Top UK Gen says get out of Iraq - fast

[Kirkhill]

And another plus to you Mark.

Here's an interesting "what if" though.

How might Iraq have gone if the US had left its heavies at home? 

Suppose, that like Afghanistan, Iraq had been strategically inaccessible to massed heavy forces.  To get the job done the US would have been forced to work with local forces (Kurds, Shiites, Seculars, Royalists...) and create an internal alliance.  They had footholds. Kurdistan and Basra were no fly zones and there were bases in Kuwait and Kurdistan as well as Jordan and Saudi.  As we have seen the deserts and borders are hard to secure against infiltration.  They had a criminal element that could be bought.  They had access to strategic air power.  The ability to fly in light and special forces and support them.  They even had a couple of options for a government in exile like Karzai.  It would have taken time and perhaps not been as newsworthy as the massive invasion but perhaps newsworthiness isn't all its cracked up to be.

If Afghanistan is winnable because of a relatively light footprint (compared to Iraq) and an invitation from a local, would Iraq have worked better? Wouild it be a successful Iranian strategy?

I know that is not what we are now, and we may never be able to get back there.

People aren't complaining about too much effort in Afghanistan, they are complaining about too little.

Is a strategy similar to Afghanistan more workable/acceptable? 

Heavy air power.
Special Forces as spotters and trainers to support indigenous forces in the take-down phase
One Division, perhaps two on the ground with some international involvement - primarily to keep local militias in line.
Special Forces as Trainers and on Secondment to the Afghan National Government to build the security forces, including local militias.
Logistical support
Financial aid.

And let them decide whether they want a majlis, a loya jirga or capital punishment (against some contracted pre-existing conditions for initial support)

The issue is to make the other guy go away so that another local can step in.  Not to put yourself in the face of the locals.  IMHO.

The Americans, (Brits, Canadians and Aussies) for that matter have demonstrated that they are willing to spend some money and some lives (volunteers that want to be there) in pursuit of "noble" goals.  They apparently have their limits however.

 

[tomahawk6]

I have to agree that perhaps the time has come for the Brits to leave Iraq. The pro-Iranian militias pretty much run Basra and the central government cannot allow that situation to continue. I dont see where the Brits have the will to do what needs to be done in Iraq. Perhaps I am wrong.

The Brits want to blame the US for perceived failures which are entirely unfair and myopic. The coalition success in taking down Saddam's forces was historic. The occupation of Iraq transitioning to an elected government is also phenominal. We have had to create a police force [twice] and train up an Army all in only 3 years. How long did it take us to do the same in Germany or Japan ? Some pundits have criticised the decision not to use the existing police and army. They ignore the fact that the police and army were sunni dominated which was the whole point of the invasion. If we want a represenative government then the new army and police need to reflect that new reality.

Arguing whether Iraq was necessary is a waste of time and effort. The reality is that we are there and making big progress. Most of the Iraqi provinces are calm. The problem areas remain the Sunni Triangle and the Basra region. When we killed Zarqawi most of the Sunni insurgents were ready to make a deal with the government. It was then that the Iranians told their Iraqi proxies to go after the Sunni's which has caused the sectarian violence we now see. Even Sadr according to reports see that this violence is counter productive and needs to be stopped. The problem is that the radical political leadership may have lost control of the militias.

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

I have to agree that perhaps the time has come for the Brits to leave Iraq. The pro-Iranian militias pretty much run Basra and the central government cannot allow that situation to continue. I dont see where the Brits have the will to do what needs to be done in Iraq. Perhaps I am wrong.

General Dannatt has raised some pertinent strategic questions and these are strategic issues, only remotely connected with your perception of British success or failure tactically in Basra.  However, I suspect you're quite right, but perhaps not for the reasons you mention.  I can't speak (at all) to the situation in Basra or this or that militia.  However, I suspect that the "lack of will" stems from (1) a lack of a sense of British strategic interest in Iraq; (2) a lack of a sense of partnership in Bush's "coalition"; and (3) the pervading sense that Iraq is - and always has been - the wrong battlefront.

If you have an Army that has the widespread feeling that its government was lured into Iraq under false pretenses (which I believe it was), that the tactics pursued by its major Ally have been wrong-headed from the start (and especially immediately post-invasion), and that the "real" fight is elsewhere (all the while watching the "real" fight sapped of resources by the Iraqi adventure), a lack of will is sure to result.

I'll state it pointblank.  I believe that Iraq has been a significant disaster for the West, that the policies purused by the US immediately after the successful invasion were almost entirely counterproductive - and continue to be - and that the adventure has diverted resources from the actual foe.  The US has lacked political finesse in dealing with the Iraqi situation and we are continuing to pay a strategic price as a result.  These are the issues that are driving the Brits' questioning of the mission and I find it hard to disagree.

 

[tomahawk6]

I disagree completely. Afghanistan was merely the first campaign in the war on terror. Iraq being the second.
If the Brits have no strategic interest in Iraq they shouldnt have gone in in the first place. Bush didnt tell Blair join us in this invasion and we will give you X. Blair joined because he saw that it was important to stand with the US. Canada took a different road. The problem with arrse is if you read it too long you wonder why the Brits even need an Army as the only overseas posting should be in Cyprus [great beaches] or Europe [great beer and skiing]. Frankly with that viewpoint the US might as well go it alone or leave the world to its own devices. I am tired of the hand wringing and carping.

 

[Infanteer]

The coalition success in taking down Saddam's forces was historic. The occupation of Iraq transitioning to an elected government is also phenominal. We have had to create a police force [twice] and train up an Army all in only 3 years. How long did it take us to do the same in Germany or Japan ? Some pundits have criticised the decision not to use the existing police and army. They ignore the fact that the police and army were sunni dominated which was the whole point of the invasion. If we want a represenative government then the new army and police need to reflect that new reality.

It doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater.  The fact remains that the insurgency was able to spiral out of control due to a lack of the most basic services for the Iraqi people that the Army and the Ba'ath party provided.  Does the fact that the Army was heavily Sunni mean you disenfranchise 300,000 of them?

Arguing whether Iraq was necessary is a waste of time and effort.

Well, I think it is valid in trying to put the General's statements in context.  You are right in pointing out that we the collective West are there and that we need to bring things to a close on acceptable terms - however, a realistic look at our past performance and future opportunities should lead us to potential solutions, especially when a thriving, pro-Western stable democracy that the Neocons envisioned doesn't seem to be in the cards.

The reality is that we are there and making big progress. Most of the Iraqi provinces are calm.

Really?  I remember Abu over at LF saying more and more of the country was No-Go.  As well, casualties have remained at a constant 2 - 2.5 men every day while attacks have escalated IIRC.  Do the metrics not seem to indicate to you that the insurgency is still chugging away?  How does that relate to a notion of progress?  And WRT to progress in Iraq and how it relates to the global situation:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/Declassified_NIE_Key_Judgments_092606.pdf

Progress?  You state that Iraq is the second front on the war on terror, but is it a front of our own making?  As I highlighted above, the Bush Administration's rationale rested on three legs: terrorist links between Saddam and the global Salafists like Al Qaeda, WMD, and throwing out a dictator.  The first was never seriously considered from the start, the second was proven to be false and the third has been squandered by poor occupation.  What is the rationale now, and does it serve any utility to the general campaign against militant Islam?  I have no doubt that the offensive in Afghanistan is directly linked to Iraq and it's instability - suicide bombers and IEDs were relatively unheard of before 2004-2005; now they are the main offensive weapons of the enemy there.  Any advantage of throwing AQ out of Afghan was surrendered.  Things like these lead to my skepticism.

 

[tomahawk6]

Not sure where you get your information from regarding reconstruction efforts.This is very much under reported by the media. Under Saddam electricity was not a 24/7 event and rare outside Baghdad. You dont wave a magic wand and presto a new power plant is born. It takes years. Here are some examples of reconstruction projects.

http://www.grd.usace.army.mil/news/releases/recon040606.html

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/may2006/a050806ms1.html

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/apr2006/a041006ms2.html

http://www.grd.usace.army.mil/news/releases/recon040306.html

Feel free to browse other projects.

http://www.grd.usace.army.mil/news/releases/recon040306.html

http://www.dvidshub.net/index.php?script=pubs/pubs_show.php&id=10&name=Eye%20on%20Iraq

It doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater.  The fact remains that the insurgency was able to spiral out of control due to a lack of the most basic services for the Iraqi people that the Army and the Ba'ath party provided.  Does the fact that the Army was heavily Sunni mean you disenfranchise 300,000 of them?

Former soldiers of Saddam's army were able to apply for the new Iraqi Army.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-18-iraqi-army_x.htm

 

[Edward Campbell]

I wonder how so many of us got it so wrong.  By ‘it’ I mean the invasion of Iraq.

My own mea culpas first:

• I believed, quite firmly, that Saddam Hussein did have WMDs.  It seemed nonsensical to me that someone with all those resources – and he (his regime) did get rich on the oil for food programme, and all those big, bad enemies could do anything but develop (or buy) chemical weapons and the means to mate them to missiles and try to develop and mate nuclear weapons, too.

It seems I was quite wrong.  Hussein either played a great game of bluff – convincing many (most?) intelligence services that he really did have such a programme or those intelligence service and Saddam Hussein were fooled by a bunch of Iraqi scientists and bureaucrats who pretended to be developing WMDs but who, really, lacked the skills and resources for the task.

• I believed that toppling Hussein would lead to some civil unrest but, at bottom, the Iraqis – and all peoples, regardless of race, colour, creed, etc – want the same sort of thing we do: peace, prosperity, democracy, rule of law, etc.  The fairly sophisticated, secular Iraqi people would, therefore, elect a new government which would help spread democracy throughout the region.

I don’t think I was 100% wrong, but …

1. It is clear that sectarian divisions are far more powerful than I imagined.  It may be true that the Sunni and Shia leaders are using (abusing) their followers - the ones doing the killing and dying – for their own ends but the fact is that millions of ordinary Iraqis are willing to kill and die for their beliefs.  It’s hard, maybe impossible to have rational political discourse when irrational religious beliefs get in the way, and

2. Although I still believe it is true that all people are pretty much alike in wanting to decide, for themselves, how they shall organize their own societies and what form of government they shall institute amongst themselves, for themselves, I am coming to the conclusion that liberal democracy can only spring from liberal, liberally enlightened societies.  Similarly I conclude that conservatively enlightened societies (East Asian societies, for example) will develop conservative democratic systems, such as we find in Singapore.  It appears to me that Arab/Islamic societies will institute forms of government which conform to their own cultural norms – thus, in a free and fair election Egyptians will vote for the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, Algerians will vote for another wing of the same group, and so on.

• I believed that the White House/Pentagon policy making and planning apparatus was balanced between radical reformers like Paul Wolfowitz (a man I admire greatly for both his intellect and accomplishments) and much more conservative career civil servants.

It appears that I misunderstand the balancing which does exist in the US government.  The civil service appears to be much more deferential to the wishes of the governing party than is the case in Westminster style democracies such as exist in Canada.  It also appears that I misunderstood the nature of cabinet management of issues in the Bush administration and, therefore, I overestimated the influence of e.g. Colin Powell.

It appears, now, that Stephen Harper, Tony Blair and, probably, John Howard shared similar misapprehensions.

I am pretty certain that had Stephen Harper been PM of Canada in 2003 we (you, actually, I’m waaaay too old) would have been fighting in Iraq, today; had I been PM that would certainly have been the case.  Even though I could not make a good, or even a so-so case for Iraq being a vital strategic issue for Canada I would have declared that solidarity with the USA is just that and, on that basis, I would have committed troops.  I have a hunch that was at the centre of Blair and Howard’s reasoning – not 100% of it, but the main, central issue.

Having suggested that ‘we’ (Blair, Bush, Harper, Howard, etc) were wrong then the question is: what now?

I think Gen, Dannett is right: tell the Iraqis they are free and independent now; give ‘em a few billion dollars in cash and arms and withdraw.  Get on with the war on barbarism which is being fought in Afghanistan, for the moment, and may spill over into Pakistan and then flare up, equally dangerously, in Indonesia and, even worse, in Malaysia and Thailand.

The Taliban and their diverse allies in Afghanistan* are the most important enemy right now.  We must send a message to all Islamists (that word again – with my normal caveats about it) that they will not be allowed to subvert sovereign governments and turn them into landlords for enemy terrorist bases.  Securing Afghanistan for the friendly and legitimate Karzai government is a key step.  Once the government’s hold on the country is reasonably firm we should withdraw – Afghanistan for the Afghans.

Notwithstanding the noble aim of spreading liberal democracy to Arabia and the Middle East we must acknowledge that it is not our right, much less our duty to tell other people how to govern themselves.  Let us content ourselves with giving people the peace and security which will allow them to decide, for themselves, what forms of government are best for them. We may not like the outcome; we should understand or learn how to deal with it.

We need to affirm, for ourselves, for all our citizens, regardless of race, colour, creed, etc, and for the world the great purposes of the modern, secular, capitalist, liberal, law abiding, democratic West.  We need to propagandize, even proselytize for those great beliefs so that Canadians and Australians, Indians, Americans and Brits and so on will all understand why, sometimes, it is necessary to fight to defend those great purposes and beliefs.

We need to rebuild the Western Alliances to affirm some of those same great beliefs.  We must make all democrats our friends and limit our support for tyrants.  We need not, should not seek enemies but we need to be careful in selecting our friends because, once selected, they are entitled to our support – with blood and treasure.

The key alliance – the Anglosphere should be informal, unwritten and un-ratified but firm all the same.  It should include America, Australia, Britain, Canada, India, New Zealand and Singapore, to start.  Fiji, Jamaica and Malaysia should be cadet members.  NATO and a Pacific equivalent need to be rebuilt as hemispheric military alliances – secured by American strength – willing and able do the United Nations’ bidding in their hemispheric areas of influence.

For Canada, specifically, we need to:

• Affirm our national values to the nation and the world;

• Affirm our position as a charter member of the Anglosphere – paradoxically that means increasing our (and especially Québec’s) position in the seriously funny and useless Francophonie;

• Affirm our position as a leading middle power; and

• Rebuild our armed forces and our foreign service so that we can put muscle, money and mouth in motion in the world community – to protect and promote our own interests.

---------

* I am convinced that there is more to the enemy in Afghanistan than just the Taliban and I am equally convinced that not all of the Taliban are armed revolutionaries. 

 

[Infanteer]

It seems I was quite wrong.  Hussein either played a great game of bluff – convincing many (most?) intelligence services that he really did have such a programme or those intelligence service and Saddam Hussein were fooled by a bunch of Iraqi scientists and bureaucrats who pretended to be developing WMDs but who, really, lacked the skills and resources for the task.

Saddam was playing a great bluff - Trainor and Gordon's look into US investigations and debriefings of top Ba'athist officials and generals confirms this.  They pointed out that many Iraqi generals were surprised when, in the middle of the US "march up" to Baghdad, he revealed to his top Generals that he didn't have any WMD's to lob at the Americans.  The indication is that he was playing this charade to spread confusion among Western policy makers (which he succeeded in doing) but, more importantly, to keep the Shi'ites in line.

In fact, the evidence suggests that Hussein knew that once the Americans rolled over the sandberms on the Kuwaiti border that it was all over.  In knowing so, he planned the insurgency far in advance of any US spear-rattling.  As Malcolm Nance points out over at LF (the link also contains good excerpts from his upcoming book).

http://lightfighter.net/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5131022531/m/1211092552?r=5081092552#5081092552

Originally posted by Abu Buckwheat:

When did the insurgency start in Iraq? Prior to OIF forces crossing the LOD.

Chris is right ... the preplanning for the insurgency started in July 2002 at the Baath party level and went operational in September 2002 when the Saddam Fedayeen held an insurgency officers course for between 1,000 - 2,000 select party loyalist Sunni officers from the Amry and intelligence community.   Saddam hinted at it in a December 2002 conference, the rest is history.

It would only be later that the Ba'athist Fedayeen would be displaced as the prime movers of the insurgency by the hardcore Qu'ran-thumpers (this Frontline documentary gives interesting perspectives into this aspect of the Insurgency).

I believed that toppling Hussein would lead to some civil unrest but, at bottom, the Iraqis – and all peoples, regardless of race, colour, creed, etc – want the same sort of thing we do: peace, prosperity, democracy, rule of law, etc.  The fairly sophisticated, secular Iraqi people would, therefore, elect a new government which would help spread democracy throughout the region.

I don’t think I was 100% wrong, but …

1. It is clear that sectarian divisions are far more powerful than I imagined.

I remember reading a statement somewhere by a top American general who stated that the US strategy underestimated the strength of the tribal societies within Iraq.  Actions which a secular people may view as acceptable in rebuilding a state were infact counterproductive in tribal Iraqi society.  I wish I could remember where I read that.

Of course, the global situation and the general discourse of the "War on Terror" made it easier for outside forces to crank up their PR machine and convince the Iraqis that the West was in reality a consortium of zionist-crusaders bent on destroying Islam.  That didn't help our cause at all.

I believed that the White House/Pentagon policy making and planning apparatus was balanced between radical reformers like Paul Wolfowitz (a man I admire greatly for both his intellect and accomplishments) and much more conservative career civil servants.

It appears that I misunderstand the balancing which does exist in the US government.  The civil service appears to be much more deferential to the wishes of the governing party than is the case in Westminster style democracies such as exist in Canada.  It also appears that I misunderstood the nature of cabinet management of issues in the Bush administration and, therefore, I overestimated the influence of e.g. Colin Powell.

I admire him as I admire Chretien or Trudeau - he may be a smart political player but I still think he's a dunderhead.  At this point, I believe President Bush, who I see to be a genuine and sincere man, was simply (as the Economist pointed out) out of his league.  Guys like Wolfowitz, whom I like to describe as aggressive-Wilsonians with the conviction that inside every A-rab is an American waiting to get out, where able to bring the President into their world view and bludgeon out more pragmatic thinkers like Powell (read about how these guys fought against the State Department and handled the execution of the CPA).  The myopic fixation on Iraq seems almost obsessive - immediately after 9/11, despite the fact that we knew exactly where bin Laden was and who was hosting him, they were pointing to Iraq and the need to take Saddam down (although he had nothing to do with it).   You can see this in the writing of political commentators like Kagan and Krauthammer; that Pax Americana and its absolute military and economic preponderance will be a panacea for all the world's downtrodden and that nothing will be able to resist its progress.  It's interesting going through all my pre-9/11 Poli Sci readings....

* I am convinced that there is more to the enemy in Afghanistan than just the Taliban and I am equally convinced that not all of the Taliban are armed revolutionaries.

AFAIK, you are correct - I've always understood that there was 3 main forces opposing us in Afghanistan.

1)  There is the remnents of the Taliban and their Pashtun allies (apparently headquartered in Quetta) who still hold Mullah Mohammed Omar as Emir.

2)  Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the chief warlords from the anti-Soviet Jihad (who recieved the lions share of the funding from the ISI) who heads his Hizb-i-Islami and, after being evicted from Iran, joined forces with AQ.

3)  Finally, there is the remenents of the Al-Qaeda 55 Brigade, the "Arab Afghans" (who weren't Arab and, in large part, weren't Arabs either) who come to Afghanistan to bring Jihad to the infidel.  These are the hiers of the anti-Soviet Jihad and the guys who most likely brought all the new tactics and techniques from Iraq - it is my understanding that these are the most dangerous and well-trained foes in Southern Afghanstan.  Part of the global Salafi movement, it is these fellows who are our number 1 enemy there.

Of course, the fact that history seems to show that Afghan society is, by nature, somewhat xenophobic to the multitude of armies that have tromped through it over the millennia also adds to our difficulties in pacifying the region to support the Karzai government.

 

[Kirkhill]

I agree with tomahawk6 that Iraq was the opening of a second front.  However it is not a second front on the GWOT or on Barbarism.  It is a second front on the war on Tehran.  This is a war that the US has been involved in since well before 1979. It became involved openly with the installation of the Shah in the 1950s and covertly in the 1930s trying to wrest the place from Russian and British influence.

If we don't see the war in this light Tehran certainly does.

This does not make this a war of America's creation however.  The Tehran culture has been actively engaged against all comers since at least 4000 BC when it was centred east of the Zagros mountains in Susa and its principle competitor was west of the mountains on the Mesopotamian plain in Ur.  The names of the empires and the centres of power may have shifted slightly over the next 6 millennia but at heart there has always been a struggle between Elam and Mesopotamia, Persian and Arab, Zoraster and Islam, Iran and Iraq. From their point of view everybody else is a bit player in that central drama.

The Islamic arc stretched the array of potential allies/enemies from Morocco (and southern Europe) to India (and the far east).  At various times the east has divided from the west along the fault line of the Zagros.  Damascus vs Persepolis. Athens vs Persepolis. Cairo vs Persepolis. Ur vs Susa.  At other times attempts have been made to bridge the gap.  Baghdad was built as a new city on the faultline.

All of this is to say that the locals have a long memory of a war unending.  They have come to accomodate this war over the millenia by adhering to family, clan, tribe, honour and  blood.  

Nobel Laureate Ebadi is a female Iranian who used to be a judge under the Shah, supported his overthrow, was persecuted and removed from her position under Khomeini and has become a darling of the left for her courage in speaking out against her persecutors.  I found it interesting to read the other day that one of her principle complaints against the regime was that, unlike progressive countries like Morocco and Algiers, Iran only values women at one quarter the value of a man when calculating blood money.  To this westerner it is interesting to note that while she calls for equality for women she apparently has no issue with setting a fixed price on the value of a life.  A price that can be charged in lieu of punishment in order to prevent family feuds.

Their world view is not ours.

Churchill said of the Germans that they were either at your feet or at your neck.  In other words they saw themselves as either master or slave.  Equality was a hard concept for them to grasp.  I think the same thing can be said of these ancient cultures of the middle east. It is all about the pecking order.  Tehran sees itself not as the master it rightfully should be.  It can't conceive itself as being welcomed as an equal.  Therefore it must be a slave and it doesn't like that position.  It is doing everything it can to re-establish itself as master of the universe.  To that end it is calling in its allies wherever it can find them and it is finding in high concentrations close to home and in lower concentrations farther from home.  There are no places it cannot find allies.

At home it has the Pasdaran and the religious police.  Farther afield it has Hezbollah, Badr and Sadr and the Taliban.  Distantly it has Al Qaeda and its various clones.  And finally it has access to all those who actively oppose the entity that prevents them from achieving their destiny as universal master, the United States, as well as access to all those that are willing to be bought and those that are willing to ignore the situation in return for a quiet life.

Ideology (sunni/shia, communist/capitalist, islam/christianity) has less to do with this issue than Tehran's focus on removing itself from its perceived position of an unwilling slave.  They will make a deal with anybody in order to achieve their end-state.  They will even make deals with their ancient enemies (Iraq, and Sunni Arabs, European Christians) if it discomfits their greatest modern enemy, America.

Seen from that perspective the invasion of Afghanistan was just a matter of the US getting way too close on the eastern flank.  When America advanced from its beach heads in Kuwait, Kurdistan and Jordan into Iraq then the western flank was threatened.  There is only one remaining step for the Americans, as Tehran sees it.  Once Afghanistan and Iraq are secured they are next on the list.  They have to convince the Americans to back off and deny them the consolidation of their efforts in both locations.  To achieve this they will make deals with the devil himself.

Meanwhile America and the West stand on principle: failing to make deals with unsavoury individuals, tribes, countries and NGOs/Supra-National entities because it is "not the done thing".  If it wasn't for the fact that it's America you could almost hear echoes of "It's not cricket".  This reduces the options.  It also increases expectations.

It reduces the number of players that can be exploited to achieve their ends.  It also allows the public to delude itself that allies must be good guys who really have America's interests at heart and given half a chance would live just like Americans.  It ain't so.

The reason the Brits find themselves at odds with the Yanks is that the Brit bureaucratic establishment, including the Army, has a five century history of accepting realpolitik over ideology.  The Brits have been playing one against the other since Burlingham and Walsingham honed their skills fencing with the Spanish and the French on behalf of Elizabeth I.  Note I do not include British politicians in this because by and large they have had a nasty tendency to be ideologically motivated.  This has been particularly true of the left (Whigs, Reformers, Liberals, Labour). Most of Britain's small wars have been initiated by the left. Conservatives have launched wars but usually wars of self-interest and not wars of ideology.  This has/had left a schism characterized by Labour's support for Israel while the Establishment was widely seen to be Arabists.   Tony Blair is following along in a well worn path.  So for that matter is General Dannett.  (By the way I agree with those that say that General Dannett said the right things, and was right to say them when and how he did but he should have immediately tendered his resignation.  It isn't his army and for good or for ill the politicians get to say if the army will be used, confined to barracks or disbanded.)

This war is a long war.  From Tehran's point of view, and from the view of the locals it is a lot longer than any of us in the west give credence. We dismiss much of the war as ancient tribal feuds.

If, however, we are serious about engaging Tehran then we have to be patient, devious and a damsight more ruthless  than we have been.  That means working out of sight of the media.  

US involvement in the Phillipines and Chad, Jordan, Kurdistan and the Gulf States seem to be much better models for success.  Afghanistan seems to be about as active a theater as western democracies will tolerate.  Iraq is a step too far.

An invasion of Tehran is not in the cards - however nibbling round the edges, making life miserable, isolating them, supporting locals who oppose the regime and tribes that regularly cross those unsecurable borders - all of which can be done without moving Cory Lidle, O.J. Simpson, the Stanley Cup playoffs and the Academy Awards off the front page.

Wars can be fought.  The deaths of volunteers are acceptable.  Just don't raise my taxes, call out the National Guard or interfere with the World Series and the Final Four.

The good news in all of this is that in 6000 years of fighting Tehran has made a bunch of enemies and those that fear her most are those that live closest.  As we get closer to Tehran and Susa the more likely we are to find allies (even if only allies of convenience) in the Sunnis, the Kurds, the Baluchis and even the Mesopotamians.  Not all the Shi'ite locals in Iraq are best pleased at having Persians interfere in their affairs by sponsoring thugs like the Badr and Sadr militias.  Somehow or other though those locals have got to find  the courage to do their own fighting and dying and not be content to leave it up to foreigners to do the dying for them.  That may be a challenge when the key to survival for the average citizen has been just to keep your head down, make money than is stolen and have more children than die and trust to the fates that whoever is in charge won't make life too miserable.

 

[tomahawk6]

Many good points Edward. However, alot more is known now due to captured audio tapes and documents.
No military plan is perfect and sometimes there are unintended consequences. The President made the decision to go into Iraq and had the full support of Congress and the deployment began to Kuwait. Alot of critics didnt like post-OIF plans. But few had any alternatives. The only vehicle we could have used other than the CPA was military governors like we did in WW2. Once the regime fell it was incumbent on the US to provide for governing the country. As I said no plan is perfect,but given the geopolitical currents we have done well. Iraq is a battleground now between Iran and the US. A pullout will assure an Iranian entry into the country, we dont want that. As the Iraqi Army is able to provide security of the population centers US forces will redeploy along the border areas providing a defense shield as the Iraqi military continues to expand in size and capability.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013258.php

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp

More documents.

http://70.168.46.200/

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony_docs.asp

 

[Kirkhill]

Wars can be fought.  The deaths of volunteers are acceptable.  Just don't raise my taxes, call out the National Guard or interfere with the World Series and the Final Four.

Oh, and I forgot one other point.  Make sure that you don't make anybody angry enough that they blame me and decide they want to kill me.  Aside from that ..... Carry on.

 

[tomahawk6]

Agreed. One of the absurd claims by the American left is that Iraq is creating more jihadists. They dont make the same claim though in Afghanistan. Essentially the charge is camoflauge for opposition to Iraq. We certainly have killed alot of bad guys that might have been busy at work elsewhere. I believe that the best defense is a good offense. History will show in time whether our efforts in Iraq helped to change the status quo in the middle east or not. If Iran ends up dominating the region that will be bad. Perhaps the US could have used Saddam as a buffer as we did in the 80's. Had we done so, the left would have raised the old argument that we support dictators.The vagaries of history I suppose.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I wonder how so many of us got it so wrong.  By ‘it’ I mean the invasion of Iraq.

My own mea culpas first:

• I believed, quite firmly, that Saddam Hussein did have WMDs.  It seemed nonsensical to me that someone with all those resources – and he (his regime) did get rich on the oil for food programme, and all those big, bad enemies could do anything but develop (or buy) chemical weapons and the means to mate them to missiles and try to develop and mate nuclear weapons, too.

It seems I was quite wrong.  Hussein either played a great game of bluff – convincing many (most?) intelligence services that he really did have such a programme or those intelligence service and Saddam Hussein were fooled by a bunch of Iraqi scientists and bureaucrats who pretended to be developing WMDs but who, really, lacked the skills and resources for the task.

• I believed that toppling Hussein would lead to some civil unrest but, at bottom, the Iraqis – and all peoples, regardless of race, colour, creed, etc – want the same sort of thing we do: peace, prosperity, democracy, rule of law, etc.  The fairly sophisticated, secular Iraqi people would, therefore, elect a new government which would help spread democracy throughout the region.

I don’t think I was 100% wrong, but …

1. It is clear that sectarian divisions are far more powerful than I imagined.  It may be true that the Sunni and Shia leaders are using (abusing) their followers - the ones doing the killing and dying – for their own ends but the fact is that millions of ordinary Iraqis are willing to kill and die for their beliefs.  It’s hard, maybe impossible to have rational political discourse when irrational religious beliefs get in the way, and

2. Although I still believe it is true that all people are pretty much alike in wanting to decide, for themselves, how they shall organize their own societies and what form of government they shall institute amongst themselves, for themselves, I am coming to the conclusion that liberal democracy can only spring from liberal, liberally enlightened societies.  Similarly I conclude that conservatively enlightened societies (East Asian societies, for example) will develop conservative democratic systems, such as we find in Singapore.  It appears to me that Arab/Islamic societies will institute forms of government which conform to their own cultural norms – thus, in a free and fair election Egyptians will vote for the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, Algerians will vote for another wing of the same group, and so on.

• I believed that the White House/Pentagon policy making and planning apparatus was balanced between radical reformers like Paul Wolfowitz (a man I admire greatly for both his intellect and accomplishments) and much more conservative career civil servants.

It appears that I misunderstand the balancing which does exist in the US government.  The civil service appears to be much more deferential to the wishes of the governing party than is the case in Westminster style democracies such as exist in Canada.  It also appears that I misunderstood the nature of cabinet management of issues in the Bush administration and, therefore, I overestimated the influence of e.g. Colin Powell.

...

It appears I was not alone.

Here - reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act -  is a column, from today's (17 Oct 096)  National Post by resident hawk Jonathan Kay:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=a136eb68-224f-4dfd-9762-b62d9915f4b5

Confessions of a misguided hawk

Jonathan Kay
National Post

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

It's been three years and seven months since the United States invaded Iraq. But only last week did I become definitively convinced that the war I once cheered on was a failure -- that it made the world a more dangerous place overall.

As I saw things in early 2003, there were three good reasons for deposing Saddam Hussein, any one of which, by itself, was sufficient to justify his ouster: (1) Saddam was a maniac who had weapons of mass destruction; (2) The creation of a democracy in the heart of the Muslim Middle East would transform the region by firing a fatal crack into the monolith of Arab tyranny; and (3) Putting the wrecking ball to Saddam's dungeons would end the wanton slaughter of Iraq's long-suffering people.

Turns out I was zero for three.

The first zero became obvious in the early months of the American occupation: The WMDs simply weren't there.

The second zero is playing out on the streets as you read this: Rival sectarian militias, rogue Iraqi security units, foreign Jihadis and coalition soldiers locked in an endless war of all-against-all. Amidst the carnage, millions of brave Iraqis have voted in national elections. But the forms and pageantry of democracy can't disguise the fact that the tolerant, pluralistic government everyone wanted remains a pipe dream: While Iraq's legislature serves as an arena for squabbling amongst the country's three main groups, the real spoils are hashed out on the streets by their various militias. Far from setting off a freedom epidemic in the Middle East, Iraq's tragedy has created Exhibit A for every Arab tyrant looking to justify his hold on power.

And then, last week, the third and final zero: a new study of 1,849 randomly selected, geographically representative Iraqi families conducted by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

These 1,849 families had collectively suffered a staggering 547 violent deaths since the American invasion, a number almost eight times higher than one would expect based on pre-invasion death rates. If you extrapolate that increase to the whole of Iraq, you come up with a total of about 600,000 violent deaths.

As critics of the John Hopkins study have noted, extrapolation is an imperfect business. So let's assume the real total is half that -- that a mere 100,000 per year died violently in the three years following the invasion. This reduced total would still be stunning enough to undermine the humanitarian argument for war. Consider: During his quarter-century of absolute power in Iraq, Saddam killed about a million innocents through aggressive war, internal slaughters, political pogroms and assorted acts of torture and brutality. Do the math and you find that, as horrible as Saddam was, his killing machine chewed up humanity at less than half the rate of the bloody insurgency unwittingly spawned by America's invasion.

The depressing thing is that it never had to be this way. As demonstrated by two recent must-read books -- State of Denial by Bob Woodward, and Fiasco by Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks -- this war could have had a happy ending (at least from a humanitarian perspective) had Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz listened to the many experts who warned them to put more boots on the ground. Instead, America invaded with what Ricks calls "perhaps the worst war plan in American history." George W. Bush's war cabinet wanted a revolution, but they wanted it on the cheap. Iraqis are paying for this penury with their lives.

Here at home, what I find most depressing is the convoluted mental tricks my fellow hawks play to avoid facing these truths. Somehow, it's the fault of the media -- for not reporting "the good news you never hear," as if Iraqis can be expected to chirp optimistically about increased cell phone coverage when their neighbours and cousins are getting holes drilled in their heads. Or it's the Democrats' fault (for being "defeatist"). Or we are told that the ferocity of the insurgency actually serves as proof of our success -- because it shows that the terrorists are getting "desperate."

What has always attracted me to conservative thought is that it privileges empiricism and experience over utopian ideologies and blind faith. Yet, in the case of the Iraq War and its conduct, this pattern has been turned on its head. More than three years after the war began, many hawks insist it was a triumph. And Rumsfeld, a man who should have lost his job two years ago, remains a figure of awe.

George Orwell once wrote that thinking people should keep a journal of their thoughts so they can track of all the discredited views they once held. In the case of a newspaper columnist such as myself, that isn't necessary -- because they're all there on the yellowing page. You can't hide from your mistakes. All you can do is own up to them and apologize.

And so, for whatever it's worth to anybody, mea culpa.

jkay@nationalpost.com

© National Post 2006​

Now, unlike Kay, I have little of the ”milk of human kindness” so my third concern centred on how policy is made rather than the welfare of the Iraqi people.

A couple of further points:

• It is a bit late in the day to apologize to the people of the region and depart with the hope that all will come out in the wash.  While I think it is time to depart – from Arabia – I expect the whole place to disintegrate into a long, bloody, painful series of revolts, revolutions, civil wars and internecine regional wars.  The pain will be felt by all the Arabs and by all in the West who need Arab oil; that means, especially, but not only Europe and Japan – oil is a fungible commodity.  I do not equate the ‘pain’ of high oil prices with the destruction of one’s home and the killing of one’s family, rather I highlight the fact that the coming violence and instability, (is chaos the wrong word?) which will, I believe, occupy Arabia for a generation or so, will have impacts around the world.

(Parenthetically, the situation will be interesting for e.g. oil-rich but non-EU member Norway and for oil hungry China.)

• The United States’ credibility has been damaged – even amongst its best friends and closest, traditional allies.  This is not a good thing.  We are, for the next decade or so, still in a unipolar world.  The pole may now be wobbling.  My fear is that the experiences of Viet Nam in the late 20th century and the Middle East in the 21st will cause America to withdraw, as it did in the early 20th century, back into isolationism and further protectionism, and to suffer the same malady as Britain did in the 1920s and ‘30s and decide that a robust, active, responsible foreign policy is too much to bear.

 

[tomahawk6]

I am not ready to write off Iraq as a failure,to do so would cheapen the sacrifice of so many. For their sake we need to see Iraq through to some type of successful conclusion. The only way we can lose in my opinion is if we quit,like we did in Vietnam. The enemy cannot defeat us on the battlefield. Their only hope like Vietnam is to persuade us to quit. We dont have the huge anti-war movement that forced us to quit. I think most americans want victory. People must realize that each time you quit you embolden the enemy. At some point the enemy is on our doorstep and we either surrender or fight and the price will be far higher. We have a chance to stop radical islam on a critical front. A victory in Iraq will be huge but it wont happen quick enough for some.

By the way another translation of captured documents.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1720464/posts

 

[Kirkhill]

I am not ready to write off Iraq as a failure,to do so would cheapen the sacrifice of so many. For their sake we need to see Iraq through to some type of successful conclusion. The only way we can lose in my opinion is if we quit,like we did in Vietnam. The enemy cannot defeat us on the battlefield. Their only hope like Vietnam is to persuade us to quit. We dont have the huge anti-war movement that forced us to quit. I think most americans want victory. People must realize that each time you quit you embolden the enemy. At some point the enemy is on our doorstep and we either surrender or fight and the price will be far higher. We have a chance to stop radical islam on a critical front. A victory in Iraq will be huge but it wont happen quick enough for some.

Essentially I agree.  Iraq is screwed up.  Some really poor decisions have been made.  The intelligence that was available and that indicated an intolerable level of risk has apparently turned out to have been either incorrect or else facts on the ground changed between the time the evidence was gathered and the time it could be confirmed by physical inspection.  (There are still too many anomalies - such as abandoned NBC suits and barrels discovered around a lake of oil in the Basra area when the Brits first moved in there and various unidentified convoys).

Unlike Tomahawk6 I don't think the answer was to disband the Army and the Police and start from scratch.  My preferred solution has always been to accept the existing structures (Federal, Regional and Tribal creating Regiments and Militias from the under-represented) but hold the leadership of those formations accountable to their new masters.  Occasionally that may mean putting down a local mutiny/insurrection and changing out the head man until you can find someone that accepts central authority and can bring his followers on-side.

I also think that the US and its allies would have been better putting its conventional forces onto the borders and into the wastelands and leaving the cities up to the locals with advisors in place.   You might still have had to deal with Najaf, Amarah, Fallujah, Tal Afar etc but not on a  day-to-day in your face environment.

Having said that I don't think that we can back out now (and I am talking about the West here).  Just as the US can't retire to the borders and allow the cities to become bloodbaths, similarly it can withdraw from the country and allow not only the same thing to occur but likely have Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey having a 3-way struggle for the "vacant" ground.  For the average American soldier it has now become a case of "We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here".  And they will have to stay there and figure out how to get the job done because as Afghanistan and Vietnam both demonstrate to the Russians and Americans  - failure is not an option.  The political consequences are too damaging and I don't want to see a world where that kind of failure has occured.

Some of you are fed up hearing about the Malayan success.  Rightly so.  The reason for that is that there are so few other examples of how to get the job of nation building done successfully.

Before the Brits of the post-war period figured out Malaya they had retreated from Vietnam after they tried to re-secure the place for the French, handed off Indonesia to the Dutch who promptly lost it, lost control of Palestine which promptly dissolved into the ongoing 60 year war with the neighbours, lost control of India and Pakistan with another 60 year war ongoing (both incidences replete with ethnic cleansing, riotous behaviour and insurrection), handing over Greece to the Americans........................  Even in Malaya the first 5 years or so were miserable until a plan was put in place that was then worked assiduously for the next 7 years or so.  Even at the end of that period with tolerable stability Malaya had to arm itself and have its security guaranteed against its neighbours and Singapore was hived off as a separate entity.  Internally a strong police force is necessary to maintain order and there are still ethnic tensions amongst the various tribes, races and religions.  Like every other nation it is work in progress. 

If Iraq achieves the level of stability of Malaya, or even Canada or the US, I am convinced that there will still be those calling it a puppet regime in charge of a failed state because people will still be dying, the poor will still exist and some members of society will still be "Souviening" (copyright cpook 2006) waiting for the day when "The South Will Rise Again".

I do think that General Dannet is right to push to get the Brits reassigned to the Eastern Flank of this war so as to reengage all his troops in theater under one command and one support train.  The Army has problems with the UK politicians that need to be addressed and this is one way to do it.   Also there is the question of "approach'.  I am a great believer that most plans can be made to work, but only if there are more believers than unbelievers and if the plan is broadly adhered to while maintaining the focus.  To me it makes sense to have Iraq continue under an American plan with a Brit "Corporal's Guard" to demonstrate solidarity while the Brits/Canada/Aus/NZ/NATO take on Afghanistan with needed US backing.

The Brits believe, as do the Canadians and the Americans, that they can succeed in Afghanistan.  That alone guarantees a greater chance of success in a shorter term than if they didn't believe in the possibility of success as well as not believing in the plan.

Likewise in Iraq, if you are working two different plans in two different areas but the areas bleed into each other then you are not going to achieve success.  That Unity of Command thing.

PS - by the time the 60s and 70s came around the Brits batting average improved.  Oman and Brunei were successes.  Aden was a failure and the jury is still out on Northern Ireland.  A lot of other problems were handled under the radar.

 

[KevinB]

I am not ready to right Iraq off either -- HOWEVER...

I do think that it is the time to consider partitioning the country along ethnic lines.  Yes it goes against a lot of what we in the West stand for -- however we've done it in the recent past in FYR.

Three main ethinic divisions -- plus accounting for an attempt to reballance the country forn economic acess.


I think that this unfortunately needs to be done to stop the ethnic strife - which is being done in the same manner as was done in the Balkans (and notice no one in the UN seem to want to step to thr plate to do PeaceKeeping -- a bunch of those asshole are enjoying the US-Iraq tar-baby).

 

[MarkOttawa]

Infidel-6: One might also mention the partition of British India in 1947 (religious grounds),
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/south_asia/2002/india_pakistan/timeline/1947.stm

followed eventually by the violent partition of Pakistan itself in 1971 (ethnic grounds).
http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/bravo/bangladesh1971.htm

The death tolls in the subcontinent were horrendous.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Kirkhill]

In broad strokes I agree with the ethnic partitioning thing, and I believe in fact that all parties on the ground, including the Sunnis, are generally working towards that end.  There are some outstanding issues however:

Who gets the oil?
How will the various territories get along with each other?
Will the minorities/majorities, religious/secular types accept the rule of the majority in their turf?
What happens to Baghdad? (Kind of like the "What happens to Jerusalem?" question).

In an ideal world you might have 3 separate regions with oil revenues divided equitably and with a cosmopolitan capital district for all the secularists.  But Old Man Sadr's Slum has left a really interesting ghetto for his son to exploit and nobody seems to be able to cut a deal on the oil.

 

[Kirkhill]

And what Mark said about India and Pakistan.

Remember: those events happened in the good old days when the news came via radio and newsreels to cinemas, when us white folks had just finished slaughtering ourselves by the millions and Indians and Pakistanis, (like everyone else on the other side of the English Channel) weren't real people anyway.

 

[Signalman150]

Mark and Infidel...

...it's not something we're completely unfamiliar with here.  The main reason for the NWT being partitioned, and the creation of the new territory of Nunavut relates to a degree to ethnic differences.

The problem remains that if you were to partition Iraq into 2 - 3 different countries, in nothing flat we'd be sending in UN peacekeeping forces to keep the individual countries from going to war.  It MIGHT even be worse, because the various ethnic groups would be consolidated.

Just my thoughts.