I'm not the first one to suggest that the so-called "Anbar Awakening" is precisely the type of policy that invites blowback (read here for more about blowback) and I won't be the last.

Time will tell if the Awakening is as bad a move as many believe it is. Don' get me wrong, it's an improvment but is it thought out? One of the big problems with this administration is that is lives in the present. It wants only to look good now and doesn't care about consider what will happen down the road (long or short). It used to be that they could spin their error around using the media and their devotees like Fox News and conservative bloggers. now they'll just pass it along to the next administration.

Who ever the next president is will have plenty to deal with coming out of Iraq.

Retuning to blowback, this NYT article highlights one point: Blowback is not an American phenomon.

Here's a snip:

Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto.

Makes you wonder if one day, 15 to 30 years down the road, there will be a 9/11-esque attack with roots in the Awakening. Much like 9/11 had root in our occupation of Saudi Arabia in 1990.

I hope the change that is in the air surrounding the 2008 general elections will apply to foreign policy.

Labels: Anbar Awakening, blowback, Iraq, Pakistan

AP:

Strings of bulbs festooning the Imam Kazim shrine's four majestic minarets light up the sky over Baghdad's Shiite Kazimiyah neighborhood, attracting thousands of nighttime worshippers.

Coffee houses and restaurants are packed with customers along nearby streets, where turbaned clerics, chador-clad women and families buy furniture, toys and clothes in teeming shops. The district's gold market, the largest in the city, does brisk business until well after dusk.

But a drive from Kazimiyah over an unlit Tigris River bridge into Azamiyah, a Sunni stronghold, reveals only darkness and no signs of life along the main road. What nightlife does exist is confined to a walled area of about two square miles heavily patrolled by U.S. troops. One glaring exception: Kasrah, a Shiite enclave, with its lively outdoor market and coffee houses.

Night is the time when the Shiite dominance of the capital becomes most apparent following the sectarian "battle of Baghdad," which displaced tens of thousands of Sunnis and reshaped a city where the two sects had lived in relative peace.

A city divided. Where there are Shiites, there's normalcy. In Sunni sections... a lifeless shell of the past.

Once upon a time, any light in this city was progress. But the way it is now, you have to wonder where this progress is taking us.

My bet we'll find out sometime after the President retreats to Texas a little over a year from now.

Labels: Baghdad, Iraq, military, Sectarian, Shiite, strategy, Sunni, surge

Over the past week or so I've written about the supposed success of Bush's surge strategy. In reality the strategy to facilitate political reconciliation has largely failed, while the tactic of placing more troops between a civil war has been moderately successful. Wow! Who would have thought that? The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) knows this and has said as much recently (.pdf):

U.S. efforts lack strategies with clear purpose, scope, roles, and performance measures. The U.S. strategy for victory in Iraq partially identifies the agencies responsible for implementing key aspects of the strategy and does not fully address how the United States would integrate its goals with those of the Iraqis and the international community. U.S. efforts to develop Iraqi ministry capability lack an overall strategy... The weaknesses in U.S. strategic planning are compounded by the Iraqi government’s lack of integrated strategic planning in its critical energy sector. (p.2)
...
The Iraqi government continues to make limited progress in meeting eight legislative benchmarks intended to promote national reconciliation. As of October 25, 2007, the Iraqi government had met one legislative benchmark and partially met another. (p. 7)

I'd like to return to a post of mine from February to highlight the point that this has always been the number one issue:

...it seems that until you have an actual plan that has some chance of success (by saying this, I’m stating that I believe that if we could muster enough man power to match the recommendations of the counterinsurgency manual, then we would be looking at a statistical chance of military success; at least one worth looking into provided we reassess what the final result in Iraq will look like and lose the rose-colored glasses)... . NO war has ever had the characteristic of total and complete victory or perfection... . The fundamental problem is that no level of military successes will ever win this war. There has to be political progress and the likelihood of that happening is slim, even with zero or a million troops in Iraq.

The Democrats know this but are repeatedly cowed into submission by Republican politicians and conservative pundits (which is a sign of a chronic flaw on their behalf).

What is most striking to me is how clear this is to to the Shiite political parties in Iraq. It's been quite clear for some time now that the Shiite government has abandoned the goals set for them by the president and the Congress. Now the PM al Maliki is on record saying not only is it not his responsibility to meet these benchmarks but that a large portion of them have indeed been met. Marc Lynch observes:

Friday, [al Maliki] elaborated on his views of the current Iraqi political scene in a very intriguing, and frankly troubling, interview with al-Arabiya (I couldn't find any English-language mentions of it at all via Google News, sorry). The interview did not break any particularly new ground, but it did make one thing very clear: do not expect Maliki to pursue seriously any moves towards national reconciliation, defined in terms of legislation at the national level or agreements with Sunni political parties. The deadlock at the national political level, so clear at the time of the Petraeus-Crocker hearings in September, will not end any time soon.
...
Maliki argued on al-Arabiya that Iraqi national reconciliation has not only already been achieved, it is "strong and stable and not fragile". There is no civil war in Iraq, or even any real sectarian conflict anymore - the sectarian hatreds incited by "some" in the past have been overcome. He made clear that he does not equate national reconciliation with political progress at the national level: "I think that national reconciliation will come about not as some understand it, as a reconciliation with this political party governed by an ideology or a specific mentality." Real national reconciliation, to Maliki, takes place at the local level, when "you can go into the street and meet with a Sunni in Shia areas or with a Shia in Sunni areas, where they live together once again." That, he suggests, has happened. The various Sunni awakenings demonstrate reconciliation at the local level, and their support for his national government. He claims that people who fled mixed Sunni-Shia areas are now returning (or are welcome to do so), and that the people now reject sectarianism in favor of national unity and his government. True, some politicians are still demanding reconciliation, but he dismisses them as "minor political parties" whose tiresome complaints now fall on deaf ears with the people. The attempt to unseat him last year by various political factions? An attempted coup against the political process by those (regrettably mainly Sunnis) who want to return the Baath Party to its monopoly on power.

Good Lord!

The only corner we've turned in Iraq is one that put right back where we were late last year. The only difference is were are all but arming the opposition Sunnis and Maliki's national government has quit the reconciliation business.

Hold on tight!

Labels: Iraq, Maliki, reconciliation, Shiite, surge, US

Nearly two months ago South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham made the presumptuous projection that "[w]ithin the next weeks, not months, there will be a major breakthrough on the benchmarks regarding political reconciliation." Unfortunately Graham's prediction was incorrect.

Fast-forward seven weeks to the recently released Government Accountability Office report which notes that legislation promoting political reconciliation between disparate Iraqi sects still has not been passed. Additionally, the report concludes the Iraqi government has not taken advantage of the lull in violence and that hope was dwindling "for achieving current U.S. security, political and economic goals in Iraq."

While US politicians and pundits make wild predictions and the US military works hard to make them come reality, senior Iraqi politicians are scoffing at the very idea of political reconciliation. Iraqi press observer Marc Lynch notes that Prime Minister al-Maliki recently "mocked calls for national reconciliation and dismissed those calling for such reconciliation as conspirators."

Labels: GAO, Iraq, Lindsey Graham, Maliki, politics, reconciliation

Marc Lynch passes along this discouraging, though not surprising, snippet from the Iraqi press:

Speaking of exposed nerves, the Iraqi newspaper al-Zaman reported yesterday that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki mocked calls for national reconciliation and dismissed those calling for such reconciliation as conspirators. Yes, I anticipate rapid progress on the national reconciliation front. What could possibly go wrong?

Indeed...

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Kurd, politics, reconciliation, Shiite

It's truelly painful to witness.

Our conservative politicians, desperate for something to distract the public from the horrendous reality that is the Republican party, have recoalesced into the shortsighted idiots that caused the occupation of Iraq back in 2002-2003... and the media in large part is right there with them. We have a few months of below average violence and we're on the cusp of victory in Iraq? What planet are you people on? Truth is we've done little there since January and the Iraqis have done less.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today frames this truism nicely. We've surged and therefore there should be less violence (check!) and political reconciliation (ehhhh!). Who in their right mind would begin arguing that the surge has been a success at this point. To me, it's pretty obvious that we're stuck back in January at the latest.

I've heard some conservatives claim that the Democrats will "change their minds" about Iraq. They may, but not because the 'we're winning' claim is correct, but because that's what most Democrats do: The majority of them are weak. A strong Democrat, a progressive Democrat, would take the argument and beat the offending conservative over the head with it. The point of the surge was to secure a portion of Iraq to allow for political reconciliation. There has been absolutely nothing on this point of reconciliation, period. Not even a hint. Therefore the surge is failing. Plenty on action condemning some of our unaccountable mercenaries (which should be our responsibilities), but none on reconciliation. That's a pretty big point.

An appropriate reading of the mentioned GAO goes like this:

The U.S. and Iraqi governments have failed to take advantage of a dramatic drop in violence in Iraq, ... prospects [are] waning "for achieving current U.S. security, political and economic goals in Iraq."

Iraqi leaders have not passed legislation to foster reconciliation among Shiite Muslims, Sunnis and Kurds, and sectarian groups still retain control of ministries and divide Iraqi security forces...

Moreover, the Bush administration's efforts to stabilize and rebuild Iraq are plagued by weak planning, a lack of coordination with the Iraqi government and among U.S. agencies, and an absence of detailed information on "the current and future costs of U.S. involvement in Iraq,"...

"U.S. efforts lack strategies with clear purpose, scope, roles and performance measures," ...

The findings raise questions about whether the increase of U.S. troops that began last February will ultimately achieve the goal of giving Iraqi political leaders enough of a respite from violence that that they can work to resolve Iraq's many problems.

:::

This is a time for serious assessment of the problems at hand, and our leaders and our media are being feed numbers to claim progress? We were told there would be legislation, words, agreements, photo ops. We haven't got much time left to hold the lid on Iraq. To claim victory is right around the corner is to assume the word victory will be redefined as "still stuck in the same place we were last year" by March '08.

[UPDATE] Marc Lynch shows concern about the ridiculousness of all this in a recent post:

Body counts are only one small part of a much larger puzzle. What I want to know is not the day to day casualty trends, or good news stories from some carefully selected hamlet, or the latest assassination of an Awakening shaykh. I want to know: does the devolution to the local level make strategic sense, even if it reaps short-term tactical sense? Towards what endpoint are the tactics leading? Do we want to see a unified Iraq with a sustainable political accord - the official goal of American policy, as Undersecretary of State Nick Burns reminded the DACOR audience yesterday? If so, are American political and military tactics encouraging or discouraging such an outcome? Those are questions that we could be discussing in this moment of relative American political respite, but there's really not much of it (a moment of self-criticism here: I suppose I should give credit to the Biden partition/federalism resolution effort, even though I strongly disagreed with it, for at least trying to raise such issues.)

Maybe that's because there is no possible winning strategy anymore, just better or worse tactics leading nowhere in particular. I understand the logic of the bottom-up reconciliation strategy quite well, thanks. I just see no evidence whatsoever that it is working: whether public opinion surveys, continuing refugee flows, or sectarian and confrontational political discourse. Yes, Ammar al-Hakim went to Ramadi, which is encouraging - but his mission failed... and if you look at what he was actually trying to sell to the Sunnis, you'd be less encouraged than some people have been by the atmospherics. Yes, Tareq al-Hashemi went to Sistani with his National Compact, but the Compact has gone nowhere. And so on. The national political level remains completely deadlocked, and the politicians seem to have lost whatever sense of urgency they felt back in August and September. And all of those politicians behave according to the logic of moral hazard that the US has created - since the Bush administration can't credibly threaten to escalate and won't threaten to withdraw, it has no leverage over any of them while protecting them from the consequences of their decisions. And even if those politicians did somehow magically come to agreement, their ability to deliver on any such agreement declines by the day.

Labels: conservative, foreign policy, Iraq, politics, Republican, surge

In front of the VFW, our President bush said:

one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps," and "killing fields."

We'll we've seen the killing fields of Fallujah, Baghdad and Kurdistan.

We've seen 21^st century version of boat people in the 2 million displaced Iraqis.

And now we have our very own re-education camps:

The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.

Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."

Hearts and minds, stay the course, victory, return on progress, religious enlightenment .....

You people are fucking retarded.

Labels: Bush, Conservatives, Iraq, Republicans

In George Bush's prime time address to the nation Thursday night he laid out the basic premise of of his escalation strategy in Iraq.

The premise of our strategy is that securing the Iraqi population is the foundation for all other progress. For Iraqis to bridge sectarian divides, they need to feel safe in their homes and neighborhoods. For lasting reconciliation to take root, Iraqis must feel confident that they do not need sectarian gangs for security. The goal of the surge is to provide that security and to help prepare Iraqi forces to maintain it.

So that's it, the Iraqis need to feel safe. And he's right. But he misses the point that the escalation has not made people feel safer. A recent poll points this out, Marc Lynch summarizes the findings:

...The BBC/ABC/NHK survey, conducted in all 19 provinces during August, finds that 70% of Iraqis believe that security has deteriorated in the areas covered by the US "surge", and 11% say it has had no effect. Only 11% say that security in the country as a whole has improved in the last six months.
...
95% of Sunnis say that the presence of US troops makes security worse.
...
56% described the "security situation" in the neighborhood in which they live as bad, up slightly from 53% in February, while only 24% say that the security situation in this neighborhood has improved in the past six months. 79% of Sunnis say that security in their neighborhood is bad - despite all those American walking tours of happy, safe markets. Only 7% of Sunnis say that security in their neighborhood has improved in the last 6 months, and only 6% feel safe in their neighborhood.
...
Don't get too excited that 43% say that the neighborhood in which they currently live is relatively safe, because it's probably because this is where they fled to escape from ethnic cleansing: 74% describe their "freedom of movement - the ability to go where you wish safely" as bad, and 77% say that "freedom to live where you wish without persecution" is bad. An astonishing 98% say that the separation of people along sectarian lines is a bad thing.
...
65% say that the current national government is doing a bad job...

The Iraqis don't feel safe in the neighborhoods. The Iraqis haven't answered, in this poll, whether or not they want/need sectarian gangs for security. But, our plan in Anbar is facilitating just that. Meanwhile the Iraqi security forces are rife with Shiite sectarianism. All-in-all, by Bush's "premise" the 'surge' has failed. Furthermore, hope that this will change much in the next 6 to 12 months when the surge is forced to end do to the stress it has put on our military is just hope. And a slim hope at that. By this time next year we'll be back at the troop level we started at, with no end in sight.

Labels: Address, Bush, Iraq, surge

The big international news this morning was the murder of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of the Anbar Salvation Council (a.k.a. the Anbar Awakening) and a very shady figure (one I wouldn't have placed as much hope as President Bush did in saving Western Iraq and salvaging his Middle East fiasco). This is a obvious inconvenience for the progress made in al Anbar province by Iraqis but hopefully not a death blow. Sure, some will say that this will unite Sunnis against al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) just like the mass killing of hundreds of Yazidi Kurds was to do back in August. It probably wont. Some, led by General Petraeus, will insist that this was AQI. But there is no evidence yet. Similarly, although the culprit of the mass killing of the Yazidis is said to have been killed and was claimed to be a member of AQI, the complexities of Iraq play host to numerous other scenarios. The same goes for todays news. As unpopular as AQI is currently in al Anbar, so is cooperation with the occupation (US) forces. This could very well have been the work of Iraqi nationalists (most likely Sunni).

Writes Marc Lynch:

...there's no reason to assume that al-Qaeda killed him - I'd guess that one of the nationalist insurgency groups, the ones which current American rhetoric pretends don't exist - is a more likely suspect. Other tribes deeply resented him. The major nationalist insurgency groups had recently issued a series of statements denouncing people who would illegitimately seize the fruits of their victorious jihad - of whom he was the prime example. All those photographs which swamped the Arab media showing him shaking hands with President Bush made him even more a marked man than before.

In other news from Iraq, the reconciliation process appears to be on the verge of taking another step backwards as the much anticipated oil law compromise faces more hurdles.

I'm sure the White House spin machine will make this all sound like good news in the Presidents speech to the nation tonight.

[UPDATE 5:02 PM] It didn't take the central Iraqi government long. The attack was al Qaeda and it will solidify the "awakening". Wishful thinking, but as this weeks testimony has made clear: all we really have is hope.

On a side note, Sheik Abu Risha's Anbar Salvation Council is blaming the Iraqi government for the murder... Aside from pointing out how complex the situation is in Iraq and even in the homogeneous al Anbar province as discussed above, it says a lot about the likelihood of the "awakening" becoming friend to the current Baghdad government.

Labels: AQI, benchmarks, Iraq, Oil, reconciliation, Risha, Sunni

We've seen so many goals promoted in regards to the occupation of Iraq. The mission has changed constantly from when it first entered the public conscience to today as we watch the Republicans reset there Iraqi agenda to fit their domestic agenda once again. We know now that president Bush's sole goal is to maneuver into "a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence" so that we "stay longer" in Iraq. He doesn't care about the public will or the soldiers sacrifice. As long as we don't make changes to his failed policies, well that's good enough for him.

In order to do this some reality--just enough really and selected conveniently--must be injected at opportune times. This is a long-standing trend with this administration. It began as the disarmament of Iraq. Then when they accepted the--once stated by the opposition--fact that there was nothing to disarm, it was expanded to regime change and freedom. Sensing that this wasn't enough to move the American populous towards another invasion, they added in the mythical connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Then, of course the mission was accomplished... but that only lasted a few months. The occupation of Iraq, again, became a mission of freedom as "has been our mission all along" claimed the White House disingenuously. Soon after, it became clear that the 'freedom agenda' was 'hard work' and the goal was shifted to training Iraqis (this is where General Petraeus entered the political realm, conveniently right before the 2004 election. Nothing he wrote then bore fruit.). When that didn't go as planned the Administration shifted again towards promoting democracy. Months later they added that we were there to protect the "homeland" from the terrorists that were being created in Iraq. Nearly a year later the mission shifted again towards security for Iraqis. Early this year the Administrations line became the provision of security for centralized reconciliation while undermining it by embracing former terrorists in the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq, a plan initiate by the Iraqis long before Bush's escalation. There is no guarantee that this aid wont--in one form or another--be used against US forces or more likely the fledging central government in Baghdad. Most recently, the Administration--sensing lack of real progress on the reconciliation gambit--are now working in the back rooms toward a partition of Iraq.

This plan for partition was once promoted by a group of academics and Senator Joe Biden. It was rejected by the White House and criticized right-wing pundits then, but now it's the 'new way forward.'

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Labels: Biden, Bush, Iraq, Partition, surge

I agree, we should give his testimony and the accompanying White house report on the escalation as much credit as the various other reports out currently.

But this is really getting confusing for the pro-war crowd. Petraeus is offering the possibility of a symbolic withdrawal (which will never happen) early next year.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, has told President Bush that he wants to maintain heightened troop levels in Iraq well into next year to reduce the risk of military setbacks, but could accept the pullback of roughly 4,000 troops beginning in January, in part to assuage critics in Congress, according to senior administration and military officials.

The response of the Republican leadership in Congress to the Generals offer?

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio: "It should be off the table."

So even if the top General suggests it, it should not be considered. This, to Republicans, is purely political (as well as heartless, dangerous and acting contrary to the needs of the troops). If our Generals suggest something that the Democrats and the American public have been asking (and voting) for and is even based on sober military judgment, it shouldn't happen because it makes the Republicans look bad.

That's a great way the run foreign policy and it's a trend that has been evident throughout our experience in Iraq: Trust the generals until they dissent and replace them... repeat if necessary.

I fear what these Republicans will do once we are out of troops in about a years time...

Labels: Boehner, Iraq, levels, military, Petraeus, surge, troop

If your browser is open right now then you likely have at least one headline on your homepage or favorite website hinting at an alleged video from the still free Usama bin Laden (UBL). This video, if it comes out, will coincide with the 6^th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on NY, DC and a failed attack which ended in a deadly plane crash in rural PA. Here are some thoughts on the rational of this event--if it does indeed happen, but still relevant if it doesn't--from the point of view of a man like UBL and his al Qaeda movement at two levels.

+ This is at one level, a propaganda ploy for the global jihadist movement.

+ For western audiences it has a very different motive. UBL benefits from our occupation of Iraq despite the lack of popularity of al Qaeda in Iraq. Our continued presence there validates his statements and fills his ranks. Therefore UBL's intent is to maintain the status quo there (much like US war supporters, but for different reasons). UBL knows how politics work in America and that his face on TV will cause the various noise machines to begin calling for a continued, unconditional presence in Iraq. He knows the current debate that is building steam in DC and nationwide regards the future of our presence there. He "knows" God gave him the gift of our occupation of Iraq for his continued war on humanity. This presence of ours in Iraq is supposedly to fight UBLs al Qaeda, at least partially. So UBL benefits from this in numerous ways: He keeps a major recruiting tool operational. He keeps targets close by and an active training ground functioning. He keeps his rational and rhetoric valid. And all the while, UBL keeps safe in Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever he is while the American eye (and military might) focuses on Iraq and the morass we're struggling with presently.

And if this video doesn't surface, the facts still remain.

You can thank the 'stay the course' crowd for that.

Labels: conservative, Iraq, Republican, terrorism, UBL

NPRs Guy Raz woke we up this morning with this sobering piece of reporting. I'd highly recommend readers listen to or read this and consider it as we draw closer to Bush's report and Petraeus and Crocker's testimony on the "progress" of Bush's escalation in Iraq.

Here's a sample:

Here's a few statistics that military officials have cited in the past few days.

From Gen. Richard Sherlock: "Overall violence in Iraq has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June 2006."

From Gen. Kevin Bergner: "On a national level, sectarian deaths are about half of what they where in December of 2006."

And from Gen. Ray Odierno: "Total attacks are on a monthlong decline and are at their lowest levels since August of 2006."

And here's how those statistic translate into political rhetoric.

From South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham: "Well, the surge has worked; it's provided a level of security I haven't seen."

And from President Bush: "Anbar is a huge province. It was written off as lost. It is now one of the safest places in Iraq."

But other numbers tell a different story.

This year, Anbar is actually the second-deadliest place for U.S. troops in Iraq. Baghdad is the deadliest.

See how that works, watch for it... Republicans are desperate.
(This was post 1,001 !!)

Labels: benchmarks, Crocker, foreign policy, Iraq, Odierno, Petraeus, surge

The White House noise machine and their military puppets are really putting the moves on now. As Kevin Drum points out, you can tell when a PR campaign is in process by the "sudden appearance of a raft of articles all telling a remarkably similar story." But the progress we hear is troubling. There's been no political progress at a national level, as we were promised. The security situation is fractionally better and not facilitating reconciliation but working against it. Senior counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus Dave Kilcullen admitted as much in one of the first "news" stories of the current PR campaign:

The other implication is that, to be perfectly honest, the pattern we are seeing runs somewhat counter to what we expected in the “surge”, and therefore lies well outside the “benchmarks”. The original concept was that we (the Coalition and the Iraqi government) would create security, which would in turn create space for a “grand bargain” at the national level. Instead, we are seeing the exact opposite: a series of local political deals has displaced extremists, resulting in a major improvement in security at the local level, and the national government is jumping on board with the program. Instead of coalition-led top-down reconciliation, this is Iraqi-led, bottom-up, based on civil society rather than national politics. And oddly enough, it seems to be working so far. This does not necessarily invalidate the “surge” strategy: we are indeed seeing improved security and political progress, but at the local not national level. This was not what we expected, and probably will cut little ice with domestic opponents of the strategy, but the improvement in daily lives of Iraqis and willingness to talk rather than fight is a substantial real-world improvement nonetheless.

Boy that's a dangerous stretch and indicative of failed policy. You take a plan and operationalize it. It goes awry and since it looks good you go with it?

A CIA hand involved in Afghanistan in the 80's when the mujahideen (now the Taliban and al Qaeda) pushed out the Soviet Union was interviewed recently and reflected on that “grand bargain”

When I was in Pakistan I asked an Army commander if we could get the Afghan tribes to do something and he said, “We can usually get the Afghans to do something that they want to do.” In Afghanistan, the Soviets made thousands of deals with the tribes, but you don’t buy them–you rent them. These guys change sides all the time. It’s the same thing [in Iraq]. Their needs and goals are completely unrelated to our vision of the world. The sheiks [in Iraq] figure that their turf is threatened by Al Qaeda in Iraq and they’re happy to help go after them, especially when the U.S. is doing the heavy lifting. But there will be a piper that needs to be paid. You don’t have to go much beyond T.E. Lawrence to see how this is likely to play out.

So there you have one track, it's going in the opposite direction than intended.

Then there's the violence. The numbers cited by war supporters and those individuals invested in the perception of success in this escalation talk of facts but offer no supporting evidence. Meanwhile, independent analysis from the AP, McClatchy, McClatchy again, and the apolitical GAO come to opposite conclusions, with numbers. Furthermore, the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that data being used on civilian violence is unreliable and excludes most acts affecting sectarian and ethnic cleansing and does not include Shi’a on Shi’a violence in the South or Sunni on Sunni violence in the Sunni Triangle. The most independent means of statistic gathering is now suppressed by the Iraqi Ministry of Health. Anything produced by this administration, or their selected generals and analysts should be rejected due to large collections of counter evidence and a history of the Bush administration, the Iraqi Government and Gen. Petraeus fudging the facts for political ends.

The question is simple:

I would like to see the data from the pro-war side that demonstrates that progress is actually happening. I don't want to hear about new hope in the streets, or markets safe enough for senators to walk through with a brigade of soldiers with them. I want to hear metrics that indicate Iraq is moving towards a peaceful stable state. Are there any?

America! There comes a time when mere happy-talk is not enough to continue an obvious flawed policy. Granted the tactics being used are a welcome improvement to the last 4 years of mismanagement and cockeyed policy. It's just too late. We've seen a slight increase on some very basic benchmarks with 30,000 extra troops. In a perfect world we might see more improvements with more troops and more time. However, there are none of either. Those troops that are there are going to be headed home very soon. By this time next year we'll be forced to begin a draw down. Rather than chase around an elusive and unclear end, we should be focusing on what to do once we begin to leave in order to salvage what we have accomplished. A prudent way to do this is to first accept it. not defeat but the reality of the situation. Then begin to implement a procedure to orderly redeploy our troops and redefine the mission they're pursuing. Unfortunately we will be in Iraq for a long time. Whether we are there chasing reasonable ends or being overrun from all sides is up to the dead-enders on the right and their allies in Washington, DC.

Labels: Iraq, Kilcullen, military, Petraeus, surge

NY Times:

A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to "dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures," a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been "to keep the army intact" but that it "didn't happen."

Like anyone believes that any decision this large would have been left merely to an envoy. The only thing that Bush could have said that might save face and appear honest is that Rumsfeld or Cheney kept it from him or were totally in charge at the time. He said neither and tried to shift blame on Bremer. That has now been debunked.

Now for the competency of these "leaders" who so gleefully lead us into the worst foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam if not ever. Buried in the above article comes this quote from Bremer.

“I might add that it was not a controversial decision,” Mr. Bremer said. “The Iraqi Army had disappeared and the only question was whether you were going to recall the army. Recalling the army would have had very practical difficulties, and it would have political consequences. The army had been the main instrument of repression under Saddam Hussein. I would go on to argue that it was the right decision. I’m not second-guessing it.”

Surely a man who became envoy to Iraq would know that there were several armies in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. There was Saddam's army the Republican Guard and a regular army made of conscripts; usually Shiite. A large portion of the overall army was conscripted, but the Republican Guard provided the repression. Not understanding the opportunity that was presented to the US with the regular Iraqi army after May '03 is a mistake that manifests itself in the chaos in Iraq today. The same people who missed this are the ones who say they will lead us to salvation in Iraq.

Don't hold your breath...

Labels: Bremer, Bush, CPA, Iraq, Rumsfeld

President Bush said this earlier today in his super top-secret visit to Iraq (ahhh... progress):

"General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it is possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces," he said.

What he really means is that he's too cowardly to reassess the situation strategically and will keep the escalation going until it can't physically be sustained without more unprecedented adjustments. So come August '08 we're looking at one of three situations. One, our Congress will gather up the willpower and begin to confront the President. More likely, two, nothing will happen in Congress. The escalation will continue as it has for months now and there will be little to show for it. As are troop levels begin to fall by the weight of their own gravity, the interests in Iraq will go back to their slightly dormant cycles. Finally three, we could reassess the situation noting the fact that we've rid Iraq of a dictator, established that they have no WMD and planted seeds of democracy in the country (perverted as they might be). Then strategically reset our occupation to one of counterterrorism and regional security leaving the Iraqi power centers room to adjust to their new government without the US military being a crutch. Accompany that with a force to protect the Kurds in the north, keep Turkey at bay, control Kurdish irredentist terrorism emanating from Kurdistan, and check Iranian influence in the northern portion of Iraq. One of these paths is logical (#3) so it won't see the light of day. The rest are just plain bad. However one will allow the White House to save face until we elect a new president. That is the road Bush wants. He claims to be loyal, he claims to support the troops. He is doing neither here, both his party and his military will suffer as a result of his intransigence.

He visited al Anbar to highlight the superficial success happening there against al Qaeda in Iraq. The White House is so desperate to stretch this war out, they'll even hijack the success of others as there own:

That assertion is part of Bush's push to sell Anbar as a success story and to hold it up to his congressional critics as a reason why the troop buildup should not be cut short.

In truth, the progress in Anbar was initiated by the Iraqis themselves, a point Gates himself made, saying the Sunni tribes decided to fight and retake control from al-Qaida many months before Bush decided to send an extra 4,000 Marines to Anbar as part of his troop buildup.

In any regard, this "success" is the fruit of a plan that works against the initial strategic vision of the escalation and one that borders on hypocrisy.

As last months NIE stated:

Such initiatives, if not fully exploited by the Iraqi government, could over time also shift greater power to the regions, undermine efforts to impose central authority, and reinvigorate armed opposition to the Baghdad government

Labels: Anbar, benchmarks, Bush, CAP, counter terrorism, Iraq, surge

Portions of the much awaited report on Iraqi political progress by the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, are beginning to leak out. As is painfully obvious, despite minimal results on the military and security front, the political progress has been a disaster. To remind the reader, President Bush's escalation came with 18 benchmarks in which to measure progress. In July, the White House claimed, in error, that "satisfactory performance" was being achieved in 8 of those 18 benchmarks. I opined in a post earlier this month:

If you think back, the July "Initial Benchmark Assessment Report" that claimed that "satisfactory performance" on nearly half of the proposed benchmarks was so fundamentally flawed that I doubt the White House can flaw it any more this time around. They set a fake bar, way too high, and now they won't be able to reach past it while still seeming realistic. They may have burned themselves...

Back in July, this White House spin was promptly debunked as misleading rhetoric.

As predicted here, the White House spin has fallen flat in the face of pragmatic, apolitical analysis. The GAO's report will conclude that not 8 but only 5 of the benchmarks (or is it only 3?) will be met as a result of the Presidents escalation in Iraq.

Congressional auditors have determined that the Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush's Iraq war strategy, The Associated Press has learned.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq are unfulfilled ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline for Bush to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

Assuming the surge will continue due to a split Congress, a lack of promising alternatives and a President who has already made up his mind, we'll probably ride this out until the definitive timetable sets in early next year and forces our extraction (the realities surfacing as strain in our military). So instead of strategically assessing and addressing failed policy when we could, the 'stay the course' crowd has set us for withdrawal as a broken force with severely limited resources available for the greater threat: al Qaeda proper and their franchise terrorist outfits that plan and recruit with immunity.

Fortunately, the smart folks at the Center for American Progress have inked a last resort plan for strategically removing our troops from the Iraqi morass. Not immediately and not in 4 years but in a span of about a year and with a residual force remaining to address the questions that will remain in the northern Iraq and to confront al Qaeda and other terrorists. They warn that our leaders need to begin planning for this now because if the escalation fulfills the White House's hopes and dreams or is another failure, we need to have a plan to get out. (We've witnessed how military campaigns conducted without plans end up.)

So far I've read the synopsis linked above and have started to make my way through the whole report (.pdf). So far, so good; although I would allow some flexibility with the year time table. Say, to 15 months or so...

Labels: benchmarks, Bush, CAP, GAO, Iraq, surge

Those interested in the hunt for Usama bin Laden would be well served to read the Newsweek report on the ever-continuing hunt. Consider it a concise version of Woodward's "Bush at War" and Gary Berntsen's "Jawbreaker" with additional contemporary, reporting. Here are some snips.

This part would have made me laugh if it wasn't so serious and disappointing. Instead I just shook my head...

The Iraq War, meanwhile, has proved to be a black hole for the Americans, devouring men and material and absorbing the attention of the brass in Washington. In 2005, the CIA gave President Bush a secret slide show on the hunt for bin Laden. The president was taken aback by the small number of CIA case officers posted to Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Is that all there are?" the president asked, according to a former intelligence official, who declined to be identified discussing White House meetings. The CIA had already embarked on a "surge" of sorts, and doubled the number of officers in the field. But many were inexperienced and raw recruits, and they produced little improvement in "actionable" intelligence.

But it is encouraging to hear members of the military brain admitting these truisms

In recent months, says John Arquilla, a Special Ops expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., the U.S. military has achieved a 100-to-1 kill ratio (100 dead guerrillas to every American). But by calling in airstrikes, the Americans also kill a lot of civilians, which breeds more jihadists. And according to Thomas Johnson, also at the Naval Postgraduate School, the military's continued fixation on body counts and kill ratios is irrelevant and even counterproductive. "When you kill a person it's a multiplication factor. It demands that all the male relatives join the fight."

I, of course, have been saying this for years.

Continuing...

Johnson, an Afghan expert, spent last February at Forward Operating Base Salerno near the Pakistan border, briefing commanders on the tribal custom of Pashtunwali. He says only about 5 percent of American troops in Afghanistan ever leave their bases—a statistic, he believes, that explains better than any other why Americans are struggling in the battle for intelligence. He says most soldiers in Afghanistan don't know simple phrases like "stop," "go," or "put your hands up." Americans continually make cultural blunders, like using canine units to search people's homes (dogs are considered unclean in Muslim culture). Meanwhile the Taliban works at winning the trust and confidence of villagers—or intimidating them. "They go into villages and say, 'The Americans have the watches but we have the time. We might not come back in a week or a year, but you bet your britches we'll eventually come back'," says Johnson.

If the White House wants to use historical "comparisons" this one should definitely be first of their list...

During the early days of the cold war, the old boys who ran the CIA began to reason that when it came to fighting against an underhanded foe in a battle for global survival, the rules of fair play they had learned as schoolboys no longer applied. If the communists fight dirty, we must, too, they rationalized—or freedom would perish. This ends-justifying-the-means rationale led to foolish and ultimately unsuccessful assassination plots and other dirty tricks that disgraced and demoralized the CIA when the agency's so-called Crown Jewels were revealed during Watergate. After 9/11, Bush administration officials, particularly Vice President Cheney, vowed to take the gloves off against Al Qaeda.

or maybe this on Bush's reeducation camps in his Vietnam-Iraq misrepresentation from last week

The danger now, says Arquilla, is that the longer the Iraq War goes on, the more skilled the new generations of jihadists will become. "They're getting re-educated," he says. "The first generation of Al Qaeda came through the [Afghan] camps. The second generation are those who've logged on [to Islamist Web sites]. The next generation will be those who have come through the crucible of Iraq. Eventually, their level of skill is going to be greater than the skill of the original generation."

Labels: Afghanistan, Bush, Cheney, counter terrorism, foreign policy, Iraq, Osama bin Laden, terrorism

It's OK if you're a Republican.

Todays speech by the president to legitimize his Iraq policy has roused the ire of those familiar with history. To UCLA historian Robert Dallek, the "distortions" "boggle" his mind.

“We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn’t work our will,” he said.

“What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,” he continued. “We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.”

Col. Pat Lang adds in an unrelated post

We keep "screwing up" in places like Vietnam and Iraq because we (as a people) do not accept the relevance of history and cultural difference. We insists on believing people are all pretty much the same and that they will behave as we think we would behave. Nonsense. We and another set of peoples have paid the price for that cultural blindness once again.

and reminds us all that "US forces had been completely out of [Vietnam] for two years when the [North Vietnamese] attacked in violation of the cease-fire and over-ran the country."

While using models are useful in academia, they should be avoided in rhetoric. When models used in rhetoric, they should be held at arms length and scrutinized. One remembers when the Vietnam model was slammed by the Bush Administration and even used to come to conclusions opposite those arrived at today.

The only thing Vietnam has in common with Iraq is that they were wars based on misunderstandings (or lack of understandings), bad policy and that they both became quagmires.

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Labels: Bush, Iraq, surge

The stay the course crowd who favor the presidents escalation policy in Iraq were given a tasty--but pointless--nugget today. This, of course, was used to continue their desperate attempts to inflate the successes of the "surge" and equate anyone analyzing the lack of progress in Iraq as anti-American terrorist supporters. The E & P story that brought this on says:

The [Gallop] poll of 1,012 adults, taken earlier this month, found that 47% give [Petraeus] a favorable rating, and only 21% unfavorable. The rest had not heard of him or had no opinion.

This is no surprise. Petraeus is a likable guy, a scholar, a patriot and has brought some welcome relief in Iraq; albeit years too late. From what I've read from his counter insurgency manual, he appears to be the man for this job. As I said in February, if we were able to give him what he needed and the Iraqi politicians deliver on reconciliation, we might actually be able to pull this thing off. I'd much rather Petraeus write the President's mid-September report on the escalation in Iraq than whoever the White House taps (Kagan, O'Hanlon?). However, there are two sides to every COIN (bad joke, sorry). The "[l]eft-leaning Editor and Publisher" errantly suggest that "his 'surge' report may gain support.

This is wrong for two reasons. First, The report is not his, it will be written by the White House. Much to the Administrations chagrin I'd imagine, Petraeus and Amb. Crocker will be able to testify in public, although before Bush's mid-September report is released. Next, a recent poll agrees with Gallops findings but uncovers that the American public aren't going to let a Petraeus' character interfere with their assessments:

Though 47% of Americans may like Petraeus, a majority does not trust he will be forthright in his assessment to Congress next month. Fifty-three percent expect him to try to make things sound better than they actually are...

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll also reports that 72% of Americans say the September assessment will not have any impact on their opinion on the war, no matter what Petraeus says.

Only seventeen percent of those who currently oppose the war say new developments could change their minds about it, along with 12% of those who support it. The vast majority report their opinions are set, however, with 47% staunchly opposed and 21% in support.

For those Americans who are still undecided and want a real report to assess and not a political document written by the White House, look for the GAO report September 1^st.

Labels: foreign policy, Iraq, Petraeus, politics, surge