The Administration, Petraeus, and virtually all war supporters keep on saying that the surge has only just started. This isn't exactly true. 3/4 of the troops were in place in June. It has been a phased deployment over the past 4 and a half months. During that time, there has not been a significant improvement, despite mouthings from the Administration's ventriloquist dummies about 'signs of progress'. The situation in Diyala has worsened, and the improvement in Anbar is not due to the surge, but rather to pitting one armed gang against another. Attacks on the Green Zone continue. The Iraqi military has not "stood up", sectarian deaths have increased, and Al-Qaeda is merely moving to wherever the surge isn't taking place. We call that being "on the run".
Still, we are told that it's far too early to pass judgment on the surge. Well, if we grant that, then why has the Administration seen fit to attribute any ephemeral signs of success over the past four months to the surge? Isn't it far too early to say that any 'signs of progress' are due to the surge?
In other words, it's too early to say the surge is a failure, but apparently it's been okay to say the surge is a success for the past few months, even though the troops have 'just arrived'.
Unwarranted optimism is thus okay, but sober skepticism is dangerous. "Nobody knows for sure if the surge will succeed or not", however we seem to "know for sure" there will be a bloodbath if we leave before we achieve "victory". We also "know for sure" that Al-Qaeda will "follow us home", too. How does that work? Isn't it "defeatist" to assume the worst possible outcome? Not if you support the President, but it is if you don't support the President. See how that works now?
Unwarranted optimism in military endeavours can be disatrous. Why didn't we optimistically send our entire fleet right into Japan and launch an amphibious assault immediately after Pearl Harbor? Nobody "knew for sure" that would fail, did they? The threat was certainly real to America, and failure in Japan would mean arguably worse consequnces for us. So why not employ wishful thinking and optimism in an immediate massive invasion? Because we would have been wiped out. But "nobody knows that for sure", do they? Would those opposing such a plan for an immediate invasion have been called "defeatists" and "surrenderists" who didn't want to "win"?
This entire war and occupation have been fought by only considering the best possible outcome and proceeding as if it were a forgone conclusion.
No, "nobody knows for sure" that the surge will fail. We do know that we tried a surge almost a year ago, though, and that didn't help. We do know that the surge has not had a dramatic effect over the past few months. Now, the addition of a few thousand more troops will somehow magically turn the tide, I guess.
Remember, the idea of the surge was to allow the Iraqi military to gain control by reinforcing them as the Iraqis launched a major operation to restore stability. The trouble is that Iraqi military forces are a no-show. The most important element of the surge, therefore, completely failed and has been failing for some time. Nobody knows for sure if the Iraqi military will "stand up" by next spring, either. Nobody knows for sure how shuffling Al-Qaeda from one province to another will defeat them, either. Nobody knows for sure if al-Maliki will be able to survive a no-confidence vote. Nobody knows for sure how many Iraqis have been killed in the violence. Nobody knows, but somehow it's okay to proceed as if everything will go our way and somehow it's bad to stop and ponder the minefield straight ahead of us.
One thing we can all be sure of, however, is that in September Petraeus will say that there has been 'some improvement' and that we need more time. We can be sure that Bush will give it to him. We can be sure that the sectarian militias will still be there. And we can be sure that neocons will be trotting out the same tired old arguments that they picked up from Fox News.
Back in January, Bush "believed" that al-Maliki would have control of all the provinces by November. Now Petraeus is talking about the spring of '08 as the time when we will have a "clearer picture" as to whether this will happen. Not that it will have happened, mind you, just a better idea how much more time it will take. Does this sound like a credible track record? A year ago Bush was all thumbs-up and optimistic, but things didn't work out like he thought they would. But now something has changed, this time his brilliant scheme really will work....because, in his own words, "it has to". That's so reassuring.
Crossing your fingers and hoping everything will come out okay is not leadership, and neither is it courageous.
1 comment:
I returned from Iraq in June and we didn't consider the 'surge', as they're calling it here, ready to begin until all units were in place at the end of the month.
Bush is an idiot, but Christ, let us Petreaus and the units get in place so they can carry out the operations as planned before making judgements on them.
It's a war that began with Bush appointing idiots like Bremer who set the stage for insurgencies and now, when a competent General like Petreaus is finally in charge, increasingly being second guessed at the tactical level by amateurs.
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