Thursday, July 12, 2007
The WaPo: Regarding Iraq, there is wishful thinking on all sides
Regarding the timing of any retreat from Iraq, the editors of the Washington Post are more intellectually honest than their colleagues at the New York Times:
We agree with Mrs. Clinton that President Bush has been guilty of "wishful thinking" on Iraq. When he was promoting his surge policy at the beginning of this year, we said Iraq's political leadership was unlikely to accept compromises any time soon. It was predictable, therefore, that Mr. Bush's benchmarks would not be met and that within a few months the policy he put forward without popular or congressional support would become even more difficult to sustain.
But his wishful thinking can't excuse, even if it helps explain, the wishful thinking on the other side. Advocates of withdrawal would like to believe that Afghanistan is now a central front in the war on terror but that Iraq is not; believing that doesn't make it so. They would like to minimize the chances of disaster following a U.S. withdrawal: of full-blown civil war, conflicts spreading beyond Iraq's borders, or genocide. They would have us believe that someone or something will ride to the rescue: the United Nations, an Islamic peacekeeping force, an invigorated diplomatic process. They like to say that by withdrawing U.S. troops, they will "end the war."
Conditions in Iraq today are terrible, but they could become "way, way worse," as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, a career Foreign Service officer, recently told the New York Times. If American men and women were dying in July in a clearly futile cause, it would indeed be immoral to wait until September to order their retreat. But given the risks of withdrawal, the calculus cannot be so simple. The generals who have devised a new strategy believe they are making fitful progress in calming Baghdad, training the Iraqi army and encouraging anti-al-Qaeda coalitions. Before Congress begins managing rotation schedules and ordering withdrawals, it should at least give those generals the months they asked for to see whether their strategy can offer some new hope.
Even ignoring the obvious electoral considerations (no Democratic presidential candidate wants to explain what he or she would do about Iraq if elected), there are spoken and unspoken arguments for withdrawing from Iraq. One version of the spoken argument for a rapid withdrawal is that our presence in Iraq is making the situation worse, not better. Another version is that even if there may be a small chance of a benefit in continuing to fight in Iraq, the cost of doing so in human and financial terms (including for these purposes the opportunities lost because of the "distraction") is not worth that small benefit multiplied by the probability of achieving it.
Both of these arguments depend on something of a leap of faith, as does the counterargument that the total costs of retreat will far exceed the costs of remaining. Both sides, in effect, are asking that we believe. The advocates of retreat have more supporters because they are asking that we take a risk in return for a certain benefit -- fewer American casualties and lower costs today. The retreatists also have more credibility than the Bush administration, which has made one incorrect prediction after another since before the war began.
The problem, of course, is that retreat also allows for the possibility of genuine catastrophe, not just in Iraq but in the region. That risk has to be weighed against the costs of continuing the fight, which after four years are pretty well-defined. We know that compared to our national income and population, the costs of remaining in Iraq are relatively low. In both human and financial terms, Iraq has been and will probably continue to be an inexpensive war for America to shoulder.1
The fact that we are faced with this choice should make supporters of the war -- including me -- wonder whether they were right to entrust this enterprise to George W. Bush. As of July 2007, it certainly looks as though history will judge us to have erred. The original sin of having invaded Iraq or having mismanaged the occupation does not, however, tell us how we should decide our next move.
The answer to that depends on whether you believe that the presence of American soldiers in Iraq is making the situation there worse. If you believe that, you are obviously in favor of immediate withdrawal. If, however, you are unwilling to say that American troops are making the situation worse, then the case for immediate withdrawal requires that you believe that things will not get seriously worse in some way that hurts our interests more than the costs of continuing the fight.
Since I believe that American troops are not making the situation worse and that there is a tragically high probability of a humanitarian or geopolitical disaster if we withdraw, I support the waging of a sustained and thoughtful counterinsurgency.
This thinking does point the way toward a line of questions for any supporter of immediate withdrawal. Do you believe that the American presence in Iraq is making the situation there worse? If so, why? If not, what do you believe the consequences will be of American withdrawal? If you say it will be catastrophic, what then is your reason for the withdrawal? If you say it will not be catastrophic, why is it that you have so little confidence in the ability of the government of Iraq to govern?
At this point, most supporters of withdrawal argue that the government of Iraq is ineffective because the various players know they will not have to do the hard work of compromise until they are truly at the brink, and they will not be at the brink until the United States withdraws, or credibily threatens to withdraw.
Perhaps there is truth in this argument, but it strikes me as unlikely. The government of Iraq is riven by differences, but its politicians have labored on under extremely difficult circumstances and at great risk to life and limb. It may well be that there is no coalition in today's Iraq that can govern both effectively and inclusively. Perhaps one group of strong men will have to beat the others into submission.
That leads to one of the unspoken arguments for withdrawal, the one that no "anti-war" activist -- or the New York Times -- will admit: if the United States leaves, so will the reporters. Western concern with Iraq's intramural fighting will return to the disinterest with which we usually regard domestic wars in the Arab world. Even (or especially) the left simply will not care what happens. Then the Iraqis can truly get about the business of killing each other with the violence necessary to crush dissent quickly, rather than doing the patient work required to fight a counterinsurgency the Western way.
_____________________________________________
1. Total defense spending, including Iraq, remains a much smaller proportion of GDP than it was even during the 1980s, much less the height of the Cold War. Casualties remain low, even including the seriously wounded. Yes, it is "stretching" our military, but only because in the recent reorganization of our military we guessed the next war would look like the Gulf War rather than Vietnam or the Phillipines. We could fix that, and should.
14 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Jul 12, 09:49:00 AM:
That leads to one of the unspoken arguments for withdrawal, the one that no "anti-war" activist -- or the New York Times -- will admit: if the United States leaves, so will the reporters. Western concern with Iraq's intramural fighting will return to the disinterest with which we usually regard domestic wars in the Arab world. Even (or especially) the left simply will not care what happens. Then the Iraqis can truly get about the business of killing each other with the violence necessary to crush dissent quickly, rather than doing the patient work required to fight a counterinsurgency the Western way.
This seems somewhat foolproof for the far-left, since it will allow them to act like they care and blame the right and the U.S. government for whatever awful things befall the Iraqi people.
By , at
Thu Jul 12, 02:44:00 PM:
Your postscript, though straightforward fact, causes the Kos crowd to go into fits. All kinds of complicated intellectual pretzeling starts happening when they read statements like that one, as you well know, designed to convince us that the money spent is much bigger and the lives lost are huge in number. They like to include the civilian deaths as per the Nature report etc etc.
Nice how you rolled that little grenade out, and I'm a little surprised you haven't got them over here arguing numbers. Probably just don't want to send traffic your way...
Andrew
By , at
Thu Jul 12, 03:07:00 PM:
I think the most persuasive argument for withdrawal is that it will free up resources to deal with Iran. Currently Iran knows that we are not in the position to put boots on the ground, so they are taking advantage of this by pushing their nuclear program as fast as possible. The real possibility that we may invade may be the only way to cool those ambitions.
When we leave Iraq we lose a valuable staging area, but if we don't we won't be able to go against Iran anyway. From a strategic point of view, Iran having nukes is a far greater threat to the security of this country than a destabilized Iraq.
By 
taryl cabot, at
Thu Jul 12, 03:33:00 PM:
Do you believe that the American presence in Iraq is making the situation there worse? If so, why?
Believe our presence is making the situation worse because:
(1) bringing in more jihadists from other countries who are coming to kill americans.
(2) Also we have little understanding of the area - we could succeed in nation building in Panama because of size, physical closeness, many american spanish speakers and many english speaking, and overall knowledge of area. those advantages do not exist in Iraq.
If you say it will not be catastrophic, why is it that you have so little confidence in the ability of the government of Iraq to govern?
not sure that those 2 clauses go together, but my expectation is that Iraq's civil war will continue with roughly the same amount of violence as currently seen.
Given the track record of the war supporters, i believe the onus is clearly on war supporters to make a cogent argument that our withdrawal will make Iraq worse.
t.c.
By , at
Thu Jul 12, 03:45:00 PM:
Tigerhawk, it's good that you mention the possibility of strengthening the military to be better able to stand up to the challenges you advocate that we face. I have a way for you to help to do that:
www.goarmy.com
By Unknown, at
Thu Jul 12, 04:07:00 PM:
Tigerhawk,
I am heartened by the thoughtful approach you have taken in this post. Your consideration that the "retreatist's" may actually have the support of a majority of the American public is commendable in the current environment of political discourse concerning the war.
The politics of this "war" have been polarizing from the outset. We need reconciliation at home as much as they need it in Iraq or our democracy may not survive the domestic war either.
I hope people on my side of the argument can be as reasonable. Maybe then we will see some real progress in Iraq and here at home.
I am not against war carte blanc... but this president has foolishly engaged an enemy who has no concern for his own life or the life of innocents... war cannot be made against this enemy anymore than you or I can cut water with a knife.
Hubris is the name of this adventure and the silver lining is that it has exposed the enemies of the Constitution here at home. Something all patriots should be able to rejoice in.
"Those who are willing to give up their freedom for a little temporary security, deserve neither freedom nor security." ~ Ben Franklin
By , at
Thu Jul 12, 08:31:00 PM:
I think in considering matters of withdrawal in Iraq, there are a couple major points to consider before any truly substantive analysis is done, at least to provide context. First: few people, and certainly no one serious, expect a redeployment from Iraq to happen instantaneously. I think it's fair to take for granted that when people discuss propositions of redeployment, they aren't speaking of the civilians-from-rooftops-via-helicopter, run-run-as-fast-as-you-can, smoke-em-if-you-got-em type of redeployment; instead, I imagine a phased redeployment over several months (4? 6? 10? 12?) is what they have in mind. This has cute similarities to the argument many people bring up against welfare: when you can stay on welfare indefinitely and have some one pay your bills, people do. When a government can have someone else do the peacekeeping and fighting indefinitely, whoever is fighting will be fighting for a long time. A phased withdrawal thereby solves the incentive problem of providing a motivation: work it out now, even if you don't like it, because it'll only be worse later.
Secondly, I think it is very much worth talking about opportunity costs; in dry economic terms what could be done with expenditures were they allocated differently, or more simply what you give up by fighting. Opportunity costs as a concept might lead one in the direction that it's not a matter of how bad things would be if we withdrew, but how bad the would be in comparison to other harms we get by staying. To borrow a visceral example, assume for a second that Hurricane Katrina was going to strike Louisiana in a matter of days and that Michael Brown was competent. By having the vast majority of our service personnel including national guard in Iraq, we gave up a large capacity of our response forces by them being on another continent, thereby amplifying the damages that might have otherwise been (such as rape at the superdome, massive property loss, looting, and insufficient evacuation.) More geopolitically, by stretching our forces to the limit now, we hamstring our response capacity in the future and allow a resurgence of non-national fighters; we're bogged down, they're not, and we can't track them down because the vast majority of our soldiers aren't as mobile. In short: Iraq is bad, but there can be worse alternatives to consider.
Taking this pretext, I'll take a shot at the questions you posited in your post. Do you believe that the American presence in Iraq is making the situation there worse? Yes. If so, why? Because I don't think this is a question of what you “believe,” as you discuss it in your post. There's a revolutionary concept in investigative theory regarding the opinions of others: you can go and ask them. At http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/250.php?nid=&id=&pnt=250&lb=brme, a study was conducted of Iraqis asking about preferences toward continued American presence. I can't do this stuff justice, so I'll quote: “An overwhelming majority believes that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing and there is growing confidence in the Iraqi army. If the United States made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government. Support for attacks on U.S.-led forces has grown to a majority position—now six in ten. Support appears to be related to a widespread perception, held by all ethnic groups, that the U.S. government plans to have permanent military bases in Iraq.” Again with the context, we consider a little more than 50% of the voting public going one way a mandate; 71% of people thinking something must be an ultimatum.
If not, what do you believe the consequences will be of American withdrawal? Suspending my answers to the previous question for a sec, I think that an American withdrawal will provide increased impetus to the governing officials in Iraq to get their act together. Should they be unable or unwilling to do so, I don't know what an indefinite American presence will do besides make the situation worse, as evidenced by what the Iraqis themselves (people on the ground continuously with, I imagine more than a liitte experience,) say. This could lead to extensive violence, but at the point where such things come to pass under optimal conditions, I think that violence is a foregone conclusion.
If you say it will be catastrophic, what then is your reason for the withdrawal? The threat of catastrophic results can be a strong motivator for everyone to put aside their differences, as everyone has an interest in avoiding the fighting. Also see the part of my previous answer about inevitability.
If you say it will not be catastrophic, why is it that you have so little confidence in the ability of the government of Iraq to govern? As explained, the impending US redeployment could be a necessary condition to convince arguing parties to compromise. But taking for granted the proposition of having little faith, let's look at some history. Members of the Sunni minority in Iraq managed to suppress and commit atrocities against the Shia majority for a couple of decades under Saddam's regime; this doesn't strike me as the type of thing that is resolved with kind words and a Ramadan card. If anything, it would probably inspire in the Shia a deep-seated hatred of the Sunnis, and thereby exacerbate religious differences. To read more about religious differences, atrocities, and the total stability that can come out of such things, see Crusades, The (end sarcasm.)
To be fair, I see some of these arguments as partially addressed in your discussion of the issue. However, what I don't see is any of the following: how a group perceived as an occupying force can ever win, with historical examples coming from Southeast Asia, especially Korea; when, exactly, we might be able to expect a success via the “Western way,” especially given that we managed to subdue a massively mobilized war machine on two fronts more quickly (WWII, for those unsure of the reference,); or finally, why it is that the past in Iraq will not be indicative of the future, meaning that five years of progress means being embroiled in a civil war.
These are all logistical, political, or speculative issues that I think deserve more than a little consideration, but I think there is another layer that must be discussed. Let's say that the war in Iraq is definitely winnable, and set aside all the problems I have mentioned so far. I don't believe that even under these remarkably favorable assumptions the war is a good idea, for one reason: I don't trust our commander in chief. We went in to be “greeted as liberators,” to a war that would never in a million years cost more than $60Bn, and would not require the troop estimates that General Shinseki provided from the outset. This sets aside the moving target of what “winning” is, (WMD? Saddam? Constitution? Elections?) and all of the contention over whether it's OK to dissent in indefinite wartime. When your commander has been wrong, over and over again, from the very start of the conflict, when do you stop trusting him? When your bookie keeps handing you tips on the next football game, but is always wrong, at what point do you start betting against him rather than with him? When our CIC overrides his joint chiefs of staff and ignores anyone who disagrees with him, compounding error with error, I lose my faith in his ability to conduct an historic an immensely complex task such as continued counterinsurgency. I have not heard him speak in anything but unfounded platitudes in a very long time, and for me that is insufficient. Perhaps Iraq could be won if we drafted all able-bodied men and women indefinitely, but such measures cause far more harm in what we give up than gains in stability. Until someone can speak to this duplex of issues, the probability of winning Iraq given the situation on the ground and the capacity of this commander to win it or generally be right, I remain unconvinced. And so long as I believe that the war we are fighting is in error, I cannot honestly ask for it to be fought bought and paid for in blood and dollars by the children of our country.
By , at
Thu Jul 12, 08:42:00 PM:
VDH weighs in, on the Times editorial and the war discussion more generally. Greatly worth reading.
Andrew
By , at
Fri Jul 13, 02:22:00 AM:
Michael Yon: Reid is just wrong
He’s wrong, he’s wrong. It has absolutely not failed, and in fact, I’m finally willing to say it in public. I feel like it’s starting to succeed. And you know, I’m kind of stretching a little bit, because we haven’t gone too far into it, but I can see it from my travels around, for instance, in Anbar and out here in Diyala Province as well. Baghdad’s still very problematic. But there’s other areas where you can clearly see that there is a positive effect. And the first and foremost thing we have to do is knock down al Qaeda. And with them alienating so many Iraqis, I mean, they’re almost doing it for us. I mean, yeah, it takes military might to finally like wipe them out of Baquba, but it’s working. I mean, I sense that the surge is working. Reid is just wrong.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Jul 13, 06:48:00 AM:
Tory -
Great comment, and a far more effective articulation of the "withdrawal" position than one ever hears from politicians advocating for it. I hope you come back more often.
I completely understand your argument, and it may be right. You are certainly correct that the Bush administration has no credibility, unless you are a partisan (which I never have been).
That said, there are bits I would deal with. First, I do think that we finally have the right general in place. David Petraeus has shown a deeper understanding of the situation on the ground since the months after the invasion, and I think we should see if a properly run counterinsurgency could work in Iraq.
Second, you asked how long it should take to win, given the World War II comparison. The answer is much longer. Limited wars, which include insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, do not involve more than a fraction of the resources of the affected societies. They are limited. The consequence is that it takes much longer for the national exhaustion necessary for victory and defeat to set in. Where you and I differ is in our view of the acceptable duration. Your's is obviously much closer to that of the American public. In my case, I think the current cost of the fight is worth it more or less indefinitely.
Third, I find it interesting that you essentially agreed, I believe, with my last point, even if you did not come out and say so. I wrote that another unspoken argument of the anti-war movement was that our withdrawal would allow the Iraqis to exhaust themselves fighting much more quickly:
if the United States leaves, so will the reporters. Western concern with Iraq's intramural fighting will return to the disinterest with which we usually regard domestic wars in the Arab world. Even (or especially) the left simply will not care what happens. Then the Iraqis can truly get about the business of killing each other with the violence necessary to crush dissent quickly, rather than doing the patient work required to fight a counterinsurgency the Western way.
You wrote:
But taking for granted the proposition of having little faith, let's look at some history. Members of the Sunni minority in Iraq managed to suppress and commit atrocities against the Shia majority for a couple of decades under Saddam's regime; this doesn't strike me as the type of thing that is resolved with kind words and a Ramadan card. If anything, it would probably inspire in the Shia a deep-seated hatred of the Sunnis, and thereby exacerbate religious differences.
I read that as essentially agreeing with my point; am I wrong?
I think your observations about opportunity cost are good ones, and I agree with them (at least insofar as you are concerned with geopolitical threats). I have thought for years that our military was far too small for the various missions required in a world in which we are both fighting a global counterinsurgency and increasingly worried about deterring state actors from Iran to North Korea to China. I would certainly support boosting defense spending by at least two GDP points (which would still put it below Reagan-era levels) and increasing the manpower by as much as that would buy.
I think the strongest argument you raise relates to whether the presence of the U.S. is creating more troubles than it prevents. As you say, Iraqi public opinion a year ago thought that it did, and perhaps that is a good touchstone. Geopolitically, though, Iraqi opinion does not entirely dispose of the question. The question for us is not whether the total amount of violence would decline or not, but whether the climate becomes more or less hospital for jihadis who would project their power internationally. Right now, it certainly seems that the atmosphere inside Iraq for the international jihadis, as opposed to the Shiite resistance, has gotten very inhospitable. Even the Sunnis seem to have polarized against them. So that is the interesting question.
No question, though, that it is a troubling set of choices.
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Jul 13, 10:16:00 AM:
The advocates of “phased redeployment” never explain how they will magically remove our troops from Iraq. If we remove them from everywhere a little at a time, we run the risk of groups being cut off and ambushed without the military ability to rescue them somewhat like Blackhawk Down. If we run as a reverse invasion, withdrawing from one end of the country to another in a wave, we will be followed by a line of Islamic thugs, taking over cities one at a time and declaring they are pushing the infidels out of the country by military force (and they won’t stop at the Kuwait border).
The best phased deployment is one in which a peaceful Iraq, ruled by Iraqis, looks around one day and says “Hey. Where did they go? Oh well, we don’t need them anymore.”
By , at
Sat Jul 14, 01:35:00 PM:
"Do you believe that the American presence in Iraq is making the situation there worse? If so, why?"
Because, as Tory said, the Iraqi people believe that it is, and who am I to argue with them?
I would also like to second the idea that since the Bush administration and its supporters have been so amazingly wrong about everything having to do with Iraq for the last five years the burden of proof about whether we should leave and what will happen if we do is not on me but on them.
And finally "The answer to that depends on whether you believe that the presence of American soldiers in Iraq is making the situation there worse" is not the right measure - the question is whether their presence there is making things *better* such that at some point in the reasonably near future they could leave without catastrophe. It seems clear that it is not. So you can have a catastrophe now, after having squandered X American lives, Y Iraqi lives, and Z dollars (plus goodwill, credibility, etc) or you can have it later after squandering X+A American lives, Y+B Iraqi lives, and Z+C dollars (where A, B, and C are nonzero). If those are the options, the choice seems very clear to me.
I am also curious as to how you plan to persuade the 70%+ of Americans who have turned against the war to change their minds. It is difficult to deny a majority of that size what it wants in a democratic system.
By Noumenon, at
Sun Jul 15, 04:44:00 AM:
TigerHawk, it is the rare blogger who can manage to summarize his opponents' position and actually describe it just the way they would. You understood well enough to make out the point that's most important to withdrawers -- whether we're making it worse by staying. I can't answer that, just wanted to give you props for being so understanding.
By SeekerBlog.com, at
Sun Jul 15, 06:22:00 PM:
Tigerhawk-
Great post -- hope it continues to attact thoughtful commentary!
I would like to add that, missing from the debate, is the recognition of what Iraq will be after a precipitous US withdrawal: that is an Iraq without Sunnis - whether by expulsion, by flight or by genocide. An Iraq without Sunnis is an Iraq without most of its technocrats or professionals. Many of those who have survived assassination have taken flight since the beginning of 2006 -- even the insightful Mesopotamian has fled to Canada.
The genocide glibly mentioned by the NYT editors was begun in 2006 following al Qaeda's bombing of the Golden Mosque. Which bombing was specifically part of the AQ strategy of enraging the Shia to incite the killing of Sunni as a class. The definition of the "Shia extremists" is "those who have decided all Sunnis must be eliminated from Iraq". There were few "Shia extremists" visible before the AQ bombing.
I've not seen any polling that tells us how many Shia [or Kurds] agree with the "Sunnis out" position. What we have seen from the Shia politicians is positioning similar to the "moderate Muslims" with regard to al Qaeda barbarism -- that is either silence or weak, whispered, not-in-Arabic criticism.
The only protection the remaining Sunni have is the MNFI and pressure from the U.S. through Amb. Crocker. A responsible Shia leader, upon seeing the U.S. fleeing Iraq, logically would have to tell his people "we must drive out the Sunni fast, before they regroup with full-throated support from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi, et al". The Shia leader would reason that the Sunni leaders will conclude there is no hope of reconciliation with the loss of US protection -- so the Sunni have two choices: run or fight.
We've already seen that some of the Baathists will choose to fight - even against the power of the US forces. What do you think they will decide when their only opposition is the not-yet-ready ISF?
The combined al Qaeda plus Sunni attacks will reinforce the Shia leaders who will say "they will not stop killing us until they are all killed or expelled from Iraq". The Sunni who switched sides to fight al Qaeda will certainly reunite with their AQ "comrades" when faced with the obvious future of a Sunni-free Iraq. Similarly, Sunni who have so far stayed out of the conflict may decide to fight -- if they are not willing to abandon their property and tribe to flee.
Will the Sunni who have already left Iraq return if the U.S. continues a patient, long-term counterinsurgency strategy? I can imagine the possibility -- after security has been established by MNFI and the ISF, and after the political reconciliation that can only follow security. I speculate that the Shia leadership will recognize the need and the benefits, leading to active recruitment -- from surgeons to electricity managers. However, I cannot imagine wanting to be "the first Sunni" returning to Iraq following chaos and purge. Can you?
