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Fragile and Reversible: The Truth about the Iraq War and Occupation

April 9th, 2008
By MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor

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Testifying before Congress yesterday, General Petraeus said that progress in Iraq is “fragile and reversible” and, according to the NYT, recommended that “consideration of any new drawdowns of American troops be delayed until the fall, making it likely that little would change before Election Day… [He] refused under persistent questioning from Senate Democrats to say under what conditions he would favor new troop reductions, adding that he would not take the matter up until 45 days after a current drawdown is complete in July. His recommendation would leave just under 140,000 American troops in Iraq well into the fall.”

Three comments:

1) This may be good for Democrats in November. Scenes of troops returning home prior to the election would send a message that the war is going well and that the end is near. This way, if Petraeus gets what he wants, voters would go the polls with a clear-cut difference between Obama/Clinton on one side and McCain on the other. Obama/Clinton would be able to make the case that the war would go on indefinitely under McCain, while McCain would be forced to defend a war that is still going so badly that no troops can come home. (I am concerned about what is good for Democrats, but, needless to say, what is good for the troops, as well as for the U.S. generally, is for the war to end as soon as possible. The troops need to be brought home. The political calendar should not dictate when.)

2) This highlights a key tension for supporters of the war. On the one hand, they want to believe, and may actually believe, that the war, given the supposed success of the Petraeus-led, McCain-promoted surge, is going well enough for some troops to be brought home. On the other hand, they don’t want the war to be brought to what they deem to be a premature end. Which is to say, they talk up success and progress and victory even as they demand ever more war. There is no way out of this: According to this view, it is precisely the surge (more war) that has brought about progress. (It hasn’t.) But if the surge is ended and troops are brought home, all that has been gained (a modest and temporary improvement in overall security) could be lost, the progress reversed. In other words, to end the war, there must be more war, even though it is not at all clear that more war is actually doing anything to bring about the end. (In fact, the reverse is likely true: more war is prolonging the war.) Support for the war in these terms is simply absurd — not to mention reckless, destructive, and untenable.

3) The situation in Iraq is no doubt “fragile and reversible” — from bad to worse, not (as Petraeus suggests) from good to bad — but when will it not be? Iraq is nowhere close to being politically stable. If the U.S. means to stay in Iraq until the situation is no longer “fragile and reversible,” it will be there for a long, long time. Which is, of course, precisely what McCain the Warmonger thinks should happen.



This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 9:10 am and is filed under Surge, John McCain, Withdrawal, General David Petraeus, Newsweek Blogitics, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Military, 2008 Elections, War, Iraq, Democrats, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 4 Comments

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    We can't leave now because the violence is too widespread.

    We can't leave now because the violence has been slightly reduced.

    We can't leave now because............
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    Of course the surge has brought progress, Michael. Dear god, even the link you provide to substantiate your claim that it hasn't notes that progress is "indisputable" and that the surge has probably had something to do with this.

    The hostility of liberals to even conceding Petraeus has been effective is remarkable. Sort of like the innumerable explanations for why Guiliani really did nothing to lower crime in NYC (my favourite explanation for this was an article in the WaPo a year back that claimed it was changes in the city's water supply - not Guiliani - that was responsible for lower crime).

    I don't know of another example in American history where a general has been so unforgiven and insulted for successfully carrying out a mission.

    That said, the US is admittedly stuck. A successful tactical initiative...but no idea how to press this into a strategic success...for fear of the success to date collapsing.

    How this will play out I have no idea. Perhaps in early 2009...after President "Carter-lite" Obama has ordered an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq...and the country collapses in civil war...with a resurgence of al-Q in Iraq...Obama will go cap in hand to Tehran to beg for their help in freeing the inevitable US troops taken hostage.

    Retreats are a bitch to conduct successfully...especially under fire.

    I wonder how liberals will spin the images of the last lonely Black Hawks leaving Iraq shot down by Sadr's RPGs into a briliant success of Obamessiah's foreign policy?
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    Just curious Marlowecan, do you really believe a US withdrawal will result in a resurgence of Al Qaida in Iraq?

    And if so, what are you basing that belief on? The massive numbers of AQ terrorists in Iraq prior to the US occupation?

    And can we all assume your last paragraph is basically saying the US can never remove troops from Iraq because somehow retreats are hard? And is there really any historical precedent for the claim that apply to this situation?
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    Type your comment here.

    I am literally appaled by Marlowecn post. It is bad enough our wn department of State has not ever done its homework about Iraq. Going way back to the Shia/Sunni intestetine wars and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, might have told them a few things how Iraq was created de novo..Shia/Sunni under Saddam was teh scales of terror. Those people hate theirguts, remind me very much of the demographics ofLebanon own spiral of hell. the solution is in an economy recovery and the build up of a local thriving miidle class... do you see it coming in iraq; nturally not. Iraq is oil rich could certainly build up a oil industry but that only homebread wealth is ubder the bilateral fire of religious factions. Just like the brothers muslin in eggypt started in the eraly 1900 because wealth ...and education were not evely shared. and we speak at least on a peacful environment. Look at the history of Syria egypt and all the local powers and in Iraq we are so far from that , egypt is starting its glorious revolution1688 and iraq is still ion the throes of the viking invasions.... it bode ill for the future. my bet - bush will have his war till january 2009, and then the next POTUS will be stuck with no option but leaving... and that will rejoice russia and all the EU Britain included as the actual PM never abidede W. all those old colonial powers though coward as they are do know the Game and their histories. the longer we stay, the heavier the defeat...
 
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