Centerfield

Had the pollster called me, I would have responded "what do you mean by 'win'?"

I wonder how much the poll is skewed by the fact that "win" is a pretty vague term in this context.

True, but not impossible. My guess is most people are thinking that "win" looks like an eventual orderly slow troop drawdown in the context of a peaceful Iraq with established civil authorities. Lose looks like a fight to get on the last helicopter as the embassy is overrun.

Doesn't that about cover it?

Of course, I fully grant the possibility that the outcome is mixed enough to only be interpreted as win or lose by the preponderant view of the NEXT generation. After all, how peaceful is peaceful enough? How democratic is democratic enough?

I really hate the way both FOX and CNN present their poll results. They seem to be more interested in tell you what to think than presenting the results.

Polling report seems to be a more user friendly layout. That particular question doesn't appear to be present yet, other Iraq questions with historical trends are.

(Scroll down a tad to see other questions from the same CNN poll.)

I agree with Oberon. Winning is a meaningless term in this context. In one sense, we have already "won" if you consider our primary goal to have been the removal of Saddam Hussein. Placing winning in the context of Viet Nam where the North Vietnamese actually conquered the South makes no sense here because I don't think anyone seriously thinks the insurgents are going to be able to reinstall a Baathist dictatorship again given the fact that the Shiites are the overwhelming majority. I don't think it's a question of "winning" or "losing." It's a question of what our goals are. I assume that most people would think that winning means, at a minimum, eliminating or at least significantly reducing the insurgency and establishing a reasonably stable democracy. The problem is that, under that definition, the insurgents largely control our definition of success because they can always muster enough strength to launch another series of attacks and maintain their presence. It seems to me that we should establish our own bottom line that doesn't depend on eliminating the insurgents, ie, at some point, saying that the Iraqis can do it themselves (ie, a form of Vietnamization). Of course, when that will be, who knows?

I disagree that Bush should be a mindless cheerleader. It's time that he and his administration reexamine their basic premises behind the war and decide whether it still makes sense to continue on this path. I mean, we withdrew from Viet Nam and the world didn't come to an end. I understand there are differences, but just assuming that resolve is all we need is pointless. Rather than dismissing anti-war critics, he needs to start at least considering their points. The last thing we need is more mindless rah rah.

Of course, one has to factor in the reality that perceptions change over time. Bush I was lauded for winning the Gulf conflict because his coalition drove Saddam out of Kuwait, yet he has been pilloried as a loser for leaving Saddam in power in Iraq. It's quite possible that the U.S. might leave Iraq believing in victory because of the creation of a functioning democracy, yet be perceived as losing if (as seems likely) Iraq becomes a theocracy like Iran.

I don't expect Bush to cheerlead mindlessly. Quite the contrary. I think he should share and encourage what I take to be his obvious committment to the path he has chosen, to try to democratize Iraq now that we have invaded. We broke it open, and its our responsibility. I have no trouble with him engaging the critics of how policy was executed, if that can be productive.

But I don't think he should engage critics advocating a policy shift of giving up and withdrawing. Further, I'd rate the possibility of that as zero.

It's quite possible that the U.S. might leave Iraq believing in victory because of the creation of a functioning democracy, yet be perceived as losing if (as seems likely) Iraq becomes a theocracy like Iran.

I think it's very reasonable to contemplate a scenario in which our withdrawal leads to a devolution of nascent democratic Iraqi federal authority. However, I think that if a post-withdrawal devolution occurs, it is far more likely to be a splintering along kurdish, sunni, and shi'ite lines than a unified theocracy that the populace acknowledges as a whole. In other words, 3 states with 3 different brands of government seems much more likely than a unified theocratic Iraq.

I hope you're right.

I actually have trouble seeing why three states in Iraq would be worse than trying to hold together a country that by all accounts shouldn't exist.

I realize there is supposedly a problem with creating an independent Kurdistan beacuse of Turkey's Kurds and the subsequent desire for independence from Turkey. But the way I see it (which may be wrong, who knows), an independent Kurdish state would attract Kurds, much as Israel attracts Jews and America attracts jerks (a joke).

But I suppose the other side of that is asking why then the Sunnis haven't gone over to Iran. This I can't explain, except for their roots in Iraq. Which may be why Turkey's Kurds might not want to leave either in this situation.

But still. We should deal with one situation at a time, and I think there is enough anger within Turkey already for that to not be a deciding factor in Iraq's future.

These three groups all want different things, and have obvious irreconcilable differences. Look at Yugoslavia, it was split up and is doing arguably better. I think the same situation would happen in a partitioned Iraq, and trying to tie these three groups together is counter productive.

Bush I ... has been pilloried as a loser for leaving Saddam in power in Iraq

bj,

Do think a lot of people have that view of Bush I? Myself, I always had the impression that the neo-conservative intellectuals and some partisan Dems took that view, but the vast majority of Americans were very happy when Bush I declared victory and got out.

Maybe I'm biased. I think that in 30 years Bush I will be recognized as the greatest president since FDR.

The sticking point being that the Kurds and the Shiite areas have all the oil, and the Sunnis want a share. That's their big worry.

It's time that he and his administration reexamine their basic premises behind the war and decide whether it still makes sense to continue on this path.

Marc adroitly cuts to the heart of the matter. But it's more than just Bush and his administration who need to reexamine their premise. Folks like Brian and other war supporters do too.

I mean, we withdrew from Viet Nam and the world didn't come to an end.

Ding, ding, ding!! We have a winner.

Seriously, though... Marc makes a stellar point here. What do we have other than rhetoric to back up the argument that if we leave Iraq today that international terrorism will benefit in the long term or even the short term?

Aren't we basically being given the same basic argument for staying in Iraq that was made for staying in Vietnam except that the boogeyman of communism has been exchanged for the boogeyman of terrorism?

Why do we NEED to stay in Iraq?

Oberon,

Do think a lot of people have that view of Bush I?

I'm afraid I don't have any poll data on that particular question, though I remember the bumper stickers saying "Saddam Hussein still has his job. Do you?" ;-)

As for myself, I know folks like Lawrence Eagleberger disagree with me, but I think it was eminently sensible for Bush I to declare victory and get out. He put the coalition together to free Kuwait. The coalition freed Kuwait. Ergo, war won.

If Bush I was still in charge of foreign policy, I doubt we'd have the mess in Iraq. Unfortunately, he's not. W is.

As for Bush I being the greatest President since FDR, well...that's a topic for another day.

I think that in 30 years Bush I will be recognized as the greatest president since FDR.

Hmmm... maybe in 30 years the notion of a sitting Vice President who also happened to be a former Director of the CIA being "out of the loop" on Iran/Contra will seem believable. I doubt it, though. I think that in 30 years people will still understand that nobody acquires the kind of powerhouse political resume that Bush 43 had by ever being out of the loop on anything important.

Okay, "greatest" was going overboard. Heck, I voted for Clinton.

Still, for a guy who supposed to be a wimp, he won a war like nobody else. And his decision to bring together an overwhelming international coalition and defeat Saddam Hussein without getting bogged down in Baghdad is looking smarter every day...

I'll just say Bush I was and still is underrated.

It's time that he and his administration reexamine their basic premises behind the war and decide whether it still makes sense to continue on this path.

What's needed is a reexamination of the premises of the how-to of this war, not the whether-to. In particular, Bush needs to abandon the ideological fetishes that allowed victory to flutter away. Three ideological fetishes I can identify are: military transformation (wizz-bang weapons with force multipliers make a substitute for boots on the ground), nation building is for sissies and no being nice to people who don't deserve being nice to.

The first one led to the outright dismissal of the need for a larger force to secure the peace after the invasion, with the result that now whenever re take a city bake from the insurgents/Salafists, we soon afterwards pull the troops who took that city out to move on to the next city because we lack the troops to both maintain the cities we've retaken and to retake others simultaneously. The second led to the dismissal of the planning done by the State Department's Future of Iraq project because that was nation building, and only sissies are concerned with nation building and WE'RE NOT SISSIES, ARE WE! The third one made it verboten to use the only tactic that has succeeded in previous wars of getting useful information out of POWs--being nice to them--because after all, they became POWs by fighting us, which means that they don't deserve nice treatment, no matter what effect it might have on us.

Barring abandonment by Bush of these ideological fetishes, the only way we can win is if someone else who values success more than these ideological fetishes, and commands of a substantial enough military to act on his convictions, were to take charge. Are you listening Tony Blair?

Just a little prediction here. If the current poll numbers regarding the Bush admin continues
there will be a September or August surprise involving the withdrawl of a significant number of US troops in an attempt to head off a possible Democrat takeover of one or both houses of government.

Of course 9500 poor sods just got backdoor drafted again this week so what do I know?

As for FDR v. Bush? No I don't think so. You see, FDR asked for and got tremendous sacrifices from all Americans. He unified them. Bush, on the other hand, has called for little sacrifice at all and the reason is that he either doesn't have the balls or the political ideology to do so. Rove, in his cold calculations calculated too well in dividing this country that was so unified after 9/11.

What BK said.

IMHO, it takes 50 years to render historical judgement on things of major significance. It's clear that Germany, Italy, Austria, and Japan turned out well. I don't think it's going out on a limb to say Panama was a success, but others do. Kosovo is still up in the air.

Presidents seem to be the worst that way.

On breakup, do remember, Iraq has been a reality for 80 years now. Even though it was created colonialistically, everybody has grown up in a unified Iraq. Bigger states have stabler politics, because geographic and cultural diversity reduces the bad effects of whimsy overtaking good sense. There's a famous case of Ancient Athens issuing orders in anger to burn a city down, and sending a second boat to cancel the orders the second day, when sense prevailed. In the modern day, Lichtenstein caved to their ruling family to revert to monarchy.

To me, the basic questions is whether we are doing more harm than good in Iraq. And to me, the best people to ask is the Iraqi government. In the absense of a good countervailing reason, if the Iraqi government wants us to stay, we owe it to them to stay.

And yeah the world didn't end when we left Vietnam, but uh you know millions of people were slaughtered. I think it is a curious reversal because I see a lot of liberals asking the question what is best for us. We need to ask that question, of course, but it doesn't seem very liberal to ignore the plight of the Iraqis.

Bush may be an idiot, but I would imagine that 150,000 well-trained troops might be more stabilizing than the number of extra insurgents there because of our presence. Yeah, I know they wouldn't be there if we hadn't come, but when we leave, it seems reasonable that that might strengthen the insurgency not weaken it. And not only would you have a potentially strengthened insurgency, you would be missing 150,000 well-trained troops and their technological sophistication. I think any withdrawal has to be done in close coordination with the Iraqi goverment. If we were doing more harm than good, then why wouldn't the Iraqi government ask us to leave? No one answered this question the last few times I asked it here. I remember reading an alternative exit strategy by some liberal dude who advocated that we provide lots of air and technological support for the Iraqi government while withdrawing almost all of our ground troops save for some guarding important Iraqi officals. That's at least semi-responsible. If we withdraw, we have to do it responsibly, we can't just let it collapse. I have heard that one of our major failures after withdrawal from Vietnam was lack of financial and technical support for the South Vietnamese government.

Bush may be an idiot, but I feel too much of this Iraq debate is colored by partisanship. Would people really feel this way if a democratic president had made a blunder--bay of pigs anyone? I think people decide Bush is an idiot and let that color everything he is involved in.

All I care about is the future of our nation and the Iraqis. I will be happy to see our fiscally irresponsible, Christian-right lovin', environment-hating president go. But I'm not one to throw in the towel unless it is crystal clear that we're doing more harm than good or that the costs significantly outweigh the benefits.

Bush may be an idiot, but I feel too much of this Iraq debate is colored by partisanship.

Of course, the same is true for the opposing side too. I'm sure there are some conservatives who are worried about the Iraq situation, yet keep their own counsel, not because they think W is a genius, but because he's supposedly the next best thing to Jesus.

Would people really feel this way if a democratic president had made a blunder--bay of pigs anyone?

Yeah, I think they would. Of course, Bay of Pigs was an unmitigated blunder; there wasn't even the silver lining of getting rid of a dictator for it, unlike Iraq. JFK's polls went up afterward because he took responsibility for it, and fired some big names for it, neither of which W has done.

We don't need a President who's a genius; we need one who can admit mistakes and fix them. (No Clinton jokes from the peanut gallery, please. ;-)

(No Clinton jokes from the peanut gallery, please. ;-)

And yeah the world didn't end when we left Vietnam, but uh you know millions of people were slaughtered.

Millions were slaughtered by Vietnamese communists? Are you sure about that?

I see a lot of liberals asking the question what is best for us. We need to ask that question, of course, but it doesn't seem very liberal to ignore the plight of the Iraqis.

What makes the Iraqi people special? Are they more worthy of our nurturing intervention than say... the North Koreans (or the Sudanese or the Congolese or Nigerians, or...)? I certainly don't hear any conservatives clamoring to invade North Korea to rescue it's people from their depraved dictator. Dig into it a bit and I think you'll discover that Kim Jong Ill managed to actually make Saddam look like a comparatively benign dictator. Which really says a lot more about the horrific conditions that the North Koreans live under at this very minute than anything good or approving about how Saddam ran Iraq.

Yeah, it's easy to create a liberal strawman as long as nobody examines it too closely. But, having been examined it quickly becomes apparent that it's nothing more than a convenient straw-stuffed effigy ready to be burned on the alter of self-deception. And what does that gain anybody?

> Aren't we basically being given the same basic argument for staying
> in Iraq that was made for staying in Vietnam except that the
> boogeyman of communism has been exchanged for the boogeyman of
> terrorism?

You might want to clean out your ears. Other arguments are, in fact, being made.

> What makes the Iraqi people special?

Well, we overthrew their government. I know you disagree with the reasons for the invasion, but I'm sure you'd agree that gives us a responsibility to fix what we broke. And it's not like Vietnam, where we were backing a regime possibly as bad as the Communists were. We're being responsible and trying to put the people of Iraq in charge.

You're no fun any more. ;)

Sir, you wound me deeply. ;-)

To make up for it, I linked a fun photo on your war protest thread. Hope you like it!

Millions were slaughtered by Vietnamese communists? Are you sure about that?

Time for real-world figures. The war itself resulted in roughly 5 million casualties both civilian and military among the Vietnamese of both sides. About 4 million were civilian casualties, evenly divided. The South Vietnamese lost about 240K soldiers, the NV lost over 750K. (Tell me again, who was winning?)

Beginning only with the fall of Hanoi marking the beginning of communist rule, and not counting any of the 5 million before that. (OK, Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge two weeks before South Vietnam "officially" surendered, but that's quibbling--the NV had it sewed up by then and the two were coordinating their attacks as "allies" at the time.)

"Millions" (plural) "slaughtered" for Vietnam is likely hyperbole, but it sure wasn't pretty, and there's the cross-argument about the killing fields of Cambodia. And what is meant by "slaughtered?" Saying "millions of Southeast Asians died as a result of the Communist takeover" is not hyperbole.

At least 65,000 South Vietnamese are known to have been politically executed in the first few years post-"unification." Actual figures were almost certainly two to three times that, minimum, as the figures are based on foreigner-witnessed executions and few westerners were being allowed in. This does not include victims of starvation, disease, exhaustion, suicide or "accident" (injuries sustained in clearing minefields, for example). Nor does it count Vietnamese who inexplicably "disappeared." Numbers unknown but considerable. See below.

Over 1 million others were sentenced to "re-eduction" camps. How many died in the camps is unknown, the figure is how many were eventually released alive.

Over 1.3 million fled by boat. Accident and pirates took many. The pirates seized women and children for use as slaves, mostly for sexual slavery, and killed the men. Sometimes they just killed everybody. Once again, how many died or were enslaved in the attempt to flee is unknown, the figure is how many eventually escaped alive to western nations.

Somewhere around 8 to 12 million Vietnamese were forcibly relocated from the larger towns and cities into the countryside as agricultural labor, essentially as field slaves. Those relocated were not reported to be massively or viciously abused (as in Cambodia) but they weren't treated very well either. No way to figure out death rates resulting from that.

Then there's Cambodia. The North Vietnamese victory and American withdrawal from the region allowed the NV's allies the Khmer Rouge to seize power in Cambodia, and Pol Pot's reign of terror began. The Khmer Rouge's attack on Phnom Phen was coordinated with the NV attacks on South Vietnam. 15-20% of the Cambodian population of 13 million died, through direct execution, forced labor, starvation and neglect. It became so bad that even their (now former) allies the Communist Vietnamese were shocked, and they invaded the country in 1978 to depose Pol Pot's regime and end the slaughter.

The fall of Vietnam directly resulted in the deaths of millions of Southeast Asians. How many total died is unclear, and not all by any means were intentionally and directly executed, nor by the Vietnamese. The NV didn't kill the millions in Cambodia, but they certainly enabled the process (and later, stopped it). It's a quite reasonable guesstimate that at least a million South Vietnamese died as a direct result of the Communist takeover.

Those are the facts, fuzzy as they are. How you care to assess or interpret them is entirely up to you.

Why do we NEED to stay in Iraq?

The reasons for staying are the same as going. Globalization is the key factor driving our foreign policy at present. Realignment of international alliances after the breakup of the Soviet empire has been accelerated by globalization. As the remaining superpower the US is central to most nations realignment policies. Alliances are being formed along economical lines, cultural divides, historical similarities, international power groupings, as well as percieved threat. The mideast has several common reasons to align themselves against the US. Dictitorial governments percieve the US as a threat. A common history and culture bind the area. The rise of radical Islam provides a vehicle to mobilize the populace against the Great Satan. Since our economy relies on cheap energy, and mideast oil is vital to our supply the US can't allow a solid anti-US block of nations to form in the area. A stabilized Iraq that remains outside of the formation of such a block is vital to our interests. It isn't so much about "winning" in the game of globalization as it is about keeping militant competition from forming.

The globalization game is going to be played out for decades to come. As the big guy we are at a disadvantage in the alliance strategies being played out. We have a target on our backs. If we get pushed out of the mideast it will have ripple effects throughout the world in how the rules of the game are percieved.

Dennis

Kevin,

I probably ought not to have confused the issue with a liberal remark. I just took that test and it told me I was socially and economically liberal, but still a centrist. Also I shouldn't have used the word slaughter, because I feel that detracted from my central point.

And my point was made most bluntly on a Hardball episode where Paul Hackett, the anti-war Democrat who narrowly lost, stated, when asked about the Iraq war, that he didn't know about the effect on the world (of an immediate withdrawal), but he wanted to do what was best for America. That sounded to me like cruel conservative isolationism. In my mind, even though liberals may not have invaded, they should care deeply about what happens to the Iraqi people. To me, what happens to the Iraqi people doesn't seem foremost in their minds. It seems that they are opportunistically riding public disappointment with the war, in contradiction with their liberal principles, or that they can't make the elementary distinction between opposing an intial decision and making the best out of a bad situation. Now, conservatives with their big spending and inteference in private lives are also violating their principles but one wrong doesn't excuse another.

I noticed you didn't answer my question about why we shouldn't listen to the Iraqi government. You just shifted the question onto North Korea. When people make this point, it seems pretty shallow. It's like, why do anything good at all, if I can't do them all? I believe our foreign policy should reflect both our interests and the interests of the world. Iraq was strategically and economically important to us and they happened to have a very nasty and WEAK dictator. Enlightened self-interest. North Korea is one of the most highly militarized countries in the world. We couldn't just sweep in and knock out the regime. It would be extremely bloody for us. Furthermore, their relationship to 9/11 is far more tangential. It didn't make sense to invade the Saudis, but nonetheless the idea was to cause a sea change in Arab perceptions (and those perceptions ARE at the heart of islamic terrorism), and getting rid of some nasty dude and putting a democracy in its place in the Middle East did relate to this goal of preventing terrorism. Maybe, this was a dumb idea, but as Jon pointed out, um, we're there now.

Don't use this as an opportunity to score points against the Bush adminstration--I don't like them either. Please answer my above question. Why shouldn't we stay until the Iraqi government asks us to go? Who better to determine whether we're improving the situation or not? As long as they're acting in good faith and sincerely trying to hasten the day of our departure why shouldn't we listen to them? Don't we owe this to the Iraqi people? Anything else seems to me like conservative realpolitik. And if you don't trust the Iraqi government, how about relying on Iraqi public sentiment? If the government wants us to stay and is acting in good faith, unless the Iraqi public sentiment is very solidly and consistently in favor of a speedy withdrawal, how are you not shirking your moral obligation to fix what you broke?

Tully,

The fact that the Vietnames couldn't tolerate the mass slaughter by the Kmher Rouge ought to be sufficient reason not to lump what happened in Cambodia in with the communist takeover of Vietnam. The communists in Vietnam stepped in a stopped the Cambodian slaughter. Did they do so with purely altruistic reasoning? Certainly not. But, they did step in and stop it.

Adam,

Why should we not listen to the Iraqis? I would respond with my own question: Are they really any better than what they replaced? Does merely committing human rights abuses on a smaller scale than Saddam did constitute a good reason to support them? Is that REALLY a good reason for Americans to dump billions of dollars and expend the lives of hundreds of our soldiers to continue occupying Iraq?

...it's more than just Bush and his administration who need to reexamine their premise. Folks like Brian and other war supporters do too.

...

Why do we NEED to stay in Iraq?

We need to stay in Iraq because we invaded it, and deposed the authoritarian government that ruled it, destroying substantial portions of its infrastructure in the process. It's our responsibility now to do our best to help Iraqis establish a semi-democratic semi-stable civil government. And help repair the infrastructure.That's why. Get it yet? We broke it, we bought it.

Unless circumstances make it obvious that this is not possible, and/or Iraqis themselves want us to leave, we should stay. That's why.

So Kevin, tell me why in your view we have no such responsibility.

We broke it, we bought it.

This implies a strict moral center that is not always useful in foreign policy. We have broken a lot of things we have no intention of fixing unless we absolutely have to. It is in our best interests to have them broken. I would even argue that a civil war in Iraq would be prefereable (from the US point of view) to the status quo under Saddam. (Not to say I think civil war would be a good outcome.)If we are going to try to police the world we are going to fail miserably.

Dennis

Brian,

I think Dennis makes a valid observation about the whole "divide and conquer" approach. It's often just plain easier, not to mention cheaper, to set two sides against each other so that neither has the time, inclination or resources to turn against us. I'm not saying that's a morally or ethically good thing to do, mind you. In fact I don't believe it's moral or ethical. But, it is often pragmatic from a very short-sighted perspective.

To answer your question more directly: Initially I agreed with the so-called Pottery Barn rule that Powell articulated. But, between lingering doubts about the morality/ethics of the Iraqis that Bush has chosen to support, the high cost in tax dollars and human lives, and the lack of compelling historical evidence that staying would be better than leaving... I question just how advantageous it is to our long-term security to stay under the terms that Bush Inc have dictated.

In hindsight it seems pretty clear that Bush Inc. screwed the pooch by not having sufficient forces to fully secure the peace at the very beginning. That allowed the armed opposition to get started and to grow. And despite the many operations aimed at rooting out insurgents I don't see much evidence that things have gotten any better. Oh sure, War supporters point to upcoming events which supposedly motivate the insurgents to fight harder in an attempt to head them off. But, thus far those predictions don't seem to have held water. Last January's election being a case in point. So, why should we believe what's happening right now is any different? The fact is that I don't.

Lebanon is an excellent object lesson that we ought to learn from. Reagan sent a token force which wasn't even close to being big enough to impose security, even with all of the other UN peace-keeping forces in the country. It wasn't until Syria invaded with the kind of overwhelming force sufficient to impose absolute order that Lebanon began to turn around. I know that Iraq War fans don't like to admit it, but the truth is that Syria is largely responsible for the degree of peace and democracy in Lebanon today. And it is precisely because they went in and imposed FULL security that it worked. That is what allowed peace-loving Lebanese to assert themselves when the time was ripe.

Thus far Bush Inc. show no willingness to commit the kind of resources necessary to impose full security in Iraq. The resulting chaos isn't the least bit surprising. In fact I would argue that it was completely foreseeable. As indeed General Shinseki (or however the hell his name is spelled...) strongly suggested at the very outset when he testified that we'd need about twice the number of troops that are currently there. What did Bush Inc. do? They openly mocked the General's suggestion and prattled on about how the Iraqi's would welcome us with sweets and other nonsense.

Staying in Iraq under the illogical and ineffective leadership of Bush Inc. strikes me as little better than whistling thru the proverbial graveyard.

IF we are to stay and own what we broke then the ONLY way that it makes any sense to me to do is to over-ride Bush's failed strategy and do it right. Otherwise we ought to turn it over to the UN, as the Emir of Qatar strongly suggested, and then put strong pressure on the UN to put strong enough forces into Iraq to impose full order, which is also part of what the Emir suggested.

Anything short of imposing full security in Iraq seems foolhardy and extremely naive to me.

I probably prefer the Emir's solution to Bush's--IF it could actually be done. However, I think you're making the error that if it can't be done perfectly, it isn't worth doing at all. As I said, I think the Iraqis know better than we do whether we're helping or hurting their situation. I certainly would like at least token military support from the UN to demonstrate that the world is committed to the same goals as the US is. A little more French involvement would be nice too. Just to show that the world is committed to a better future for the Iraqis. They can just say that we totally disagree with Bush's recklessness but they are not going to hold that against the Iraqi people.

And about your link, Kevin. I'm not saying that sh*t don't happen, but I think you're stretching our credulity if you suggest that the new Iraqi government is no better than Saddam. A few isolated instances of brutality doesn't prove your case. Furthermore, the real question is do the people at the top support this like Saddam supported such brutality? If not, then it just means that the government isn't strong enough yet. So your solution to helping them is to abandon them even though they want us there!?

Another curious liberal contradiction is that on one hand liberals complain that "democracy can't be imposed at the end of a gun" and then say the reason why we're failing is because we don't have enough troops. What??? In fact, Bush tried to spread democracy, a liberal project, and tried to encourage an authentic Iraqi-style democracy, respecting the liberal idea of multiculturalism.

If it's true that Bush is not devoting the necessary resources to this conflict so he can enjoy some pork and tax-cuts, that's shameful. But one side's idiocy doesn't excuse the other's.

Again, I'm open to an alternative to American occupation that would actually work. But it seems to me that the anti-folk just want us gone, and somehow think that magically peace and harmony will be restored. Why do they think they understand the situation than the Iraqis?

I'm sure Americans would feel more comfortable, at least for a while, after a withdrawal, but would the Iraqis?

Adam, how many more soldiers and tax dollars are you willing to spend on half measures that have yet to yield results anywhere close to what was projected?

I mean... either things are getting better and therefore half-measures will suffice or they aren't and it won't.

What's your verdict thus far?

I think the Bush administration (and the military) had the small footprint model in mind when they went into Iraq. 800K Russians couldn't hold weakling Afghanistan. The minimial force rule seemed to be working fairly well there at the time we invaded Iraq. In hindsight you could argue a larger force would have been better, but it's possible that it could have been a worse disaster with a larger force. I doubt the US has a force large enough to completely dominate a country the size of Iraq without being complete oppressors at any rate. And it would be counter productive to what we are trying to achieve. Debathification is probably the real cause of the growth of the insurgency, but without removing the existing power structure we ran the risk of both reinstalling the Bathist regime, possibly even seeing Saddam regain power, or totally alienateing the Shiites. All of that is hindsight anyway. But I doubt if the oppressive kind of force that Kevin is talking about would be accepted by the majority of the Iraqi people.

The January election was a nice photo op, but the real test is the constitutional referundum. If it is defeated by the Sunnis there are going to be some major problems for the US with the possiblility of a high grade civil war. The pain the US is feeling now will be lengthened and increased if that happens. If the Sunnis fall short of defeating it there will be a Shiite theocratic government ruling with a semi-independent Kurdish state in the north. Either way there will be a spike in the insurgency.

Now for opinion that is hardest to defend: I don't think things are going that badly in Iraq! We are obviously fighting a flexible holding action while things play out and things can still go badly of course, but I don't see any indication that is likely. The people there are involved, and the government they eventually wind up with is going to be responsive to them. I doubt/hope that with the three years of the taste of free access to information and debate they have had they will get a government that is not responsive. An added bonus often overlooked is that with a Shiite theocracy (that has seen the failed policies of Iran but remains freindly to them) the US will gain inroads to Iran. The real danger in my mind is that the US will lose its nerve and withdraw prematurely.

It's all part of the larger plan. Trust me folks :)

Dennis

Kevin,

What if we're allowing the Iraqis to build up their strength and train troops, while we keep the fort together? To use a metaphor I saw used once, we're trying to keep the body healthy enough so that Iraq can fight off its own illness. Just letting it collapse doesn't seem reasonable. If we weren't doing any good, the Iraqi government would ask us to leave. If they thought that they could maintain the country with us gone, I'm sure they'd love to see us go.

My estimation is that the political process is moving forward while the insurgency is maintaining its levels with periodic ups and downs. At this point the outcome is unclear, we need to keep moving forward until we acheive victory or until victory is clearly untenable. We don't know now.

I think that a defeat of the constitution could actually be a good thing if the Sunnis hate it. Let's say they try really hard to defeat it, but can't. There's always the possibility that the Sunnis decide that they can't acheive their way through the political process and this would greatly fuel the insurgency. If they defeat it, that means that the Shiites and Kurds will be forced to compromise with them. It will bring them into the political process. And that's what we need, an Iraq where all three ethnic groups have a stake. And a multi-ethnic state is much more likely to be moderate.

I think we owe it to our soldiers to win if we can, so that those who have died will not have died in vain.

I don't deny that the initial projections were way out of line, but that doesn't mean we have no moral obligation to the Iraqi people.

If the political process were not going forward, or had no chance of going forward, I'd be more inclined towards a pull-out. But clearly a large majority of Iraqis want democracy as the January elections demonstrated. To leave them, mid-stream, is cruel. There is still a chance that the Sunnis can be drawn into the political process. After all, they are planning to vote in large numbers. I think many Sunnis leaders have admitted they made a mistake when they boycotted the election.

The results of a pull-out are uncertain, but with a power vaccum the results are unlikely to be pretty. Even though it wasn't orginally the case, Iraq now is the major front on the war in terror. A loss there would be devastating, and a victory very powerful. I fear a pull-out could just be kicking the can down the road. In any case, the political process is moving forward, Sunnis are planning to vote, the Iraqi people tolerate us, their government wants us to stay, so I see no reason to pull-out now.

A partial solution is better than no solution.

As I said, Kevin, your mileage is your own. I'm just reporting what happened. The Vietnamese invading Cambodia to rein in Pol Pot was the only time I ever cheered a Communist regime. No one else was going to stop the Cambodian slaughter. Even had Carter been so inclined, he could never have mustered the political capital in the wake of the war, and no other nation in the free world was interested in stepping in that particular mess.

Not that the Vietnamese were really being all that altruistic. After Pol Pot consolidated his power, he began demanding that his former allies return "Cambodian" lands that had been held by Vietnam for centuries. By then, the People's Republic of China was openly backing Pol Pot as a proxy, while the USSR was doing the same with Vietnam. Vietnam refused the Cambodian demands, and Pol Pot began slaughtering ethnic Vietnamese within his borders and sending guerillas into western Vietnam.

With the USSR's open backing, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and kicked the crap out of them, ending the "killing fields" regime. In response (and, one suspects, to save face) China invaded northern Vietnam. After seizing a chunk of territory but failing to coerce Vietnam to withdraw from Cambodia, they withdrew. The Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 is a case study in unclear motives--and ambiguous "victories."

"Millions were slaughtered by the Vietnamese communists" is only true if you measure from the start of the war, and would also have been true of the South had they taken the North. It is clearly hyperbole if you start measuring from the fall of Saigon. "Millions of Southeast Asians died as a result of the U.S. pullout from South Vietnam" is an accurate statement.

...how many more soldiers and tax dollars are you willing to spend on half measures that have yet to yield results anywhere close to what was projected?

***Projected by who? If you choose to look to the standard of the most sanguine proclamations of the most ardent and blindly faithful neocons, that's you bag, I guess. But I never believed them. I opposed intervening in the first place because I thought it was somewhere between possible and likely that it would be a fiasco ending in a civil war. So I measure the results so far against what I MYSELF felt was reasonable to expect, not what some clueless nitwit of an ideologue declared.

And I think things have gone fairly well compared to what I expected. I expected the inital invasion to be pretty much a cakewalk, and everything after to be a bitter struggle. I never was foolish enough to dare to hope for an across-the-board open-arms welcome and an immediate and total adaptation to modern representative democracy. So far I look at the whole and see a fitful improvement in infrastructure compared to what was inherited, a pretty successful initial election, the sustaining so far of the pragmatic tolerance of our presence by the majority of the people, and the reasonable possibilty that when Iraq has a ratification vote for the constitution, the turnout will be huge and the document will pass.

I largely agree with Dennis. If there's a spot where we've succeeded, it has been in giving Iraqis a taste of what it's like to have free access to information, a say in whats going on, and a reasonable hope that the future may hold a legitimate chance for Iraqis to live freely and stably and fulfill the human aspirations of the common person: a life stable and predictable from day to day, with some measure of liberty, justice, and opportunity.

Many people with little knowledge of the ins and outs of military affairs are awfully blithe about assertions related to troop levels. I feel I must demur from any opinion as to an ideal number myself, since it would be woefully uninformed. What I can reasonably notice is that even among those with expertise, opinions vary, and the operational conundrum involves the risk of fostering an intolerably oppressive occupation in order to ensure security. The approach so far seems to have been to tolerate some breaches of security for a host of reasons. Having 150k troops instead of 300k has the advantage of, to be glib, 50% less oppression, an important factor when the sustained pragmatic tolerance of the populace for the occupation is crucial.

Of course, this is not to say that we know that 150k was arrived at via brilliant military calculus moreso than domestic political considerations. Luck is ALWAYS a factor. This is why we pray, each of us in our own way.

Even so, the approach we have taken so far HAS highlighted the unmissable fact (for both Iraqis and for Americans) that when push comes to shove, the success of this enterprise lies in the hearts, minds, and the hands of Iraqis. We will withdraw over time, and Iraqis will have steer their own path. Ultimately, the best we can do is to lead the horse to water.

I know that Iraq War fans don't like to admit it, but the truth is that Syria is largely responsible for the degree of peace and democracy in Lebanon today. And it is precisely because they went in and imposed FULL security that it worked.

Thank you Kevin for listing one of the items of prime importance to the Bush-opposing Iraq War supporters. As I've said in my earlier comment, my issues are not over the whether-to of this war, but over the how-to. One of the great frustrations of following the war is that the MSM only covers two options fully, stay the course and pull out. Yes, they do occasionally mention that some, such as Sens. McCain and Clinton, call for increasing forces in Iraq, but with no coverage of what strategy such proponents have beyond force augmentation. This deficiency cannot be explained by media bias because it serves the interests of demagogues on both sides who would set up the "only other" alternative as a straw man and then claim that their position wins by default.

So what other alternatives are there? To start, we could provide real training, as in equivalent to what an American soldier/policeman would receive, to Iraqi forces, many of them in the US and other nations willing to help. There are several countries which have said that they would be willing to provide assistance but not send troops.

Second, we could increase forces on border patrol. According to Sen. Biden, this could be done with 3,000 troops, but even if that's an underestimate, that it's still a fairly small force increase.

Third is pay more attention to local security. This would require that when we retake a jihadist stronghold, such as in the offensive in Falluja last summer, we maintain troop numbers where we do so instead of pulling the forces out for redeployment in the next place to retake. In other words, it will require more forces overall in Iraq. However, it would not mean more forces visible in localities that have forces in them already, for those who fret that more forces would just be an instrument of oppression.

Scott,

Correct me if I'm wrong, it's not something I know a lot about, but didn't Syria basicly annex Lebanon? The military took it over and the Bathists co-opted the government for 15 years. Geographic location and common culture played a large part in making that possible. Even if we could have done that in Iraq it would have been counter productive to our strategy of changing the political face of the mideast.

As to the tactic of border forces I've wondered that myself. Even non combat ready Iraqi forces could serve as border gaurds. It would make a good training ground. 3K does seem unrealistic, but I see your point. My assumption on that is that the military commanders are fairly bright, and it is either undoable due to the terrain and forces required, or not necessary (small amount of foreign fighters and arms crossing over the border) in comparison to the resources needed. I tend to trust the military minds over there a lot more than the political ones here at home.

Dennis

Point of interest. While everyone has been paying attention to hurricanes, US and Iraqi forces have greatly increased their border activities and assaults on insurgent strongholds in Sunni areas.

Scott,

I believe it would be a mistake to have other Arab nations train Iraqi military forces, as I believe Rumsfeld is doing with Egypt and maybe another Arab nation or two. Retired U.S. Army colonel Norvell De Atkine explains why in his essay Why Arabs lose wars.

Dennis,

I don't think that Lebanon's culture is as similar to Syria's as you seem to believe it is.

For one thing, Lebanon has significant numbers of a variety of Christian sects as well as region's largest concentration of Druze, all of whom had their own very powerful militias operating during the civil war. Syria does have all or most of those same religious minorities, but in much, much smaller numbers. Iraq's religious makeup is much more akin to Syria's than to Lebanon's.

While I certainly don't believe for a second that Syria's motives were overly altruistic... I do think that they had to have been genuinely concerned about the instability spreading into Syria precisely because there are small Druze and Christian communities in the western edge of Syria and it's certainly plausible that had nobody stepped in to end the Lebanese civil war that western Syria could have been drawn into the sectarian bloodletting. Indeed, the greatest concentrations of Syrian military forces in Lebanon were stationed in the eastern portion of Lebanon, which I think underscores the practical concerns of the Syrians. And from what I've read and heard, the Syrian's didn't impose themselves as heavily on western Lebanon as they did in the east, again underscoring their own security concerns.

Correct me if I'm wrong, it's not something I know a lot about, but didn't Syria basicly annex Lebanon? The military took it over and the Bathists co-opted the government for 15 years.

That much is true. I probably should have thought more before posting, but the part that I think should be emulated is having enough force to impose order until a domestic force can arise.

I believe it would be a mistake to have other Arab nations train Iraqi military forces, as I believe Rumsfeld is doing with Egypt and maybe another Arab nation or two.

That's a legitimate point which I am in no position to have an opinion. However, France, and possibly other European nations, have offered help training the Iraqis.

This is a great discussion, and I'm sorry I'm jumping in a little bit late. Even the sidebar on Vietnam and Cambodia has captured my attention!

I tend to agree with Dennis that we have to think about the larger picture issues-- that the entire campaign was never about just Iraq, but about forcing the Islamic world to accept that we had shed our "white elephant" coat and were willing to fight and sacrifice lives and treasure for what we *said* (this was their impression of US foreign policy that thirty years of Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, and Carter had etched in their minds-- that America talks big, but retreats in the face of terror). And in some respects-- with Libya's Qaddafi and Pakistan's Mushrraf, for sure, and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah-- it worked and the state sponsors of terror took some action against the fund-raisers, organizers, and planners of terror that lived within their borders. But Kevin is also right in that our failure to defeat the counterinsurgency in Iraq has only emboldened some of the fence-sitters (think Syria and Iran) who initially paused, but have since allowed support for terrorist organizations and activity to resume within their borders. Mixed success, so far, something I can say because I'm neither a Republican nor a Democratic partisan.

I also think that bk is right in identifying the false assertion that GEN Shinseki's 200,000 troops would have magically brought peace and stability to Iraq. Not too long ago, I actually blogged a rather lengthy post, using simple calculus and historical correlation of force ratios, on precisely why that argument is flawed. In the best (read: neocon) case scenario, Iraq would have needed 468k troops; in a more realistic (and still very optimistic) setting, Iraq would have required 1.56 Million troops-- which, unless everyone is going to do forty-eight month tours, really means you need some multiple of that figure. Kevin, GEN Shinseki's figures were targeted toward toppling the Saddam Hussein regime, NOT necessarily the post-"war" Occupation (although he saw that as the cornerstone for the follow-on troop levels). He was wrong (we don't need half the Army to win a maneuver war), but so were the "neocons" who didn't (and still don't) realize that counterinsurgencies are war, too, and violence doesn't end when you destroy your enemies' conventional forces.

The way to win, as my post was entitled, is all about the strategy: if you're trying to fight a counterinsurgency using third-generation warfare tactics then you're going to have about as much success as the 1960s/1970s US Army had in Vietnam-- which is to say that we may very well win every BATTLE, but we will still LOSE the WAR. Unfortunately, the US military education machine (of which I am a product) systematically teaches us to fight on the third-generation plains and not on the murky, less-defined fourth-generation battlefield. Not that I think the civilians know what they're doing much better than we do-- they have their own issues which they have to work through. But winning a counter-insurgency means (among other things) crafting a politically-based strategy, subordinating intelligence-driven kinetic operations to information operations, and rebuilding the Iraqi political institutions (including their security forces) and economic infrastructure to establish the conditions for an enduring security.

Too many of us within the military-- and our equally important brothers within State/USAID/etc.-- just don't "get it." One perfect example was last winter's refusal to consider the "Riyadh Option": basically, a Division-sized multi-national force that would have consisted purely of soldiers from Muslim countries (mostly Sunnis, mind you, and no neighbors), funded by other Muslim countries (Saudis and Kuwaitis, mostly), and operated in a separate Area of Responsibility under UN control. It had the potential to at least add more troops to the cause, and engage the UN into feeling like they could do *something* to help-- which I think guys like Kevin would call a good first start to the whole process of transferring control, incrementally in scope, time, and geography, through the UN to the Iraqis. But *someone* shot it down, and we never got the chance to experiment with what Michael Hirsh would have called "Regio-Cops." I think it was a bad call, but an example that too many beyond just the military just don't "get it" (although most of us don't "get it," either).

One major exception to this general rule, thank God, is our new US Ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, recently removed from his position as the "Viceroy"/US Ambassador in Afghanistan. HERE is a man that understands what we're facing and what we have to do to "win"-- and it's not just killing insurgents (although you have to do some of that) and it's not just building schools (although you have to do some of that, too).

I understand everyone's frustration, and I completely agree with Brian Keegan's opening thoughts that,

"I'm disappointed that Bush saw fit to invade and commit troops to what he deemed a crucial enterprise, but has not seen fit to utterly wear out his bully pulpit in order to maximize our chances of winning. My tak (sp) is that the public sentiment of Americans and of Iraqis is crucial to victory."

Right now, we're trying to fight with one-half of one percent of the American population. And that's a major tragedy, because everyone has a stake in this... perhaps most especially the Europeans who will be a Muslim continent by the end of this century...

That's a legitimate point which I am in no position to have an opinion. However, France, and possibly other European nations, have offered help training the Iraqis.

They have, and NATO has already agreed to assume responsibility for much of the mission to train the Iraqi security forces. However, this is not a short-term solution, and we shouldn't expect to see NATO assuming this reponsibility for one to two more years. Remember, NATO agreed to assume control of OEF-Afghanistan two years ago, and have only just now assumed responsibility for anything beyond Kabul and a few Provincial Reconstruction Teams (and, with the exception of the Canadians in Kandahar, have avoided the more dangerous south and southeast completely, leaving it to the US-led Coalition... which ironically enough has always had a French special forces task group and a Romanian infantry battalion operating in precisely those areas...)

NATO moves very, very, VERY slowly, something that US politicians don't understand when they're going around making their campaign promises.

That's a legitimate point which I am in no position to have an opinion. However, France, and possibly other European nations, have offered help training the Iraqis.

Well, I bring it up in part because it indirectly relates to one of the things that I think Rumsfeld et al did right in Iraq. Which was to disband the Iraqi military with the plan of rebuilding it from scratch.

I'm certainly no expert or even anything close to it. But, I think De Atkine's essay makes a very compelling arguement in support of what Rumsfeld et al did in Iraq. At least on principle and assuming that they were thinking along similar lines. And frankly, it's the only way that what they did makes any sense to me.

I'll even go one step further just to demonstrate that my views on Iraq aren't a knee-jerk reaction to the dolt in the White House and his merry band of idealogues:

1. If I'm right about Saddam's military being dismissed then it follows that the Bush administration was serious about building a competent, credible force for Iraq. And it follows from that that they never intended a long-term occupation of Iraq. Certainly not as long as it's been thus far and how much longer it'll likely be.

2. As I read the relevant timeline... I believe that Egypt et al were involved with training Iraqi forces only at the point at which it became apparent to Bush that the initial plan simply wasn't producing forces fast enough. Essentially it's a deal with the devil to shore up the short-term deficit on the ground. Undoubtedly they are banking on the commissioned officers being properly trained by non-Arab instructors and that they will in turn propagate the more effective western approach to military command and control down thru the ranks. Which is not an entirely unreasonable line of reasoning, IMO. Time will tell.

Where I think that Bush Inc. fatally screwed up was in letting ideologically-driven pet hypotheses blind and deafen them to contrary evidence and voices. Which is to say that I think they were willfully ignorant of the folly of not having enough forces on the ground to enforce security, just like they were willfully ignorant, IMHO, that the evidence for Iraqi WMD was highly questionable. What pisses me off is how many soldiers have died because of it and how many billions of extra dollars of OUR tax monies it might take to rectify the situation.

Kevin, GEN Shinseki's figures were targeted toward toppling the Saddam Hussein regime, NOT necessarily the post-"war" Occupation (although he saw that as the cornerstone for the follow-on troop levels). He was wrong (we don't need half the Army to win a maneuver war), but so were the "neocons" who didn't (and still don't) realize that counterinsurgencies are war, too, and violence doesn't end when you destroy your enemies' conventional forces.

Granted, 200k troops weren't needed to topple Saddam's conventional forces. But, given the fact that all indications are that Bush et al foresaw having to occupy Iraq for at least a brief period, which is why they disbanded Saddam's military afterwards, it seems to me that the point still goes to Gen. Shinseki.

Consider how the actual operation panned out. It was a variation on the Nazi Blitzkrieg strategy. And it worked brilliantly IF the only goal was to blow thru Saddam's conventional forces, toasting them in the process and then exit the country. But, Bush Inc. clearly never intended to leave immediately.

The whole thing wasn't supposed to be a whiz-bang military exercize for the sole purpose of demonstrating how quickly our military could force an opposing military to cry "Uncle."

That we would defeat the Iraqi military was a foregone conclussion. Whether we did it quickly or slowly or somewhere inbetween, the outcome was never, ever in doubt. So, it seems to me that the Blitzkrieg strategy that was used must be assessed in the larger context of WHY we were there in the first place and what we hoped to achieve in the aftermath. Defeating Saddam as quickly as humanly possible was never the point of the exercize.

I remain unconvinced that Gen. Shinseki's advice wasn't the way to go. With more troops we could have both done the blitzkrieg thing AND done a better job of imposing security.

Bobby,
Great link! And thank you for your service.
IMO invading Iraq served a wide range of purposes. As you say it served notice we weren't in retreat mode anymore. I doubt Afghanistan would be going as well as it is if we hadn't moved into Iraq. Over time it will also help the perception on the Arab street that we have abandoned the policy of having the CIA muck around in their internal affairs after 50 years of bad foreign policy.
I'm not convinced that the deBathification of the military was a bad thing though since the power base we are trying to mollify are the Shia. Both the existing military and political structures had to be overhauled to do this. They could have been used for a short time for initial security, but that would have left problems farther down the road. And they were probably heavily infiltrated with the gaurd. It would have been to easy to fall off that balance beam.

A lot of my faith in what is going on over there is predicated on the assumption the military does "get it" or at the very least is getting around to getting it. I found your post a bit disturbing in that regard.

Kevin,
I don't see where you are addressing the problem of a large footprint. I'm out of my element, but by Bobby's math (which is far too optimistic by his own admission) there's no way we could muster the kind of force you are talking about let alone the perception problems.

And, IMHO of course, I don't think Bush "willfully ignored" the contradictory evidence on the WMD. They oversold it but put yourself in the Presidential shoes. 9/11, everyone is screaming how could you let this happen, and the possible ramifications are _pretty damn scary_. Are you willing to take the chance? With the rest of the reasons and tenuous connections Iraq is a nexus if you really want to change mideast policy.

Dennis

Kevin,

But, given the fact that all indications are that Bush et al foresaw having to occupy Iraq for at least a brief period, which is why they disbanded Saddam's military afterwards, it seems to me that the point still goes to Gen. Shinseki.

It's not about scoring "points"-- that's part of the problem, and if you do that, YOU are part of the problem. If we do that, if we get fixated on playing the blame game and making "our" side look better, or what LTG Russ Honore bluntly called "Don't get stuck on the Stupid" in a recent press conference, then we're *really* not going to find the answer.

I will agree that GEN Shinseki's 200k was closer to the mark for the Occupation than the "neocons," BUT that his number was still unrealistically low if you're going to apply traditional peacekeeping/peace enforcement type of operations. HOWEVER, I will also say that the "neocons" predicated their post-invasion assumptions on the liberated French-type of scenario waving flags, and for that matter, which was a major flaw in their assumptions as well (but it explains why they thought they had enough troops). AND I will DEFINITELY NOT agree that we thought it was a foregone conclusion that we could destroy Iraq's conventional forces with just one heavy infantry division, one light infantry division, and one marine expeditionary force plus a British force-- with a Desert Storm I-style force, to be sure, but that's not what we had for the "Thunder Run." In fact, many retired general officers-- including Wes Clark, David Hackworth, and David Grange-- went on the air and claimed otherwise when it appeared that shock and awe had stalled -- and ended up with a lot of egg on their face.

I remain unconvinced that Gen. Shinseki's advice wasn't the way to go. With more troops we could have both done the blitzkrieg thing AND done a better job of imposing security.

What you're basically saying is that if we had just fifty thousand more troops (and only about sixteen-thousand of whom would be *combat* troops), that we'd be better able able to impose security. Well, I'll counter that with (a) fifty-thousand more would have been negligible, and (b) you can have a two-million man Army on the ground-- if they're not executing the RIGHT kind of operations, then you will still LOSE (as the Russians learned in Afghanistan).

200k wasn't enough if you were going to implement the kind of strategy we have subsequently employed. Do the math yourself if you want to, but I guarantee you will find yourself coming up way, WAY short. The answer is in reformatting the strategy, NOT in reflexively asking for just fifty thousand more troops.

And for the record, GEN Shinseki never said that 200k was ALL we would need for the Occupation. He said that's what we would need to topple Hussein and TRANSITION to the Occupation. He expected much, MUCH larger troop levels (much from other countries) for the follow-on Occupation if the assumptions didn't hold, and Chalabi turned out to be a fraud (as he did). But if you don't understand US Army doctrine, you'll miss that critical difference.

Dennis,

In fairness, there are many who do "get it"-- and they span all ranks and grades. But we're talking about an entrenched bureaucratic culture that is set in its ways and overcoming institutional inertia is VERY difficult (especially without a Billy Beane to force change). LTG David Barno, the commander of Coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2003-2005, definitely "gets it" and I would be stunned if he doesn't get his fourth star and get sent into Iraq in the near to mid future (his relative youth-- he's Class of '76-- notwithstanding). But it's going to take some time for people to break away from what "the book" has been teaching for centuries and, to be fair, most humans in general have difficulty "thinking out of the box" and the military is no exception.

Wth regards to Baathists and demobilizing the old Army, I'm not saying it was an altogether bad decision, and I wouldn't/couldn't have done Bremer's job as well as he did.

But what I suspect the "Viceroy" PROBABLY would have done would have been to leave most of it in place (obviously some guys would have to go), since it provided (albeit a very imperfect) security for wherever it was located, but to quickly build up the new, multi-ethnic Iraqi security forces and slowly phase out and marginalize the Baathist Army. This would have been consistent with what we did in Afghanistan with the "recalcitrant warlords" and their Afghan Militia Forces (AMF), and the new Afghan National Army (ANA) that has slowly replaced them and phased them out on the national stage.

Now what we would be hearing right now would be about how the Administration sold out to the Baathists (the way we heard that we had sold out to the warlords in Afghanistan), but you can wear that with the knowledge that a plan was in place to MARGINALIZE them and that slowly but surely their presence would be reduced until they were effectively neutralized (a point which we're slowly approaching in Afghanistan, although we have a long ways to go).

You're right, that it would have been a tough balance beam to walk, but my money would have been on "Zal" Khalilzad to have walked it successfully,

Bobby,

Another question which goes back to the origns of this thread. How much are military operations influenced by American public opinion? I realize that the ultimate bosses over here have to deal with it, and that an intelligent war these days has to deal with the politics as well as the strategy and tactics, but is there some insulation? Can operations be run on a purely rational basis, or are bad decisions being made to hold onto poll numbers over here? Like Brian I'm not holding my breath until Bush masters the bully pulpit but he does seem to be holding the line in that regard at least.

Dennis

How much are military operations influenced by American public opinion? I realize that the ultimate bosses over here have to deal with it, and that an intelligent war these days has to deal with the politics as well as the strategy and tactics, but is there some insulation? Can operations be run on a purely rational basis, or are bad decisions being made to hold onto poll numbers over here?

That's hard to say, Dennis. I would say that public opinion is definitely there-- it's impossible for it not, too, since we watched the same CNN/Fox News/et. al. in theater that everyone else watches back in the States-- not to mention the amount of time spent on the Internet-- and that's a good thing since it's not the "Good Morning Vietnam" scenario. Definitely, our Soldiers are keen to what people are saying back home and they take the criticism to heart, if only because we want to believe that we're doing the right thing or at least trying to do the right thing.

At the policy-making level, I would say we were very cognizant of public opinion, and there were aspects of our strategy that were designed around it. For example, the death of every "neutral" aid worker was a blow to the Coalition, not because we knew the press would make it seem like we had no control, but because we knew that that their deaths would lead aid agencies to pull their people out, which would impede progress, which would add fuel to the anti-Coalition militants. But we also knew that trying to downplay those events would be even worse-- we'd lose all credibility when the deaths occurred. So we had to design an information operations strategy that demonstrated how cowardly the Taliban/AQ were that they would target friendly aid workers, simply because they (Taliban/AQ) were enemies of progress and improvements in Afghanistan. It worked pretty well (although it hasn't changed their tactics).

It's impossible to fight a counterinsurgency without understanding public opinion- after all, 4Gw combatants are targeting your will to fight and they do that by trying to change public opinion at home (the NVA tend to believe that was their strategy all along and they got it perfect, though others might disagree with their opinion). But at the same time, it's not like we were letting waxing/waning support for the mission affect what operations we executed. If public opinion has a negative impact, it's more likely to be found with the insurgents-- who see it as a sign they're succeeding and hold out against a politicial compromise-- and with the morale of the Soldiers, many of whom feel as if the nation does not appreciate their sacrifices-- regardless of whether or not that's what one intends.

Of course, my fourteen-month direct experience was in OEF/Afghanistan, where public opinion tends to be much more supportive, where we're tending to be far more successful, and where attention coincidentally(?) tends to be far less focused. I can't speak authoritatively on Iraq since I have not yet been there.

I have been sympathetic to the Powell argument about "you broke it, so now you own it." That's why I have tended to be reluctant to withdraw without having something reasonably stable in place. But at some point, Bush can't use his own blunders to justify continuing his same policy. At some point, the President of the United States has to worry about the interests of Americans, not Iraqis. If that sounds callous, it probably is, but I'm not the one that decided to invade Iraq. I agree than many of the liberal anti-war types have ignored the potentially disastrous effects of a precipitate withdrawl--they typically have their heads in the sand anyway. But at some point, when is enough enough? And, frnakly, I'm not even sure now whether or not we should get out. I'm just saying we can't keep justifying staying by saying we owe it to the Iraqis. That's a recipe for never leaving.

I think Tully is right that a lot of Asians died after the US withdrawl. One question is whether those people would have died if the United States had not been there in the first place. And I think you have to separate Cambodia from Viet Nam. Some argued that Nixon's extending the war to Cambodia destablized the country and enabled the Kmar Rouge to take power. I am certainly not arguing that the Communist takeover did not lead to some very bad outcomes, but, again, at what point do our obligations end? Granted that we have responsibility for what happened there or in Iraq, does that mean that we have to continue to send Americans to die because of the policy of a particular administration?

As for the argument that people would be less critical of the war if a Democrat was in office, as I recall there was just a wee bit of criticism of Lyndon Johnson when he was in office.

Dennis,

IMO invading Iraq served a wide range of purposes. As you say it served notice we weren't in retreat mode anymore.

Exactly how did our toasting the Taliban in Afghanistan not already send that very message?

I doubt Afghanistan would be going as well as it is if we hadn't moved into Iraq.

This doesn't make sense to me either. How were things going to have gotten worse in Afghanistan? We know that the Mullah's in Iran were sworn enemies of the Taliban, all of Afghanistan's northern neighbors seem to have been more partial to the Northern Alliance, for a wide range of reasons including ethnicity. China certainly wasn't going to allow Islamists to come in thru their territory. That leave's Pakistan. How did drawing off large numbers of troops and intelligence resources from Afghanistan to Iraq create better conditions along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region? It makes no sense to me.

And, IMHO of course, I don't think Bush "willfully ignored" the contradictory evidence on the WMD. They oversold it but put yourself in the Presidential shoes. 9/11, everyone is screaming how could you let this happen, and the possible ramifications are _pretty damn scary_.

1. We'd already demostrated the strength of our resolve by invading Afghanistan and routing the Taliban and it's al Queda allies.

2. Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11. The sole source of suggestions that it might have came from the BUSH ADMIN. The public was NOT screaming for us to invade Iraq until AFTER Bush Inc. started their psy-ops campaign to sell us some snake oil.

It's not about scoring "points"-- that's part of the problem, and if you do that, YOU are part of the problem.

Oh c'mon, Bobby! How does anyone, anywhere analyze a problem and arrive at any kind of an informed decision without weighing the points for and against? It's not about "scoring" points. It's called critical thinking.

I will agree that GEN Shinseki's 200k was closer to the mark for the Occupation than the "neocons," BUT that his number was still unrealistically low if you're going to apply traditional peacekeeping/peace enforcement type of operations.

If the plan had been to go in solo then I would find that more pursuasive. But, I thought the point all along was to form a coalition so that American forces weren't the only ones with boots on the ground?

AND I will DEFINITELY NOT agree that we thought it was a foregone conclusion that we could destroy Iraq's conventional forces...

With all due respect to everyone involved and considering my position strictly as an armchair QB... I think that was naive.

We saw vast numbers of rank and file Iraqi soldiers give up without a fight in Gulf War I. Some even surrendered to unarmed American journalists! And before that we saw an Iraqi military machine that was being supplied both by Reagan and by the Soviets yet was unable to accomplish more than a stalemate with the Iranians who had a mostly outdated American-armed military but who couldn't get any spare parts because we refused to sell them any. And that was even with Saddam's forces absolutely decimating the bulk of an entire generation of Iranian men on the battlefield. Not to mention the fact that we had total and complete air superiority extending back several years before our invasion. Even with evenly matched conventional forces on the ground, total air superiority is a huge force multiplier... which is exactly how the Nazi's did their Blitzkrieg attacks 60+ years before!

200k wasn't enough if you were going to implement the kind of strategy we have subsequently employed. Do the math yourself if you want to, but I guarantee you will find yourself coming up way, WAY short. The answer is in reformatting the strategy, NOT in reflexively asking for just fifty thousand more troops.

I don't disagree. Clearly, our relatively large numbers of heavy armored troops weren't useful forces to have on hand for post-invasion security or even mopping up operations. I'm not saying that Gen. Shinseki's suggestion was the perfect solution. Rather I'm saying that his was closer to what we actually needed AND that he was openly mocked by Bush partisan BECAUSE he dared to disagree with their rosy forecast.

We'd already demostrated the strength of our resolve by invading Afghanistan and routing the Taliban and it's al Queda allies.

I disagree. Invading Afghanistan was the expected proportional response. Everyone was on board. Agreement and support was widespread, even overwhelming, both domestically and among allies. So this could only prove we were willing to flex our muscles in no-brainer cases.

Invading Iraq was the demonstrator that we were willing to act decisively and make hard choices independently in our own national interest, and that using things like the UN to force delay, compromise, and half-measures would not necessarily be a reliable option in the future for our enemies.

As much as I am a devotee of reason and compromise, I know it works only between parties practicing in good will, and can be manipulated by bad faith actors. We decided to show that we were willing to be unreasonable with bad faith actors.

Brian,

The simple fact of the matter is that the Taliban government of Afghanistan didn't do anything to us. We toppled them because of what al Queda did, not because of what they themselves had done. Further, we first leaned on them to hand over Osama and his al Queda henchmen FIRST. Do you not see a qualitative difference between that and say... diplomatically leaning on Syria to cease and desist aiding and abbeting terrorists, even with saber rattling thrown in?

I think Afghanistan amply demonstrated precisely what you're saying we needed to invade Iraq to demonstrate.

Kevin,

Afghanistan was a part of the message, but I doubt if it was all that clear. A small footprint "hiding behind the UN's skirts". As far as showing we are willing to spill our blood and treasure it just isn't that large of a showing. Iraq is. The message is to the street, not just the guys in the hidey holes. "We are changing the direction of our foreign policy." (Not changing it in Palestine negates the message somewhat though).

Seems to me having the public focus off of Afghanistan and allowing it to run its course without the constant harping of the media/public is a good thing. If it had been the only story how would our policy and the Arab street's perception have shifted? Where would the jihadist's focus be?
Are they capable of fighting as well on two fronts as one? (Just a phrase, I understand asymetrical). As I remember it Afghanistan did't become a "good thing" until after we invaded Iraq.

I'm not sure how to answer the WMD point since your thinking is pretty well entrenched already. You've heard the arguments and reject them. That's OK. I'd guess I'd just ask you don't treat me like I'm stupid by doing the Saddam didn't send the hijackers thing. It was a sequence of events and tenuous connections. Please do the thought experiment I suggested though. You have to forget the "Bush lied" mantra while you are doing it or it is useless.

You're right the public wasn't screaming for the Iraq war until Bush sold his policy and the reasons behind it. Since it was a high risk unknown they pressed the selling points hard. Presidents do that. A lot of them came back to bite him in the ass. That alone doesn't make the policy bad.

Dennis

"What do you mean by win?" is right on point.

If the U.S. could "draw" the way we drawed in Korea (some of the country goes to hell, much of it becomes stable and prosperous), that could count as a win, considering the alternative.

Despite the sound and fury at the moment I don't think Iraq will ever replace Vietnam as the lodestone for losing. In its probable ambiguity of outcome and narrowness of scope (relatively narrow compared to World War II or the Cold War or some extension of the global war on terror yet to come), it could, like the Korean War, become a forgotten war at some point.

I think Afghanistan amply demonstrated precisely what you're saying we needed to invade Iraq to demonstrate.

Well to avoid any possible confusion, I'm going to emphasize that the following is precisely what I felt we needed to demonstrate:

we were willing to act decisively and make hard choices independently in our own national interest, and that using things like the UN to force delay, compromise, and half-measures would not necessarily be a reliable option in the future for our enemies.

Now that this has been clarifed, I'm asking this to you Kevin...had we invaded only Afghanistan, how would this, by itself, have convinced other enemies that using things like the UN to force delay, compromise, and half-measures would not necessarily be a reliable option in the future for our enemies.

In your answer, I'd like you to account for the "simple fact" (you like those, I think) that Saddam Hussein immediately went to his trusty UN Mulberry Bush strategy when we started complaining. I'd also like you to account for the fact that Germany and France bailed on us and France even stated that they would not support an Iraq invasion under any circumstances.

Afghanistan was the easy choice that all of our allies patted us on the back to do. It did NOT by itself suggest we were willing to act decisively and make hard choices independently in our own national interest. So it did not, in simple fact (those silly words again)amply demonstrate precisely what I said we needed to invade Iraq to demonstrate.

I am sure that it made many Americans such as yourself feel resolute, because it was a positive responsive action. So it may have amply demonstrated TO YOU our resolve. But did it demonstrate new resolve to bad faith actors who are our enemies? i don't think it did. It didn't scare any muslim extremists outside Afghanistan. Muslim extremists outside Iraq expected us to make someone pay for 9/11. And they also expected that that would be the end of it for the time being. They were mistaken.

Dennis,

As far as showing we are willing to spill our blood and treasure it just isn't that large of a showing. Iraq is. The message is to the street, not just the guys in the hidey holes.

Are you saying that we WANTED American soldiers to die just to prove a point to the Arab street? Not enough soldiers died in Afghanistan so we had to send them on a tougher mission because more would die that way?

Um... with all due respect it's the dictators in their hidey holes that are the problem, not the street. Isn't that the premise behind Bush's drive to spread liberal democracy thru the region?

The Arab street and most of the larger Muslim street has long suffered under the heels of dictators in their hidey holes. Repression at home only served to further fuel the aspirations of the militant Islamists because it made the street more receptive to their message. That's what we saw in Algeria. It's what we saw in Iran too. And Egypt has long struggled to keep militant Islamists at bay. Anwar Saddat didn't quite win his struggle... In each case we saw the street sympathize to some degree with the Islamists because the alternative was to continue to live under repression. In two of those cases the repressive regimes were directly supported by successive American governments. In the other it was the French government giving support.

Seems to me there are much less costly ways of sending messages to the Arab street than sending soldiers off to spill blood just to make a point.

Afghanistan was the easy choice that all of our allies patted us on the back to do. It did NOT by itself suggest we were willing to act decisively and make hard choices independently in our own national interest.

I'm going to cut to the chase here.

Who did al Queda attack on 9/11? Did they attack the UN? No. Did they attack (insert name of literally EVERY other nation on the face of the planet)? No! They attacked US. By definition, our action in Afghanistan was independently in our own national interest.

OK, then let me cut even closer to the "chase"

make hard choices independently

But it was relative easy: our allies overwhelmingly supported us. The public was clamoring.

And how independent is it under such circumstances? Even if we grant to the whines of the clever that by some particular definition, this action was independent, how independent is it when compared to the action we took in Iraq? Not nearly as independent.

Let's face it Kevin. Invading Afghanistan did not suggest to muslim extremists that we were willing to go our own way and act independently to protect our national security even if our allies counciled continued diplomacy and negotiation and failed to support our views. This is what I mean when I speak of hard choices and acting independently.

While I'm bothering, I want to complain that you have seriously twisted Dennis's words by asking him whether we wanted to spill our soldiers blood just to prove a point. So, um, with all due respect (which is the sort of thing you seem to like to say win order to show none), please try harder not to conflate motive (that which you have described Dennis as talking about) with effect.

We DID have to show we were willing to go to the mat. But this does not mean that we went to the mat only to prove a point. We went to the mat in the frst instance that was worth going to the mat, and we did so in part to show that we were willing.

I second bk. There were multiple reasons for going to Iraq. One of them was to demonstrate that we were willing to make hard choices and act independently. But surely getting rid of a weak and nasty dictator and hopefully jumpstarting a change in middle east politics were other and more important ones. We also no longer have to rely on a dictator's word that he has no weapons. It probably would have been more prudent to force Saddam to allow full and continuous inspections. Try a more graded approach where if he resists, we could bomb one of his palaces, but not necessarily take over the whole country in one shot. But the past is the past, and we can only hope that in the end, it will have been worth it.

I agree with Marc that the Iraq war cannot be continued indefinitely. To me, it seems we ought to maintain our troop levels there for say three or four more years, and then reduce it gradually in cooperation with the Iraqi government. We could still provide support to the Iraqi government, but it wouldn't be a full scale occupation. Of course, if either the Iraqi government want us out sooner, or it's very clear that we're doing more harm than good, then I'd be for leaving sooner. But leaving right now seems extremely premature. We're in the middle of a process whose outcome is yet to be seen.

Kevin,

Sorry I wasn't clear. " guys in the hidey holes" was mean as Al Queda and operatives, not the dictators we have supported.

In part you make my point for me although I'm sure it isn't intended. The Arab street is very important if not central to all of this. We've screwed them for so long the "message" has to be the action. Nothing less will serve.

I know you don't agree with some of the things I am saying, but you seem intelligent enough to understand them at least. "I wanted Americans killed just to prove a point?" Cut me a break man.

Dennis

Sorry, Dennis... I thought the "hidey hole" thing was a wordplay on where Saddam was found. I think that's a verbatim quote of how Bush described where Saddam was captured.

Yes, I absolutely agree that winning the hearts and minds of the street is crucial. But, I remain far from convinced that invading Iraq was necessary or even constructive in that regard. It might have been if full security had been imposed from the outset. But... that's not what happened.

In any case, we used direct and forceful action in Afghanistan. Had we just stuck with the initial gambit of trying to coerce the Taliban to turn Osama over and instead reduced ourselves to a longer-term effort to use diplomacy to achieve that aim... then I would agree that the Muslim street needed to be sent a better message. But we didn't dither. We acted and did so emphatically. We made our point!

What would have been vastly more constructive, in terms of winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim street, would have been to stay in Afghanistan and pour our full efforts into rebuilding the country's infrastructure and economy to well beyond what it had ever been before. THAT, in my opinion, would have demonstrated convincingly to the Muslim street that in fact the Jihadists were wrong and Americans weren't just interested in what we could take from the region (oil), that we were willing to fully support a people in the region other than just Israel, AND that we were genuinely interested in seeing Muslims prosper as individuals rather than just helping out a wealthy tyrant here and there for our own geopolitical and inherently self-centered reasons.

As for the spilling blood thing... I've reread what you said and I don't see where I misinterpreted you. Obviously soldiers died in Afghanistan. So obviously American blood was spilled there. But, if you weren't saying that not enough was spilled in Afghanistan then I am at a loss as to what you meant by As far as showing we are willing to spill our blood and treasure it just isn't that large of a showing. Iraq is. Clearly you were contrasting Afghanistan with Iraq. Equally clearly soldiers have died in both places, with many more having died in Iraq. I mean c'mon, dude... it seems pretty self-evident what you were saying.

Maybe it was a poor choice of words on your part?

Perhaps you could rephrase it another way that might make your intent a little more clear?

Brian,

I have trouble understanding the argument that we had to invade Iraq in order to send a message to Al Quaida that we would act independently of our allies. Just what message are you sending? It seems to me you are talking about signaling. But the problem with that is that you don't know how the other side takes it. Al Quaida might very well take Iraq to mean that we are going to attack every Muslim regime on earth and that we have no choice but to fight back. That wouldn't be a good message to send. So the argument that invading Iraq would send a message to Al Quaida that Afghanstan didn't seems questionable at best to me. It's sort of akin to Nixon's "madman" theory that you make the enemy think thay you are so crazy that you might do anything. That might make sense in the context of the Cold War, but not when you are talking about religious fanactics who already think in apocalyptic terms. The problem is this kind of thinking assumes that Al Quaida thinks of themselves as we do--as evildoers. In other words, all we have to do is show we aren't weak and Al Quaida will realize the error of their ways. I don't think it works like that. Al Quaida doesn't see themselves as evil, they see us as evil. I'm certainly not against going after Al Quaida, but I don't see how invading Iraq was going to change Al Quaida's calculus.

There's another thing too that bothers me about that argument. (And I recognize that you and Dennis aren't saying that's the only reason we went.) If you are saying we needed to invade Iraq in order to "send a message" doesn't that suggest that we are treating Iraq like a non-entity that we can use however we see fit. It's as if Truman had dropped the A-bomb on Japan to send a message to the Russians (and many revisionists) think he did. Wouldn't that be immoral? I'm not a goody-goody two shoes about international relations, but I find that troubling.

Here's my point. Granting that Saddam was a rotten bastard that was mistreating his people, I find it difficult to justify invading a country without a finding of a SPECIFIC, IMMINENT threat to the United States. Yes, it would be nice to install democratic regimes and, yes, it would be nice to liberate the Iraqis from a brutal dictator, and, yes, Saddam probably represented a general threat to the United States. But I still am troubled by the idea of the United States invading another country without a direct threat against us.

Brian,

I've read your last comment several times and it sure seems to me that you're advocating a sort of bully approach to foreign policy.

our allies overwhelmingly supported us. The public was clamoring.

Why were not only our allies but the overwhelming majority of the global community supportive of us?

Why was the overwhelming majority of the American public supportive of it?

Wasn't it obviously because it was universally understood that what we were doing was justice in action? That it was an entirely appropriate consequence of 9/11 for both the Taliban and al Queda? Infact, wasn't it pretty obvious to everyone that it wasn't merely to pay back those who had struck us, but was in fact an action intended to preemptively root out al Queda so that they couldn't use Afghanistan to launch any future attacks on us or anyone else?

And I shouldn't have to point out that everyone knew that it was Afghanistan where al Queda was based... where al Queda trained it's terrorists. Afghanistan. Not Iraq. Not Iran. Not Syria. Afghanistan!

Look at the polls. The American public was united. There was nothing partisan about it. Only the tiniest fringe opposed it. It wasn't until Bush tried to pull his bait and switch with Iraq that both large numbers of both Americans and the world community said, "hey, wait a minute! Osama is still free and you want to put that on a back burner and attack someone else who had nothing to do with 9/11?"

Why is it so important to you that America should prove to anyone that we would do something against the advice of the bulk of the world community... against the advice of our own allies who had strongly supported our action in Afghanistan? What specifically is it about us being an international schoolyard bully that does what he wants, when he wants and the wishes of everyone else be damned which you find so attractive? Doing what we want in our own country is one thing. Plenty don't agree with everything we do. But, none of them begrudge us the right to do what we please in our own country and with our own possessions.

Kevin,

If the plan had been to go in solo then I would find that more pursuasive. But, I thought the point all along was to form a coalition so that American forces weren't the only ones with boots on the ground?

Going in only as a part of a much larger, robust Coalition was Senator KERRY's plan, definitely not GEN Shinseki's (whose estimate was for only a slightly larger international force than what we eventually got), so no, that was not the point. You are merging the two, as many tend to do, perhaps because they're not so much interested in examining the multiple viewpoints but in coimpiling one large "Bush Was Wrong" umbrella.

However, even Senator Kerry's approach would have yielded FAR BELOW the 1.5 million troops that an *optimistic* calculation would have required. There's no way he could have gotten more troops from, say, France (they're already over-deployed) or Canada (same problem) or Germany; Europe simply does not have combat-ready, deployable troops, as we are seeing with a TWO-YEAR delay in their mission to takeover the mission in Afghanistan, which they agreed to in 2003. So taking that line is equivalent to saying, "We won't go in," because they CAN'T go in. They didn't and still don't have the ability. But that fact doesn't seem to matter to the critics.

With all due respect to everyone involved and considering my position strictly as an armchair QB... I think that was naive.

Well, I noticed that you TRUNCATED my initial assertion-- I hope that was a mistake and not an intention on your part, because if it was the latter, then that was intellectually dishonest. I DID NOT say, as you only quoted, "AND I will DEFINITELY NOT agree that we thought it was a foregone conclusion that we could destroy Iraq's conventional forces ..." If that's what I had said, that WOULD have been naive.

But I SAID, "AND I will DEFINITELY NOT agree that we thought it was a foregone conclusion that we could destroy Iraq's conventional forces with just one heavy infantry division, one light infantry division, and one marine expeditionary force plus a British force" (italics added for emphasis). The devil is in the details there. OF COURSE, the military could destroy Iraq's conventional forces-- what was in question was if we could do it with such the SMALL FORCE that we fielded (just one heavy division, one light division, and a Marine expeditionary force). If you don't understand the difference between Desert Storm and the "Thunder Run," it was a Revolution in Military Affairs and MANY old school military men-- including Wes Clark and David Hackworth-- did not think the "Thunder Run" was possible, because of the Coalition's small size, and you need a 3:1 COFM to attack.

It's probably transparent to you, because you don't have any formal military training, but the difference in leaving out the size of the force is PARAMOUNT to understanding the debate that was going on between Generals Shinseki and Downing (later Myers/Franks) at that time. It wasn't an argument about WHETHER we could defeat Saddam's regime, it was about HOW BIG that force needed to be in order to achieve that effect. I can explain it in greater detail if you still don't understand.

I think Afghanistan amply demonstrated precisely what you're saying we needed to invade Iraq to demonstrate.

Maybe it should have in theory, but in FACT it DID NOT. Throughout 2002, intelligence estimates were that the same state-sponsors of terror were continuing with their conduct-- still letting their wealthy barons contribute to the organizations, still letting the headquarters plan and organize for future missions, still letting them recruit freely from the mosques.

Why? I don't know. Perhaps its because the "lowly Afghans" didn't resonate with the Arab regimes (who are a very racist people, not so different from the rest of us). Perhaps its because we had done it with such an unconventional force (including the indigenous land forces that weren't an issue for an Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia) that it didn't scare those regimes since they didn't think such a force could work against them. Or perhaps it was because, as others have speculated, it was such an easy choice for the US that it didn't prove our resolve. Regardless, no, invading Afghanistan didn't modify those regimes' behavior.

Invading Iraq has done that, in some cases, to some degree-- Libya's Qaddafi, for example, completely folded. Pakistan's Mushrraf was forced to become an enemy of the jihadists (to the point where he's now locked in permanently). To a much lesser extent, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah actually took some actions against his own jihadists. But the reverse is also true: by failing to defeat the insurgency, Syria and Iran have, by all estimates, more or less returned to their activity, since they've stopped fearing US power (at least as much as they did in 2003). That's a problem that we can only expect to grow if we continue to struggle in Iraq.

Kevin,

Regarding the blood and treasure statement. Since it was taken to imply I have some sort of bloodlust it was indeed a poor choice of words. It was a verbal shortcut I will try to avoid in future discussion. Hopefully the rest of my post will clarify what I meant.

It sounds like we agree that some sort of action was necessary after 9/11. And I think we agree on _one_ of the goals of that action. -An increase in our national security brought about by a change in the Islamic percerption of the intent of the US towards the well being of the common man in the mideast.-
Don't ignore the historical context, the pressures of globalization, Iran's potiental nuclear arsenal, our need for cheap energy, our support of Israel, cultural differences, or many other factors in deciding the actions required to meet that and other goals.

What we did in Afghanistan seems an appropriate response to 9/11 to me. Recent years have been full of "appropriate responses" though. It was larger in scope than past responses, but 9/11 wasn't common either. The Arab street looks on our responses to "terrorism" as punishment from a remote and evil power. Our past responses were pretty much assuring the lasting hatred of the people that felt they were connected to the people we were punishing. Egypitans, Syrians, Iranians, and Iraqis would be largely unaffected by our response to Afghanistan other than the feeling that the Great Satan had struck again had our response stopped there. If anything it would have been counter productive to the goal. Pouring resources into Afganistan would have done little to affect the general populace of these countries. They would still have been living under the same oppressive dictators (and our sanctions).
Given the resources Afghanistan has to draw upon, I doubt we can ever turn it into a shining city by the sea (and I doubt that even if we could it would make the common mideastern man th