Centerfield

Right. Like I suggested in my McCain thread days ago, no one is saying Bush hasn't banged the drum, it's that he hasn't don't either as loudly or as often as he should have. It's a simple point, and one that's sparklingly obvious to everyone except those who equate any criticism with disloyalty, if not heresy.

It's as if McCain said Bush hasn't the banged the drum enough or loudly enough, and this clown offers 5 photos of Bush with a pair of drumsticks as disproof.

I predicted such responses. I get no credit, it wasn't hard, it was obvious. This is what partisans do: "my guy right or wrong!"

Posted by: bk at August 25, 2006 04:47 PM

This seems to be one of the sticking points that the moderate left has with the moderate right. And I'm afraid I fall farther to the right of moderate.

Did the President "sell" the war? You bet. They obviously saw a need to do Iraq. Would it have been in their/our best interests to go to the public and tell us "Oh this is going to be soooo hard!"? My recollection is 80% approval the week the war started. What would that have been if we had gotten a woeful account of the misery of war, the strain on the budget, and deaths of young Americans? That would have been pretty stupid of them.

The current talking points the the administration didn't warn us that war would hard is just blather. The first week of the war it was that we were not doing it fast enough. We were bogged down. Later, we didn't plan well enough for this or that. Matthew, I thought the problem at present was "civil war" rather than the insurgency.

My point is this. From the beginning the criticizms leveled by the folks that didn't believe invading Iraq was a good thing have been off base for the most part. The latest "he didn't warn us well enough" is one of the weakest I have seen. Iraq may be the biggest failure in American foreign policy we have ever made. It may be the course best suited to lead us through the maze of the GWOT. That's for a different redundant thread. None of us know for sure. The critisizm that the President that led us to war didn't beat the anti-war drums loudly enough is just plain weak.

BTW, I for one felt plenty "warned". April,2003 it was pretty clear in my mind it was going to be 5 years absolute minimum. It's odd how we all heard different things back then.

Posted by: Dennis at August 25, 2006 08:49 PM

Yeah, silly us, believing that Mission Accomplished banner.

Posted by: Blue Jean at August 25, 2006 09:05 PM

The way I see it, as a person who supports the war, I think the problem I've always had (and I think McCain is having), is that Bush has never been able, or really willing, to make a clear case for Iraq to the people. Assuredly, many on the anti-war side will never be persuaded, but I think most Americans just want the straight dope. I don't think many on the right really understand why this is important. Indeed, at one time or another Bush or Cheney, or Rumsfeld probably said the war wasn't going to be tough-- but that would be muddled by other statements about being welcomed as liberators, or the insurgency being in its last throes. The fact is, I don't think any of us really knew what to expect. That reality of course doesn't undermine the necessity of the actual mission-- a fact that the Left seems not to understand.

As far as pettiness and off-base criticism, there is plenty of that on both sides.

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at August 26, 2006 01:58 AM

I want to be clear though, I'm not saying that there isn't a case to made, rather I'm saying that a long time, the Administration has been really unclear in making it, not to mention hesitant to admit mistakes. I do think that through all of it, the key points have been clear: the long-term threat posed by Saddam's regime, the current terrorist threat in Iraq, and the disaster that will result if we "redeploy."

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at August 26, 2006 02:05 AM

Has Bush muddled the message? Terribly. I cringed when the message shifted over to 'it was the morally right thing to do'. If I thought even for a second the reason for the Iraq action was to save Iraq from a brutal dictator I would have been dead set against the invasion. If all you want to do is help out some suffering people there are a lot better places to start.

Personally I think they were so afraid of losing support and so shaken when they didn't uncover WMD that they started casting around for reasons that would play well to the public perception after the fact. The greatly simplified message (and everyone wants the greatly simplified version. regardless of how complicated it is we need a simplified version if we are going to believe in it) is (IMHO) that we have interests in the area for both security and economic reasons. Letting the entire area slide into radical's control would be disasterous to our own interests. Unfortunately when that message is examined closely it doesn't play well in the area we are trying to change. And I would guess isn't strong enough by itself to keep the American will focused and behind the action. Throw into the mix that Bush is a terrible communicator on the big stage and it's hard to keep up support for the war. The hard part isn't the action we are undertaking. America has taken a lot tougher tasks than Iraq and succeeded. It is keeping the national will behind the project. They knew that from day one. You can't go into a war with low expectations. I think the administration panicked when they saw the polls going down.

That the message has been mixed is not a critique of the war. It is a critique of the Bush administration. But to me it is disingenous to say that Bush has never had an honest conversation with the nation about what Iraq is all about.
It posed a threat we could not live with. The US has vital interests in the region and we cannot afford to let it come under complete control of a way of thought that would like to see us removed from the face of the earth. We are going to be involved there for an unkown amount of time. Probably a considerable time. We are trying to create a stable government (which hopefully will be indebted to us). The method we are trying to achieve this is by killing or negating enough of the "bad guys" that the power structure we are supporting will become self perpetuating. But of course you have heard all of that before. From the President of the Uniteds States of America!

Posted by: Dennis at August 26, 2006 03:30 AM

Blue Jean-

I'd be very interested if you could respond to Dennis's points, rather than just blowing him off with an anecdote.

Posted by: David Fleck at August 26, 2006 09:59 AM

Dennis,
And Iran IS a threat we can live with? My first post here talked about the need for a criterion of pre-emption that other allies could use and that the world could understand, let alone America.

Rumsfeld says now that more troops are stabilizing the green zone, but that such troops make the Iraqis dependent on us. Is this his rationale now? It is this logic which baffles the public. Calling up more Marines is baffling too if we have so many troops in our armed forces. Those who use confusion to promote policy can die by that confusion too.

I doubt that the retreat on Iran today by the Left (remember they screamed Iran was MORE important to stop than Iraq), supports ANY credible plan they might have had to stop Saddam short of war. I have heard several representatives claim Iran is responding to Bush threats with more militancy. What utter rubbish.

Want the conversation to be clearer? The Murtha crowd claims 9/11 was all and only about AQ. Period. They chant repeatedly that we have failed to get Bin Laden. What is their plan? Invade Pakistan? Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11 if you dream that AQ is the only Islamic terror organization around. In the lead up to Iraq, I repeat, the Left claimed Iran was far worse a threat. The war on terror is understood by a majority of Americans to mean all extremist groups vowing death and destruction to Israel, America and the West. It is in this regard that Americans, not Bush, fail to understand the dots despite the deeper issue of a war between the Sunnis and Shiites. The war in Iraq was about the Status Quo of terror and the regimes that support it. It was about taking down one onvious threat that was on the verge of breaking sanctions and becoming a similar situation to Iran that is also being helped by Russia and China. Who can imagine the mess the West would be facing now with Saddam playing catch up with Iran? No one is making the clear strategic case. I doubt we will be pumping oil from irradiated oil fields.

from the Arab press

more keen insight from the Times

Iraq HAS nothing to do with the war on Islamic terror?

perhaps the Times has more faith in the UN than Israel has in German Subs

Back in 2003, all Saddam would have needed to start the US invasion with European blessings was to do this

Posted by: Maxtrue at August 26, 2006 10:46 AM

For the most part, I join Rafique's comments. While I agree with much of what Dennis said in his first post and some of the second, unlike Dennis, I explicitly supported the war because I thought the underlying "reason for the Iraq action was to save Iraq from a brutal dictator." Not only out of an altruistic desire to "save the Iraqi people," to be sure: I agree with the actual neoconservative case for war in Iraq, which is that the strategic case for planting a successful democracy in Iraq, conjoined with the moral imperative to liberate subjugated populations, was -- and in spite of all the problems we've had there, is -- overwhelming.

My feeling is that Dennis also has it slightly backwards in saying "they were so afraid of losing support and so shaken when they didn't uncover WMD that they started casting around for reasons that would play well to the public perception after the fact." I think that there's a very strange impression in certain circles that there must have been a singular cassus belli, and consequentially, those who believe this, and particularly who are already inclined to distrust the administration, see the administration's various explanations, conclude that they are being evasive, and take this as proof that the administration "lied us into war" or whatever. But really, that idea falls apart as soon as one accepts that there may not have been one reason. I think that there really was a legitimate concern about WMD; I also think there was some idealism about spreading democracy, I think there was some spoiling for a fight, I think there was a desire on the part of some of the principles to find A battleground on which to engage in less asymmetric warfare than could exist otherwise, and lastly, in people like Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney, I think there were some people that were making the neoconservative case, which is where I get aboard. All these reasons and many more swirled around the administration, and taken together, they were an overwhelming case for war. But then there is a problem: how to sell it to the people. And I agree with Dennis that they were insecure about the case, for whatever reasons, and I agree that they cast around and looked for the reason that would play the best, and I agree that they settled on the simplest, most direct reason. But where I disagree is in what that reason was and when this process began. In my view, that process began before the war, and it culminated in the emphasis on WMD. When that rationale began to fall apart, at that point, the case began to fragment, and all those other reasons began to start filtering into the publicity machine.

Posted by: Simon at August 26, 2006 02:24 PM

It is worth remembering, thru all this discussion of who might have said what and when, that there is an important difference between saying something and effectively making a case for it. To take just one example, who do you think first said of the Great Depression: "The only thing we have to fear is fear."? Full credit if you said President Herbert Hoover -- but FDR is the one who not only said (later) it but sold it, so he is the one that is remembered for it.

Posted by: wj at August 26, 2006 06:11 PM

As I've said, I've always supported the war, in spie of Bush's PR-- I've always believed that Saddam was a threat that needed to be dealt with. I was for regime change when Clinton was in office, and before. I had some reservations when the war started, but my support was crystallized after the elections, and once I finally saw the big picture. Saddam was a threat, and the Iraqi people derserved to be free. I finally understood why Iraq was important to the long-term security of America and the Mideast. Despite the many mistakes made by Bush and crew, the mission was still noble. The thing is, I see the casus belli less as a neoconservative one, than a muscular liberal one.

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at August 26, 2006 09:21 PM

I am in agreement with everything that has been said here. There are multiple reasons. Perhaps the only thing we differ on is that to me the altruistic nature of our efforts counts only in so far as it promotes our interests. Does that disqualify it from being altruistic? I even agree with Blue Jean although not in the way she might have intended. Mission accomplished was bad politics. Max, Iran was outside of the scope of what I was trying to address, but since you bring it up -- I don't think Iran's nuclear ambitions are a product of our being in Iran, but I think their timetable has speeded up because of our actions.

I felt like I was ranting a bit, but to me the original point of the post - that the American populace was not "prepared" is just another way of dressing up the 'Bush lied' meme. It gets old, and I have a hard time believing that anyone who has given it honest thought really believes it anyway.

Posted by: Dennis at August 26, 2006 10:09 PM

John McCain feels that they would also support the overall effort if someone in charge were to do a little straight talk. He is right.

As much as a I respect John McCain I have to disagree with him. Americans are simply "tired" of the war. They're tired of stories starting with "A suicide bomber killed X numbers of civilians in a crowded market in Bagdad". As much as they may be temporarily energized by democracy "flowering" in any country they've grown skeptical with its success in the Middle East.

The honorable thing to do is to acknowledge that public fatigue AND at the same time not quickly pull out but try to stabilize the situation. I don't think we're at the "cut your losses stage" but at some in the not so distant future...

Posted by: c3 at August 27, 2006 10:46 AM

Reading through all these comments makes me realize just how muddled and mixed the whole message has been regarding Iraq -- and the whole middle east, if you ask me.

If Bush and his sycophants had bothered to be even half-way honest and clear in both their intentions and actions, we wouldn't have so many different and conflicting interpretations floating around.

Posted by: Heather at August 27, 2006 12:53 PM

Heather,

I don't think that's relevant. I know of no issue in American history where I can't get at least three (and usually a half-dozen or so) "different and conflicting interpretations" from published scholars and historians (let alone the general public). That's why graduate colloquiums spend so much time learning the "historiography" before the students set out to demonstrate their own theses-- because even years later, educated historians disagree about "why X did Y."

I think it has more to do with a need to believe that everything in the world can be explained by one single cause, when in fact pluralism indicates that different people can support the same policy for entirely different reasons, thereby making the single-cause explanation completely impossible.

But what do I know.

Posted by: Bobby at August 27, 2006 06:04 PM

My brain's attention center has center automatic switch's. Certain words and phrases immediately shift it off such that any further data input (from that particular source) is immediately terminated. An example of such a phrase is :

If Bush and his syncophants ...

(Oh my God, I must be one of those sycophants!
:-0)

Posted by: c3 at August 27, 2006 06:53 PM

Notice how much better we do at discussing the issue when we avoid our ruts (sycophants, blather, of bse for the most part...). I am as guilty as others of this.

The problem we face right now is that a majority of the people is very unconvinced that [the democratization of Iraq/the war in Iraq/label it a you wish] makes sense and is worth continuing.

Obviously our mileage varies as to what the cause is, and indeed it seems likely that several factors have contributed. There's a component of Americans that is reflexively anti-war, and as things have gone poorly there views have gained credence. Niot exactly surprising.

But I think the point here, and the one we're in a semi-consensus on, is that the curreent condition of substantial public disapproval is due at leaast in part to the way that the Bush admin approached war PR. Seems to me (warning, what follows is an opinion) the Bush admin was hopeful that things might go smoothly enough that it wouldn't be necessary to directly and repeatedly engage the public's attention as to why we are doing what we are doing and just how costly it would be. Again IMO, Bush seems to have adopted a Rose Gardenesque strategy of speaking frankly only on occasion, mostly to his supporters, and avoiding confrontation with his critics as often as possible, while leaving it to his supporters to attack and discredit his critics (not that they may not have deserved it on some or even many occasions, only describing the approach).

I see several reasons for this. One is that the admin made a skeptical assessment of the public's taste for facing up to this effort and its costs if it turned out to be as hard as we thought, or even harder. That's obviously a paternalistic view in some sense, but IMo it's one that's gotta be what? 99% forgiveable? Because it's generally true.

And hey, who has never embarked optimistically on what they felt was a worthwhile task or goal, thinking it to be pretty doable, thinking they had made a serious hard-eyed assessment of the job, only to find out when it was too late to quit just how much they underestimated the difficulty of the task. Many things worth doing would never have gotten done had the total cost been known at the outset, no?

Another reason I think the Bush admin chose the Rose Gardeny approach is that GW Bush is not a good match for any sort of "intelligent cheerleader" approach. He's not a details-oriented guy, he handles off-the-cuff questions poorly, and he's a bit of a language butcher when he leaves the script. Any sort of intelligent cheerleader approach is hard to undertake when you insist on sticking to a script. It makes people think you're not listening to them and don't value their views.

What worries me right now is that Bush is not especially well-suited to the role he most needs to undertake to shore up waning support. He would need to step well out of his comfort zone to do that, and I don't see it coming. I expect he'll just doggedly keep going forward, and support will continue to wane to some extent absent a shift on on the ground circumstances. It may well be too much to ask of Bush to seize the Bully Pulpit with renewed vigor. But here's hoping.

Posted by: bk at August 28, 2006 09:54 AM

I think the point here, and the one we're in a semi-consensus on, is that the curreent condition of substantial public disapproval is due at leaast in part to the way that the Bush admin approached war PR.

That much, I certainly agree with; as explained here, notwithstanding my comment above,

it has to be pointed out that part of the reason people have grown impatient [IMO] ... has to do with the very first mistake the administration made in Iraq - in their choice to sell it primarily as a question of WMD. To be sure [as I explained above], that was never the only reason they had in mind, but it was the basic premise that was sold to the public (most likely, one suspects, because it was the argument the public was most likely to buy: people do act out of purely altruistic motives, and they will put blood and treasure on the line for purely altruistic motives, but they will do so more readily and with greater dispatch if they believe that they have a direct and personal stake in the matter). That was a mistake, in my view: I do not suggest that it should have only been sold as a crusade to rid the world of a ghastly dictatorship, or only as a strategic move in the GWOT, but [rather that] it should not have been sold with such heavy reliance on the WMD issue. The result has been that when the WMD turned out to be largely illusory, people turned on the government and felt, at best, lied to, and at worst, as if it really was "mission accomplished": if we went to remove the threat of Saddam's WMD, and Saddam is gone and there are no significant WMD, the more rational opponents of the war (reasonably enough) ask, why are we still there? And it does the administration no good to now say - even though this is true - that we weren't just there for WMD. That was the principle cause sold to America, and to the extent that the collapse of public support ... has to do with the perception of an ever-shifting justification for the mission (even if that perception is purely illusory), that is a consequence of decisions the administration made.

Posted by: Simon at August 28, 2006 10:25 AM

Ahhh. Somewhere near middle ground.

As per Brian it sounds like we can pretty much agree on this issue. I would like to take exception to lumping sycophants and blather (nonsense) in the same categorey though. I did back up my points, and apologized for the rant as well.

Posted by: Dennis at August 28, 2006 11:27 AM

Yes Dennis, I agree about my choices for lumping. I picked a "victim" from each side for the sake of encouraging balance. It was sporting and honest of you to apologize for what could be contrued by some as ranting.

Posted by: bk at August 28, 2006 12:14 PM

RT,
Well said. What this administration (in words at least) was attempting to do is in fact more reminiscent of a muscular liberal position given the last hundred years of Democratic leadership. I am “tired” of the Left labeling such sentiments as “neoconservatism”. It is just like the Right regarding Kos as “liberal;” when their views have been traditional far from Liberal. Chomsky must be laughing now. .I cannot believe the Democrats missed this well-suited mission in 2003 and co-opted the onvious political mantra taking shape. No Rove helped to see otherwise. Since then, Dean and company have succeeded in shaping the opposite conversation around the braos demonization of everything Republican. What Democrat can forget the security nightmare this created when the Republicans made a similar gambit against Clinton. In fact, Ricks believes Clinton’s strike against Saddam broke his army far more than military intelligence deduced at the time. Muscularity of pro-democracy and pre-emption against recognized and beligerant adversaries is not exclusively “neocon”. The Left has tried to label the Euston Manifesto as “neocon” rant despite the numerous socialists and liberals signing this declaration of principles. For years Bush was denounced for suggesting terrorism was largely a Islamofascist behavior issuing from the largely Muslim Status Quo abyss of the Middle East (with the exception of NK helping the terror-supporting regimes). Blogs today claim the Axis of Evil speech and the subsequent “doctrine of pre-emption” is “evidence” of America’s dominating intentions. Yes. even today the Left labels such remarks as racist and claims Hizb’Allah and Hamas are “resistance groups”. Like the PPK or JEM? I guess a hoped for consequence of removing Saddam was to split Syria from Iran and moderate both regime’s behavior while placing forces between them. Thus the plan for all those bases. Not even Clarke thought AQ was the only serious threat. The Brotherhood, Jihadist groups, Hizb”Allah, Hamas and others were well know and he and Clinton thwarted a major attack from Asia.

This is why I first focused on the criteria of pre-emption ( and prevention and intervention). It doesn’t matter who the target is if they meet rational and verifiable criteria. As Sean pointed out, this should include when possible, contingencies for both unintended consequences and unknown unknowns, as well as responsibilities for the international community and the pre-empting nations. The imbroglio over Iran, points to the virtual impossibility for the international community to enforce basic laws. Who can now think that the Kerry plan of 2004 could have worked? I won’t bore you with the kinds of weapons Russia and China is supplying the terror hotline. Meanwhile WE must pay to keep Russian nukes safe. All these issues do merge when dealing with Iraq pre-emption and Iranian pre-emption. They are just different sides of the same coin. However, in Iran’s case, our intelligence and preparatory defenses must be far more robust and well-conceived. I pointed out a while ago the dangerous nexus of stealth subs, stealth missiles/drones/ torpedoes/ cruise missiles, mobile launchers and wmd (all kinds).

C3,
The Americans tired of "counterterrorism"? They had better get used to it with more dangers ahead. Iran fires a supposed radar-proof sub to surface missile Armed with mobile stealth delivers systems, who in their right mind thinks our adversaries can't launch clandestinely at America and other assets, let alone Israel? The government dosen’t even want Americans to know the failure to protect commercial aircraft from shoulder launched missiles. If the world can't agree where the origin of the missiles fired at Israel from Lebanon, what makes America think the world will agree to the fingerprints on weapons used on us? Already IEDs are going from Iran to Iraq and Lebanon. IDs on nuclear material and bio-weapons are almost untraceable. As we speak, weapons are moving from Russia and China to the Middle East. Iran is making their own from back engineering their imports. North Korea certainly is in bed with Iran in this regard.

Have Americans been at war? No, we have been watching our military conduct counterinsurgency and civil war management in the Middle East. We have not sacrificed as a nation, nor have we, as a nation, faced up to the threat and the points of irreversible consequence. The strategy we deploy will decide whether out armed forces will face greater threats in the future, or shift tactics to contain these threats now. Iraq must certainly figure into this with Sadr’s militia and others moving towards a path of greater Iranian collaboration.

Stabilizing the situation means not just stabilizing the symptoms, but addressing the systemic problems that create local pathologies. Solutions must deal with all related malignancies before they metastasize and the patient is lost. I can’t imagine Dean, who talks tough about getting Bin Laden, being my doctor. “Let’s see if this ‘condition’ spreads and the tumor in your head has nothing to do with the tumor in your leg.”

The Democrats suggest herbs from the local co-op while the Republicans suggest dangerously high doses radiation.

All it will take is another attack and American's “weariness” will turn to anger. What we say now should reflect the inevitability of what is being played out now in the Middle East. Sanctions will falter and Iran will be hit. What that achieves, I do not know at the moment. It depends, as did Iraq, on the plan, contingencies and follow-up. America is tired of the disunity here and abroad more than the "war". There must emerge a clear view of what is really brewing on the Islamic front and the options facing us near and long term.

Dennis,
How could Iraq ever be disconnected from Iran? Only the Democrats and media could claim that. In an over-reaction to Bush's linkage between 9/11 and Saddam, these twin spinners have failed repeatedly to portray the bigger picture as it is. Saddam was pursuing wmd because Iran was and is. Saddam discusses the need to engage the terrorist networks (see secret tapes) and quickly reconstitute his wmd programs once France and Russia defeated the sanctions and exchanged money, oil and technology. The whole region contains many lethal players. Their aim is to either kill each other, or, confront the West, America and Israel.

Simon,
A legal criteria would have helped. I thank Bobby for getting me to read FIASCO. I think it expresses your view to a point. I can't imagine what will happen if Bush pre-empts Iran with the same thoughtfulness. I pray the lessons of late have been learned (as well as previous wars like Viet Nam and Korea. I agree that the Bush administration's plans, tactics, PR and even strategy have been sorely lacking. Add to that a troubling domestic policy and the blow back might be strong enough to weaken further action at the moment our adversaries seek to break containment. This would indeed be a huge defeat for America and Western hegemony, brought on by Republicans. While I attack the Left's postion over foregn policy, the lost opportunities by this administration are profound. The void this may lead to puts every American at risk. It is not good enough for Republicans to imagine what the Democrats WOULD DO. They need to take a serious look at what they ARE DOING (or not doing). They control government and have the power to change tactics and strategy. Once they are percieved to have blown strategic advantage, their run is over. This messy and to a large extent needless situation undoubtly clouds the clock ticking on Iran and elsewhere......

know how your enemies work

Posted by: Maxtrue at August 28, 2006 12:37 PM

sorry about all the typos. A little imagination and I think I get the points across. For instance:

"I cannot believe the Democrats missed this well-suited mission in 2003 and [failed to] co-opt the onvious political mantra taking shape. No, Rove helped to see otherwise."

or

"If the world can't agree [on] the origin[s] of the missiles fired at Israel from Lebanon, what makes America think the world will agree [about] the fingerprints on weapons used on us?"

again, sorry.....

Posted by: Maxtrue at August 28, 2006 12:52 PM

the blow back [from a failed Iranian policy] might be strong enough to weaken further action at the moment our adversaries seek to break containment. This would indeed be a huge defeat for America and Western hegemony[.]

This is true enough, and another reason why whatever one's opinion is of whether we should be in Iraq or not, withdrawal is not an option. Withdrawal would be -- and far more importantly, would be perceived by our enemies as -- unilateral surrender. I don't honestly know whether the McCain approach (pour more troops in there) is the right one, and that's perhaps something Bobby could talk about with much more authority than I can, but one thing is clear: we are in this, for better or worse, and leaving would be a catastrophic mistake.

It's hard to say with precision, of course, but one has to speculate that part of the reason Eastern Europe felt able to rise up and throw off its Soviet puppet leaders in the late '80s, free from the fear of a new Prague Spring or 1956-style intervention was the impotence of the Soviet military against sustained guerilla pressure in Afghanistan. The Red Army's failure in Afghanistan vitiated the perceived might of the Soviet Union to bend its satellites to its will by military force. We live in a world where the jihadists feel emboldened because they can accomplish major victories through assymmetric warfare strategies like terrorism, where our military might is removed from the equation. Now try to imagine how much more dangerous is a world where the jihadists are emboldened by the realization that they might be able to meet us on the battlefield and prevail there, too.

The scope of the public policy debate should be confined to how we can win; that we are there and must remain until we win should not be open for discussion. We should not be giving the enemies of the United States either comfort (reason to suppose that if they can stick it out, we'll quit and go home, such as Senator Kerry's desire to set a date on which we will unilaterally surrender if victory has not been achieved) or actual aid (actually quitting and going home, as Representative Murtha advocates). The left would do well to learn from Gene Kranz: failure is not an option.

Posted by: Simon at August 28, 2006 01:22 PM

Failure is not an option

I disagree. Unless you're sure that failure is an impossibility, you should examine it as an option.

I want us to succeed in democratizing Iraq every bit as much as the next guy, but not enough to simply dismiss the possibility that we may be forced to face an uneasy and indeed downright frightening long-term co-existence with militant islam whether we like it or not. Many in the muslim world view this as only the latest chapter in a multi-millenial conflict between islam and western inflence. It's an extremely tough row to hoe.

So I think our decisions on what to do from here need to be continually based on a sober assement of whether we're succeeding and whether we can succeed from the point we currently find ourselves at. If at some future point the preponderance of evidence suggests our continued presence is simply untenable and even counterproductive, withdrawal must be examined, regardless of the message it sends our opponents.

Posted by: bk at August 28, 2006 01:47 PM

Brian,
I must hastily clarify that I don't mean to suggest that we cannot ever withdraw our forces from Iraq, or that now we're there, we're stuck there forever. Withdrawal is not defeat; surrender and retreat is defeat. The endgame in Iraq absolutely includes a withdrawal of U.S. troops, but there is a vast difference between our troops standing down as the Iraqi troops and security services step up, as the President advocates, or cutting our losses, sticking our tail between our legs, and running away, as is now the apparent dogma of the Democratic party (as evidenced by, inter alia, the failed Murtha and Kerry resolutions and the "victory" of Ned Lamont in the CT Primary).

It is impossible to imagine a honestly sober assesment which fails to note that any short-term gain in surrendering to the insurgency in Iraq are vastly outweighed by the medium and long term costs of doing so. That kind of "sober assesment" is found passed out in the street clutching a bottle of some strong liquor.

Posted by: Simon at August 28, 2006 02:33 PM

By the way - there is perhaps some irony in your contention that failure is an option "[u]nless you're sure that failure is an impossibility." When Gene Kranz gave the pep talk that was later recast as the "failure is not an option" speech, failure was a considered almost a certainty. The impossibility of the challenge, the sheer number of problems to solve in a very particular order in a very narrow window of time and practically without precedent left scant room for optimism, but Gene and his team decided that failure was not going to be an option. They decided to do it, and they did it. Some of the most most admirable moments in American history have come about because someone decided to flip the bird at the odds of failure. We can argue about what the best way to successfully defeat militant Islam in general and the insurgency in particular, but that we must defeat it is not up for debate. Failure is not an option.

Posted by: Simon at August 28, 2006 02:40 PM

Well, I think you are attaching "failure" to our "leaving Iraq". There is also "failing" attached to "not preventing civil war". I would not agree with such pairings. Failure would be allowing a radical like Sadr taking over and combining Iran with Hizb'Allah (see FIASCO final chapter). Saddam is gone and an effort has been made to allow Iraqis to unite. Murtha suggests intervening from afar (bombs) SHOULD this extremist takeover occur. Marvelous, by the way.

Another grand failure would be allowing an outright military incursion by Iran or Syria into Iraq. Shall we fight our way into Iraq for a third time to put this down, years from now to protect the Saudis (Western oil and our allies) again from a threat? Withdrawal of some sort, does not mean defeat. Redeployment might be a better term had not Murtha used it to describe another plan. Israel is withdrawing from Lebanon, but that doesn't mean it was defeated. They are getting ready for round two because the international community will not seal border between Lebanon and Syria, get soldiers back, disarm Hizb'Allah or embargo arms from Iran.

Failing involves much of what Ricks mentions in FIASCO, but we are not responsible for sectarian violence in Iraq anymore than we are responsible for the problems in Bosnia and Serbia after Tito died. Failing is not applying the lessons from Viet Nam, or doing damage to any resources required to contain Iran and terrorist groups. Failing is to appear weak and divided or lacking the resources for the impending conflicts from Africa to Asia which the Democrats suggest require more police. The extremist hegemony we are facing is global and packs far more punch than the police can deal with. I cannot say we are not failing concerning the points I mentioned. Ricks does a good job listin our mistakes and a feeble strategy. We need a strategic makeover, but our criteria of failure and failing should be in light of the greater context first publically mentioned by the President in the Evil Axis speech.

In this context, not failing is finding the best strategy to ensure extremists do not take control of Iraq. It means not hurting our containment of Iran, AQ, Syria, etc. It means keeping loose nkes out of extremist's hands. It means using the best tactics to defeat our enemies while building international concensus.

How leaving Iraq and sending a terrible message for US resolve in the near term doesn't create a stronger and more aggressive front against us is beyond me. I am not so impressed by "many in the Muslim world" as I am by the death sentence we give ourselves by allowing extremists a reprieve to accomplish their deterrence.

Muslims are slaughtering Muslims. Altruistic cooperation requires the genetic expression of altruistic punishment and enforcement. There is a point where compromise damages the basic intention of international law. There must be a line we will defend as well as an honest assessment of where we are at. I agree. Thus Bobby asked us what the criteria is for our pre-emption, or what pre-emptible behavior is. Given the situation between India and Pakistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Israel and Iran, Syria and the West, AQ, JEM, Hizb'Allah and Russian and Chinese complicity, strategic failure is not an option, but "failure" of particular strategies and tactics can happen. When this occurs, our leaders must respond, be held responsible and move forward. This doesn't mean the broad strategy has failed, but the calculus may shift. As Bobby explains, force is often deployed on the run and actions usually have consequences we didn't anticipate fully.

We defeated Hitler, Stalin and are in the process of "turning" China. I do not think we can fail against Islamofascists unless allied and domestic divisions, demonizing, corruption and poor intelligence run simplistic strategies into the ground. Failing to keep WMD out of terrorist's hands (and the regimes that support them) is not an option. Children will ask how after our victories over lethal tyrannies we failed to stop a new blatant terror from aquiring wmd and completing a global terror network that can deploy them clandestinely in an effort to replace our hegemony with their own fundementalist one. What will we say? Stupidity? Bush? Kos? Rove? Dean? Israel?

Posted by: Maxtrue at August 28, 2006 02:56 PM

Simon, does tenuously peaceful coexistence with an Islamic world that continues to include a small but not insignificant militant anti-western strand count as "failure?"

After all, we're talking about a sentiment with a multi-millenial track record of survival. Wasn't it you who said that endurance of something over a long period of time creates a certain set of presumptions?

Not trying to be a smart ass here. I just think that victory may well have to look more like acceptable control of a chronic condition than 100% eradication. In other words, that such folk who hate us settle for hating us instead of trying to exterminate us, just as we'd settle for hating them instead of exterminating them.

Aftre all, we still have a few Nazis oe neo-nazis around here and there, but we'd be OK saying we defeated them, right?

Posted by: bk at August 28, 2006 03:00 PM

Simon, my remarks were for BK as I agree with your position here. No, strategic defeat is not an option.

Posted by: Maxtrue at August 28, 2006 03:02 PM

Neo-Nazis don't have the bomb, or armies in the Gulf. What you are comparing doesn't fit. Why should your grandchildren have to fear a nuke going off in NYC from AQ or the Mullahs? Because we let some declared nutjobs manufacture and ship them under the nose of the international community?

Later, I must run....

Posted by: Maxtrue at August 28, 2006 03:08 PM

There is also "failing" attached to "not preventing civil war" ... Another grand failure would be allowing an outright military incursion by Iran or Syria into Iraq.

Neither of which is served by withdrawing our forces before there is a stable and self-supporting Iraqi state in place to stand in their place. In fact, withdrawing at this time will vastly increase the likelihood of direct military intervention by Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. If we leave, and civil unrest descends the not immense distance into civil war, and if Iraq begins to disintegrate, all four of those countries have a direct stake in what comes next, all four have interests at stake, and I don't think I could blame any of them if they took the obvious step of occupying a buffer zone, a la the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights. The prospect of a complete failure of the Iraqi state and its disintegration as a national unit was one of the reasons that the special forces assasination method of ridding Iraq of Saddam, advanced by some liberals in the run-up, was well-intentioned but unworkable. Posted by: Simon at August 28, 2006 04:07 PM

Max,
I'm not trying to seperate Iraq and Iran. Nor the bigger picture of globalization for that matter. I just thought that it was outside of the scope of the conversation.

Re failure. While "failure is not an option" is a good motto, saying it and giving full effort, doesn't guarantee success. We may have to deal with a failed state in Iraq at some point. Allah forbid. We would be foolish not to have some sort of plan if that happened.

Posted by: Dennis at August 28, 2006 04:11 PM

Brian,
No, I agree with you that it's unrealistic to set the total and complete expunging of anti-western feeling in Islam as the goal of the GWOT. "[T]enuously peaceful coexistence with an Islamic world that continues to include a small but not insignificant militant anti-western strand" is probably as good as it will get, although I think that as democracy and stability advance -- something I remain optimistic will happen, and a cause I think has, and will continue to be, influenced by our endeavours in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the breeding ground for such militant sentiment will diminish.

Posted by: Simon at August 28, 2006 04:12 PM

Thanks for that Simon. It's after all a pretty small point. Max, that's all I am talking about here. Obviously I know neo-nazis don't have the bomb, and that they'd be more worrisome if they did. It's almost insulting for you to suggest I don't. I'm just saying that we'll probably have to hope, in the best case, to beat the most militant forms of islam into a less threatening, chronic but acceptable condition.

As you might have noticed, I've even gone so far as to say that I think I'm for all intents and purposes a true believer in democracy. I agree with the idea that democracy is the best hope for a moderating force upon islam, because its virtues are revealed by its practice. Bottom line is that we're trying to convince muslims to reform the way that they are governed, not their religious beliefs.

The problem we have is that currently much of muslim religious ideology insists that any governmental form must be subservient to religous belief. It's a HUGE challenge.

I look forward to the day when muslims might grumble, as we do, that democracy is the worst form of government except for all others. If we ever reach that point, it seems pretty likely to me that some component within islam will be concurrently grumbling in similar fashion as say Katherine Harris in one of our other threads.

If Iraq at some future point changes "a" to "the" in the portion of its constitution that describes how islam should be taken to influence the government's composition, that'll be a very bad sign.

Posted by: bk at August 28, 2006 04:30 PM

In the military, we actually have defined operational terms and that's what drives us to select one particular word over another. It often sounds the same to the layman, but to those of us on the inside (the ones charged with executing those words), we understand the particular nuances (and it's not uncommon to see commanders fighting to have a single word changed in the mission statement).

Thus, for example, destroy is defined as: "1. A tactical task to physically render an enemy force combat-ineffective unless it is reconstituted. 2. To render a target so damaged that it cannot function as intended nor be restored to a usable condition without being entirely rebuilt. Artillery requires 30 percent incapacitation or destruction of enemy force."

But defeat means: "A tactical task to either disrupt or nullify the enemy force commander's plan and subdue his will to fight so that he is unwilling or unable to further pursue his adopted course of action and yields to the will of his opponent."

One can see the subtle difference between what you're required to do to "destroy" as opposed to merely "defeat" one's enemy-- the former requires a much more complete and systematic destruction of the enemy. In defeat, in fact, the enemy can still exist, but in such a manner that he is no longer capable of heavily influencing our strategy and must change his own.

In any of the military's concept sketches, I have always seen "defeat" as the operative word when regarding the terrorist and jihadist networks. I've never seen "destroy," except when dealing with some smaller, limited and concrete component of the overall threat. There's probably a very good reason for that.

Posted by: Bobby at September 1, 2006 03:57 PM

As for whether or not "failure is an option," I'd say that failure is always an option-- rarely a very good one, though, and the losses should be taken with the full understanding of what it's going to mean in the future. Sometimes (but rarely) such a trade-off really is worthwhile-- for example, if a baseball team trades away its stars in July and concedes the remainder of the season because it's getting back super-prospects who can contribute to the long-term success of the team in the future. (Brian, here this would not include the Red Sox this year, since they got practically nothing back for David Wells, and there's no reason to believe it made them any more viable in the future).

But those strategic calculations should be taken into consideration if one is going to actively opt for failure. To say, it's okay to lose in Iraq without any kind of strategy to mitigate the fallout (i.e., a growing Iranian presence in the Arab world, ensuing Saudi-Egyptian-Jordanian support for Sunni contras, Turkish destabilization of the Kurdish regions, the likely emergence of widespread jihadist training camps in Iraq, and the massive recruiting boon that would be handed to the jihadists in an American defeat) would be a really bad idea. Unfortunately, that's precisely what the Administration critics are offering, mostly because I think they really don't have the strategic capacity to understand international security and don't understand the consequences of a premature withdrawal.

All that said, George Orwell once noted, "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."

Posted by: Bobby at September 1, 2006 04:10 PM