[donaldscrankshaw] Donald: The Iraq Surge

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Posted by Donald:
The Iraq Surge
http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1168580224.shtml


   With all the talk about the surge in Iraq, you may be wondering how
   I'm feeling. I've always been cautiously optimistic about Iraq, since
   the very first stages of the war. Even when things seemed to be going
   very well right afterwards, and after the first couple of elections,
   my optimism was still cautious. And when thigns were going bad and
   violence was surging, I was still optimistic, if more subdued. You
   have to look at the long-term trends rather than get bogged down in
   the day-to-day events. It's difficult to make sense of the day-to-day
   events, with the media calling Iraq a failure no matter what happens,
   and the military putting its own spin on things.
   One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people are wondering why Bush
   is only doing this now, after the midterm elections, when he should
   have done it a long time ago. And frankly, I think it's because Bush's
   attitude is close to mine. Through 2005, things seemed to be going
   pretty well in Iraq. Granted, there was still violence, but Iraq had
   its own government, and it looked like soon the Iraqis would be able
   to take charge. Things only turned nasty in 2006, and while Bush may
   have wanted to try a different approach, Rumsfeld and the generals on
   the ground didn't. Bush had put his trust in these folks, and they had
   been pretty successful so far, and they were there and knew the
   situation better than anyone, so I can understand his reluctance to
   get rid of them. An uptick in violence for a few months did not make
   Iraq a catastrophe any more than the previous upticks had. Only when
   the long-term trends made it clear that Rumseld's and the generals'
   methods weren't working, and they showed no sign of being willing to
   change them, did he make the decision to replace them with people who
   would get the job done. Unfortunately, midterm elections probably had
   a role in this, and for numerous reasons, Bush didn't want to be seen
   as changing tactics right before the election. For one, it would have
   been seen as a political ploy rather than a serious bid to change the
   course of events in Iraq. And maybe he did fear it would cost
   Republicans some votes, although everyone else was arguing the
   opposite. I still don't know whether it's such a bad thing that the
   Republicans lost big. I think that, to some degree, having an
   opposition government has made Bush freer. He doesn't have to worry
   about getting re-elected, and now he doesn't have to worry about
   keeping his party in power by not doing anything to offend the
   "moderates" whose votes they depended on. Granted, the Democrats will
   try to stop this, but they're pretty limited in what they can do. It's
   one thing to call for troops to return, but they lack the
   Constitutional authority to actually force that to happen, and not too
   many will be willing to actually stop funding the war. It's one thing
   to oppose sending troops, another thing entirely to abandon those now
   there.
   Anyway, that's the political side. Do I think we should be doing this?
   Ever since we caught Saddam, I've believed we were doing the right
   thing in Iraq. Before the war started, I wasn't so sure, as I was
   always a bit iffy on the whole WMD issue. But once Saddam was caught
   and we'd completed our initial mission, the question was do we just
   leave and let a society rent apart by a tyrannical dictator further
   destroy itself, or do we stay and try to help them create a new
   society. We had what we wanted, and what we had to gain by staying was
   very idealistic: a civil society in the Middle East that would
   hopefully be a model for others. That's all. For all the talk of blood
   for oil, I don't see it. We decided to stay, and it was the right
   thing to do. A very hard thing, true, but the right thing. And if
   we're going to do it, we need to do it right, and that means winning.
   I don't think our former strategy could accomplish that, but I think
   this one might. It's not guaranteed, but let's just say I'm cautiously
   optimistic.