The Small War, Part II

Let’s switch to Jeopardy mode for a bit:

ANSWER: “We Can’t Win”.

QUESTION: Choose from the following:

  1. “What did the left say about Vietnam?”
  2. “What did the left say about El Salvador?”
  3. “What did the left say about Afghanistan until the (real) Northern Alliance and the Special Forces rode into Kandahar?”
  4. “What does the medialeft (I conflate media and left on purpose, since in reality they’ve pretty much conflated themselves) assure us about Iraq at every opportunity?”

The answer, if you’re a discerning news consumer, is “all of the above, and then some”.

———-

“Iraq is un-winnable”.

That is one of the left’s great current conceits. It’s only as true as the nation wants to make it, of course; all wars are winnable (or at least loseable by the other guy) – Finland beat the Soviets, at least in regulation time, in 1940 (sudden death overtime brought the Finns a limited defeat and the Soviets a very costly “victory”); British, on the other hand, conquered most of the globe with a laughably-small force; the Colonies beat the British with even less; Britain in turn held out alone against Hitler. Of course, listing these wars like that oversimplifies the issues; each of them, “impossible” as they were by conventional measures, happened for reason that make perfect sense in retrospect.

But the upshot is that there is no such thing as an “unwinnable war”. Of course, all wars can be lost.

The distinction is important, especially when you look at the history of counterinsurgencies.

I remember the NARN’s interview with Steven Vincent, the freelance journalist who made such a name for himself covering Iraq, alone and without a net (and was eventually murdered on his second tour in the country, by criminals in Basra). In our final interview with him – the last interview he gave before leaving for Iraq the second time – we talked about the differences between the approach in the American and British-controlled regions of Iraq. The American zone was, true to “Neocon” dogma, taking the all-or-nothing route; full civil democracy, the whole enchilada, immediately. The British, drawing on centuries of experience ruling huge swathes of the world and immense native populations with a tiny military and civil servant cadre, had a different approach. They made deals with unsavory people to observe, rat out and countervail other unsavory people. They co-opted one group of thugs to smack down another group of thugs. They used, even exploited, criminal disorder to their larger goal – keeping relative order in their sector. Until recently, it worked -very arguably (Vincent was murdered in Basra, along with many other people, after all). They also kept their troops out among the Iraqis of the region, intermingling, buying their supplies locally, walking around without helmets or body armor (unless events demanded them) – and until recently, when the Brits announced their intention to start withdrawing, Basra was relatively peaceful compared to the miasma of Baghdad and Anbar.

They’ve done this – winning “unwinnable” counterinsurgency wars – before. In India from the 1600s through WWII, in the pre-Revolutionary American west, and South Africa in 1900, in Borneo and Malaysia and Aden and Oman in the sixties and seventies, the Brits learned the blocking and tackling of winning insurgencies: isolate the insurgents from the locals by being among the locals, by winning civilian hearts and minds, by co-opting other elements of the local society against the insurgents (including cultivating “friendly”, if often conventionally-unsavory, warlords, in the hopes of taming them when the crisis wanes – as, indeed, they did), and, when and if needed, following the isolated insurgent into the wilderness and hunting him down and killing him, using the minimal British force possible (and relying heavily on the locals to do the dirty work; British history is crowded with colorful characters who went overseas and “went native” leading indigenous troops in the service of the King; the British special forces, the SAS and SBS, are directly descended from such characters).

As Vincent noted, that approach is foreign to modern Americans (and when I say “modern”, it’s because the distinction is important, as we’ll see in a bit); neocons demand “democracy now”; liberals pine for the moral clarity of World War II and, like Jimmy Carter, get queasy at the thought of associating with, even supporting, unsavory, often thuggish, frequently deeply ugly people to defeat people who are not, to the outside observer, a whole lot different.

And when I say the approach is “foreign to Americans”, I mean “Americans who don’t follow this nation’s history, especially”.

Lost in the palaver about the Iraq War – and the inevitable Vietnam comparisons that the left leans on to the exclusion of most rational thought when the thought of war, especially counterinsurgency war, comes up – is that a hundred years ago, the United States was the master of small wars against small, asymmetric groups of insurgents. In winning the American West against the Indians, and then in our first “imperial” wars – the Philippines in the early 1900s, Nicaragua in the ’20s and ”30s, and several others in between and beyond (up through El Salvador in the ’80s), the US won wars the way the British won the same kinds of wars all across their empire for hundreds of years, from India in the 1600s through Aden and Northern Ireland in the seventies (as related by everyone from Robert Kaplan and Max Boot to Robert Nagl:

  1. Keep our troops out among the natives – even in tiny numbers, the act of showing a presence among the civilians makes a huge difference in…
  2. …Cutting the guerillas off from the people. Make it impossible for the insurgents to get supplies, recruits and support (and, commensurately, to exert control through coercion and terror).
  3. Co-opt and exploit local institutions to help you with #2 first – and then build new institutions. This drives liberals (and, it must be fairly said, neoconservatives) crazy; surely, they reason, imposing democracy and human rights immediately must be a better thing – right? Like most ideals, it’s not always true, of course. It was a former Ranger – who’d spent a few years training for this exact kind of warfare – who introduced me to the saying “perfect is the enemy of good enough”. In many parts of the world, the only human right that matters right now is the right to not get blown up, beheaded, shot or gang-raped. Once those are taken care of, one can worry about the more finesseful rights of man.
  4. Build up the local institutions that work. Liberals – and some neoconservatives – grouse about this because it involves “picking and choosing warlords”.

It’s nothing new; we did it in the Philippines in 1900 to great effect; the desert Southwest wasn’t subdued by columns of blue-jacketed cavalry, but by small teams of Apache renegades led by tiny cadres of soldiers on long, unsupported pushes through the desert that made it impossible for the Mescaleros to carry on a regular life in the US. More recently, in El Salvador in the ’80s – a great, and successful, example of this kind of war which was also judged “un-winnable” by the mainstream left and media – there was a choice; between left-wing death squads, and right-wing death squads. The US (and the Special Forces that did the work) chose to support the right-wing death squads, on the assumption (correct, as it turned out) that they would eventually be easier to co-opt, fold into the regular military, and eventually teach the basics of human rights. The solution in El Salvador was messy, imperfect – and remains light-years better than it was during the days of unchecked insurgency, leaving the nation a functional, if imperfect, democracy. Another example – many times in Imperial Grunts Kaplan notes US Special Forces (“Green Berets”) in Afghanistan remarking that their mission is to make the locals – the Afghan Army, as well as the local warlords’ militias – look good. The goal, of course, is to build the stability that’s needed, not just for democracy to take hold (if indeed it can or will), but to deny Afghanistan to the terrorists as a safe haven again.

The good news? Once you get through the job of making the population safe from the insurgents, it can – indeed, say many of the subjects in Imperial Grunts, should – be done with many fewer troops than we currently have in Iraq.

So who screwed up?

And why are the Democrats wrong?

Oh, heck – I guess I’ll make this three parts.

63 thoughts on “The Small War, Part II

  1. Mitch revealed: “all wars are winnable (or at least loseable by the other guy)”

    The failure of the war is contained in that statement. We achieved the latter. We can’t achieve the former, because winning was never in the cards. We can defeat Saddam’s army, capture and kill Saddam, subdue the population, more or less. In fact, we can do practically anything we choose to in Iraq.

    The problem is, we could never pacify Iraq for a cost in lives, money, diplomatic capital and lost opportunities elsewhere that made the venture worthwhile. The war has always been an auction in which we started the bidding at $200 for an asset worth $50. Sure you can beat the other guy in the bidding, but if the price you pay is many times the value of the thing you’re trying to get your hands on, you’re a loser too.

    Look at Iraq from Osama bin Laden’s point of view, the war has taken down a secular government in an economically and strategically important middle eastern country, occupied American resources that could be better used elsewhere and provided a rallying point for anti-American Islamic fundamentalism. Win win win. Bush is playing three-card monte with

    Any advantage the U.S. could gain in Iraq (particularly in the absense of Saddam’s phantom WMDs) is outweighed by the cost. That’s always been the case. Cheney got it in 1994:

    “The question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth. And our judgement was not very many and I think we got it right.”

    Now that we’re in, clearly it’s important to minimize any further harm to the U.S. and to Iraq and that may require an American military presence for the indefinite future. But that simply means we’re keeping our losses to a minimum. Not that we’re winning or that there’s even any possibility of winning.

  2. “Win win win. Bush is playing three-card monte with”

    should be:

    Win win win. Bush is playing three-card monte with a very sharp dealer. He’s made a sucker out of his country.

    [Angryclown has just sacked his girl for the dictation error. Applications are being considered. C-cups a minimum. No exceptions, Colleen!]

  3. Mitch:

    1. ‘Keep our troops out among the natives” If you read Fiasco, you would learn that U.S. troops spent lots of time out among the natives – kicking in doors and arresting all military age men. Being out and about only works if there is something useful to do.

    2. “Cutting the guerillas off from the people.” It has been the U.S. that has supplied the insurgency with money and weapons. The guerillas are the government. Any civic improvements we try to make become scams for the local party in power. Any security forces we stand up get infiltrated with militias.

    3. “Co-opt and exploit local institutions”. In Iraq, it is the U.S. that has been co-opted and exploited. All factions see us as a resource for money and weapons. Since we have no realistic strategic goal in Iraq we are unable to build any sort of loyal local coalition.

    4. “Build up the local institutions that work. Liberals – and some neoconservatives – grouse about this because it involves “picking and choosing warlords”.” I wish our military commanders in Iraq could even mange to settle on a strategy of ‘picking a warlord’. We are supporting all of the warlords at the same time against each other. And not in any intelligent ‘play them of against each other’ way.

    The problem in Iraq is that the U.S. has zero reliable local allies. Your whole strategy depends on something you do not have.

  4. Pingback: Jay Reding.com - Winning Small Wars

  5. Keep our troops out among the natives” If you read Fiasco, you would learn that U.S. troops spent lots of time out among the natives – kicking in doors and arresting all military age men.

    Strawman; this is not what I’m talking about, and you’re being [as deeply] disingenuous [as usual].

    “Cutting the guerillas off from the people.” It has been the U.S. that has supplied the insurgency with money and weapons

    Precisely. And that, for better or worse, may be part of the answer. Co-opting part of the insurgency to fight against the others. As, indeed, we are.

    In Iraq, it is the U.S. that has been co-opted and exploited. All factions see us as a resource for money and weapons. Since we have no realistic strategic goal in Iraq we are unable to build any sort of loyal local coalition.

    Talking points that would seem to be overtaken by current events.

    I wish our military commanders in Iraq could even mange to settle on a strategy of ‘picking a warlord’.

    Ibid.

  6. This is where our new strategy is so brilliant.

    By backing the Sunni insurgents against Al Qaeda, at the same time we’re backing the Shiite central government against the Sunni Baathists, and the same time we’re backing the Kurds and the Sunnis to stifle Iranian influence among the Shiite militias, at the same time we’re backing the central Shiite government against regionaly disruption by the Kurds, we’re making EVERYBODY our friends! That’s what great about being on all sides of the civil war.

    Hell, the Sunnis are now so secure from our backing that they don’t need to be part of the government that we’re also backing.

    Even smarter, we know which insurgent groups and militias are the ones to back, because they’ve got a proven record of killing U.S. soldiers.

    No point backing a horse that can’t win a race.
    /jc

  7. Mitch said,

    “Lost in the palaver about the Iraq War… … is that a hundred years ago, the United States was the master of small wars against small, asymmetric groups of insurgents. In winning the American West against the Indians…”

    Lost in your insulting and absurd analogy is that the action taken against the Native Americans – those you consider insurgents – was genocide. It was no more a war that the action in Iraq is a war.

  8. Mitch:
    “Co-opting part of the insurgency to fight against the others. As, indeed, we are.”

    OK which part do you want to co-opt against the other. For example is Basra Sadr’s JAM is currently fighting for control with the SIIC’s Badr Brigades. Which side should the U.S. support and why?

  9. Lost in your insulting and absurd analogy is that the action taken against the Native Americans – those you consider insurgents – was genocide. It was no more a war that the action in Iraq is a war.

    Of course, lost in your pointless, inflammatory and insulting response was the response’s complete lack of recognition of the importance of Beethoven in the development of liberal institutions in Europe after 1815.

    The “point” wasn’t “lost”. I don’t necessarily disagree with you, at least partially, in a larger moral sense.

    But the purpose of the post was not to dissect America’s moral history, but it’s military history. If you push the parameters of a discussion out too far, there can really be no meaningful discussion of any point.

    Which is, of course, the norm with you, Doug, but I’m shooting for better.

  10. Which side should the U.S. support and why?

    The side that can a) win and b) then be co-opted to help create the stability that is needed, in turn, to create something akin to a civil society that observes the rule of law.

    Which group is that? I don’t know. I’m not even an armchair commander. I’m not laying out a plan; merely trying to illuminate a principle drawn from history.

  11. Mitch is placing bets:
    >>Which side should the U.S. support and why?
    >
    >The side that can a) win and b) then be co-opted to help create the stability that is needed, in turn, to create something akin to a civil society that observes the rule of law.

    I told you, the side that has proven it’s seriousness by killing the most Americans (or Brits) (can’t forget the Poles!).

    The militia that kills the most Americans is the one that’s showed its grity determination and organizational skills. Any militia group that can’t manage that isn’t worth a misplaced rifle.

    Besides, they’re the ones who know where all the IEDs are buried.
    /jc

  12. The militia that kills the most Americans is the one that’s showed its grity determination and organizational skills. Any militia group that can’t manage that isn’t worth a misplaced rifle.

    “What is “everything I am allowed to say, I was told by John Stewart”, Alex?”

  13. Brilliant “slash”! Just like Vietnam. The Viet Cong stood up so we could stand down!

  14. Mitch:
    “The side that can a) win and b) then be co-opted to help create the stability that is needed, in turn, to create something akin to a civil society that observes the rule of law.”

    But if there is no such group, then your strategy can not work. There is no reason to think there is such a side or that we could figure out which side that was.

    a. Given that every Prime Minister we have picked in Iraq lost the next round of elections, I would not want to bet on our ability to pick a winner. To know that you need a reliable loyal local source of intelligence, which we do not have. Ask someone from SIIC they will tell you they can win and will support the rule of law. Ask someone from JAM you will get a different answer. Who you gonna believe?

    b. How are you going to co-opt them. We do not have anything to co-opt them with. They want guns and money to gain power. Once they have the power there is nothing we can offer to gain their continued support. Ever winning CI must have an political and idealogical agenda that unites your local allies with the outside power. “Please do not let George Bush look like a loser” won’t cut it with Iraqis.

  15. Jon Stewart? A 9/11 phony. Mention him no more.

    He wasn’t down there knee deep at Ground Zero every day like my man Rudy.
    /jc

  16. But if there is no such group, then your strategy can not work.

    Your “if” is duly noted, classified under “pure hypotheticals”, and filed away.

    Given that every Prime Minister we have picked in Iraq lost the next round of elections, I would not want to bet on our ability to pick a winner.

    Picking the “group” has nothing to do with elections.

    Ever winning CI must have an political and idealogical agenda that unites your local allies with the outside power.

    Correlation masquerading as causation. This happens in some CI wars; if it were a precondition, then the British should not have won their CI campaigns in Malaysia (twice), Aden, and for that matter India; South African and Rhodesian troops (before the political settlements that resulted in majority rule and Mugabe’s cult of personality, respectively), the Philippines in 1906, Nicaragua in the ’20s and ’30s, and El Salvador in the ’80s and the ’90s, the only “agenda” that united the US/UK and the locals was “stability” and “not getting ones’ family killed or gang-raped”.

    It’s where these sorts of things start.

    Larger ideological issues don’t matter until the whole “death” and “starvation” and “gang-rape” things are dealt with.

  17. He wasn’t down there knee deep at Ground Zero every day like my man Rudy.

    You’re a lawyer, right? You know your way around Latin? I took a year of it, but for the life of me I can’t remember the Latin phrase for “non sequitur”.

    Can you remember that Latin phrase?

    It’s driving me nuts.

  18. Oooh, can I play?

    “Jon Stewart? A 9/11 phony. Mention him no more. He wasn’t down there knee deep at Ground Zero every day like my man Rudy.”

    Who is Stephen Colbert? I’d like Left-Wing Dribble for $400.

  19. Basically, Rick’s argument boils down to the racist trope that Iraqis can’t be democrats because they’re a bunch of savages who just want to slaughter each other.

    Reality, as always, is a hell of a lot more complex. The Sunnis are on our side because they know damned well that the second we leave, they’re as good as dead. Absent US protection, Iraq’s Sunnis with be ethnically cleansed out of existence by Iranian-backed Shi’a militias. They have every reason to want the US as a buffer against the Shi’ites.

    The Shi’ites, on the other hand, are the targets of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is a Salafist organization, and the Salafis think that the Shi’a are barely better than the kuffar (infidels). Even though the native Iraqi Sunnis probably wouldn’t stand a chance against the Sh’ia, al-Qaeda could make things very difficult in Iraq.

    Iraq Shi’ites also aren’t Iranian Shi’ites. Iranians are Farsi-speaking Persians, Iraqis are Arabs. Some of the worst fighting in the Iran-Iraq War was between co-sectarians in the al-Faw region of Iraq. Al-Sadr’s JAM is almost certainly a proxy militia for the Iranians, which is why JAM is so disliked by many Iraqis. The Shi’ites don’t want to trade a relatively kind US occupation for the sort of brutality they received under the Iranians.

    And the Kurds, they’re more pro-American than most Americans. Barzani is corrupt, but his brand of corruption is more about lining his own pockets than funding jihad. The Kurds want Dohuk to be the next Dubai, and that’s why they have every interest in not rocking the boat — and the presence of Turkish troops along the borders doesn’t hurt in keeping them in line.

    What RickDFL doesn’t realize — like most anti-war partisans — is that democracy doesn’t take a bunch of perfect little people singing Kumbaya and all getting along — most democracies are formed out of the need to balance antagonistic elements. Our own democracy was formed out of the need to balance the interests of the southern agrarian class with the northern mercantlists — and it took 80 years of simmering before we had a civil war, and Iraq doesn’t have an issue like slavery that could spark something bigger than what exists now.

    The Iraqi constitution is a weakly federal system — the central government doesn’t matter all that much. Iraq will survive not because the Iraqis are all perfect democrats, but because self-interest dictates that each group is better off together than trying to cast off on their own.

    To believe RickDFL’s argument, you’d have to believe that Iraqis are so blinded by sectarian rage that they’re willing to act completely against their own self interest. While such a thing is possible, the Iraqis aren’t all idiots. They know what the consequences of sectarian partition are, and that’s why there’s almost no support for such a plan within Iraq.

  20. Colbert? Huh? He wasn’t at Ground Zero at all.

    And Stewart, he couldn’t even defeat the Malaysians.
    /jc

  21. And Stewart, he couldn’t even defeat the Malaysians.

    Is it noli contendere? No. Dammit.

    What is that phrase?

  22. Non sequitur, Mitch?

    You’re the one who keeps bringing up Jon Stewart.

    I’m focusing on which American-killing militia we should help win this thing!
    /jc

  23. defeat the Malaysians

    Slash,

    Do you have the faintest idea what war I’m talking about?

    If so, do you have the foggiest notion why it matters?

    I think I know the answer, but I’m nothing if not the fairest (and most civil-liberty-supporting) person anywhere.

  24. I’m focusing on which American-killing militia we should help win this thing!

    Ah, you want to be taken seriously. OK.

    Your statement perfectly illustrates my point. Liberals (and you are one, albeit a rather authoritarian one) are either aghast or crippled with cognitive dissonance at the notion of picking one group of thugs to play off against another group of thugs.

    You do know that in El Salvador, the US supported groups that were linked with the murders of American citizens against groups that killed other American citizens, don’t you? (I know, of course you don’t). Why do you suppose this happened?

    You illustrate my point perfectly! It’s like having an animated Powerpoint drop, Slashus ex machina, from the sky on cue!

  25. Mitch:

    “Your “if” is duly noted, classified under “pure hypotheticals”, and filed away.”

    Well I sure our troops will be happy to hear you complete indifference to the fundamental basis of the strategy they are asked to die for.

    Your total inability to outline any sort of scenario by which local Iraq militias get co-opted is proof that your strategy is wishful thinking.

  26. Well I sure our troops will be happy to hear you complete indifference to the fundamental basis of the strategy they are asked to die for.

    I’m indifferent to your hypothetical henpecking. There’s a huge difference.

    Your total inability to outline any sort of scenario by which local Iraq militias get co-opted is proof that your strategy is wishful thinking.

    For me to try to outline which militia to co-opt would be the kind of academic auto-eroticism that would bring the “chickenhawk” crew out of the woodwork. Justifiably so.

    And it’s not “my” strategy. Never has been. It’s been the strategy of every nation that’s ever successfully fought a counterinsurgency war (that didn’t involve completely razing the country, slaughtering its inhabitants and sowing the earth with salt).

  27. Jay:

    Who actually shows some knowledge about Iraq deserves a response, but first lets clear up a few howlers.

    “Al-Sadr’s JAM is almost certainly a proxy militia for the Iranians, which is why JAM is so disliked by many Iraqis”
    Of the three major Shia parties, Sadr is the least identified with Iran. Dawa and SIIC were exile groups based in and sponsored by Iran. Sadr’s main base of street cred is that he never fled from Saddam to Iran. Right now JAM is fighting SIIC in Basra on a ‘drive out the Persians’ platform. Sadr is also the least supportive of a partition which puts him on the side of the Sunni’s.

    “The Shi’ites don’t want to trade a relatively kind US occupation for the sort of brutality they received under the Iranians.”
    For all Shia, Iran is far more popular than the U.S. Any Shia party forced to choose between Iran and the U.S. will choose Iran. The invasion has been a huge boost to Iran’s regional power.

    “And the Kurds, they’re more pro-American than most Americans.”
    Up until U.S. troops try to stop them from taking Kirkuk. Then they will make a deal with Iran.

    “They know what the consequences of sectarian partition are, and that’s why there’s almost no support for such a plan within Iraq.”
    Kurdish independence is the fundamental policy of the Kurds. Both Dawa and SIIC support an autonomous super-province that Sadr and the Sunnis see as tantamount to partition.

    I agree with you that Democracy is messy and that the Iraqi will eventually figure out what to do. I just see no reason why U.S. lives and dollars have to be wasted on the effort. I can not see any way it advances the Iraqis interests or ours.

  28. Who actually shows some knowledge about Iraq deserves a response

    Yeah, big talk from someone who’s done nothing but mouth talking points throughout this thread, and has a palpable ignorance of military history.

    This simple blog obviously doesn’t “deserve” your response. So go fuck off and pollute someone else’s bandwidth, or at least wait until you’re qualified to condescend.

    I vote for “fuck off”.

  29. Oh, yeah – and speaking of “howlers”:

    I agree with you that Democracy is messy and that the Iraqi will eventually figure out what to do.

    Yeah, just the way they always do in that part of the world; with the strongest strongman killing his opponents.

    I just see no reason why U.S. lives and dollars have to be wasted on the effort. I can not see any way it advances the Iraqis interests or ours.

    If you think Iraq, in its current state, is equipped to find anything but a more miserable solution than it has even now, then you are not equipped to carry on in this discussion.

    I urge you not to try.

  30. Mitch:

    “For me to try to outline which militia to co-opt would be the kind of academic auto-eroticism that would bring the “chickenhawk” crew out of the woodwork”
    No. Sending other people to die without any practical idea of how they win is the definition of a ‘chickenhawk’.

    “It’s been the strategy of every nation that’s ever successfully fought a counterinsurgency war”

    But the operative question is whether that strategy can be applied to Iraq by the U.S. Right now the Iranians are carrying it out quite nicely, because they have solid local intelligence, reliable local allies, and a common political agenda. We are not, not because someone forget the magic CI recipe, but because we can not.

  31. No. Sending other people to die without any practical idea of how they win is the definition of a ‘chickenhawk’.

    And I’ve outlined what would seem to be a practical strategy, inasmuch as it’s the one their far-from-chicken leader, Gen. Petraeus, has adopted.

    Right now the Iranians are carrying it out quite nicely, because they have solid local intelligence, reliable local allies, and a common political agenda

    Partly correct, as far as it goes (Jay pointed out the shortcomings of your statement pretty capably).

    but because we can not

    Easter bunny alert. Statement that calls purely for faith in your conjecture, which would in turn seem to be based purely on your ideological dogma.

  32. Mitch:
    “Yeah, just the way they always do in that part of the world; with the strongest strongman killing his opponents.”
    Isn’t that what you are advocating for? The U.S. find a new strongman to bring some order?

    “If you think Iraq, in its current state, is equipped to find anything but a more miserable solution than it has even now, then you are not equipped to carry on in this discussion.”
    What reason is there to think an Iraqi solution will be more miserable than an Iraqi + U.S. solution?

  33. Isn’t that what you are advocating for? The U.S. find a new strongman to bring some order?

    Because they’re two different types of “order”. If you can’t see the difference between “order” in Pyongyang and “order” in San Salvador, it’d explain a lot.

    What reason is there to think an Iraqi solution will be more miserable than an Iraqi + U.S. solution?

    And you dare to condescend to anyone?

  34. “What reason is there to think an Iraqi solution will be more miserable than an Iraqi + U.S. solution?”

    I’m sure that no matter what level of misery is obtained post U.S., the left will only see kite flying.

  35. “Of the three major Shia parties, Sadr is the least identified with Iran.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/23/AR2006012301701.html

    The Jaish-al-Mahdi is seen, both in the West and in Iraq, as little more than a proxy force for the Iranians. Why else would al-Sadr himself flee to Iran whenever the heat got too much for him?

    “For all Shia, Iran is far more popular than the U.S.”

    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20060410/ai_n16181065
    http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0220/p01s02-woiq.html

    Yeah, the Iraqis sure love the people who committed mass genocide against them. Again, Iraqi Shi’a are not like Iranian Shi’a. They don’t speak the same language. They’re not the same ethnicity. They fought one of the bloodiest wars in the last 50 years against each other.

    For that matter, Iraqi and Iranian Shi’ites have vastly different schools of thought in regard to Shi’a Islam itself. Iraqi Shi’a follow the Najaf school of Shi’a Islam which interprets the “vilayet al-faqih” (leadership of Shi’ites in the absence of the Imam Ali and his descendants) as creating a kind of separation of mosque and state. Under the Najaf school, sacred leaders should not engage in politics as it compromises their faith. (The exact opposite of the way the West sees the concept.)

    “Up until U.S. troops try to stop them from taking Kirkuk. Then they will make a deal with Iran.”

    The Iranians hate the Kurds. Kirkuk is already a largely Kurdish city, and the Kurds aren’t stupid enough to throw away all the progress they’ve made to get what they already have. Especially given that there’s already a scheduled referendum to decide the fate of Kirkuk in November that the Kurds are virtually certain to win.

    “I agree with you that Democracy is messy and that the Iraqi will eventually figure out what to do. I just see no reason why U.S. lives and dollars have to be wasted on the effort. I can not see any way it advances the Iraqis interests or ours.”

    1) Because the alternative is an Iraq that looks like Lebanon in the mid-1980s.
    2) Because the cost in US lives and treasure now is significantly less than what it would be later on when we’d inevitably be drawn back into the conflict.
    3) Because al-Qaeda has made Iraq their fight, and neither the US nor Iraq has much interest in ceding the battlefield to them.

  36. Jay:

    “Why else would al-Sadr himself flee to Iran whenever the heat got too much for him?”
    Sadr is less tied to Iran than SIIC and Dawa, that does not mean he is pro-U.S. Given a choice of siding with the U.S. or Iran, he would choose Iran. See below

    “They don’t speak the same language. They’re not the same ethnicity.”
    This really does not help show that Iraqi Shia will favor the U.S. over Iran. There are very big differences between Iraqi and Iranian Shia, they just are tiny compared to the differences between Iraqi Shia and the U.S.

    “The Iranians hate the Kurds. Kirkuk is already a largely Kurdish city”
    The Iranians have the least trouble with their Kurdish minority compared to Iraq and Turkey. If Iran could destablize pro-Isreal Turkey or the Iraqi Sunnis by siding with the Kurds, they would do so.

    1. Same question as Mitch, why do you think the Iraqis will better settle their problems with the U.S. than without an occupation.
    2. Why would be inevitably be drawn back in?
    3. The best way to kill off al-Qaeda would be to leave and let the Iraqis do it. Whatever support they get comes from opposing the U.S. occupation.

  37. “Because they’re two different types of “order”.”

    I agree with you. I just think that the kind of order, most likely to produce some sort of decent civil society in Iraq will most likely come from the Iraqis without U.S. interference. Civil orders produced by local actors are almost always more stable and better reflect the needs of the local population.

  38. “I just think that the kind of order, most likely to produce some sort of decent civil society in Iraq will most likely come from the Iraqis without U.S. interference.”
    Possibly. But this doesnt happen until after the genocide. And who is keeping Iran out during that period of time? Or anyone else who want to fill the vacuum we leave?

  39. Mitch explained: “You do know that in El Salvador, the US supported groups that were linked with the murders of American citizens against groups that killed other American citizens, don’t you? (I know, of course you don’t). Why do you suppose this happened?”

    Cause Republicans are idiots? Not that I don’t appreciate the mental gymnastics it takes to argue it’s ok that we’ve failed to go after bin Laden while at the same time arming people who are killing us.

  40. Buzzkill blathered: “Possibly. But this doesnt happen until after the genocide. And who is keeping Iran out during that period of time? Or anyone else who want to fill the vacuum we leave?”

    Gee Buzzkill, too bad that bit of brilliance didn’t occur to you 3000 KIA ago. Might have saved everybody a bit of bother.

  41. “it’s ok that we’ve failed to go after bin Laden while at the same time arming people who are killing us.”

    Who exactly is arguing this, and how are they connected?

    By the way, we still banning residents of the Confederacy from joining the military? Sometimes your choice is between bad and worse, and other times you have to use a little nuance and understand local culture. How long after WW2 did we help Western Germany arm itself? Or Italy. Japan? During the late 1800’s were any American Indians armed by and riding with the calvary?
    There are no hard and fast rules. You ally yourself with those most likely to help you obtain your objective. Things change.

  42. Good point clown. I was addressing things as they stand now. However, if you can go ahead and fire up your time travel device we can then argue things as they stood 5 years ago.

  43. Buzzkill wondered: “By the way, we still banning residents of the Confederacy from joining the military?”

    No, Buzzkill (though Angryclown thinks they should have kept the voting disqualification in place). But you’ll recall that while that6 war was still underway, General Grant kinda preferred they surrender unconditionally.

    Boy, you wingnuts get awfully flexible when your hero is losing late in the fourth quarter.

  44. Buzzkill blathered: “Good point clown. I was addressing things as they stand now. However, if you can go ahead and fire up your time travel device we can then argue things as they stood 5 years ago. ”

    Mine’s in the shop, buzzkill. Go ahead and take yours back to 2002 and see all the smart guys warning about these very same dangers. Oh, and stick around to hear you wingnuts prattling on about being welcomed as liberators.

  45. “But this doesnt happen until after the genocide.”
    But the U.S. presence makes genocide more not less likely. If the Shia know that no external actor will put the Sunnis back in power, they can leave them alone. If we arm the Sunnis, the Shia will feel compelled to wipe them out.

    “And who is keeping Iran out during that period of time? Or anyone else who want to fill the vacuum we leave”

    Our presence in Iraq drives local parties closer to Iran, see Sadr’s case above. If we extract, Iraqi can concentrate on keeping out Iran.

  46. Mitch complained,

    “the purpose of the post was not to dissect America’s moral history, but it’s military history.”

    I said nothing about morality but because the two are inexorably connected Mitch, you can’t dissect it’s military history without considering it in the moral context.

    You made the decision to equate the actions of insurgents fighting against US forces in Iraq with a native population fighting against genocide in the American West.

    So which is it Mitch? Are we committing genocide against the indigenous Iraqi people as you insinuate or were the Native Americans a real threat to American interests and national security?

    If only those damn Injuns would have just realized that we were there to liberate them, we could have avoided all of these years of conflict.

  47. Doug:

    The genocide of Native Americans was not a deliberate policy and it took place over almost 200 years. Studying U.S. military strategy against the Indians at any given period can be both rewarding and illuminating. It is perfectly reasonably to suggest adopting some of those military strategies without calling for a genocide of some group.

    Mitch is not calling for genocide, although that may be a consequence of his policy.

  48. Rick, I realize Mitch isn’t calling for Genocide but he is suggesting that the U.S. Military was fighting a war against an insurgency.

    What happened to the Native Americans was not a war and the people fighting for survival were not insurgents.

    That is nothing more than a convenient way to justify and rationalize the actions and conduct military operations. This is exactly where the subject of morality becomes an issue. Allegedly, we are fighting insurgents in Iraq because they are a threat to the troops, to the locals and our national security. No doubt, Mitch would argue that we have the moral authority to conduct a war against them. If on the other hand we were to view the Iraqis who are fighting against an occupying force, then their actions – planting IED’s and shooting at us – are entirely justified.

    Also, I would argue that the way this government dealt with Native Americans WAS policy. The fact that they didn’t state that the goal was genocide doesn’t change the fact that the actions effectively led to genocide.

    In addition, if using the military to remove tribes from their homes and marching them across the country to established, defined and foreign places called reservations, forbidding them from practicing their religion, forbidding them from hunting and forcing Christianity on their children isn’t policy, I don’t know what is.

  49. “Sadr is less tied to Iran than SIIC and Dawa, that does not mean he is pro-U.S. Given a choice of siding with the U.S. or Iran, he would choose Iran. See below”

    I never said that he is. Nor is Sadr “less tied” to Iran than the others — Sadr is being funded, supported, and armed by the Iranians. Moqtada al-Sadr is wholly owned by Iran, and the Jaish-al-Mahdi is an Iranian proxy army.

    “This really does not help show that Iraqi Shia will favor the U.S. over Iran. There are very big differences between Iraqi and Iranian Shia, they just are tiny compared to the differences between Iraqi Shia and the U.S.”

    It’s simple: Iraqi Shi’a know that if the US leaves, they end up being stuck between Iran and al-Qaeda. Again, it’s in their own self-interest not to have Iraq end up as another Yugoslavia.

    “The Iranians have the least trouble with their Kurdish minority compared to Iraq and Turkey. If Iran could destablize pro-Isreal Turkey or the Iraqi Sunnis by siding with the Kurds, they would do so.”

    Except for the part where the names are right, but everything else is wrong. I’m not sure where your conception of Middle Eastern politics comes from, but it’s like a funhouse mirror — everything is distorted. The Iranians have been shelling Kurdish villages of late. That’s hardly the sort of thing you do if you’re going to side with someone.

    “1. Same question as Mitch, why do you think the Iraqis will better settle their problems with the U.S. than without an occupation.”

    Because the Syria and Iran are actively destabilizing Iraq, and they don’t have the strength to defend themselves. You make the typical lefty mistake of blaming the US “occupation” as being the problem — the real problem is the fact that Iraq’s neighbors are trying to destabilize the country. Our priority is to get the Iraqis to a point where they can provide their own security — if that isn’t done, no progress on other fronts is possible.

    “2. Why would be inevitably be drawn back in?”

    Because a fractured Iraq would invariably have spillover effects across the region. Because al-Qaeda would end up with safe harbor in al-Anbar and other Sunni areas. Because Iran has every intention of establishing their own little empire across the Middle East, and that would be a profoundly bad thing for the US.

    “3. The best way to kill off al-Qaeda would be to leave and let the Iraqis do it. Whatever support they get comes from opposing the U.S. occupation.”

    Then why the Anbar Awakening? If the impetus for al-Qaeda was opposing the US, why is that the Iraqis hate al-Qaeda?

    Again, you have your entire view of the situation based upon a complete and total misunderstanding of what’s going on in Iraq. Again, the American “occupation” isn’t what’s causing problems in Iraq — it’s Iranian-backed Shi’ite death squads on one side and al-Qaeda on the other. Both are feeding into a pattern of violence and both need to be stopped.

    It would be great if the Iraqis could fight al-Qaeda all by themselves. The problem is that they can’t, and until they have the strength to do so, al-Qaeda would assuredly win.

    We leave, the Iranian death squads start killing Sunnis. The Sunnis turn to al-Qaeda for protection. What we think is a terrible civil war now looks like a Sunday picnic in comparison. Trying to argue that our leaving won’t have exactly those consequences is to ignore the reality of the situation — then again, that’s exactly what the Democrats have been doing for the past 8 months.

  50. Doug, moral posturing is not the proper response to a question of military and political strategy.
    If a group of Nazi’s and nazi sympathizers fought against US forces after VE day in Germany we would not try to portray them as legitimate resistance against occupation, yet you appear to be doing just that with Iraqi’s who blow up women and children, kidnap foreigners and saw their heads off.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.