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He Went To See If The Surge In Iraq Was Working
Traveling blogger/journalist Michael Totten has a column in the New York Daily News:
While American politicians bicker among themselves from eight time zones away about whether the surge led by Gen. David Petraeus is working or not, I returned to Iraq to see for myself.
This trip – from which I returned this month – was my fourth reporting stint in the country since the conflict began. And this time, what I saw was overwhelming, undeniable and, like it or not, complicated: In some places, the surge is working remarkably well. In others, it is not. And the only way we will know for sure whether the tide can be turned is to continue the policy and wait.
I know that’s not what many Americans and politicians want to hear, but it’s the truth.
Read it in its entirety.
14 Responses to “He Went To See If The Surge In Iraq Was Working”
The only problem with his conclusion is that waiting is not without cost. It’s also important to remember that there have been moments of local success earlier in the war – remember Tal Afar or the destruction of Fallujah, or the defeat of Sadr at Najaf – where time demonstrated those gains to be largely illusory. This is a guerrilla war and the ground shifts all the time. At this point, Sunnis in Ramadi are still ecstatic that they don’t live under Al Qaeda tyranny. But that ecstasy won’t last, just as it didn’t last among the Shi’ites liberated from Saddam. But I’m sure we can wait and find new theaters of battle opening, we can launch a new counteroffensive, and we can wait again. And again. And again.
Certainly, but no course of action is cost-free.
Then analyzing the surge in the context of its costs and possible outcomes and previous successes and failures (and their costs) in this war might be more appropriate then saying, “I saw some things working and some things not working. The only way to know if this will work is to just sit back and wait.”
Erubs you can’t say it’s a failure unless you actually see if it works. It would seem from that prospective it’s hard to argue. You are looking at it not can it, will it work, but should we do it and is it worth it. That was not the question he answered.
I wonder if Totten took an Iraqis cab from the base he stayed at and drove the highway from the Greenzone to the airport? The infamous Airport highway is still a battle zone. Why can’t the Iraqis and US troops even control six miles of road necessary for travel out of Baghdada. Were still in “wack a mole”, I wonder if he brought back a McCain rug as a gift? How many Friedman units do w have to wait till the Greenzone isn’t a bunker and everyone can take a cab from the Greenzone to BIA without a military convoy or paying Blackwater $10K for a “three hour cruise”?
We demand Iraqis benchmarks, well the US military’s record isn’t much better, the moles are winning.
Rudi is there a point in that rant? One relating to the post or Totten?
That’s like saying a blind man can’t infer the presence of the sun. Or maybe that by viewing the sun, we understand its astrological significance. We would never think the earth revolved around the sun.
Sure, witnessing the area is relevant. It remains but one of many sources of information.
I, for one, am a little peeved at the, “I went there and saw that it might be working” approach as legitimate research. It’s nothing more than a local eyewitness account of a geopolitical situation.
I do not know if it’s a success or a failure, but to state, “We can only wait to find out” denies the capacity of the human mind to reason with evidence.
The “surge” is different from previous strategies because it’s actually rooted in concepts that have brought success in previous conflicts. The problem with it is ultimately a political one – it has probably the best chance to succeed over the long-term (a decade or more) than any other, but politically, it only has a couple of weeks or maybe a few months of life left. The American people, rightly, aren’t prepared to bear the burden for that length of time.
egrubs: If you go to Totten’s blog, you’ll see that he wrote that piece at the request of the NYT editorial page, which asked him to answer the question, “Is the surge working”.
If you don’t like the student’s paper, take it up with the professor who gave the assignment. It wasn’t Totten who was claiming to be able to singlehandedly determine what our future course should be in Iraq. He was asked, based on his trip, to give his personal opinion and he did. I’m sure no one is under delusions that Congress is going to cancel Petraeus and Crocker and just go with Totten’s recommendations.
I have no one to take it up with except those who lend weight to it as more than it is.
I would prefer he had a better understanding of cognition than evinced by that line, however.
Bones – I’ll turn down the rant, my idea of a specific benchmark is the highway from BIA to the Greenzone. Does this stretch of road have any security without a LARGE US military presence(no)? Look into a history of the reports about this highway. In Totten’s original post he rights about a time frame of day/days to get from BIA to the US base near the Greenzone. A day to travel 6 to 10 miles, some benchmark. When the “dog and pony show” travels the highway I wonder how many Apache helicopters and tanks are around?
When Laura Ingrahms or Totten can travel from BIA to the Greenzone in a straight line in an hour or two without a battalion of support I’ll say things are improving. IN 2003 and 2004 Totten and others could travel the highway and walk the streets without fear, those days are over and ubtill we get back to the start of this mess don’t spoon feed me about “progress”.
ebrubs,
I’m not sure what your complaint is. The only way to determine if any policy will work – be it war or peace – is to try it and wait. There are no guarantees, particularly in war, which is perhaps man’s most unforgiving enterprise.
LOL Entropy – How many Friedman units and versions of Operation Together Forward or Operation Sinbad do we wait before Basra and Baghdada is safe for vacation reviews from AAA and Dan Senor?
I have to believe that we are capable of levels of analytical thinking in this country that can top “try it and wait.”