The surge and “sheer luck”
In my last post, on the subject of the now famous or infamous, depending on your viewpoint, NYT op-ed by Brookings Institution scholars Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack on the U.S. military surge in Iraq I noted that they had been accompanied on their trip by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and Military Studies and that if he had shared their optimism about the prospects for success in Iraq he would have signed the op-ed along with Pollack and O’Hanlon. I wrote, “The fact that he didn’t speaks volumes.”
Since then Cordesman has spoken many more volumes worth, by issuing his own analysis of what he saw and thought. In a trip report released August 6. Give him credit for not mincing words. His very first words are:
Everyone sees Iraq differently, and my perceptions of a recent trip to Iraq are different from that of two of my traveling companions and those of several other think tank travelers to the country. From my perspective, the US does not have good options in Iraq and cannot dictate its future, only influence it. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq’s ability or inability to rise above its current sectarian and ethnic conflicts, to redefine Iraq’s politics and methods of governance, establish some level of stability and security, and move towards a path of economic recovery and development.
Cordesman makes an important point which I think has been largely lost in the continuing debate over Iraq. Bush administration supporters frame the question of U.S. involvement in Iraq primarily in military terms, i.e., if you support the idea of a sovereign, stable Iraq then you must support keeping U.S. troops in Iraq. Of course, since the very presence of U.S. troops in Iraq causes numerous problems in and of itself there is a sound strategic argument for withdrawing troops. But that does not mean that the U.S. gets to wash its hands of Iraq. Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule does apply. We broke Iraq and we do have to try and fix it. As Cordesman notes, “Like it or not, the US is rightly seen as having gone to war for the wrong reasons, as having consistently mismanaged the “peace” that followed and been largely responsible for the suffering of some 27 million Iraqis. Strategically, ideologically, and morally, the US cannot avoid being linked to the future of Iraq, regardless of whether it maintains a military presence.” But that does not mean keeping current or even pre-surge levels of troops there.
Though it not discussed as such I actually think the framework for arguing over the United States staying or leaving Iraq has changed. It is not really about success any more, no matter how loose or dumbed down a definition you use. It is about American geopolitical credibility. Cordesman captures this when he observes:
It is important to note in this regard that while Americans are still concerned with finding ways to define “victory” in Iraq, virtually the entire world already perceives the US as having decisively lost. Every international opinion poll that measures international popular reactions to the US performance in the war – Oxford Analytica, Pew, ABC/BBC/ARD/USA Today, Gallup, etc. – sees the US as responsible for a war it cannot justify and which has caused immense Iraqi suffering. Virtually every internal poll of Iraqi opinion with any credibility — Oxford Analytica, ABC/BBC/ARD/USA Today, ORB, etc. – has produced similar results.
The US probably cannot entirely reverse these attitudes in Iraq, the region, allied states, and increasingly in America. It may well, however, be able to greatly ameliorate them over time. It seems likely that the US will ultimately be judged far more by how it leaves Iraq, and what it leaves behind, than how it entered Iraq. The global political image of the US – and its ability to use both “hard” and “soft” power in other areas in the future, depends on what the US does now even more than on what it has done in the past.
Those of us of a certain age will recognize this argument without trouble, for it is the same reasoning that kept us in Vietnam, years after it was apparent that a military victory was not possible.
Finally, since the Bush administration keeps telling us that the surge has been making progress it is important to understand why that is. Cordesman notes:
Substantial numbers of tribal leaders have turned against Al Qa’ida for its repressive efforts to enforce its view of Islamic custom, forced marriages, kidnappings and extortions, and killings of local and tribal leaders. Key tribal leaders, and the main tribal confederation in the area have started to fight Al Qa’ida, have turned to US forces for help, and seem willing to strike a bargain with the Shi’ite-dominated central government if the government will give them money, a reasonable degree of de facto Sunni autonomy, and incorporate their fighters into auxiliary police forces, the regular police, and Iraqi Army. …
Sheer luck has created a major synergy between Sunni willingness to attack Al Qa’ida and other abusive, hard-line Sunni Islamist elements and far more effective US efforts at counterinsurgency.
Cordesman is not the only one who is pessimistic about the surge’s chances of success. Just yesterday the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs committee delivered a report saying it is likely to fail. The report notes, “We conclude that it is too early to provide a definitive assessment of the US ‘surge’ but that it does not look likely to succeed. We believe that the success of this strategy will ultimately ride on whether Iraq’s politicians are able to reach agreement on a number of key issues.”
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