I started work on consolidating the pro-war rationales (well-done by commenter Chris) and then beginning my arguments against the anti-war ones. And I realized that today, of all days – the Iraqi election day – showed this to be a somewhat hollow exercise (as some commenters did point out, I must admit).The only people for whom the pre-war rationales matter are those who believe that the genesis of the war is so tainted that everything that happens – all the fruit of the crime – is irremediably tainted. People who can’t answer whether Iraqis are better off today or not, because to admit that they are better off would make them complicit.
The other people to whom this matters are, sadly, my fellow Democrats, who see it as a lever to move the partisan dial in the country. They intend to do this, in among other ways, by voting pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman out of office.
I’m happy to ignore both groups, to be honest.
I’m more interested in the group with rolled-up sleeves that asks “Where do we go from here?” I’m genuinely interested in what Chris and others have to say in the matter; I’m not likely to change my tune of “We’re In ‘Till We Win” but that begs some critical questions (not to sound too much like a certain good-ole-boy) but … what does “Win” mean? For that matter, what does “In” mean?
There’s probably an interesting talk to have about the leadup to the war; I still believe, strongly that the “pro” arguments outweighed, and outweigh today, that “anti.”
But watching the election news today, I suddenly don’t think it’s the best use of my limited time or your limited attention. I’m sure you’ll let me know if you think I’m wrong.
Now we are finally getting somewhere.
It’s amazing how focusing on concrete action focuses the mind. It’s equally amazing how quickly you can separate the people who have a clue from those that don’t when you ask them to advance a plan rather than just critiqing one.
Actually, it’s not. It’s only amazing how rarely people in these debates want to focus on tangible and concrete things.
The only people for whom the pre-war rationales matter are those who believe that the genesis of the war is so tainted that everything that happens – all the fruit of the crime – is irremediably tainted.
Beg pardon?
I supported the war then, and I support the war now, and I care about the pre-war rationales.
But this isn’t about that, this is about “What next?” Well, it’s late, and I may have more to add tomorrow, but my first thought is this:
The Sunnis have, by many reports, participated in the vote in great numbers. This is inarguable evidence that the Sunni political apparatus, such as it is, is joining the mainstream politics of Iraq, such as it exists.
Also, it’s been apparent to nearly everyone for quite some time, now, that the violence has two major components: The secular Sunni insurgent types, and the religious Sunni jihadist types. Let’s be pessimistic (okay, let’s just be sensible) and assume that the violence will not die away immediately, on either side of that insurgent split.
The goals of the Jihadists remain more or less the same: Carnage, intimidation of everyone around them, and maybe the provocation of a civil war to get the rest of the Sunni population (in Iraq and elsewhere) behind them. Their methods and motifs will not change.
The goals of the political insurgent types, though, must necessarily change to suit the overall strategy of the Sunni political leadership. THey’ve obviously put their chips on being part of the political process, in general. The violence won’t die away entirely because the Sunni are in a terrible position demographically and geographically; violence is a tool by which they will continue to extract concessions, gaurantees and security from the Shia and Kurds. But they can’t take this too far or they will pass a threshold beyond which it will be simpler for the Shia and Kurds to simply beat them into submission.
If I were a ruthless Sunni political leader facing reality and not wanting to see my people get the unholy beating that the Shia and Kurds could undoubtedly deliver, all that would lead me to these thoughts:
Thought ONE: I don’t really need the religious nut jobs behind Zarqawi causing me grief. I need carefully calibrated violence, not indiscriminate mayhem. And I assuredly do not need a civil war after I’ve decided to be part of the government.
Thought TWO: A show of good faith to my Iraqi brothers might go a very long way to securing me some of my immediate political needs– enough to form a base from which to reach for further goals.
Thought THREE: Zarqawi is a murdering thug, but he is perfectly capable of constructing that chain of logic for himself. Even if thoughts ONE and TWO do not convince me to hand Zarqawi over, it is very likely for him to decide it is in his best interests to have me killed.
I strongly suspect that the next pulse of violence will be Sunni-on-Sunni, as it were, and will end with either Zarqawi leaving the area, Zarqawi killed by other Sunni, or Zarqawi handed over to the national authorities in Iraq.
Not even that will completely quench the violence. It is too necessary a tool, I think, to the Sunni. But it bodes for a step-function improvement in the security of the region, when and if it happens, which augers very well for the long term stability of the region and potential draw downs of American troops.
I don’t know how an American force (military or political) can exploit this situation, but we should do so in any reasonable way we can.
>>The only people for whom the pre-war rationales matter are those who believe that the genesis of the war is so tainted that everything that happens – all the fruit of the crime – is irremediably tainted. People who can’t answer whether Iraqis are better off today or not, because to admit that they are better off would make them complicit.
There are several problems with this.
The first problem is that just because something *worked* doesn’t mean it was the right move. (The reverse is also true.) There are probabalistic components to all decisions. So analysing a past decision to see whether it made sense *at the time, given the available knowledge* is still useful in refining future decision making.
The second problem is the problem of opportunity cost. There’s no question that many people have benefited from the Iraq war, including but not limited to most of the Kurds, US arms manufacturers, etc. There’s also no question that many people have been made worse off, including but not limited to those soldiers and civilians who have been killed on all sides, Saddam Hussein, etc. The question that interests me is, would a different course of action have led to more people being helped and fewer people being shafted for the same (staggeringly high) cost?
The “pre-war rationales don’t matter anymore” schtick smells rotten to me.
A.L. — your logic is impeachable. Your understanding of human nature may be somewhat limited in this case.
People do not want to talk about “where do we go from here” because that takes away their favorite whipping boy, the run-up to the war. My grandmother (bless her heart) used to have a saying something like “once a cat is dead, you don’t bury it with it’s tail hanging out of the ground, so you can pull it out every now and then to make sure it’s dead. Leave it be.”
Sadly, many partisans would rather fight the war of “how we got here” rather than the war we actually have. They’re going to keep pulling that dead cat from the ground, each time mourning how it died and how it was all somebody else’s fault.
Many, many, many times I have seen some discussion on a technical detail (how to handle Kurdish oil interests, for example) end up in this same discussion. People just aren’t going to let it go. Even if you take a month and go over each reason, carefully working through how it was still in our best interests to remove Saddam, the next day it will be like no conversation happened at all. We’ll still be back at square one, arguing over whether “Bush lied and people died”. The truth, you see, does not matter. Only the emotions. The opiate of moral outrage and powerful feelings of injustice and betrayal always trumps reason and careful analysis.
I’m not trying to generalize for all anti-war people. Far from it. I’m simply giving my opinion on how the _conversation_ always ends up.
AL, I know you know better than to suggest the examination might be a fruitless exercise. But I do think it is more worthwhile to do so if you intend to look at not just whether they were/are true/accurate/right/significant, but how they were utilized by both sides (pros, cons) and against the middles (undecideds) and whether each could have been used better.
I would also hope consideration of the interplay of the arguments is taken into account rather than assessing each then cumulatively determining a test score. In the arena of politics, diplomacy, and public perception, one could make one solid argument that all could agree on, or make the same argument along with nine swampy (for lack of a better term) others that effectively cut supporters of the one in half. So not only what and how but when they are played is important.
Maybe I look at all this analytical effort too complexly but I see these factors and arguments, as I do with this still long war of which Iraq is just one of the military battles, not as one chessboard with each piece an issue but each issue being a chessboard and all the chessboards interrelated. (Think some kind of bizarre Spock 3D board but one so complex only Spock would understand the rules, strategy and tactics for. I should note here that chessboard is not accurate in itself because it implies a set number of players and turns; those are rules not defined on these boards.) Your reference to an inclination by some Democrats to take out Lieberman is an example of a new chessboard opening. I would point out that the Iraq War, whether intended partly to or not, caused the resumption of play on the chessboard labeled “UN” on a scale grander than likely any other action we could have taken wrt this War on Terrorism or any other issue.
I think Madison is correct when he says, “So analysing a past decision to see whether it made sense at the time, given the available knowledge is still useful in refining future decision making.” though I see the analyzing as important in assessing the current states of the various boards, how they affected other boards, and where play should take place (resume is inaccurate, too) and in what order. By the same token, I think he overlooks many things if, as I infer, he considers invasion of Iraq as something decided on based on a series of rationales rather than a series of unfolding events as in a multitude of boards, players, and moves of which many are still operating. None of these boards can be wiped clean and started anew because a wrong move was made or a right move had a bad result and it’s bad form to consider something and label it, narrowly, as a bad move suggesting it not be tried again, etc.
Close to lastly, it is good to look at, as Madison says, the results in relation to the costs, but I’d caution against a mindset of looking at those things in isolation. A high initial investment versus current results may look bad at this point but high initial investments often have longer lasting benefits than a much smaller one with debilitating long term maintenance does, such as a Kuwait War followed by sanctions and an OFF program. And, right now, I can’t point to whether anything less than the course taken would have exposed the UN as it really was/is, sufficiently, to make the corrections a much larger public now believes should take place. Until then (and of course not just with that) I wouldn’t want to say we came to this place using the wrong road(s).
I could yak more, but I’ll leave this at, yes, AL, the rationales should still be compiled, compared and assessed. I think doing it is essential, in some respects, to preparing the best outcomes now available vis-a-vis Iran since I think we are way behind where we could and should be on a host of boards that relate to it.
I agree with Marcus and T.J. Its strange to simply dismiss efforts to understand how we got into this war, for one because we may face this situation again in the near future.
Its not simply an excercise in political maneuvering, although there is that, but I don’t think anyone posting on this blog is running for office, are they?
And I’m sure we all agree that it’s in everyones best interest that any decision to begin a war be made openly, honestly and will full consideration and understanding of the facts & consequences.
Might I suggest, then, another thread topic centered around soliciting views on what conditions and situations we might all agree would justify another invasion/occupation, say for Iran or Syria, or a hypothetical state/situation?
As an aside, I for one am pulling hard for the Iraqi people to organize themselves in a peaceful and stable manner. I can’t see why anyone who cares even a little for their fellow human being would feel differently. Sure there are a cadre of folks (at both extremes of the political spectrum) for whom political expediency will override even basic moral beliefs. But the Iraqi people have suffered mightily, and I hope that is coming to an end soon. And it is hard for me, as an American, to think that we may have been responsible for some of that, even if in the long run things improve. I cannot easily ignore the number 30,000.
OK, I hear the position. Let’s see how other commenters feel through the day and then I may have to put it in reverse and change back.
How’s that?
A.L.
“The question that interests me is, would a different course of action have led to more people being helped and fewer people being shafted for the same (staggeringly high) cost?”
A fair question, if unanswerable. There are some givens. Our forces would remain in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to contain Hussein. That costs billions per year indefinately, gives those two nations leverage over us (and vice-versa to some degree granted), and would have invited attack by some of the same jihadis we have battled in Iraq- only under their agenda not ours. One mistake is thinking the situation in the ME to be static just because it seeme to be for a while. Not so. AQ and jihadi attacks on us in SA and Kuwait had been increasing even before the war. Could the thousands of jihadis that travelled to Iraq have managed a coup in Riyahd? Who knows, but one thing I am certain of is that they would not have long been content to sit and drink tea in Damascus and Cairo forever.
Contrary to the impression left by the critics, jihadis are not otherwise peaceful Arabs pushed one whit too far by our Iraq invasion. There has been a network of training and indoctrination in the Middle East for years. These ‘soldiers’ would have marched eventually. The only question is when and where and according to what plan. Well, like any good general, we forced the enemies hand and had him commit his resources at a place and time not of his choosing. Was it worth the cost? I agree its too early to tell. Was the alternative (whatever that means) more friendly to us? Impossible to say, but must also consider that many of the scenarios of doing nothing were pretty nasty as well.
“…Might I suggest, then, another thread topic centered around soliciting views on what conditions and situations we might all agree would justify another invasion/occupation, say for Iran or Syria, or a hypothetical state/situation?…”
I second that suggestion.
A.L.: Don’t get me wrong. I think I know what you meant. To an extent, I agree– once the die is cast, the reasons behind it do become less important. That is the nature of any decision, and it is a tool of great leaders everywhere. (And by “great” I mean not morally great, but great in impact and lasting influence.) The ability to create facts on the ground whose significance outweigh their original circumstances is very powerful. Once the die is cast, though, you play the die you’ve rolled rather than just obsessing about the reasons you had for rolling it.
I am also sick to death of the partisanship of many of the analyses I see.
But because of the first and in spite of the second, I remain interested in the justifications for the war, then and now.
I agree 80%, Marc, which is why I’ve refrained from commenting before. That’s what I regard as the chances that the discussion will simply degenerate into yet another partisan wank, rehashing the same old stuff. That’s not worthy of your time or effort, or of others’ here.
The 20% that says ‘yes’ has to do with your issue re ‘what next’. Iraq is one campaign in an ongoing struggle. Regardless of where one stands on the wisdom of (for instance) downplaying the democratization strategic framework prior to action in Iraq, taking the issue to the UN versus simply revoking the ceasefire, and focusing on WMD in that forum, those choices have consequences. I personally don’t think we’re going to have an assessment as to their ultimate meaning and value for a decade, but it’s relevant to talk about immediate effects in preparing for the next campaign.
Particularly since I believe that campaign will be Iran, in one form or another.
Would anyone, from any perspective, care to make the argument that Syria is the schwerpunkt of the Islamist adversary? Baby Assad and his cronies are a sorry waste of oxygen, but have minor relevance except as a sanctuary, and heading in that way is to miss the strategic point. One might argue that Saudi Arabia is the center of gravity, but it’s largely as a base of financial support for AQ. Consequences of direct intervention against the Saudi include a perilous widening of the war towards the civilizational level. The logical way to dismember Saudi would be to strip away the oil rich Gulf coast area. Which is predominantly Shia, leading us back to the same place.
So we have an Iran that’s the mother home of terrorism, openly going for nukes, run by a nutjob whose path to power was terror, and where unfortunately the internal and external opposition seems impotent. And as soon as you say nukes, you are back to WMD, the IAEA, and the UN. So the immediate past history has relevance both there and domestically. Maybe that’s a way of framing your discussion: filter the pros/cons by their relevance to the choice, selling and execution of the next campaign.
Well, this is rather… disappointing.
I understand that there are those who find the whys and hows of going into Iraq irrelevant, and I understand that people have other things to do with their time, especially with Christmas coming up. That said, AL, I kinda wished you’d come to this conclusion before having me, in effect, shill for the other side. (And, with all due respect, doing a more thorough job of it than you did for my side.)
I also disagree that the reasons aren’t worth examining. Case in point, your entire post reeks of an unexamined assumption frequently used to support the war: the idea that the improved well-being of the Iraqis and/or the spectacle of an election day every few months in and of itself justifies the war, or at least excuses any logical or procedural missteps up until now.
Here’s an analogy: I can liquidate my savings and get a few thousand bucks in cash from my credit cards. I can then take that money and give it to some random hard-luck family that desperately needs funds for an operation, a working car and a decent place to live. Of course, this would cause me a fair amount of financial hardship in the long run, get my wife pretty ticked off at me, get my friends and neighbors to wonder whether I was right in the head, and perhaps even cause some of my business partners to wonder if I was really the right guy to be working with… but I could justify it all by pointing to how much better off the Smiths are, and how much better little Timmy is since his operation, right?
Or, heck, look at the kind of arguments Steven Den Beste is making even today (scroll down to take a look at the comments) – that doing this for Iraq will spread peace and democracy in the long run, where the long run is _30 years down the road_, and that it was this war or an inevitable nuclear holocaust in the Mideast. Both of these pronouncements are packed full of plain and simple *hubris*: the idea that _anybody_ can predict with any accuracy what the world will look like in 30 years, or that something like a nuclear genocide is “inevitable” unless their pet project is carried out is simply nuts. As “Winston Smith” points out, the lack of modesty and realism here should have been reason enough, in and of itself, to doubt the Iraq plan… but for Den Beste and his disciples, if you can build an intricate-enough ladder of well-intentioned logic, that’s really all you need. And as long as that kind of arrogant thinking remains on the pro-war side, we have a problem.
So yeah, I do think that this kind of stuff is well worth revisiting. But I’ll also point out that, ironically, my original comment to AL which kicked this whole thing off wasn’t about revisiting the justification for the war – rather, it was simply pointing out that the pro-war folks, at least here at WoC, weren’t exactly shining a bright light on the clear path to victory.
And here’s the thing: they still aren’t. Most of the pro-Iraq stuff on this website recently has been closely tied to the elections, and this is a problem for two reasons. First, public support for the war has tended to rise and fall along with these kind of feel-good events: when Iraq has an election or drafts a constitution, support rises, and when the election is months past support falls down again. But this is Iraq’s last major election that’ll be played up in the news: from here on out, elections will be old hat. Iraq will probably have one more moment in the sun, when the permanent government is sworn in – beyond that, there’s not going to be any single, clear event that can be pointed at to justify the war. So I wholeheartedly suggest that those folks who really do support the Iraq war, and really do wish to rally the support of the American people back towards Iraq, find some new kinds of selling points to do so.
Second, while elections are fun and shiny, they’re largely irrelevant to the stuff that really does govern the day-to-day health of Iraq, and the remaining duration of our mission there: infrastructure, the economy, the strength of the insurgency and the quality of Iraq’s internal security forces. And, last I checked, those metrics were mixed at best, and not really heading upward in a hurry. Moreover, despite AL’s insistence that “we’re in ’till we win”, I don’t see many concrete ideas on how to change those metrics. (Or, for all the cries of “partisanship” that this will surely raise, any evidence whatsoever that G. W. Bush is capable of implementing those ideas in a competent fashion.)
As for me with my rolled-up sleeves, my answer to “Where do we go from here?” is simple: out, in a reasonably quick fashion (more than six months, less than two years). Much of the thinking on Iraq seems to be predicated on the idea that there’s still some way to win big, in such a way that we can leave without any doubt that we left on our own terms. (And, as a corollary, that we need to stay in until we can find the way to win big.) On the other hand, I came to grips a long time ago with the idea that some problems are simply intractable, given the manpower and resources available. The best thing you can do in such cases is pick the least-bad outcome, point out that it could be worse, and chalk the whole thing up as a learning experience. It’s not a fun realization to come to, but I think it is a reasonable one, until such time as to the guys who got us into this mess show that they have some idea on how to get us out, and the ability to pull it off.
And that’s all I got to say about that.
OK, here’s the plan – and an apology to Chris for distressing him.
I’ll work to wrap up the pro-war arguments, and map them against the anti-war ones, and try and trigger a comment free-for-all.
In the meantime, I’ll cogitate on some seeds for a “what now” discussion, and see if I can get both up early next week.
How’s that?
A.L.
Some quick comments to Chris:
1) I don’t think anything I’ve read from you in this forum recently qualifies as “partisan.” Or at least, not the sort of naked, eyes-wide-shut partisanship that srives me nuts. So don’t worry about that.
2) This is going to sound like an evil question intended to hurt, but I promise you, it’s not: When you speak about the recognition of intractable problems and picking the least-bad alternative, for whom do you mean least-bad? Least bad for the United States? Least bad for the West? Least bad for the Iraqi people? Least bad for the planet?
(Now see, if I thought you were being nakedly partisan, I’d have started that chain at “Least bad for your party?”)
3) You’ve opined against the idea of strategic thinking over periods of thirty years. I myself have mixed feelings about that– some trendlines are reliable enough to trust over long periods, others aren’t. The trend line that scares me the most is the decade by decade advance in how easy it is to construct a nuclear weapon.
But be that as it may, this is a general question: If a 30 year planning horizon is too long… what’s the right time scale?
4) Related to that, how quick a victory do you think is necessary? In general, and in this situation?
Tim Oren, I have some thoughts about your post as well, but I need more time to think about them and write them up.
AL-
No worries, I’m not “distressed” (although I can see how you’d get that impression) and I’m fine with not continuing the argument – really. Don’t continue something you’re not that interested in on my account – I think I’ve made at least some of the points I wanted to make, and my schedule’s not abounding with free time either.
Marcus-
2. The answer is, to some degree, all of the above. More particularly, I think the Iraqis _have_ to stand on their own, and they’re more likely to do so when we leave. (Although, yes, I am aware that there’s potential for massive carnage.)
That said, I am primarily concerned with the welfare of the US – partially the troops, partially our relations with other countries, and partially what the war itself is doing to our domestic politics and national priorities. And I firmly believe that what’s good for the US is good for the West _and_ the planet, in the long run and in most cases.
3. I want to be clear on this: yes, there are some things you can plan out 30 years in advance, and you can certainly argue that our broad Cold War strategy, which was executed over more than 40 years, was outlined relatively near the beginning.
What I have a specific problem with is Den Beste’s idea of a _military campaign_ that would be executed over the course of decades, partially because it’s almost certain that the political will needed to continue won’t last more than a few years, and partially because unforseen changes will almost certainly make your idea of what things will look like obsolete and irrelevant.
So what’s a proper planning horizon? Anything you want, although the further out you get, the more your plans start to look like vaguely defined long-term goals. There’s nothing wrong with saying that the Middle East should be free, prosperous and peaceful in 30-50 years, and that the US should work towards that, but I personally don’t believe any definite _military_ plans should be made more than a few years out.
4. There’s too many types of “victories” (geo-political? military? cultural?) to come up with any one answer here, but I suspect you’re primarily talking about military victories here. In which case, I’ll say that the US, when facing a truly existential threat (i.e., massed armies bent on taking over the world) will probably fight indefinitely, but that any war which falls short of that probably needs to be mostly done with in 2-3 years if the political leadership wishes to maintain broad public support.
Chris has had some really good posts on this thread. One point I’d like to reiterate.
“…any war which falls short of that probably needs to be mostly done with in 2-3 years if the political leadership wishes to maintain broad public support…”
So. Let’s look at the inverse of that statement. To win a war against the U.S. one needs to not have large massed armies and to plan a continued campaign that lasts over 3 years. Threats that meet these criteria are the most critical to a free democracy that is the world’s largest power.
Chris, I’m keeping the same numbering, more or less, to keep some coherency to this response.
2) All right, “All of the above” is a reasonable enough answer, although some degree of ranking and weighting would be helpful. The reason I asked is because it sounded as though you were focussing exclusively on the least-bad alternative for the United States alone, in terms of a very narrow metric (combat deaths.)
I see that you are not.
I also agree with you broadly that what’s good for the United States is good for the world, but I find it necessary to be pedantic here: I think it is much better to say that what is good for the United States is strongly correlated with what is good for the rest of the world. I find it necessary because that formulation heightens two ideas: That sacrifices on the part of the United States can result in good for the rest of the world, and that there may be some time lag between those two things (which together imply that a short term United States sacrifice now might result in a larger payoff later.)
I also agree that the Iraqi people and government must eventually stand on their own. I think this is imperative– while I believe that keeping a certain level of troops in the region is essential for other purposes, I would like the current level to be reduced in a fairly dramatic fashion… when the time comes. I do not think that time is now, but I think (and hope) that the time to begin that process, slowly, will come in calendar year 2006.
Under no circumstances do I think a complete withdrawl, even in two years, is reasonable. It is sixty years since the end of World War II, and sixteen years since the end of the Cold War, and we still have roughly 75,000 troops in Germany, some 12,000 in Italy, and 40,000 troops in Japan. I cannot understand a position which demands a rapid withdrawl from Iraq, but not the 127,000 or so that we have in former Axis powers.
3) I am glad you agree that some things can be planned 30 or more years out. The notion of a grand strategy would fall apart without it, and there are two many historical examples to make that a tenable position.
We may also be in agreement regarding Den Beste specifically. I am glancingly familiar with what he was writing when his site was active, vanishingly less so with his contributions to others’ comments in the mean time. If Den Beste is trying to arrange a grand strategy (or even a simple military strategy) in terms of “First we invade here, and get this effect; then we go here, and get this effect; then here and then there….” well, then I agree with you. That can be fun, but at the end of the day it’s not silly.
I am not a Den Beste apologist.
But I don’t think this response matches what you were saying in your original response. There, you seemed quite set against the notion of any sort of predictions thirty years out, and that, I cannot accept. As I mentioned above, that defeats the notion of strategy and grand strategy. I think it is a perfectly acceptable broad-stroke grand strategy to begin with a location– and what we thought we knew about Iraq in the run-up to the war made Iraq perhaps the best possible location– and try to use it as a lever to effect cultural change in that region.
Yes, a lot of things need to go right to make that happen. But I’m not aware of any historical strategies where all the operations and tactics could go wrong and still result in a successful strategy.
That someone– Den Beste or anyone else– should apply the notion imperfectly should hardly invalidate the notion.
4) And here, I think, is where we disagree. I was largely referring to military victories, yes, but I disagree that American public support only comes in two or three year down payments. Even in Vietnam, small scale opposition to the war began around 1964 and grew from there; by 1965 there were well over 100,000 troops in Vietnam; but we did not withdraw until 1973. It seems to be accepted wisdom that war support only lasts a few years, but I simply don’t see it from my reading of history.
Now, that said, I think part of the problem in this war has been the BUsh Administration’s poor handling of informing the public of its grand strategy. The Administration gambled large in making WMDs the casus belli of the war. It was not an unreasonable gamble, given what we thought we knew, along with Iraq’s recent behaviour. But I think now, and thought then, that the gamble was made unwisely large in that there was never a back-up rationale, nor was the WMD embedded into a larger coherent grand strategy that the public could assimilate and understand, even if they (we) disagreed with it.
That was one of the three great blunders of the Bush Administration, in my opinion.
Marcus-
Rather than respond to this point by point, I’ll make a few broad remarks and leave it at that:
– You say “you seemed quite set against the notion of any sort of predictions thirty years out, and that, I cannot accept.” What I said was “the idea that anybody can predict with any accuracy what the world will look like in 30 years […] is simply nuts.”
Can people try to predict some of what’s gonna happen 30 years out? Sure, and some of it’ll even be right. But until we get there, there’s no way of knowing what predictions were right, what predictions are wrong, and how all that stuff combines with completely unforseen stuff to make a reality that makes 90% of your current planning about that era irrelevant.
So invading Iraq, in and of itself, isn’t a bad idea if you’ve got a specific, immediate security reason for doing so. (In this case, WMDs, which I was willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt on at the time.) But invading Iraq because you think the long-term effect of that invasion will be a watershed cultural change in the region is not a terribly bright idea, because you can’t accurately predict even the broad aftereffects of an invasion, or even if the Middle East will have anywhere near the kind of strategic importance it currently does. (Remember, 30 years ago, it was Russia, Russia, Russia. Today Russia’s a corpse, and it’s Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. 30 years from now, the whole of the Middle East could be as ignored as Africa currently is. You just can’t know in advance.)
– Re: your Vietnam figures – my historical understanding of the decade is not pinpoint perfect, but I do generally think the era of strong anti-war support started in ’67 or so… which is about 3 or so years after major escalation in troop levels. We stayed in the war for many years after ’67, but I don’t think you can argue that the war had broad public support during those years, or that the lack of support wasn’t an extra burden in fighting the war.
– I’m not calling you a Den Beste apologist, nor am I saying, or thinking, that your arguments are those of Den Beste in any way. I merely brought up Den Beste in my last post to clarify exactly what I was saying about 30-year time frames.
– That said, a lot of your arguments in your most recent post do seem to circle around to arguing for us staying in Iraq, one way or another. We can argue these out if you like, but I’ll again point out what I pointed out several posts ago: it doesn’t matter, because the pro-war side has lost the ear of the American public on this one, and they seem to have few ideas on how to get that attention back on their cause. Arguing the comparitive reasons for withdrawing US forces in Iraq vs. US forces elsewhere, or arguing for Iraq’s general strategic importance simply doesn’t do much, because the public’s already tuned those arguments out.
That being the case, I think a better use of your time might be A) coming up with a brilliant new strategy for unequivocably winning the war, B) coming up with a brilliant new strategy for building support for the war back up, or C) coming up with ways that the US can minimize the negative fallout from a near-term withdrawal, even if you strongly disagree with the withdrawal itself.