No real surprises out of this report. It states the obvious that Iraq is one big feces sandwhich and there's no good solutions. The recommendations in it sound good but I'm skeptical that more than a handful will be implemented.
Do you believe there is anything the US military can actually do to help to facilitate even one of those scenarios? And, if so, could you say what that would be?
That would be a success? Hayes, considering the ramifications of what I bolded from your post, should either one come to pass, put next to the reasons put forth by Bush, etc., before the invasion and occupation, and what has happened since, you would actually call that a success? I think the Kurds deserve their own state, but their region is surrounded by those who will not allow it to exist. Not only that, they would be so upset about it that even an ally, like Turkey, is 99.9% certain not to grant overfly rights to the US, should a Kurdistan be created with US bases to secure it, and whatever remains of US influence in the area. I think any hopes of "success" are grounded in fantasy, with all due respect, and while I don't think you live in a fantasy world, I think Bush clearly does. We will not bring success out of Iraq. We will bring defeat, greatly diminished US influence in the region, and increased power and influence for our enemies. And that is tragic. D&D. Here We Are.
Sure, they can continue to train and equip the Iraqi Army and provide a security presence. The can interdict weapons and personnel entering Iraq. The can continue to build infrastructure. I'm not sure what your point is - the list is quite long.
Many experts believe the presence of American troops is making the situation there less stable, not more. Do you disagree that we could begin to withdraw troops as Iraqis are trained? Bush's position seems to be that we will remain a large and active presence until "victory" is accomplished. Though he discounts several of your scenarios for success, using your list as a model do you believe we need to retain a large, active military presence until one of those solutions is fully realized? I agree with the Pentagon that what is left to accomplish in Iraq and what is, by now, accomplishable in Iraq will be accomplished politically and not militarily. And I think you'd be hard pressed to find too many people that believe our military presence is helping the political situation there. What's your take on that, specifically?
Not sure if I agree with that assessment. Many experts believe withdrawing troops immediately would be disasterous which contradicts that assessment. I don't see a reason for a large, active military presence if the Iraqi Army is up and running. Again, I don't think an immediate withdraw is the answer. In the absence of a capable Iraqi Army the coalition is certainly helping the political situation in what would otherwise be a complete vacuum. I don't oppose drawing down coalition troops as the situation warrants though, if that's what you mean.
I haven't read too many of your Iraq war posts lately Hayes, but I'm surprised to see you using Bush's straw man here. No one this side of Kucinich is calling for an "immediate" withdrawal. Bush, in a blatant effort to do nothing so much as save face for himself and his legacy, insists on keeping a sizeable force there until we have acheived "victory." Am I right to assume from your post that you favor phased redeployment as Iraqi forces can be trained to take over, regardless of whether "victory," in your terms or Bush's (whatever he means by the word, since nobody seems to know), is fully realized?
Why wouldn't it be a success? A genocidal tyrant would have been removed, an inevitable WMD threat would have been removed, our troops have been removed from Saudi Arabia, the sanctions of Iraq have been lifted, all Iraqis would have a certain level of self determination. Al Qaeda will have had the supposed battleground of their dreams and failed to achieve their envisioned Islamic revolution. Elections in Iraq spurred the Lebanese to kick out Syria, some reform in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Where's the failure in that? That doesn't address whether or not it would be a successful outcome (to have three separate states), but on your point I don't think it is an impossible although probably not the most likely outcome. Turkey would actually be one of the main opponents, but overflight rights are irrelevant to our being able to secure a Kurdish state. We have the military power to prevent a Turkish invasion. A Turkish action doesn't really solve their problem anyway so that really is unlikely as well (if they were to try and annex the Kurds they would triple thier Kurd population and hence their already largely looming Kurd problem). Well, that's positive. I disagree.
The problem with US troops in Iraq is like a variation on one of the aspects of the Heisenberg principle that the act of observing changes what is being observed. In this case US troops attempting to stabilize Iraq presence is destabilizing. Many of the foreign insurgents are there for one thing, to kill Americans. If the US troops weren't there its possible that those foreign fighters would leave or at least their support would dry up among the locals.
It isn't a strawman, just clarifying because you are saying both 'currently the troops are hurting Iraq' and 'we should withdraw.' If both of those are true then why wouldn't you advocate an immediate withdraw? Yes.
wehat the ISG is proposing is nothing like what has been criticized as cutting and running. i'm not saying i agree with their proposals, but it's nothing like Murtha's run away to okinawa routine.
Because I agree that an immediate withdrawal would be disastrous. I also believe that not working toward one, in the service of some fantasy about "victory" would be (and will be, thanks to "the decider") disastrous. It is absolutely a straw man and it is one used regularly by Bush and Snow. We call for phased redeployment and they say, "some want to withdraw immediately - that would be a disaster." No serious person advocates an immediate withdrawal. Good to know. In that case, our disagreements wrt this war are in the past.
With all that why don't we just declare victory and come home? I agree with you that there have been some positives from Iraq but things there are far from successful going by the Admin's stated goals of creating a stable secular democratic state. Democratic possibly but far from secular and at the moment far from stable. Problems in Iraq has the potential to destabilize the rest of the region, Al Qaeda while far from winning still have a great training ground and a rallying point for recruitment in the meantime we continue to bleed blood and treasure. Iraq has successes but overall is anything but.
It wasn't a strawman in this case because you had yet to declare against immediate withdraw. I think we're on the same page.
I was asked what I consider a success. True but again I think it is incredibly premature to declare these goals are a 'lost cause.' True, but its not even a given that it would be bad. Also it is important for the doomsayers to remember their predictions of that happening as soon as we intervened, which didn't happen at all. They could have achieved the same training in Afghanistan with a much more solid support base. As it is we're seeing the outright rejection of AQ by much of Islam that previously was either sympathetic or outright supportive. As naive as the neoconservative vision of Iraqi gratitude seems now, AQ made an equally naive miscalculation. If anything their brand of 'cover all issues make the world Islamic' radicalism has suffered severe setbacks to the specific pain point solutions of a Hezbollah. Well, I'm sure some will freak and call this callous but we really haven't suffered that many casualties, either in comparison to other wars or for an operation of this size with this resistance. Money lost, yes - but that is the least important denominator IMO.
On page 94 of the report, The Bush administration routinely has underreported the level of violence in Iraq in order to disguise its policy failings, the Iraq Study Group report said Wednesday. ... the Iraq Study Group found that there had been "significant under-reporting of the violence in Iraq." The reason, the group said, was because the tracking system was designed in a way that minimized the deaths of Iraqis. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwas...ce=rss&channel=krwashington_jonathan_s_landay
