Of Surges And Purges

By Cernig

Obama is suddenly disowning his previous stance on "the Surge", according to the New York Daily News:

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

Triangulating wimp. He could at least have the courage of his previous convictions and say clearly that he thinks he was wrong, if that is indeed what he thinks now. But McCain's just as bad. He's been opposed to drawing troops down in Iraq (disagreeing with the Pentagon) but now, when polling tells him that many sympathise with the argument that Afghanistan is the real central front in the War on Terror - including both Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus during their last testimony to Congress - he's ready to announce he wants a Surge there too. McCain's also made a huge dung pile about Obama's previous stance on the Surge making him unfit to be Commander In Chief. Yet Mullen opposed the Surge and so too did Bob Gates. Has McCain said aloud that such opposition makes them unfit to be Chair of the Joint Chiefs or Secretary of Defense? of course not. Triangulating wimp.

I personally disagree that the Surge in Iraq has led to an improved security situation. It has been partly responsible - along with the Awakening and the Mahdi ceasefire - for a lull in violence. But the underlying reasons for that violence have not gone away: the Mahdi are fracturing into factions, the Awakening are the next rivals in the Green Zone elite's sights and as soon as that elite have done making sure they stay in power they'll be back to using proxies to blow each other up in intramural Shiite/Sunni civil war.

But the natural tendency to wish for new democracies which will be "on our side" must be curtailled. If we are serious about spreading "freedom and liberty" then we must realise that we may not get a new client state for all our money and blood. That's just the way freedom and liberty work. Many Middle Eastern democracy activists still intensly dislike the US, Israel and even Europe. Trying to coerce them into compliance by creating mirrors of the Lebanon/Syria model, as the Bush administration is currently trying to do in Iraq with McCain's wholehearted backing, fools no-one and cannot win the "long war". So we better suck up and drive - A democratic nation is no other nation's lapdog.

The security situation still sucks - but it's the Iraqi's security situation, not America's. They now want to handle it themselves and we installed the current crop of crooks as their sovereign government for better or worse. It's long past time to draw down and get out. All the way out.

Meanwhile, America's security situation has been dealt a double blow. First by the invasion of iraq in the first place and then by the botched occupation, including the Surge. In a cold, non-partisan world, Iraq's home-grown version of Al Qaeda and Saddam before them were not and never could be major threats to American security. But the version existing along the Pakistan/Afghan border were and are a real threat. That's where the Surge should have been all along - a Surge made impossible by an invasion and occupation of Iraq.

At least one of my colleagues here at Newshoggers feels that Afghanistan has been the red-haired stepchild of Bush's neo-colonialist ambitions for so long now that the situation there is now irremediable too. (Although that wasn't always the case - in the months leading up to 9/11 bush was keenly intersted in Afghanistan - making the U.S. the biggest donor of aide to the Taliban.) I'm not there, yet, but Afghanistan is a very different place to Iraq with a host of different problems and differently motivated actors. Crossing your fingers and hoping Petraeus will think of something is not a plan worthy of a Presidential candidate.

Comments

[Carol]

Another great post, and, the phrase "triangulating wimp" will be added to my reportoi (sp?) post haste.

[Ron Beasley]

Obama is becoming everything I was afraid Hillary would be. Bob Barr is looking better everyday.

[Steve Hynd]

Bob Barr? How can someone be a libertarian and not believe in open borders as a precursor to a stateless system? Libertarian nationalism is a contradiction in terms, surely. Certainly, libertarian draconian immigration policy is. It amounts to "freedom and opportunity for me but not for thee." Barr's a conservative sheeple in wolf's clothing for as long as it serves his own purpose.

Regards, C