Wrong On Timetables

[Shek]

Kagan is the architect of the "surge."

Weekly Standard
April 2, 2007
Pg. 9

Wrong On Timetables

The Democratic Congress doesn't understand what is going on in Iraq.

By William Kristol and Frederick W. Kagan

Let's give congressional Democrats the benefit of the doubt: Assume some of them earnestly think they're doing the right thing to insist on adding to the supplemental appropriation for the Iraq war benchmarks and timetables for withdrawal. Still, their own arguments--taken at face value--don't hold up.

Democrats in Congress have made three superficially plausible claims: (1) Benchmarks and timetables will "incentivize" the Maliki government to take necessary steps it would prefer to avoid. (2) We can gradually withdraw over the next year so as to step out of sectarian conflict in Iraq while still remaining to fight al Qaeda. (3) Defeat in Iraq is inevitable, so our primary goal really has to be to get out of there. But the situation in Iraq is moving rapidly away from the assumptions underlying these propositions, and their falseness is easier to show with each passing day.

(1) The Iraqi government will not act responsibly unless the imminent departure of American forces compels it to do so. Those who sincerely believe this argument were horrified by the president's decision in January to increase the American military presence in Iraq. It has now been more than ten weeks since that announcement--long enough to judge whether the Maliki government is more or less likely to behave well when U.S. support seems robust and reliable.

In fact, since January 11, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has permitted U.S. forces to sweep the major Shiite strongholds in Baghdad, including Sadr City, which he had ordered American troops away from during operations in 2006. He has allowed U.S. forces to capture and kill senior leaders of Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army--terrifying Sadr into fleeing to Iran. He fired the deputy health minister--one of Sadr's close allies--and turned a deaf ear to Sadr's complaints. He oversaw a clearing-out of the Interior Ministry, a Sadrist stronghold that was corrupting the Iraqi police. He has worked with coalition leaders to deploy all of the Iraqi Army units required by the Baghdad Security Plan. In perhaps the most dramatic move of all, Maliki visited Sunni sheikhs in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and formerly the base of al Qaeda fighters and other Sunni Arab insurgents against his government. The visit was made possible because Anbar's sheikhs have turned against al Qaeda and are now reaching out to the government they had been fighting. Maliki is reaching back. U.S. strength has given him the confidence to take all these important steps.

(2) American forces would be able to fight al Qaeda at least as well, if not better, if they were not also engaged in a sectarian civil war in Iraq. The idea of separating the fight against al Qaeda from the sectarian fighting in Iraq is a delusion. Since early 2004, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has sought to plunge Iraq into sectarian civil war, so as to critically weaken the government, which is fighting it. AQI endeavors to clear Shiites out of mixed areas, terrorize local Sunnis into tolerating and supporting AQI, and thereby establish safe havens surrounded by innocent people it then dragoons into the struggle. Now, heartened by the U.S. commitment to stay, Sunni sheikhs in Anbar have turned on AQI. In response, AQI has begun to move toward Baghdad and mixed areas in Diyala, attempting to terrorize the locals and establish new bases in the resulting chaos. The enemy understands that chaos is al Qaeda's friend. The notion that we can pull our troops back into fortresses in a climate of chaos--but still move selectively against al Qaeda--is fanciful. There can be no hope of defeating or controlling al Qaeda in Iraq without controlling the sectarian violence that it spawns and relies upon.

(3) Isn't it too late? Even if we now have the right strategy and the right general, can we prevail? If there were no hope left, if the Iraqis were determined to wage full-scale civil war, if the Maliki government were weak or dominated by violent extremists, if Iran really controlled the Shiites in Iraq--if these things were true, then the new strategy would have borne no fruit at all. Maliki would have resisted or remained limp as before. Sadr's forces would have attacked. Coalition casualties would be up, and so would sectarian killings. But none of these things has happened. Sectarian killings are lower. And despite dramatically increased operations in more exposed settings, so are American casualties. This does not look like hopelessness.

Hope is not victory, of course. The surge has just begun, our enemies are adapting, and fighting is likely to intensify as U.S. and Iraqi forces begin the main clear-and-hold phase. The Maliki government could falter. But it need not, if we do not. Unfortunately, four years of setbacks have conditioned Americans to believe that any progress must be ephemeral. If the Democrats get their way and Gen. Petraeus is undermined in Congress, the progress may indeed prove short-lived. But it's time to stop thinking so hard about how to lose, and to think instead about how to reinforce and exploit the success we have begun to achieve. The debate in Washington hasn't caught up to the realities in Baghdad. Until it does, a resolute president will need to prevent defeatists in Congress from losing a winnable war in Iraq.

[astralis]

OTOH...

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Zakaria: What the Warriors Cannot Do - Newsweek International Editions - MSNBC.com

What the Warriors Cannot Do
It's time to call Iraq's leaders to account.


By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

April 2, 2007 issue - In the last weeks, the violence in Baghdad has moved from ghastly to merely grim, and we are told that the tide has turned. President Bush says the surge of U.S. troops is producing "encouraging signs." Many of his neoconservative supporters have been less circumspect. "It may well be that General [David] Petraeus is going to lead us to victory in Iraq," declared William Kristol last week. The obstacle now is apparently not in Iraq but in Washington, where Congress has been making efforts to bring American combat forces home. The president's spokesman Tony Snow describes these as recipes for "failure, not victory."

To speak of victory in Iraq might sound like a cruel joke. This is a nation that is now devastated, where 2 million people have fled, another 2 million are internal refugees, militias run large parts of the country and the government sanctions religious repression, ethnic cleansing and vigilante violence. What does "victory" mean in such circumstances?

When the president announced his new policy of a "surge" in January, I argued that it was likely to have a positive military effect. Petraeus, the new commander in Iraq, is all that he has been advertised to be: an unusually smart and strategic general. His first moves in Baghdad show that. He has begun securing neighborhoods and is trying to prove to Iraqis that U.S. forces will go after both Sunni and Shiite extremists (though the latter have mostly melted away). But by his own estimation these achievements, even if they expand, are not enough. "Any student of history recognizes there is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq," he said recently. "A political resolution of various differences ... of various senses that people do not have a stake in the successes of Iraq ... is crucial." The new secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, echoed this analysis, explaining that the role of the U.S. military in Iraq was to buy time for national reconciliation.

It would seem reasonable, then, to measure progress not just by neighborhoods secured and militants killed, but in political terms as well. And as it happens we have a series of benchmarks that have been set out at various points by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.

Just before the referendum on Iraq's Constitution in October 2005, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad brokered a deal that secured Sunni participation in exchange for the Iraqi government's promising to set up a committee to amend the Constitution to incorporate Sunni concerns later. This was to have been done four months after the formation of Iraq's elected government—in other words, by September 2006. Nothing has happened. When he took office, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced plans for an ambitious program of national reconciliation. Nothing has happened.

In January, after persistent inquiries from Sen. Carl Levin, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote to Levin setting out the benchmarks and timeline that the Iraqi government had signed off on. They included new election laws, the scheduling of provincial elections, laws on investment and oil-revenue sharing, the disbanding of militias, the reversal of de-Baathification and the granting of amnesty. In supporting the surge, Sen. John McCain also listed these goals as crucial to progress. But none of them has taken place. The revenue-sharing law has passed the cabinet but not yet moved through Parliament. The Los Angeles Times reported in February that Baghdad had abandoned plans to reverse de-Baathification. It quoted a U.S. official who said that the reform, far from advancing as promised, was "moving backward" and was "almost dead in the water." The amnesty law also appears moribund.

These two measures have historically proved crucial in almost any political process that has ended a civil war. Without some kind of amnesty and prospect for rehabilitation, there is little incentive for insurgents to lay down their arms and join the political process. Last week the Sunni vice president of Iraq urged his own government to begin talks with the insurgents, a position that General Petraeus has also taken.

There are less formal benchmarks that are also not being met. Maliki was to have reshuffled his cabinet to remove members who actively fomented civil war. That has not happened. The government was to finally start spending money in Sunni areas. That has not happened. Militias were to be demobilized. Instead, one of their most notorious leaders has been released from prison and publicly embraced by Maliki.

For four years President Bush has given Iraq's leaders unconditional support. They have not interpreted it as a reason to make compromises. In fact, talking to both U.S. officials in Iraq and Iraqi politicians, it appears that the chief reason there has been some movement on a few of these issues—the oil laws and noninterference in U.S. military operations, for instance—was the fear that Congress was going to force a withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The Democratic bills in Congress have two features: timeline and benchmarks. The rigid timelines the House bill imposes are problematic because they give the United States little room to maneuver in a highly volatile situation. But the benchmarks to measure Iraq's political progress—prominent in the Senate bill—are entirely in keeping with the basic strategy being outlined by Gates, Petraeus and, indeed, Bush. The only difference is that this is a strategy with teeth. If the Iraqi government does not do what the administration itself has argued is crucial to success, then American troops should begin withdrawing. (There will still be a need for a reduced force to fight Al Qaeda, secure Kurdistan and prevent major refugee flows.)

Announcing his new surge policy on Jan. 10, President Bush said, "I've made it clear to the prime minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people." In a sense, Congress is merely following through on the president's promise.

[Ray]

There is no doubts that by giving targets, it does have effects.

However, one wonders if it is feasible to give targets for such a fluid environment as in Iraq, where the proclaimed aim is to bring Freedom and Democracy.

'Freedom and Democracy' is itself a very woolly woolly concept. I have not as yet seen the issues involved that when accomplished will allow the declaration of 'Mission Accomplished'.

'Freedom and Democracy' means different things to different persons and indeed in its understanding by individual nations. It not only is confined to personal interpretation, but also in the areas of psychology of individuals, the environment, the national psyche and so on.

Just to explain what I mean, let me amplify with brevity. I mention brevity since while I try to be brief, there may be the possibility that in that brevity, the issues maybe missed by the hurried reader! If I amplify in detail, it may not permit those lacking time to read in full and thus leading to infructuous debate.

Freedom to some could be licence. It could mean the liberty to act or do without upsetting the society's perceived norms. It could also mean that in certain times in a nation, draconian laws are implemented for the safety of its citizens as also for the integrity of the nation itself.

However, whatever it be, it can also be again open to interpretation!

The US, in the olden days, most would revolt if their individual privacy was assaulted. But in the current environment electronic tapping, invasive prying into individual's data is all permissible. Yet, to some, it is draconian. When the USSR did the same, it was hugely criticised as depriving human rights etc. I am tempted to use Xerxes example too. He said if Iran nabbed some people, it was 'kidnapping' and when the US did the same, it was not kidnapping, but detaining. Therefore, it is all a question of perception. To some, Guantanamo Bay captives is a gross Human Rights violation and yet to some, it is absolutely essential if nations are to be safe from terrorism! Therefore, what is "Freedom"? And whatever that is, it is still open to interpretation as perceived by the individual.

In so far as national psyche dictating what is Freedom and Democracy, is exemplified by the way Moslems treat their women. While in non Moslem nations, it is looked as impinging on the woman's freedom, to Moslems it is normal and even felt that the woman were emancipated and totally free!

The fact the Islam regulates Islamic life including individual's responses to their daily routine including such micromanagement as dictating norms of personal hygiene, prompts the Islamic mindset to accept dictatorial governance. Thus, Islamic nations are rarely democratic in the western sense. And therefore, most Islamic nations have monarchies, sultanates, military dictatorship, faux democracies controlled by military and so on. And yet, the Moslems have no quibbles about such governance, which to westerners would appears as undemocratic and dictatorial!

That said, what should be the criterion for issues, the accomplishment would allow one to feel that Democracy and Freedom has been restored in Iraq or even Afghanistan?

Unless such a checklist is made and it is acceptable to both the Coalition of the Willing (COW) and to the Iraqis, as also the Arabs and Iran since peace in Iraq can only come if the Arabs (Sunnis) and Iran (Shias) don't pursue their agenda through their proxies in jockeying for power, there can be no goal posts which will conclusively declare that the mission to bring "Freedom and Democracy" to Iraq has been accomplished and the US troops can come back home.

What are these issues that when accomplished would declare that the Mission of bringing "Freedom and Democracy" has been Accomplished?

Maybe neither Bush nor the Democrats wish to state the same because it suits their convenience. Who knows?

Or, it could be that neither Bush nor the Democrats in the Congress or for that any Congressperson has any idea as to what these issues could be.

Or, it could be that spelling these out with a consensus on the issues that constitute "Freedom and Democracy" is so complex, that it is best left unsaid. If that be the case, then Iraq will bumble along without solution.

Thus, in my view, unless the issues that constitute "Freedom and Democracy" is spelt out and a checklist is made, it becomes impossible for anyone to lay any deadlines in any matter that concerns Iraq!