George W. Bush doesn't have much reputation left to protect, but he's attempting to salvage some shreds of credibility with his surge initiative in Iraq. According to the latest reports from the civil-war zone, the addition of tens of thousands of US has caused the level of violence to diminish. A recent Pew Research Poll found that roughly half of the public (48 percent) believe the military effort is "going well or fairly well." Has the situation in Iraq really turned around or has the surge merely postponed the messy end of the conflict until after Dubya leaves office?
There are approximately 162,000 American troops in Iraq, up from 130,000 a year ago, and their role has changed: they've replaced the Iraqi police force. In many areas, particularly large cities such as Baghdad, it's our troops who now patrol the streets, because Iraqis don't trust their own cops. In addition, the US is arming Sunni insurgents if they agree to hunt down Al Qaeda fighters. And, Baghdad has been partitioned into ethnic zones where walls have been built around neighborhoods.
There has never been any doubt that if the US injected enough troops into Iraq the civil war would abate; the real question is whether a US-imposed truce will endure. Sadly, indications are that it won't. A recent New Yorker article described day-to-day life in a Joint Security Station in the Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya. The writer, Jon Lee Anderson, described a mixed situation: ethnic killings are down as are IED attacks; on the other hand, the locals still do not trust the national police and Sunni leaders appear to be preparing to attack nearby Shias once the American leave. Andersen concluded, "Iraq's future, for the moment, is in limbo. The best one can say, perhaps, is that the U.S. has bought or borrowed a little space to work with."
The Bush Administration argues an improvement in the security situation will inevitably lead to political stability. But, there is little evidence of these positive political changes. The Iraqi government has yet to achieve any of the political objectives that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki delineated a year ago. As a result, the White House downplays the lack of political progress.
Despite the reduction in violence, the latest Pew Poll indicates American sentiments about the Iraq have hardened: 54 percent of the public want our troops brought home "as soon as possible," a majority that hasn't changed much in six months. Nonetheless, on November 26th the President and al-Maliki signed a Declaration of Principles that defines a long-term US commitment to Iraq and appears to take the side of the al-Maliki Shiites in the civil war. Not only does this Bush action fly in the face of public opinion, it fails to recognize that the al-Maliki regime is part of the problem. Reporting from Iraq, on November 15th, Washington Post military writer Thomas Ricks noted: "Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than Al Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias."
President Bush's rationale continues to be that the US needs to fight terrorists in Iraq rather than fight them here. Most Americans would support the war if we were certain that our protracted presence in Iraq would insure there would not be another terrorist attack on America. Unfortunately, what we have learned about the US involvement in Iraq suggests that it is counter-productive: more likely to provoke another attack rather than prevent it. Experts tell us that rather than stifle Al Qaeda the occupation of Iraq has encouraged it by bringing new converts to terrorism. And, the US focus on Iraq has meant that the Al Qaeda infrastructure has reconstituted itself along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and created dangerous political instability in the region.
Moreover, the US involvement in Iraq has had a dreadful cost: 3878 Americans killed and roughly 38,000 wounded, with an equal number victim of "non-hostile causes." The occupation costs $2 Billion per week and it's estimated that the the total war cost could exceed $2 Trillion. Meanwhile, over the past few months, the White House has informed the American public that we don't have money for domestic programs such as health insurance for poor kids; all our "discretionary" funds must be spent on the war in Iraq.
Perhaps the surge has reduced the level of violence in Iraq. That's a good thing. But it's not a sufficient reason to prolong the occupation. America can't afford to throw good money after bad. We can't afford to sustain a troop surge solely to protect George Bush's reputation, so he can claim, "I didn't lose the war."
Bob, I don’t think we should go there. Too many Dems on record that the surge would not succeed militarily. An article by Noemie Emery in the Weekly Standard doesn’t leave much wiggle room:
“Even before the [Surge] plan was announced . . . Democrats launched their assault. Senator Christopher Dodd declared the plan useless: ‘A 'surge' of American troops will do nothing.’ Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi . . . released an open letter to Bush . . . decrying his redoubled effort as futile: ‘Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried, and that has already failed.’ The surge was ‘a sad, ominous echo of something we've lived through in this country,’ according to Illinois senator Richard Durbin. ‘I'm confident it will not work,’ said John Kerry at a Senate hearing, a sentiment echoed by Barack Obama.â€
“Reid [declared again] in April that the surge had been tried, and had failed. ‘this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything.’â€
“'The surge was supposed to bring stability. It hasn't and it won't’ Ted Kennedy said on May 1. ‘The evidence is clear it is not happening and it will not happen,’ Dodd said May 15 of a potential American victory. Durbin said the day after: ‘This Senate knows that the administration's policy in Iraq has failed.’ Senator Joseph Biden agreed. ‘The surge has not worked and will not work,’ he said on June 1.
At the start of the troop buildup in February the Iraqi civilian death toll was 3,017. In November, it fell to 560. If no one had any doubts that a troop surge could do so much good, tell me again: why would we oppose it?
Tactically, I think it’s best to admit most of us were wrong about whether the surge would succeed militarily, and fall back to the next line of defense: that Iraqi politicians won’t make progress on national reconciliation. If they're anything like our politicians, that’s a safer bet.
huckfinn
Saying that Maliki is part of the problem is just another American blaming the Iraqis for our failure.
The Shiite majority deserves to rule, and when US taxpayers are funding Bush's Sunni warlords, we are intervening in Iraqi politics based on Bush's ideological view of Iran. We are demanding a unity government when it is inherently undemocratic.
Bush has become the defender of the Sunnis when he justified the war by saying their regime needed to be changed. American taxpayers are now paying the salaries for "volunteer defense forces" of the regime we went in to change.
Blaming the Shiites for failing to follow Bush's lead in empowering their oppressors is just a twist of reality I can't stomach.
Is ethnic cleansing working? Yes, and it will continue to do so absent a political solution.
The surge "strategy" of strengthening the Sunni warlords for a short term lessening of violence (only back to 2005 levels!) will backfire big time. The Iraqi factions are in a holding pattern, increasing and reserving their power until the inevitable showdown. Meanwhile the US pours hundreds of billions of BORROWED dollars down a rathole.
the iraqis aren't stupid enough to attack when the US military is at it's highest levels.
And where there has been relative peace, it has more been spear-headed by the Iraqi people.
As much as i want the troops to come home, as soon as possible, this needs to be done with great care. If we hastily remove the troops without planning it will be like ripping a table clothe out from underneath a collection of glassware. We may get lucky and leave it stable, but everything could shatter to pieces.
What will happen when the millions of Iraqis return who fled return? Will they find the same type of persecution they were trying to flee? Will the grand sectarian violence start again?
We need to have an idea of how to answer these questions, before withdrawing a majority of the troops. We can probably withdraw some right away.
But many Iraqis don't trust a government working so closely with the United States. How do we handle this? Do we just completely remove our influence? It is a complex situation without a clear answer. And considering how much of a "moral high-ground" we have lost in the last 6 years, it will hard to gain the Iraqis and other countries citizen's trust when we say "we have a plan".