So, it's not "the surge"?
Despite all the claims of success by the administration, the reduction of violence in Iraq and shift among the Iraqi Sunnis towards working with the US has only been possible because of the relative stand down of the Shia militias towards the Sunnis.
As this article points out, Shia violence dropped precipitously after the incident around the Shia pilgrimage in Kerbala in August after which Sadr issued the stand down orders for the Mahdi army.
Remember how the beginning of "the surge" was so violent and then, suddenly in the fall, things started to improve? Well, that "turning point" was the Mahdi stand down.
It is essential for the Bush presidency to claim success for "the surge" before he passes Iraq to the next president. This will allow his defenders to say, "We had gotten Iraq under control. It was the next president who messed it up."
Whereas "the surge" was originally sold as a means of creating a temporary drop in violence to allow "breathing space" for the Iraqi government to enact political change, the goals have now obviously shifted. Most of the current policies, like empowering the Sunni militias or allowing the Kirkuk referendum to slide, are aimed at putting off the core conflicts for the next presidency.
After all, Iraq was stable when he left, right? "The surge" worked.
The Iranian government has decided "at the most senior levels" to rein in the violent Shiite militias it supports in Iraq, a move reflected in a sharp decrease in sophisticated roadside bomb attacks over the past several months, according to (Ryan Crocker) the State Department's top official on Iraq.
As this article points out, Shia violence dropped precipitously after the incident around the Shia pilgrimage in Kerbala in August after which Sadr issued the stand down orders for the Mahdi army.
Remember how the beginning of "the surge" was so violent and then, suddenly in the fall, things started to improve? Well, that "turning point" was the Mahdi stand down.
It is essential for the Bush presidency to claim success for "the surge" before he passes Iraq to the next president. This will allow his defenders to say, "We had gotten Iraq under control. It was the next president who messed it up."
Whereas "the surge" was originally sold as a means of creating a temporary drop in violence to allow "breathing space" for the Iraqi government to enact political change, the goals have now obviously shifted. Most of the current policies, like empowering the Sunni militias or allowing the Kirkuk referendum to slide, are aimed at putting off the core conflicts for the next presidency.
After all, Iraq was stable when he left, right? "The surge" worked.
posted by mikevotes at
8:34 AM
13 Comments:
Isn't it basically a question of showing the American people that 'we're winning'? It has bi-partisan appeal.
By
Anonymous, at 11:16 AM
Right. It's about producing marketable results, not real results, all aimed at the US audience.
This administration wasn't lying when they used to say that they thought the greatest impediment to "winning" was a growing US opinion to end the war.
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mikevotes, at 1:54 PM
Eventually all fantasies end in the cold rush of reality. I'm not sure when that will happen with Americans. However, the human and financial costs of his war, stagnating personal economies, a sense of disconnectedness from our own governance, seem to be to be increasingly entering the American consciousness. I wonder where we'll be in 5-10 years if we continue on a path of unreasoned actions based on demagoguery and blind ideology?
By
-epm, at 2:55 PM
The subtext since Petraeus' September report has been "if you want the troops to come home, then start talking up the success". Improvement on the ground is what will allow us to withdraw the surge troops, so we will only be left with the numbers that the public thought was too high before the surge.
Apparently what Bush planned all along was a humanitarian crisis with the militias in charge of the country, and with Iran as the king-maker. Mission accomplished.
About 60% (as of the Nov. Gallup poll) of the public thinks going into Iraq was a mistake. It will be hard, if not impossible, for the Republicans to spin any future disasters in Iraq as the next president's fault with numbers like those. Iraq is firmly entrenched in the public's mind as Bush's blunder, with the Democrats only taking the blame for not ending it sooner.
Of course, Republicans will try to spin it in their favour, just like they have done with VietNam. They still think it's 1994 and that everyone believes everything they say.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 3:31 PM
I don't think Bush planned anything. He listened to people who told him Iraq would be a liberated democracy in a week....two weeks at the most.
By
Anonymous, at 3:45 PM
EPM, The costs have come in to consciousness, but it's the sense of the "benefits" that will shape the political debate. If the belief is that we're "winning," then people will be more willing to accept the costs.
....
Todd, I agree with anonymous.
I think Bush really believed the conmen who told him Iraq would be a quick and easy war. I think he was so caught up in the dynamics of his post-9/11 experience (good vs. evil and all that) and filled with an unbased ego from the outpouring of nationalism, that he really believed that he was near infallible and that this war would really change the middle east. (which of course it did.)
(Very little has been written about the impact of the 9/11 attack on Bush's psyche, and I don't know how you write that, but it did change him. It gave him a moral backstop for all of his previously latent tendencies.)
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mikevotes, at 4:24 PM
Oh, and yeah, they are still arguing Vietnam, and, interestingly, the further we get from it, the more successfully they are able o press their argument.
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mikevotes, at 4:25 PM
"Apparently what Bush planned all along was a humanitarian crisis with the militias in charge of the country, and with Iran as the king-maker. Mission accomplished."
Actually, this was sarcasm. He went in with unlimited optimism and prepared for only the best-case scenario. He went in with an extremely simplistic grasp of the Middle East that consisted of "good guys" and "bad guys". If we only would take out the bad guys, the good guys would come out on top, at least in his mind. You contend he was conned into thinking would be a simple task. I say he really believed it would be a simple task, he planned for a simple task, and this created a disaster. He's the Decider, after all.
The point is that it will be difficult to sell the current situation as anything similar to his vision of a prosperous, stable democracy that is an ally in the War On Terror. The goals of the occupation have shifted constantly, and each time Bush has said the revised goals are what he "planned all along". Therefore...see the quote at the beginning of my comment.
WRT to the VietNam issue, perhaps in 30 years Iraq will be spun as a success that was denied Bush by the Democrats. It's more likely that it will be pointed to as the cause of our bankruptcy, however.
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Todd Dugdale , at 11:58 PM
Sorry. I don't read sarcasm well. I never can tell.
And I definitely agree with the last statement. Iraq is a classic "end of empire" war. It may not be the final peg, but it's typical of the overextension.
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mikevotes, at 7:08 AM
Sorry todd, I missed the sarcasm too.
I think what Iraq shows is the limits of military force. That kind of empire building is dead. Perhaps China is the new economic model.
By
Anonymous, at 7:18 AM
Mike. I'm afraid that deluding ourselves into believing there is some benefit and thus "accepting the costs" merely perpetuates the delusion of American infallibility and further clouds any reasoned reflection that would result in "hey, that was stupid. let's do actually think about this..."
Are we collectively so weak and childlike that we -- as a people -- are incapably of seeing our own flaws? Are we condemned to live in an emotionally stunted nation that MUST see itself as ALWAYS right, ALWAYS winning, and ALWAYS the idol of the rest of the world? I hope not. But I'm beginning to believe it will take a collapse of civil order before we "get it." Much like how that junky and drunk sometimes have to hit bottom before the can bring themselves back up.
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-epm, at 10:16 AM
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that's the way the plitics are working out. Also unstated in that evaluation is the inexactness of the cost/benefit estimates. What's the real cost, what's the real benefit. Our decision making is based on the assumption that our evaluations are right.
To answer the questions in your second paragraph, YES.
We have a cultural construct in which questioning Imperial dominance is unthinkable (or at least "unAmerican.")
And I'm pretty firmly we won't see civil disorder of any scale. We have been propagandized so hard that only a small percentage of "jammers" have the wherewithal to step outside.
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mikevotes, at 1:17 PM
Just for clarity, I understood you were describing a point of view and not expressing your personal sentiments. I'm not very good at making that clear in my replies.
By
-epm, at 2:09 PM
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