Has Maliki Launched the Tet Offensive?
It's very hard to obtain an understandable picture of the fighting in Iraq. But it's possible that Maliki has brought about a kind of self-inflicted Tet Offensive. Even if the American-backed Maliki-led government establishes some sort of order in Basra, Baghdad and other cities, the battles of the last week must have shaken the American media into a recognition that there's no peace at hand in Iraq, and certainly no widespread support for the Maliki government.
When I was at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington a few weeks ago, I was struck by the reporters'
eagerness to apologize, in self-mocking song, to President Bush for doubting the success of the reinforcements dubbed the surge. As on so many other major topics in the last decade, the reporters got it wrong again. Paying Sunnis not to engage in violent activity was never going to fix what was wrong with the Maliki government or pacify the Sadrists. That expensive and dangerous tactic was not going to bring Iran to the table where ultimately we have to work out some arrangement that produces order in Iraq.
And in Maliki's offensive against his co-religionists we can see that the Sunni mercenaries are of no use. Nor are Maliki's own forces much more helpful to the creation of order.
It is order in Iraq that America needs first and foremost. Behind that must come economic growth, and in particular a healthy, pumping oil industry needs to come into being. The battle against violence in Iraq cannot go well until these precondition are established. And there's not likely to be order in Iraq without a compact with Iran.
Maliki meanwhile appears to have proved that that the Bush Administration, not for the first time, fooled the reporters about the situation in Iraq. Still, perhaps the reporters will fall again for the Republican pipe dream. It could happen again this fall, perhaps by a weak-willed acceptance of the sunny tales about Iraq that John McCain is offering.
Yet it is possible that, as with the Tet offensive 40 years ago, no matter who wins a tactical victory in the current Iraqi fighting, the media may conclude that the war in Iraq is not going well at all. If that is the case, and if the reporting follows that line through November, John McCain probably cannot be elected, regardless of whether Clinton or Obama is the opponent.
America doesn't need order in Iraq. America needs to get out of Iraq. America needs healthcare, education, and to rebuild our infrastructure at home.
March 30, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed.
The key question, to me, is not "what will happen if we get out of Iraq" but rather "what will happen when we get out of Iraq". It's either "get out" (someday) or occupy the country forever (as McCain apparently proposes), and the latter is clearly unworkable. So, we must get out someday. Is it better to stay in for another two, five, fifty, or 500 years? Or is it better to get out ASAP? There will be big problems if we leave now. There will be big problems if we leave in five, fifty, or even 500 years. Won't they be just as big then? If not, why not?
The other thing that strikes me as so utterly asinine about the entire thing is how Bush will say, out of one side of his mouth, how the Iraq front in the "war on terra" is so crucially important; then, out of the other side of his mouth, he says "so therefore every American should just go on exactly as before". Either it's crucial, and we should have a massive money-raising effort (taxes and war bonds and so on) to increase both troops and support-for-troops; or it's unimportant and we should have "business as usual". It cannot possibly be both.
March 30, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
The media may conclude? What other conclusion is there.
Reed, you're the first major voice I've seen actually recognize how the fighting in Basra isn't just an outbreak of violence but is, in fact, proof that our entire strategy hasn't worked.
Thanks for this.
March 30, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
"When I was at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington a few weeks ago, I was struck by the reporters'
eagerness to apologize, in self-mocking song, to President Bush for doubting the success of the reinforcements dubbed the surge."
I consider reporters who do this type of thing such as David Gregory's rap with Karl Rove in 2007 a disgrace to the press, the USA, and the human race. Alternatively, gutsy people such as Stephen Colbert in 2007 are heroes.
March 30, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
A large percentage of Americans have an almost unlimited ability to imagine the world is as they wish it were, and they fervently wish we were the saviors of Iraq, working with a democratically elected government for the betterment of all Iraqis. They equally fervently want to believe that Americans are fighting for our freedom in Iraq and have to "win" or we lose our freedom.
Given the above I hope we don't relax and start applying for all of those government jobs that will change hands when Obama is president.
March 30, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
In defense of pundits, one of the NYT columisnts wrote the other day that the Iraq War is going to cost a family of 5 $50,000. Sheesh, I think you could buy quite a nice flat screen for the family for that!
March 30, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see.
We have relative peace in anbar because we are paying the local Sunnis not to fight anyone except the insurgents trying to cause more war to break out. Out troops are tied down there maintain that relative stability. So we're preventing Sunni Shia civil war there.
Juan Cole (or was it Cernig?) says that Mosul has been a constant battle for two or more months.
The Turks are shelling the Kurds. They'd be invading if we weren't there. We allowed the recent short invasion because the Turks were trying to make a point to the Kurds about attacking Turks in Turkey.
Now we have a Civil War in Basra between two different Shia militias (one masquerading as the national army of Iraq.) But the attack by Maliki's forces failed, at least in part because there weren't enough of them. So the U.S. essentially took over the fighting as Maliki's troops held the outside perimeter. So U.S. Troops are now involved taking sides in a civil war between two rival Shiite factions. Sadr City in Baghdad as now blown up and we Americans are now attacking Mahdi Army troops there.
Essentially the U.S. military has taken on the status of barbarian mercenaries fighting for whichever faction of that dissolving country can convince our leaders to order the troops out.
Our conservative leaders invaded Iraq to present the Middle Eastern nations with an example of "Shock and Awe" according to Don Rumsfeld.
When the plan to invade, install Chalabi as President-for-Life and get out collaped because the Iraqis wouldn't have anything to to with Leader Chalabi, Bush sent Jerry Bremer and his Heritage Institute Kiddy Corps to apply conservative free market-small government principles at the barrel of our guns and create an economic paradise for the rest of the Middle East to emulate, hopefully causing populations to overthrow dictators and set up similar free-market paradises.
Oops. That didn't work either.
Now the only remaining reason for continuing the fool's errand that is Bush's War is so that he doesn't have to admit that the invasion and occupation failed. If America still has troops in Iraq in February, 2009 Bush and the Republicans will scream "The Democrats pulled out the troops! THEY lost Iraq!!"
And Maliki, realizing that the U.S. is going to quite wasting troops in Iraq within a year, attacked his main rival in Basra with inadequate troops so that the Americans would have to be seen as supporting his side in his takeover attempt in what is now a failing Iraqi government. Without U.S. troops to back up his government, al Sadr is probably the most powerful Shia warlord in that fractionated remainder of what was a nation before Bush decided to make and example of them and invade.
We.need.out.of.Iraq
The invasion was itself idiocy. The occupation was incompetent idiocy, for which the final blame belongs to the poorest excuse for a President American has ever suffered with, George Bush. And he doesn't even have the competence to recognize his idiocy and clean up the mess he made by himself.
As for Iraq, an Army MP once told me how you clear up a nasty traffic jam where no one can move and the MP cannot clear it up himself. The MP at that location should pick out one vehicle, go over there and chat with the driver while ignoring the traffic jam. The rest of the drivers will think that the MP is chewing out the driver he is talking to, but since nothing else is happening, they will surprisingly quickly and on their own disentangle the mess and leave the scene.
That's the solution for the U.S. and the mess in Iraq. The Iraqis will each be trying to use the U.S. troops to gain advantage as long as we are there, and the mess will remain intractable. We need to get out and leave it to them to sort out.
March 30, 2008 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Richardxx
Your MP solution to the traffic jam would probably work.
Bush's solution would be to call in an air strike.
April 1, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see.
We have relative peace in anbar because we are paying the local Sunnis not to fight anyone except the insurgents trying to cause more war to break out. Out troops are tied down there maintain that relative stability. So we're preventing Sunni Shia civil war there.
Juan Cole (or was it Cernig?) says that Mosul has been a constant battle for two or more months.
The Turks are shelling the Kurds. They'd be invading if we weren't there. We allowed the recent short invasion because the Turks were trying to make a point to the Kurds about attacking Turks in Turkey.
Now we have a Civil War in Basra between two different Shia militias (one masquerading as the national army of Iraq.) But the attack by Maliki's forces failed, at least in part because there weren't enough of them. So the U.S. essentially took over the fighting as Maliki's troops held the outside perimeter. So U.S. Troops are now involved taking sides in a civil war between two rival Shiite factions. Sadr City in Baghdad as now blown up and we Americans are now attacking Mahdi Army troops there.
Essentially the U.S. military has taken on the status of barbarian mercenaries fighting for whichever faction of that dissolving country can convince our leaders to order the troops out.
Our conservative leaders invaded Iraq to present the Middle Eastern nations with an example of "Shock and Awe" according to Don Rumsfeld.
When the plan to invade, install Chalabi as President-for-Life and get out collaped because the Iraqis wouldn't have anything to to with Leader Chalabi, Bush sent Jerry Bremer and his Heritage Institute Kiddy Corps to apply conservative free market-small government principles at the barrel of our guns and create an economic paradise for the rest of the Middle East to emulate, hopefully causing populations to overthrow dictators and set up similar free-market paradises.
Oops. That didn't work either.
Now the only remaining reason for continuing the fool's errand that is Bush's War is so that he doesn't have to admit that the invasion and occupation failed. If America still has troops in Iraq in February, 2009 Bush and the Republicans will scream "The Democrats pulled out the troops! THEY lost Iraq!!"
And Maliki, realizing that the U.S. is going to quite wasting troops in Iraq within a year, attacked his main rival in Basra with inadequate troops so that the Americans would have to be seen as supporting his side in his takeover attempt in what is now a failing Iraqi government. Without U.S. troops to back up his government, al Sadr is probably the most powerful Shia warlord in that fractionated remainder of what was a nation before Bush decided to make and example of them and invade.
We.need.out.of.Iraq
The invasion was itself idiocy. The occupation was incompetent idiocy, for which the final blame belongs to the poorest excuse for a President American has ever suffered with, George Bush. And he doesn't even have the competence to recognize his idiocy and clean up the mess he made by himself.
As for Iraq, an Army MP once told me how you clear up a nasty traffic jam where no one can move and the MP cannot clear it up himself. The MP at that location should pick out one vehicle, go over there and chat with the driver while ignoring the traffic jam. The rest of the drivers will think that the MP is chewing out the driver he is talking to, but since nothing else is happening, they will surprisingly quickly and on their own disentangle the mess and leave the scene.
That's the solution for the U.S. and the mess in Iraq. The Iraqis will each be trying to use the U.S. troops to gain advantage as long as we are there, and the mess will remain intractable. We need to get out and leave it to them to sort out.
March 30, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yet, George W. Bush is 'joyous', and has said Laura too is happy.
March 30, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought of the 1968 Tet attacks, but unfortunately, unlike Vietnam, there is not a competent government with whom we are fighting. When we finally threw in the towel in Vietnam, the Vietnamese had a coherent entity, the NVA and Ho Chi Minh, to put things in order. As unpleasant and brutal as that was for some Vietnamese, it did mean an end to the fighting and a return of security. People could go back to raising families and the like.
If Iraq is lucky they may get to Lebanon's level of security. More likely it will be like Afghanistan. We have to hope it doesn't become Somalia. What it won't be is Vietnam.
March 30, 2008 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sadr aspires to be the Iraqi version of Lebanon's Nasrallah while a deliberately nuetered Iraq Army is to ape the Lebanese version.
He claims his forces have no heavy weapons. That's nice, isn't it?
Sadr is playing chess.
...and KBR is building a messhall for 4,000 Marines in Basra.
March 30, 2008 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
The NVA was effectively destroyed in Tet, and the survivors were ignored by the North Vietnamese. So the North Vietnamese were all that was left. But you are right. The quickly took control of the situation as soon as they could get the logistics in place and replace the evacuating Americans.
But those are details. You are correct that "... the Vietnamese had a coherent entity, the NVA and Ho Chi Minh, to put things in order."
December 2, 2008 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bush sent Jerry Bremer and his Heritage Institute Kiddy Corps to apply conservative free market-small government principles at the barrel of our guns and create an economic paradise
Specifically, a Libertarian Paradise.
That didn't work either.
I dunno, Iraq seems like a pretty spot-on Libertarian Paradise to me. :-)
March 30, 2008 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The media may conclude" sounds a tad optimistic. They haven't so far after seeing one failure after another these past 5 years. It seems fairly clear that Maliki suffered a serious defeat this last week. But note the CNN headline -- " Al-Sadr calls off fighting, orders compliance with Iraqi security". I can see the Washington spinners and their MSN lackeys turning this into a victory for the surge.
March 30, 2008 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
ReedHunt said:
"Even if the American-backed Maliki-led government establishes some sort of order in Basra, Baghdad and other cities...."
When it comes to the kind of situation our military finds itself in in IRAQ, establishing some sort of order will always occur, but it will always be temporary.
March 30, 2008 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
If only you were right about McCain not being able to win if the country realizes the truth about the war.
In 1972 we were negiotiating surrender in Cambodia and Vietnam while simultaneously carpet bombing much of their countryside (and thus the key infrastructure in agrarian societies) into oblivion.
The country knew the war was going badly and knew that Nixon had sacrificed our brave soldiers so that he could surrender without appearing to have lost the war (our first lost according to a revisionist history that claims we didn't really lose the 2nd or 3rd Seminole wars, the war of 1812 or the war to supress independence in the Phillipines). Kissinger's final hopes in the last days of negotiation was that their would be a decent interval before the inevitable happened.
How then did Nixon win in the biggest landslide in modern history? We nominated someone from the far left of the party, someone untested, that few of us knew much about. I don't think Obama win lose as bad as McGovern did, but it will be close.
And that's a damn shame because he would be a great president.
How then did Nixon win
March 30, 2008 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
McGovern lost because Americans will never vote for someone they believe will raise taxes. This is a country where tax cuts can go on every year, year after year, with no ill effect on the country. Our individual tax loads are so high they dwarf the tax load of a typical European country citizen. Why most of us would be wealthy beyond our imagination if it were not for taxes. And, for sure we would all have trophy wives and husbands. Plus our children would be obedient, would be in line for a NBA basketball payers salary after their athletic scholarship enables them to earn a doctorate in 4 years, and....they would each marry Miss America. Yes, we just can't accept any president who isn't up to speed on taxes.
March 30, 2008 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Got a surplus? Cut taxes, we charged the people too much.
Got a deficit? Cut taxes, that will raise revenue for the Government!
John: "Boss, I want a pay cut."
Boss: "A pay cut, why?"
John: "So I can get a raise."
March 31, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
What else; racial politics.
March 30, 2008 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
[I] I was struck by the reporters' eagerness to apologize, in self-mocking song, to President Bush for doubting the success of the reinforcements dubbed the surge.[/I}
Oh. My. God.
Every once in a while, I see the curtain peeled back and get a glimpse of what's wrong with the press, and my jaw drops. It answers one of the long held questions of mine: are journalists getting played, or playing dumb? Apparently, there's no acting involved.
Journalists honestly thought we were winning until this week?
March 31, 2008 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reed Hundt has his Vietnam anologies seriously confused. Essentially, the current Maliki bad-puppet-dependency in Iraq has launched a type of "Operation Lam Son 719" (which occurred between 8 February and 25 March, 1971). Wikipedia has all the details. A more astute commentor (Gregg Gordon) on Juan Cole's "Informed Comment writes:
"Well, so much for Vietnamization. This is starting to look like the biggest military debacle since Thieu invaded Laos. The only question seems to be whether the [Iraqi]government can hold on to even half its troops, or whether the majority will end up going over to the Sadrists."
As a victim/veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-1972), I can well remember the farcical operation in question, with banner headlines and photos back in the U.S. showing terrified, fleeing South Vietnamese (i.e., Maliki-equivalent-Nguyen-Van-Thieu) conscripts hanging desperately to American helicopter skids as they hauled ass from the severe thumping the NVA gave them (supported by us) in Laos.
Not to worry, though. As with the aftermath of Tet 1968, the aftermath of Lam Son (almost 4 years later) showed that the American press will swallow any propaganda bullshit handed out at our military's fabled "Five O'Clock Follies." A week after the current humiliation in Iraq ends, John McBomb and You-Know-Her will be kissing General Petraeus's ass-kissing ass and claiming that the tipping point will soon turn the corner and begin connecting the dots on the inkstained flypaper dominoes in the tunnel at the end of the light. (Have I missed any of the standard quagmire cliches here?)
As George Orwell said long ago: "Political and military commentators can survive any disaster, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts, but for the stimulation of their nationalistic loyalties." Look for the same old nationalistic-loyalty-stimulating to completely smother any real reporting on Iraq -- if not America as well -- real soon now. Because, as the really with-it press insiders love to assure us untutored peasants: the "maverick" John McBomb and the "experienced" You-Know-Her really have this "foreign policy" shit down to a "science."
As we said back in the day while Vietnamizing the Vietnamese (i.e., Yellowing the Corpses): "We are the unwilling led by the unqualified to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful," because "we're here because we're here because we're here because we're here" to "kill a Commie for Christ" and "a Gook for God" because if we counter-insurgency types "grab them by the balls, then their hearts and minds will follow." Et cetera, et cetera.
Vietnam had one-and-only-one simple lesson to teach America: "Don't do it again." Naturally, our ticket-punching career military lifers wanted no part of learning any such lesson. They couldn't wait to do it again. So they've done it again: screwing pooches and fucking up soup sandwiches like crazy. Too bad for all the dead enlisted men and junior officers. (And something about those "Iraqis" comes to mind, but I can't quite figure out what ...)
Gereral Petraeus ought to have his ass-kissing little ass fired. But he'll probably get another Peter-Principle promotion. Hell, he's gotten THREE of them out of Iraq already -- and he's never once ever FINISHED anything.
John McBomb and You-Know-Her hope they'll get a Peter-Principle "percussive sublimation (i.e., a "kicking upstairs"), too. "Fuck up and move up" has certainly returned with a vengeance, taking us from the Best and the Brightest to the Worst and the Dullest in a single generation. See what plane-crashers marrying young heiresses along with grade-inflation and white-debutante-affirmative-action in expensive private finishing schools can offer formerly first-world countries in the way of "alternatives"?
I don't blame Reed Hundt, though, for not understanding America's War on Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). Every single damn Vietnam Veteran in Congress also forgot the greatest national trauma of our generation. Most Americans don't even know about America's failed experience intervening in China after WWII: the "bad proxy-puppet syndrome" that set the pattern America still hasn't broken out of sixty years later.
Oh, well, back to our regularly scheduled nationalistic loyalty stimulation.... I understand that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have another royal crock of shit to sell us in only about a week or two. Remember: You heard it here first, fellow Crimestoppers. Decreasing violence means we have to stay in Iraq. Increasing violence means we have to stay in Iraq. Budget surplusses require tax cuts for the wealtiest Americans. Budget deficits require tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. John McBomb and You-Know-Her really have this "foreign" and "fiscal/monetary" policy shit figured out better than anyone else who doesn't really "love" America. Honest injun. As Jack Paar used to say on the original Tonight show: "I kid you not."
March 31, 2008 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
See what plane-crashers marrying young heiresses . . . .
Oh, my goodness! You mean he's not the Great American Hero after all?
March 31, 2008 6:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
A serious question: Was Maliki really the decider?
I have no evidence to support this, and some evidence against: the statements by US military that they were taken by surprise at how early the Iraqi army and police launched their offensive.
But given the general ramping up of recent violence, and given McCain's trip to the ME, it sure would be convenient for Petraeus and Bush to be able to demonstrate that the surge has worked, and that a limited drawdown can continue, by a convincing victory over Muqtada al-Sadr's forces. Did the US egg Maliki on, and are they now hanging him out to dry because of his failure?
March 31, 2008 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink