That the surge worked is irrelevant

So the Oregonian editorial page would have us believe. Even though it might be true, they say, that John McCain was right about the surge and Barack Obama was wrong:

...it is also beside the point. The adoption last year of Gen. Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy, as well as the infusion of additional U.S. troops, seems to have improved conditions in Iraq enormously. [Seems to have? Why the qualification?] But now the extra troops have gone home, Iraqi security forces have taken the lead in operations that have made neighborhoods and cities safer, and the national government is more or less functional, despite numerous daunting challenges. And barring a dramatic setback, that's the situation that the next American president will face when he takes office in January.

What matters isn't whether John McCain was right last year when he supported the Petraeus approach. What matters now is whether he or Barack Obama will do the best thing for the overextended military and for the country of Iraq. Further, there's a linkage between the United States' approach to Iraq and its approach to Afghanistan, where more troops are urgently needed to keep the country from slipping back into chaos or extremism.

There's just one problem with this selective approach: If Barack Obama had his way, the surge never would have taken place. More of our troops would be dead. Many more Iraqis would be dead. The Iraqi government and security forces would not have made the strides they have made. And al-Qaeda in Iraq would be in a much greater position of power.

So no, it is not "beside the point." It is entirely the point. It shows that John McCain's instincts about the military -- shaped by decades in the military and dealing with defense issues in government -- are correct. It shows that Barack Obama's instincts -- shaped by three years in the Senate and his time as a Chicago "community organizer" -- will lead to disaster.

And if you don't believe me, check out today's Washington Post editorial about the Iraqi prime minister's supposed support for Obama's troop withdrawal timeline:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out."

Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

And how does Obama respond to this concern about a rapid troop drawdown negatively impacting peace in the region? He implies that he couldn't care less:

Mr. Obama's response is that, as president, he would have to weigh Iraq's needs against those of Afghanistan and the U.S. economy. He says that because Iraq is "a distraction" from more important problems, U.S. resources devoted to it must be curtailed. Yet he also says his aim is to "succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future." What if Gen. Petraeus and Iraqi leaders are right that this goal is not consistent with a 16-month timetable? Will Iraq be written off because Mr. Obama does not consider it important enough -- or will the strategy be altered?

The editorial continues with the answer to that last question, which also answers the Oregonian's editorial -- Obama has shown no proclivity to alter his strategy, but rather is hell-bent on troop withdrawal regardless of what actually happens on the ground:

Yesterday he denied being "so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months," though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful "surge" of the past 16 months.

Oh, and as a final point about Afghanistan, the Post notes:

...there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

So Barack Obama is a presidential candidate who refuses to acknowledge he was wrong about the surge (other than wiping his previous statements of opposition from the campaign website); who talks repeatedly about a U.S. timeline rather than one dictated by Iraqis; who speaks of Iraq as an irritant that can be swatted aside; and who has shown a rather George Bush-like interest in maintaining his position regardless of the facts on the ground.

Gee, I feel so hopeful.

Quote of the Day: Michael Totten on the Surge

OK, it's actually a quote from almost two weeks ago, but I just saw it today. It's from the New York Daily News, and is an op-ed by Portlander Michael Totten, who recently traveled to Iraq to see how the military surge is working. The short story: it is. And it isn't. But it needs more time to determine which side wins.

...what I saw was overwhelming, undeniable and, like it or not, complicated: In some places, the surge is working remarkably well. In others, it is not. And the only way we will know for sure whether the tide can be turned is to continue the policy and wait.
...
this much cannot be denied: There are powerful winds of change in Iraq, and not enough time has passed to determine how they will transform the country.

Brian Baird gets some attention from the WSJ

In this video interview with James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, Taranto notes the position taken by Washington Rep. Brian Baird (D) on Iraq:

[Baird] went to Iraq, he said we’re making progress there, he said we have a responsibility to the Iraqi people, and we can’t just pull out now, it doesn’t make sense. Now, what’s significant about this, I think, is that Baird avoids a fallacy that’s common to a lot of people who either opposed the war or supported it and then changed their minds, which is, you can think that it was a mistake to liberate Iraq. It does not necessarily follow from that that it is the right thing to do to pull out now. And a lot of people, I think, have confused the debate five years ago with the question of what to do now. They’re actually two completely separate questions.
...
If you think we were right to go in, I think it makes sense that you would think that we ought to stick it out and be successful. but if you think that it was a mistake to go in, it doesn’t necessarily follow from that that it would be the right thing to do to pull out. And part of this is sort of a binary simple-mindedness: in good, out bad. But that doesn’t necessarily follow: it could be a mistake to go in that is compounded by getting out prematurely, and I think that’s what Baird is arguing.

The troops are baby killers and torturers

Oops, I guess it's harder to say that sort of generic slander with a straight face when you read this (emphasis mine) about Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of coalition forces in Iraq:

In the face of a gruesomely persistent Iraqi insurgency, Gen. Petraeus [who, by the way, has a doctorate in international relations from Princeton] was charged with revamping the outdated counterinsurgency doctrine. In an unprecedented collaboration, he reached out to Sarah Sewall, who directs the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, to help him organize a vetting session of the draft manual at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

The conference brought together journalists, human-rights activists, academics and members of the armed forces to exchange ideas about how to make the doctrine more effective and more humane. Ms. Sewall, who since 2001 has been trying to get the military to bring the concerns of the human-rights community to the table, tells me that with Gen. Petraeus it is like pushing on an open door.

These cultural anthropologists truly believe that being allowed to help shape military policy will help our troops avoid offending Iraqis (inadvertently or otherwise), thereby improving both Iraqi and American lives. As chapter one of the new manual states, "cultural knowledge is essential to waging a successful counterinsurgency. American ideas of what is 'normal' or 'rational' are not universal."

As the story points out, the academic community is not exactly best friends with the military, and a few breakthroughs do not necessarily define a trend. Some argue that any collaboration between academe and military is selling out by the former.

Still, as Sewell said, a growing number of anthropologists are questioning the conventional wisdom and reconsidering whether the most effective way to influence the military is "by waving a big sign outside the Pentagon saying 'you suck.' "

Because, you know, the Pentagon is so easily swayed by what Code Pink is doing outside its doors.

Maybe there will be genocide, but maybe not

Referring to a post I made yesterday about the potential of genocide in Iraq, an anonymous commenter said this:

The subject of what will happen to Iraqi civil society (what's left of it) if the troops are withdrawn is a matter of much debate and little agreement.

That's what was said when we were discussing the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. And for millions of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians, that turned out just fine, wouldn't you say?

Immoral by what definition?

Taliban gunmen stake out a schoolhouse in Afghanistan so they can murder school girls as they leave the school to go home. One of them is 13, shot multiple times in front of her 12-year-old sister. One of them is 25 years old and married, determined to pursue the education that was interrupted by the Taliban, but instead the Taliban forever robs her of that dream -- and her life.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq kills children and then plants explosives on their bodies. Or extends a lunch invitation to a local family it wants to convert to its way of thinking, but when lunch is served the main course is the barbecued body of their son.

Tell me again how this is an immoral war? Tell me again why we shouldn't be fighting this fight? Tell me again how it is that our country has lost its moral standing in the world?

Mistakes? Yes. But immoral and wrong?

Quote of the Day: the Military surge in Iraq

Michael Totten, Portland's resident expert on the Middle East, pointed out last week that if you hear someone claim the US Military's surge strategy in Iraq is failing, they might be engaged in some wishful thinking (emphasis mine):

You can be forgiven if you thought the United States military’s “surge” in Iraq has failed. At least you’ll be forgiven by me. I quietly assumed some time ago, before I had ever even heard of the surge, that the U.S. is going to lose this war in Iraq because the American public doesn’t have the will to stick out a grinding insurgency that might not ever be winnable. I’m not saying it isn’t winnable. I really don’t know. How could I possibly know? But we live in a democracy with civilian control of the military. If Americans want to give up – it’s over.

But the surge is only just now beginning.

...

This is our last chance to avert a total catastrophe. American public opinion is not at all likely to tolerate any further adventures if this doesn’t work. But the war isn’t over until it is over, and it’s probably best not to say the surge failed when it only just started a week ago.

A clear example of how the Dems view Iraq

From The Politico, on the Democrats' strategy on Iraq:

Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options.
. . .
The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.

So in the eyes of the Democrats, it's not a war on terror. It's not a war for oil. It's not a war for democracy. It has nothing to do with the safety of the United States. It's a political war.

That's why, for all the polls that show the American public dismayed about Iraq, the Democratic Party cannot be trusted with the nation's security. The Dems think this is all politics and has nothing to do with the future peace of the country. They think the war is wrong, but they're not going to come out and say so overtly -- led by Rep. John Murtha, they're going to play political games:

[Democrats] will seek to . . . restrict the deployment of troops to Iraq unless they meet certain levels [of] adequate manpower, equipment and training to succeed in combat. That's a standard . . . few of the units Bush intends to use for the surge would be able to meet.

In addition, [Democrats] will seek to limit the time and number of deployments by soldiers . . . making it tougher for Pentagon officials to find the troops to replace units that are scheduled to rotate out of the country.

They don't get it. And the sooner they're out of power, the better for the safety of my children.

As James Taranto said in today's Best of the Web, "If Murtha thinks he has a better way, let him run for president next year and make the case. To pursue a strategy of subversion instead is cowardly and despicable."

The Iraqis don't get it

They might say it's the other way around, but that's how I see it after reading about the rush to hang Saddam Hussein. The Iraqis don't understand, or choose not to concern themselves, with the impact that their actions have on the United States and its soldiers in the Middle East.

The New York Times described a late-evening meeting involving American officers and officials of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. In the meeting, which happened just hours before Hussein's hanging, the U.S. representatives questioned the need -- and the constitutionality -- of the Iraqi actions. The story quotes one participant as saying of the meeting:

The Iraqis seemed quite frustrated, saying, ‘Who is going to execute him, anyway, you or us?’ The Americans replied by saying that obviously, it was the Iraqis who would carry out the hanging. So the Iraqis said, ‘This is our problem and we will handle the consequences. If there is any damage done, it is we who will be damaged, not you.’

Um, no. Even if the Americans took no role whatsoever, enemies of the United States would interpret the execution as more Yankee imperialism. Witness this quote from Shaul Cohen, a University of Oregon geography professor who spoke to Eugene's KVAL television station:

I think this will be seen as vengeance by America rather than justice. And it's done in the name of democracy, but not in a very democratic way. And so I think that things will continue to spin out of control in Iraq between the Iraqis, but that this does hurt the image of the United States, regionally, and probably globally as well.

I feel that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in midstream would be disastrous for the Iraqi situation and for America's security. However, if the Iraqis can't show more cooperation and recognition of the impact that their decisions have on the lives (and deaths) of our soldiers, it may be time to tell them exactly when we plan to leave. And to leave on that date, if not earlier.

Quote of the Day: Bush's Support vs. Blindness

Today on The Corner, John Podhoretz of the New York Post makes an important observation about President Bush's management style -- namely, that he's so intent on supporting the people who work for him that he sometimes takes that too far and blindly allows them to run their particular show.

This is showing itself in the Iraq War, where Bush continually says he's following the leadership of the military leaders. Recently, the State Department and Pentagon (among others) have been promoting troop increases in Iraq; but Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, are arguing against such increases.

Podhoretz observes (emphasis mine):

As a student of management — and Bush is a student of management — he believes in setting goals and then providing unquestioning support for the organizations who are responsible for reaching those goals. The problem is that too often he has confused supporting the titular heads of those organizations with support for the organizations themselves.

Thus, in an effort to demonstrate how central he believed the CIA was to the war on terror, he stood behind George Tenet long after Tenet should have been cashiered. I think the same might have been true about Norm Mineta when he was secretary of transportation. And, most notoriously, we saw this at work in the days after Katrina, when he told FEMA incompetent Michael Brown that he was doing "a helluva job." Hundreds -- thousands -- of government workers from the Coast Guard to the lower echelons at FEMA were indeed doing an amazing job. But Brown was doing a horrible job, and the praise Bush offered seemed not only out of touch, but also demeaning to those who were working 24 hours a day without sleep pulling people off roofs.

And then, of course, there are his generals. It seems clear that the titular leaders of our military have long subscribed to a doctrine that says victory in Iraq has little to do with American action against armed Iraqis. Victory will only come with political progress, they believe, and we're there to give the Iraqis room to achieve the political progress that will save the day. In other words, they don't quite believe this is a war that can be won.

Bush has listened to them. But there are other voices from Iraq — voices of the day-to-day military, thousands of them too, who believe what they are doing is noble, that they are fighting for the right cause and that they can achieve victory over the bad guys if they are permitted to do so.

Supporting the military doesn't necessarily mean supporting the generals. It can also mean supporting the troops in the field by letting them win this war. If the president can separate his correct belief that the military needs his unconditional support from a belief that this means he needs to accept the recommendations of generals who are living examples of the triumph of hope over experience, we can win this thing.

I think Podhoretz is right. The Iraq plan has, for a while, displayed the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, hoping for different results. It's time to do something differently, and since I believe a troop withdrawal would be disastrous for both the Iraqis and our country, something else has to change

Quote of the Day: on Robert Gates

During Hugh Hewitt's interview yesterday with Victor Davis Hanson, Hewitt asked Hanson if, considering the new congressional makeup, the president had the ability to continue fighting the war. Hanson answered:

I think he does, but let's be candid, Hugh. The problem right now isn't...it may be the left wing Congress, but he's got another problem, and that is he's bringing in Robert Gates, and he's bringing in the Baker realism, and that doesn't have a good record. That's the people who said don't talk to Yeltsin. Let's stick with Gorbachev. Let's not go to Baghdad. Let the Shia and Kurds die. Let's arm the Islamisists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and then leave. It's not a good record. It's short-term expediency at the expense of long-term morality. And it's not in the interest of the United States to do that, to cut a deal with these countries.

I don't know enough about Robert Gates to make a judgment on Hanson's assessment, but I thought his comment about "short-term expediency at the expense of long-term morality" was
interesting considering that seems to be the left's modus operandi in all things war-related.