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The Surge 'Helped' -- it didn't 'Work' - or We'd be Out of Iraq by Now
John McCain’s assertion that the violence is down in Iraq because of the ‘surge’ of troops that was sent there is a typical political maneuver by the Republican Party.
It’s like their repeated assertions over the years that President Ronald Reagan’s speech in West Berlin 21 years ago, asking Mr. Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall” – was the pivoting point for stopping the cold war and the fall of communism.
President Reagan said that day, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
The reality is, there were many contributing factors to why the cold war ended; President Carter, President Reagan and the Congress’s during those years, increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on the Soviet Union to name a few things.
Pope John Paul II helped provide a moral focus for anti-communism; a visit to his native Poland in 1979 stimulated a religious and nationalist upsurge that galvanized opposition.
One example of such a move by the U.S., with the background of a buildup in tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, and the deployment of Soviet missiles targeting Western Europe, NATO decided, under the impetus of the Carter presidency, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe. This deployment would have placed missiles just 10 minutes' striking distance from Moscow. Yet support for the deployment was wavering and many doubted whether the push for deployment could be sustained. But in 1983, the Soviet Union shot down a Korean Air Lines Flight, with 269 people aboard when it violated Soviet airspace just past the west coast of Sakhalin Island—an act which Reagan characterized as a "massacre". This act galvanized support for the deployment, which Reagan oversaw and stood in place until the later accords between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Gorbachev himself, when he took power, redirected the country's resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more profitable areas in the civilian sector.
In other words folks, there were many reasons the Soviet Union fell apart and the Cold War ended. While a brilliant political move it was, President Reagan’s speech alone, did not stop the Cold War. Just as the build up of troops, called the ‘surge’, into Iraq, while helpful, is not the only reason that violence dropped (note: violence hasn’t stopped and our generals on the ground say the situation there remains fragile).
There were other contributing factors to drop of violence in Iraq, such as the ‘Awakening’ group of over 100,000 Iraqis being paid $300 per month by the U.S. to protect their own neighborhoods.
Now Senator McCain is saying, after a surge timeline gaffe, that what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "made up of a number of components." McCain says some components of the surge began before Bush ordered more U.S. troops into Iraq.
McCain is now claiming credit for the ‘Awakening’ idea? TPM: Hmmm. McCain is crediting the success of the surge to strategic components that didn't involve the actual increase in troops? Sounds a bit like he's undermining the troops, doesn't it?
Senator McCain’s claim that Senator Barack Obama is denying the ‘surge’ worked – is simply a lie. Senator Obama has said on many occasions that the ‘surge’ helped to stop the violence in Iraq. As recently as July 22nd he said the following, “he was pleased with the reduction of violence in Iraq since the deployment of more U.S. troops, but said it was a result of several factors, not just the surge. I am pleased that as a consequence of great effort by our troops — but also as a consequence of a shift in allegiances among the Sunni tribal leaders, as well as the decision of the Sadr militias to stand down — that we've seen a quelling of violence”
Lastly, if the ‘surge’ worked as Senator McCain keeps saying – why then are we still there? If you repair a leak on your roof, you ‘fixed’ it - right? Why would you stay on the roof after fixing it? Are you going to stay up there to wait for rain and another leak?
The 'surge' helped, it didn't work - or we'd be leaving immediately.
Comments (2)
I like to use yardsticks to quantify points. The yardstick here is the level of violence and the timing of the shift in that level and the events happening at the time of the shift.
When you overlay all of these things it is crystal clear that the event that most closely aligned with the sudden, dramatic decrease in violence was not the surge but the ceasefire announced by al Sadr. That ceasefire remains in effect today. What we don't know is what impact, if any, the surge may have had on al Sadr making that declaration.
And, let's not forget the role of Iran. They want the US out of Iraq in the worst way. Perhaps they concluded that the only way to remove the US combat forces from Iraq was to bring down the level of violence. We know that al Sadr has spent considerable time in Iran. Perhaps it was their joint judgement to call for a ceasefire. I find it unlikely that the surge had much bearing on how Iran has evolved its policy regarding Iraq.
The Sunni Awakening Councils are undoubted the second most important reason for the decrease in violence in Iraq. When these councils turned against the small al Qaeda in Iraq operation it brought down sharply the violence in Anbar and other Sunni areas.
That means that the surge was really a distant third in importance for the improved security situation in Iraq.
July 25, 2008 8:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
The proximate cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Empire from 1989-1991 was collapse in world oil prices in 1985-86 (not Star Wars spending as the Reaganauts like to claim). Though economically rotten by the early 1970s, the Soviets were bailed out by the oil price surge 1974-85. The Soviet Union sold large quantities of oil at low prices to the Comecon countries during this period.
When, in 1989, East Germans began emigrating to the West through Czechoslovakia, the Czechs didn't stop them, the Soviets had no non-military threat, and Gorbachev didn't re-invade. (Gorbachev's current stock in Russia is low because he didn't get any quid pro quo, but history will regard him as a pivotal hero.)
July 25, 2008 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
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