A common refrain among supporters of the war, and neo-conservatives in general, is that as long as the United States and the West maintain their “will” to fight the enemy, we can never lose. The only way we can be defeated in Iraq, or in the war against Islamist terrorism generally, is to lose our will and retreat. Neo-conservatives cite a host of historical examples that allegedly prove this point. In Vietnam, they claim that we actually won the war by the time of the Paris Conference in 1973, but that our refusal to fund the South Vietnam government in 1973 and 1974 led to the inevitable downfall of the Saigon regime in 1975. Or that our failure to follow through on Vietnam encouraged the Soviets to invade Afghanistan and the Sandanistas to take over Nicaragua. Never mind that America never really had much ability to affect either of these conflicts, with or without Vietnam, or that the South Vietnamese government could never expect to gain more than a temporary hold on power after January 1973. The same claim applies to the war against Islamist terrorism. Because Osama bin Laden says it, we are supposed to agree with him that our withdrawal after Somalia in 1993 and Beirut in 1983 convinced Islamists that American could never defend its word or its honor. We were a giant paper tiger. Forget all the strategic errors that lead the failures in Vietnam or Somalia, is our failure of will to “see it through” that led to greater problems.
Willpower is certainly an important element in warfare, and especially so in democratic societies where the people must consent to keep up the fight. But the loss-of-will advocates fail to account for why people tend to lose the will to fight in the first place. It isn’t because they can’t accept casualties, or don’t see the consequences of defeat. It’s because they see their own leaders as grossly incompetent and unable to win.
This comes up again perfectly in Frederick Kagan’s article in today’s Washington Post. Kagan argues that those who wish to deflect blame for Iraq’s failure on to Iraq itself are dishonoring our own commitment to the cause, and are violating our own legal obligations regarding occupation. I think he makes a fair point here: it was the US that decided to go in, thus it must be the US that decides what to do next. We can’t blame it all on the Iraqis; did we not know that it would be so hard? If we didn’t, that’s our fault, not the Iraqis. On this score I agree with Kagan.
But then Kagan makes the classic fallacy of will. He claims:
Americans believe that all problems are soluble and therefore that people who aren’t solving their problems must not be trying. They need to be “incentivized,” either through promises or threats. Many on the left have long been advocating a withdrawal of U.S. forces, or the threat of it, as just such an incentive for the Iraqis. But what if even then Iraqis cannot accomplish the goals we have set for them? Can we then declare that, by establishing the Iraqi army and helping Iraq elect and establish its government, we have done all that honor requires?
No, we can’t. Both honor and our vital national interest require establishing conditions in Iraq that will allow the government to consolidate and maintain civil peace and good governance. It doesn’t matter how many “trained and ready” Iraqi soldiers there are, nor how many provinces are nominally under Iraqi control. If America withdraws its forces before setting the conditions for the success of the Iraqi government, we will have failed in our mission and been defeated in the eyes of our enemies. We will have dishonored ourselves.
To Kagan, if we withdraw now, it will signify that America can never be trusted. We will have lost our honor because we refused to see Iraq through. He blames our problems up to this point on “failing to send enough troops to fight the war, failing to plan adequately for the postwar crisis and failing to react properly when it came.” While this criticism is fair, he never suggests what we should do next to reverse our misfortune. In fact, he openly mocks the notion that problems must be solvable – or at least that Iraqis are not trying to solve their problems. But he never offers how the US should solve the problems going forward.
The problem for Kagan is that failure of willpower to see it through – and consequently a desire among even Republicans to blame the Iraqis for the mess – is a logical result of our failures to execute in Iraq. Yes, it may result in dishonor. But that result falls not at the feet of those who recognize the failure for what it is, but with those who so mangled and botched the war that we have lost our ability to prevail. The problem is the American leadership. Bush has shown no ability to win in Iraq, and, more importantly, no willingness to change personnel and strategy to affect the outcome. It would be as if President Lincoln kept General George McClellan on as General of the Army of the Potomac even after his failure at the Seven Days battle in 1862. Civilians in the Union would have rightly lost faith in Lincoln’s leadership if he failed to change course and personnel.
Unfortunately, as long as Bush is still the President, we will not win in Iraq. He will never fire Don Rumsfeld because he thinks that would be an admission that his critics were right. He will never talk to Iran or Syria because it would mean backtracking from his regime change policy. He will never invite top strategists outside his inner circle of Republican operatives because that would mean he could no longer use the war as a partisan bludgeon.
The people have given up on Iraq not because it’s hard, but because our leadership has so utterly failed to plan and execute the war. We must either vote out of office everybody associated with this war and start over with fresh ideas and personnel, or we must demand that we cut our losses and move on. Loss of will is not the cause of our failure in Iraq. Loss of will is the logical consequence of our utter failure to win in Iraq.