincial authorities in the Sunni triangle (which most Shia have no objection to) but about restoring Sunni domination over Iraq as a whole. They will be able to freely elect whatever provincial authorities they choose once they abandon their attempt to restore their domination over the majority. But abandoning that also implies permitting other political forces to develop among the Sunnis so they won't have all the power and sway in even the provinces where they dominate the provincial governments once they are forced to abandon the insurgency and accept the legitimacy of the national government in Baghdad. Think "red states" and "blue states".

An odd feature of the referendum on the Constitution is that the Sunni rejectionists were adamantly opposed to federalism because they still had the delusion that "normalacy" of Sunni rule over the whole of Iraq would be restored.

Iraq had the strongest secular party in the whole Middle East in the 1950s, with a million participating in May Day parades in Baghdad until the Iraqi Communist Party was crushed by the fascist Baath party (with US support).

Both British and American democracy were products of revolutions led by Puritans, not liberal secularists.

The Shia islamist parties now governing Iraq are closer to the intransigent religious fundamentalist of the Puritans than to say the islamist party now governing Turkey. But like Hamas and Hezbollah they are quite prepared to participate in democratic coalition governments with secularists in a modernizing society rather than seeking to prevent that like the secular Baathists and Salafi jihadis or the clericalist regime in Iran.

They are even willing to be allied with the Bush administration so they must be a lot more ideologically flexible than some Democrats ;-)

Remember that America is not at war with either islam or islamists and that America cannot impose "Western style" governments anywhere. America is at war with jihadis and so are the islamist parties now governing Iraq.

It was fascinating to see Howard Dean demanding that Congress refuse to hear the elected Prime Minister of Iraq speak because he refused to toe the Israeli line on Lebanon. Liberal Democrats could learn a lot about tolerance from some of these islamists!

Even before the war, Saddam was already losing the battle against Islamism in the Sunni Arab parts of the country, and had to grant them a series of concessions - including adding "God is Great" to the flag.

It wasn't a matter of Sadaam making concessions to Islamism but of appealing to Sunni tribalist and chauvinist sentiment to strengthen his regime against the majority of the Iraqi people.

There is far more freedom for both secular and religious parties to operate in Iraq than in the rest of the region.

I think there is great hope for modern secular democracy to emerge in Iraq. It has not emerged in countries like Egypt or Jordan where allegedly more liberal, secular and "Western" people justify their tyranny on the grounds that the people they rule are not sufficiently liberal, secular and Western to be entitled to choose their own government. Nor can it emerge without the overthrow of such governments.

This was always the pretext for tyranny. American liberals are somewhat notorious for their defence of allegedly "liberal" autocrats against their own people. Give it up. Democracy does not mean governments acceptable to American liberals.

"There is lots of evidence that the engaged parties have had enough."

Swell, we can leave now.

The American Revolution was led by Puritans? Or did you mean without the English Revolution there would have been no American Revolution?

The American Founders were not only horrified by the religious conflict in England during their revoluton, but were aware that the non-Conformists fled England because they were unwilling to follow the Anglican Rites which they thought too Catholic. However, the large group of the American Revolutionary and Contitution writing Founders were often Deists not Puritans.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I am not convinced that the anti-Shia element of the Sunni can be so neatly identified as made up of only Jihadists. I keep getting these images of Baath army gunships mowing down blocks of Shia "rebels" after Gulf War I. I am also not sure whether the Shia militias will stop their rampage once they feel "safe" from death squads. There has been a lot of snuffing out of “collaborators” since the fall of the regime. But the whole of your argument is a compelling description of the political incentives to lay down arms.

While I follow most of your accounts of the ISG report as the intervention of the “realists”, I don’t think their position is adequately represented when you say:

As for proposals, the Commission appeared to be advocating a military force posture of drawing down as the Iraqis step up - with some reinforcement of training etc to help Iraqis step up. That sounds like "stay the course" to me.

What the "realists" both in the Baker Commission and the Sunni rejectionist camp are finally starting to understand is that the only structural framework for a political settlement must begin with recognition of the Iraqi government formed through democratic elections. The talks are precisely about the Sunni leadership joining the government.

1. I certainly agree with you that the Baathists are enthusiastic about massacring Shia (and Kurdish) opponents. I only meant to suggest that the jihadis were unique in just trying to blow up as many random Shia civilians as possible to provoke attacks on Sunnis rather than killing suspected opponents to cow opponents into submission like the Baathists.

2. Yes, my brief characterization of the ISG report was a vast oversimplification.

My more considered oversimplification can be found here. I wrote that just before it was released and have not changed my view after having actually read it ;-)

I'm not sure what recommendations you are referring to as a more radical departure in actual policy. To me the key points are still as I predicted then and have more to do with declaratory policy than with actual policy:

There will be no timetable for withdrawal, no coherent exit strategy and no coherent strategy for victory. Instead the aim will be to assist the majority of Democrats to shift from a defeatist orientation while maintaining maximum obscurity in US declaratory policy.

Declaratory policy needs to threaten the Sunnis with "unleashing the Shia", threaten the Shia with prospects of the US pulling out if they don't accommodate the Sunnis, and sustain the illusion that Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is a blow against Iran and not a victory for the Palestinians.
...

Following the report, my expectation is that popular nostrums such as splitting Iraq into 3, installing a dictator or abandoning Iraq to be torn apart in civil war and regional war will fade from the mainstream discourse as people realize that there is now an accepted bipartisan consensus that none of these proposals are remotely plausible as US policies, even though there is no clarity as to just what the new bipartisan policy actually implies.

I also expect that there will soon be quite rapid movement on establishing a Palestinian State based on the 1967 boundaries with opposition to this thoroughly marginalized and support for it bipartisan.

It remains to be seen, but I have the impression that people here who say that Congress "must" stop the war tend to be a lot less confident that Congress "will" cut off funding than they were just before the report was released.

I also have the impression that there used to be more voices here claiming that withdrawing would actually improve the situation in Iraq, while now the claim is merely that any disasterous result of withdrawing would eventually happen anyway.

The current mess dates from the Al Askari Mosque bombing last February. Arthur Dent

Actually, the "current mess dates from" 1258 when, as the Sunni claim, Ibn al-Alqami, the Shia visier, sold out the Sunna caliph in favor of the Mongols who then, sacked Baghdad. See, Saddam's birthday message of April 28, 2003.

"values," queer weddings, "violent" video games, and "burning flags."

Outside of "queer weddings" I agree that we should be talking about the other three. I am guessing you are against family values, pro violent video games for kids and pro flag burning?

Hey, it got your attention.  Seriously, thanks for the correction.  I will try to update the numbers, when I can, but, today, the number 3000 US soldiers killed in Iraq was reported by many mainstream news sources. That seems salient.

BTW, I believe that the soldiers' website, Appeal for Redress, just got started a few weeks ago.  According to Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, the initial success of Appeal for Redress is unprecedented, coming from an all-volunteer military. 

Their website  is:  http://www.appealforredress.org/

"Despise not the day of small beginnings."

Best, Ticia

i`m retired with 27 years in the usn,i don`t like flag burning, but i don`t see where i can tell someone what to do with their flag.this is the very problem that haunts us,telling others what they can and cannot do.by the way if one wants to retire their flag,its done by burning it.

Actually I didn't intend to imply that the administration would simply reject the report. My point was that its framed to help Democrats who have been primarily oriented towards undermining the Bush administration and consequently so hostile that they appear to actually welcome setbacks and ultimately defeat, to shift towards some kind of "bipartisan" position (with Bush having to eat humble pie to enable that).

Any such bipartisan position must inevitably be incoherent, but policy incoherence and even complete cognitive dissonance is hardly a new development in this war.

Media analysis hostile to Bush keeps emphasizing that the report called for combat troops to be withdrawn by early 2008 and that Bush intends to directly repudiate that by "surging" (escalating).

I don't know how Bush will handle it, but the actual text of the report seems designed to enable avoiding confrontation about this. It explicitly recommends against deadlines, talks about unforseen circumstances and explicitly paves the way for a "small temporary surge". It even recommends accepting a substantially higher casualty rate by embedding US troops in Iraqi combat units.

That combination provides a path by which Democrats can end up voting for a stronger commitment with less overwhelming oreientation to "force protection", increased troop levels and funding as well as enlarged US forces generally and thus become committed to achieving some goals rather than merely increasing pressure for withdrawal.

The main impact of the report is to spell out that prompt withdrawal would be catastrophic and thus shift the whole discussion towards how to avoid catastrophe rather than how to withdraw.

On the "diplomatic" side, the report does seem to set the scene for a head on confrontation by emphasizing talking to Iran and Syria so that Condi's "skepticism" appears as a direct rejection. But even there the preconditions and basis for such talks seem to be designed to make them pointless for Iran and Syria rather than to embarass the administration and public perceptions are more likely to focus on the administrations gracious acceptance of the Democrats joining in a bipartisan policy to actually get Israel out of the West Bank and a Palestinian State established.

It doesn't seem to be generally appreciated but both the Sunni tribal insurgency and the Baathists, Sunni islamists and jihadis frame their fight to dominate the Shia in the context of a historic struggle of either "the (pan-) Arab nation" or (Sunni) Islam against the hated Safavid Dynasty (Persian Empire), ie Iran.

In recommending reconciliation with Iran, the Baker Commission was very dramatically arousing the worst fears of the Sunni rejectionists -corresponding to my point that:

Declaratory policy needs to threaten the Sunnis with "unleashing the Shia"

The actual transfer of operational control over Iraqi forces to the Iraqi government is rather more important in that direction than this proposed diplomatic posture, which I suspect could create difficulties with the adaptation of Israeli public opinion (they need Iran as an enemy instead of the Palestinians while withdrawing from the West Bank).

The two extracts you quoted express what I meant by:

Declaratory policy needs to ... threaten the Shia with prospects of the US pulling out if they don't accommodate the Sunnis

The combination of these two threats is of course quite incoherent, but the report manages to obscure that, skilfully sending different messages to US, Sunni and Shia audiences.

In saying that it is about "declaratory" policy I am certainly suggesting it is "political posturing", but that is not dismissive.

Discussion of actual policy in conducting a war is generally tightly confined within the executive government. Since the legislature has no direct control over either military command or foreign policy it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which its debates would be about anything other than declaratory policy, ie political posturing.

Political posturing is especially important in dealing with the problem of a collapse in public support for a war and enabling an opposition to move away from defeatism.

As for the detailed recommendations for Iraqi government policies and constitutional changes, I'm not familiar enough with what's going on to be sure but I didn't notice any sharp conflict with what the administration is already pushing. The offensively arrogant tone as though the US gets to decide Iraqi policy issues has been noted by both Shia and Kurdish leaders in Iraq, but is hardly avoidable in a document addressed to a US public opinion that still hasn't internalized the fact that the US isn't in charge of Iraq but merely an influential player.

PS Apologies to Dan K and Ellen but I won't be able to do a response to their comments immediately. I should mention though that I take Dan's point about an "inner sanctum of masters who have it all planned out". My comments above probably reinforce that impression but its more a matter of having to state things crudely than being unaware that there are conflicting forces, that there is no way to be certain about many things I am expressing opinions on etc etc.

I don't like flag burning either. That makes two of us.

Ticia,

I wouldn't thank GHaines for anything. Read some of his other posts.

Tom

thank you,i tend to be a libertarian democrat.