Over at Winds of Change, Dan Darling has noted Sunday's Washington Post article by Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer that, to quote Dan:

basically concludes that the US has failed to achieve its political, military, and economic goals in Iraq and are now revising those goals towards more "realistic" expectations.

Dan's reaction is a lengthy cri de coeur that boils down to "Say it ain't so!" My response is, "Yes, at long last!" Although I sympathize with Dan's sentiments, I'm afraid his remarks illustrate just what a box the White House has created for itself as reality and election rhetoric have steadily diverged. Dan complains, with good reason:

No offense, but if the end-result (goal?) of this whole adventure is that Iraq is left in the hands of yet another dictator, even a benevolent one, I'm going to have to join the chorus of people asking why we've bothered to remain as long as we have. If we were planning to install yet another Iraqi dictator, couldn't we have at least stuck with Allawi, who if nothing else has been a steadfastly reliable CIA asset?

Now maybe all of this is a trial balloon that's being put out by somebody for reasons that are as yet unknown and maybe it's not. If it isn't, then this needs to be disavowed in reasonably short order (which it won't be even if it isn't for reasons I'll explain further down) and if it is then those of us, myself included, who have repeatedly argued in favor of remaining in Iraq in order to accomplish just that based on what we assumed was the administration's goals have every reason to feel betrayed.

Dan makes an impassioned case for why a "cut and run" strategy is dangerous for US interests. Given his personal focus on terrorist groups, he is particularly distressed by the notion that Al Qaeda would benefit from being able to claim to have defeated the US in Iraq. Without saying it in so many words, he also fears a sort of "Iraq syndrome" that would inhibit the US from intervening with force where necessary to deal with terrorist threats. In addition, he worries:

Another likely outcome of this process will be that the Arab reform and democratization project will be dead. The "Muslim democracy = Islamists" script has already been written for Iraq and will be held up as proof of the futility of democracy in the Middle East if not in the Muslim world as a whole.

For me, Dan's strongest argument, which he doesn't flesh out, is that leaving Iraq as a "failed state" would present a considerable threat not only to Iraq's neighbors but to the rest of the world.

The balance of Dan's remarks, and the bulk of his concern, address domestic politics and his fear that the Bush Administration and the GOP have concluded that politics trumps US interests in Iraq. He cites a series of posts that our co-blogger, Eric Martin, has published on this site [Liberals Against Terrorism], which offer plausible evidence that the US electoral calendar is influencing Iraq exit strategies.

Undoubtedly, some in the GOP hierarchy are political cynics who would like to time a reduction in troop levels with the 2006 elections. However, too much can be made of electoral politics. It would be a mistake to see the Post article as a trial balloon or the maneuvering of dissident bureaucrats within one part of the Administration or another. The recent rumblings in the media are, in fact, reflecting shifts to a more realistic and sober set of objectives -- shifts we've been tracking for a number of months. It may be news to the Post and the NYT, but not to close observers of the Bush's second term Administration.

As I argued earlier regarding the GWOT/GSAVE ruckus, the White House is "out on a limb" with its continued attachment to the politics of "war" all the while developing a far broader, longer-term and, shall we say, more nuanced strategy for combating the threats from Islamist extremism.

To mobilize a considerable part of the American public, Bush and his team oversold an idea that was questionable at the outset but has by now certainly outlived its usefulness. The Administration now has to engage in a sleight-of-hand -- it must shift goalposts and policies to ones that are far more realistic, promising and sustainable internationally, while maintaining the unquestioning loyalty of a critical domestic constituency whose support is premised on that core idea.

The President is facing an even more acute version of the same problem in Iraq. The original justifications for the invasion have gone by the boards, and the "feel-good" moments of being treated as liberators were long-gone by the time the Bremer/Sanchez duo departed Baghdad. The rationales used for the November elections were to transform the Middle East through a successful democracy in Iraq and to fight terrorists to keep them from attacking us at home. Neither rationale remains terribly satisfactory to a growing portion of the American public, as Dan outlines in his post.

A recognition of the need for clearer and more realistic objectives in Iraq, and of the urgent imperative to realign military, reconstruction and diplomatic operations with those objectives, appears to be shared across major parts of the Bush Administration's policy apparatus -- OSD, CENTCOM and State. One assumes NSC is at least participating in the rethinking and reorientation. But either the President is truly disengaged from what his key Cabinet officers and generals are doing, or the disconnect between rhetoric and reality has rendered their communication strategies brittle and increasingly vulnerable to any bit of bad news.

Pace Bill Kristol, it's not just that "Rummy doesn't want to fight to win." The generals know they've got all they can handle just to hold the finger in the dike until they can stand up an Iraqi security structure that won't disintegrate. It's not simply a matter of training. As General Barry McCaffery reported to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a month ago:

[M]uch remains to be done [with the Iraqi Security Forces]. There is no maintenance or logistics system. There is no national command and control. Corruption is a threat factor of greater long-range danger than the armed insurgency. The Insurgents have widely infiltrated the ISF. The ISF desperately needs more effective, long-term NCO and Officer training.

The generals are acutely aware that time isn't on their side -- the clock is ticking because the military can't sustain the presence it currently has in Iraq. The Number One threat or vulnerability McCaffery identified was:

Premature drawdown of U.S. ground forces driven by dwindling U.S. domestic political support and the progressive deterioration of Army and Marine manpower. (In particular, the expected melt-down of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve in the coming 36 months) [emph supplied]

Nor is State abandoning democratic values in preference for an arbitrary and artificial political timetable, pace Larry Diamond's sorrowful complaints. In the Post article cited by Dan, Diamond mourns: "We... don't have the time to go through the process we envisioned when we wrote the interim constitution -- to build a democratic culture and consensus through debate over a permanent constitution." Yes, as Eric, Swopa and others have pointed out, democracy can't be rushed and it's easy to be cynical -- it would be mighty embarrassing for the White House and mighty inconvenient for military deployment plans if the referendum and elections are postponed. But time truly is of the essence for the Iraqis as well. As Zalmay Khalizad said today on one of the Sunday newsfests:

"One of the big problems in the current situation in Iraq is that there is a lack of agreement about the future among the important Iraqi communities," he said. "And I look at the constitution as a national compact, an agreement among the various communities about the future."

Diamond's dashed hopes -- to "build a democratic culture" -- were predicated on the major groups committing to the broad outlines of the sort of basic compact Khalizad is talking about.

Further, until some core agreement can be reached, there's no hope in bringing critical portions of the Sunni insurgencies into the fold. Until a compact is reached -- which is sufficiently sustainable to survive the referendum process -- both the Iraqi government and the US military are pretty much engaged in day-to-day management of a low-intensity civil war. Delay is the enemy -- it benefits both insurgents and the political and economic groups using unsavory methods to vie for power within the new system. The constitutional drafting process is forcing the issues from the realm of political rhetoric -- demands and threats by leaders speaking to their respective communities -- to the difficult world of hard bargaining. They will likely not get everything thrashed out by Monday, and a postponement of the draft wouldn't be surprising. But they'll be a lot closer than they were and will have a better idea of where the ultimate dealbreakers are. Maybe they'll never get there and civil war is their only future. But before we worry about developing a democratic culture, the basic bargain has to be struck.

To return to the various sources of Dan's angst about realism intruding into Administration policy. First, isn't it time we face up to the fact that the Iraq war was never part of a "war on terror" nor was it about fighting terrorists in Iraq to avert another 9/11. This confusion, shared by an unfortunately large number of US troops, has probably been responsible for a number of the difficulties the US has faced as an occupying authority in treatment of civilians and detainees. The idea that we'd "rather fight 'em there than here" is both nonsense and morally repugnant, to put it politely. True, we are now forced to fight terrorists in Iraq. But that's not because we're preventing them from attacking the US, but rather because they're trying to prevent a functioning country from emerging. Of course, in the sense that the US has a strong interest in the future of Iraq, fighting the terrorists is protecting the US. And I share some of Dan's concerns about the manner in which the US withdraws from Iraq producing a psychological victory for jihadists. But those are not the ways that President Bush employs the claim that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terror.

Second, except for the Jacobins and dreamers, the war has never been about "the march of freedom" in the sense of creating a liberal democracy in the Middle East as a beacon to the region. I'm not one of folks who think that Muslims or Arabs can't be democrats. I for one wanted to see elections for an interim government as early as possible instead of the CPA taking total charge. I also welcomed the January elections as a critical but small step toward a better future for Iraq and Iraqis (although not, I might add, as a vindication of the decision to go to war in Iraq).

But I also recognize that reconciling the tensions among democratic institutions, freedoms, rule of law and cultural norms is a massive undertaking for any society -- the US itself is engaged in perpetual adjustments to manage those tensions. When you add to the mix the number of circles that the Iraqis have to square -- most notably regarding federalism and the role of Islam as a source of civil law -- we shouldn't be surprised at the way things are turning out. For me, the source of never-ending surprise is that so many Americans still think that they can dictate the results of what has to be a sustainable bargain among the Iraqis themselves.

Although not yet articulated by the President, the US now has far more focused objectives, which are starting to be reflected in policy on both the military and civilian sides. This isn't about the US "winning the war." It's about creating the basic conditions for Iraqis to make a decent life for themselves and not present a threat to others. The way I would define the strategic objective of the US presence in Iraq was well summed up by Gen McCaffery in his Foreign Relations Committee testimony:

The point of the US war effort is to create legitimate and competent Iraqi national, provincial, and municipal governance.

That may not sound like a glorious reason to fight. It doesn't sound like a "noble cause" that would satisfy Cindy Sheehan -- although maybe it would, if it were stated clearly. But it's actually an extremely ambitious goal, which to achieve will take enormous ongoing expenditure of blood and treasure as well as political and military resolve. As I discussed earlier regarding adjustments in counterinsurgency strategies, it will also require constant flexibility and adaptation of American strategic ends and operational means. And that's assuming the Iraqis themselves can come to a consensus on what sort of governance they want, or at least will accept.

In a great comment posted by jonnybutter, he warns me of the dangers of political naivete. But I'd nonetheless like to see Bush make the case I've outlined rather than remain trapped in his obsolete political rhetoric. It's what Joe Biden means when he says Bush needs to "level with the American people" before they lose patience. Unlike Biden, I wouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place. But now we're there, US interests are indeed at stake. We've got a long, difficult road ahead that will necessarily require adjustments. Thank goodness, US policies have been shifting to reflect reality on the ground.

My political concerns are the opposite of Dan's -- that Bush will "stay on message." Is America really going to be better off if the President and the antiwar folks manage between them to further polarize the Iraq war even though there's a significant common ground that could be built around the very policies his Administration is beginning to pursue? Bush is doing a disservice to the rest of his Administration, the troops and the country by clinging to meaningless sloganeering to maintain the loyalty of his base. There are centrist Republicans and large numbers of Democrats in Congress who don't buy the Bush rhetoric but are pleading to work with his Administration on realistic policies. My fear is that they will become increasingly isolated in the center -- treated as defeatists by Bush partisans and as out-of-touch hawkish elites who have betrayed liberal ideals by those who want out of Iraq yesterday. As a wartime President, Bush should be pulling people together by defining the true challenges and real limitations we face, explaining how and why our policies are adapting to circumstance, and specifying what we're really there to achieve. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to see that sort of leadership out of this President.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

"Best Practices in Counterinsurgency" is the title of an article in the May/June issue of Military Review (pdf, published by CGSC at Leavenworth). It's written by a co-author of an Army study of Special Operations Forces during the first six months of Afghanistan. Kalev Sepp reviews 17 insurgencies over the past century as well as looks at features of 36 others and summarizes factors that tended to characterize successful and unsuccessful counterinsurgencies.

Other analysts and historians would undoubtedly come up with a somewhat different list, but it's a useful starting point for refining both goals and methods to achieve them. [For those who can't get enough of counterinsurgency more generally, the article is also a useful companion piece to Kingdaddy's ongoing series on insurgency strategies pursued by different types of revolutionaries.]

Successful

• Emphasis on intelligence.
  
• Focus on population, their needs, and security.
  
• Secure areas established, expanded.
  
• Insurgents isolated from population (population
  control).
  
• Single authority (charismatic/dynamic leader).
  
• Effective, pervasive psychological operations
  (PSYOP) campaigns.
  
• Amnesty and rehabilitation for insurgents.
  
• Police in lead; military supporting.
  
• Police force expanded, diversified.
  
• Conventional military forces reoriented for
  counterinsurgency.
  
• Special Forces, advisers embedded with
  indigenous forces.
  
• Insurgent sanctuaries denied.
  

Unsuccessful

• Primacy of military direction of counterinsurgency.
  
• Priority to “kill-capture” enemy, not on engaging
  population.
  
• Battalion-size operations as the norm.
  
• Military units concentrated on large bases for
  protection.
  
• Special Forces focused on raiding.
  
• Adviser effort a low priority in personnel assignment.
  
• Building, training indigenous army in image of
  U.S. Army.
  
• Peacetime government processes.
  
• Open borders, airspace, coastlines.

With all the recent noise about the timing of US withdrawal from Iraq and the growing disconnect between White House rhetoric and what the US military is actually planning to do, the pundits are losing sight of changes that have been going on for some months that don't involve aggregate force levels or the simple metric of number of Iraqis trained. These changes are affecting both the work being done to build Iraqi security forces and the current counterinsurgency operational priorities of the US forces.

This checklist seems to me to capture a lot of the adjustments the US military has been making that have been emerging over the past nine months or so. From a broader policy standpoint of what the US should be trying to accomplish in Iraq and what resources are required, the list is also a handy guide for major vulnerabilities that may need addressing promptly or, unfortunately, may no longer be reparable.

Personally, I think we should applaud the adjustments the generals are continuing to make in Iraq -- and vocally encourage more of them. By now we already know about the disastrous consequences of trying to run an occupation on the cheap, refusing to plan for "winning the peace," and failing to remember lessons from other occupations and counter-insurgencies. Surely we don't need to point to every change in goals or methods as evidence of incompetence or worse. That just creates incentives for an overabundance of caution, not making changes when needed, and other CYA behavior.

The Iraq debacle will fuel debates for decades to come about when/whether/how to engage US forces in the future. But in the meantime, for what to do in Iraq now and in the coming years, we should be trying to get out of the current political dynamic, where both Bush supporters and opponents treat any deviation from plan as evidence of failure. The debate between "stay the course" and "withdraw" may be real at the political level but as a practical matter it's a phony one. As I've noted on a number of occasions, the Administration has been rapidly shifting goal posts (yes, adopting a lot of what Kerry was saying), but it's trapped in its own political rhetoric. We may relish watching the Bushies deservedly squirm, but just as hope is not a plan, neither is schadenfraude.

True, simply reacting to rapidly changing circumstances by devising a different "plan" every few months can deteriorate into chickens running around without heads. But adjustment to changing circumstances -- at both the strategic and operational levels -- is a good thing. Failure to adjust -- or failure to communicate adjustments to both the public and the troops who have to execute -- is unhealthy.

The dynamic nature of both policy and military strategy, and their interconnections, demands flexibility and adaptation. Pierre Lessard, in "Campaign Design for Winning the War... and Peace" (Parameters, Summer 2005) gives some historical perspective.

But even steady policy is no guarantee of a correspondingly unalterable military strategy. [...] Indeed, in World War II, Allied military strategy experienced no less than eight major decisions involving significant repercussions for theater- or operational-level commanders between 1942 and 1945, or about once every five months. Thus, military strategic objectives are rarely enduring, and campaign design must be sufficiently agile to adjust to their fluctuations.

A competent leadership (both civilian and military) should be clarifying its objectives and showing how it can learn from mistakes and adapt to changing circumstances. A responsible opposition should demand no less.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

US reconstruction efforts in Iraq are widely seen as critical elements of US policy, not only to improve the lives of Iraqis but as "pacification" tools -- to convince ordinary Iraqis that their lives will be better if they don't support the various forces opposing the US forces and the Iraqi government. Yet after billions of dollars already spent and far more billions allocated for reconstruction, the process is not going well, to say the least.

Most of the criticisms of Iraq reconstruction are aimed at poor planning and implementation by the US government and contractors -- inordinate bureaucratic delays in contracting and execution of projects, poor-to-nonexistent results in the most critical sectors such as utilities and the oil industry, sky-rocketing costs as security problems continue to mount, inadequate employment of Iraqis, etc.

Criticism from a different and refreshing perspective is offered by Cpt Christopher Ford, a Command Judge Advocate for a Brigade Combat Team in the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Baghdad, in a recent article in Parameters. He describes how the design of reconstruction programs and the spending of project funds fail to work as effective "carrots" within an integrated counter-insurgency strategy. Several of his points echo comments I've made elsewhere, such as the need to think about not only how to "buy" supporters in a given locale, but how those supporters will "stay bought," as well as the importance of using reconstruction programs as a method for strengthening the capacity of the Iraqi government.

Never let it be said that the US Army doesn't try to learn from other disciplines or examine new ways of thinking about what they're doing. Cpt Ford's analysis reads as if it were written by someone with hands-on experience in political and economic development programs in developing countries. He pays attention to getting incentives right, gaining local buy-in, and building local institutional capacity.

The principles underlying Ford's recommendations apply to promoting sustainable political and economic change, whether the change is occurring in a peaceful environment or one of considerable political violence. And successful political and economic change is precisely what's involved in shifting the attitudes of key elements of a population from one of passive "neutrality" towards counter-insurgent forces -- which plays into the hands of the insurgents -- to one of "support" for the counter-insurgent forces. This isn't "winning hearts and minds" but rather persuading segments of the population that it's more in their interest to be with the authorities (Iraqi and, by association, US forces) than to remain passively neutral.

Cpt Ford's article covers other ways he would adjust US counter-insurgency operations so as to better "target a population’s neutrality to defeat an insurgency," especially distinguishing among different ways to use force. Although the rest of the article makes interesting reading, here's the bit I especially liked on getting the carrots right. He also makes an interesting argument about the efficacy/feasibility of involving civilian agencies in reconstruction in Iraq (see especially footnote below), which would equally apply to the US military's relationships with non-US agencies involved in reconstruction, such as the World Bank or other foreign donors.

The “carrot approach” presumes first a goal and second a motivating factor to encourage the people to work toward that goal. In Iraq, the goal is a supportive population that resists insurgent activity and fosters stability, and the motivating factor is billions of dollars of reconstruction projects. As noted earlier, the fallacy of this approach as frequently applied in Iraq has been threefold: (1) reconstruction projects are not incentive based; (2) the reconstruction process is not holistic in nature; and (3) the reconstruction process often undermines the authority of the Iraqi government.

Most critical, perhaps, is the general failure to establish the link between behavior and reward. Often, the reconstruction projects in a particular town or section of a city are not initiated as a reward for the peaceful nature of that geographic locale. Indeed, reconstruction projects are more frequently targeted at the most restless locales in an effort to persuade the people in those areas that the coalition is the better of the two sides because it provides projects and employment. This tactic provides little incentive for the people to turn against the insurgents and risk their lives for the benefit of the coalition. By merely remaining passive, they reap the benefits of the projects while maintaining their personal safety from the insurgent threat.

A more effective system would treat reconstruction projects as an incentive through which the incentive-giver can influence the activity or behavior of the population. Adopting this approach would require a cessation of all reconstruction projects in sectors or cities that present a level of violence above a threshold established by the local commander. The population would be given notice that the projects have stopped because the security situation does not permit their continuation.

The impact of reconstruction projects is often further diluted by awarding construction projects to those individuals claiming to represent the community, often Sheiks, Imams, or prominent businesspersons. The extent to which these individuals represent the people, or have the ability to control the people, can rarely be quantified. A stated goal of operations in Iraq is the restoration of the rule of law. Awarding contracts to allegedly well-connected persons simply widens the wealth gap, increases resentment toward the coalition, and strengthens the positions of people of unknown character. More critically, this process undermines the power of the government because the coalition is empowering nonstate actors (Sheiks, Imams, etc.) to act in a state-like manner—executing infrastructure projects, building and staffing medical clinics, maintaining security, and providing disaster relief. The reconstruction focus should shift from trying to appease powerbrokers to empowering the Iraqi government.

The way to achieve this end involves selecting construction companies based on competency not connections, managing fewer projects to ensure better quality, and training and empowering local and national governments to execute their own reconstruction projects. Further, just as the Iraqi army and police are provided with extensive military and police training, the Iraqi government should be furnished with reconstruction training. This latter point highlights the third issue with reconstruction assistance: the piecemeal nature of the reconstruction.

During the course of operations in Iraq, the vast majority of the reconstruction was, and continues to be, conducted and administered by the military. The Department of State and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have also contributed significantly to the reconstruction process, though their efforts have been limited at times due to the security situation and, initially, because of organizational obstacles.** The Iraqi government has participated on a somewhat diminished scale due to their lack of resources and lack of institutional skill and knowledge. The participation of the State Department and USAID largely has been a component of security and coordination, whereas the participation of the Iraqi government has been a function of resources and ability. Closer coordination between all parties and an emphasis on assisting the Iraqi government would produce more reliable projects, spread the wealth across the population, and empower the Iraqi government.

** The US Agency for International Development is the government agency charged with “long-range economic and social development assistance.” Despite this charge, the US military has taken the lead in both planning and executing reconstruction projects. The oft-stated reason is that only the military can operate in the present security situation. This is a common fallacy. The Department of State and USAID can develop and manage a comprehensive reconstruction program immaterial of the security situation. At the strategic level, the threat is minimal, and at the tactical level, military units are eager to support embedded USAID staff. That is not to say military participation is improper. 10 U.S.C., sec. 3062, and Department of Defense Directive 5100.1 specifically contemplate military participation in the advancement of US national policy.

[UPDATE] Just to clarify, I'd have a number of questions for Cpt Ford before I endorsed all of his specific recommendations. But I do think he's asking the right questions and thinking about the process in the right way.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

Cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

So argues the Armchair Generalist today, citing a straight-talking Marine, Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, commander of Marine Forces Pacific (MARFORPAC). The good General doesn't think much of the "war on terror" as a conceptual basis for determining what the US military should be doing -- and not doing.

The pernicious effects of talking about a "global war on terror" has been a long-standing personal hobby-horse -- both regarding military operations and the US' broader grand strategy for foreign policy. Until President Bush recently chose to reinvigorate the bogus GWOT-9/11-Iraq linkage for tactical political purposes, we'd seen a gradual and welcome shift in the Administration's global strategy via a steady but rather surrepticious substitution of "extremism" for "terrorism" in public remarks, combined with an increased emphasis on democracy promotion and "soft power" tools. I'm pleased to see some US military leaders address the matter explicitly and hope that the President's tactical reversion to GWOT-speak won't impinge on the improved thinking that Gregson's remarks suggest.

The AG links to Eric Umansky, who quotes from a recent Naval War College address by Gregson, as reported in Inside Defense. Gregson's argument fits nicely within the framework of a "marginalization" strategy I've previously advocated as a replacement for a GWOT strategy. Gregson is arguing that the our strategic objective shouldn't be to wipe out terrorists but rather to reduce their effectiveness -- to marginalize extremists from the "vast majority" of the local populations in the societies in which they operate.

more below the fold   more »

What with the nominations of Bolton and Wolfowitz and the release of the National Defense Strategy and the new "blueprint" for UN reform, I've been thoroughly depressed the past couple of weeks about the possibility of an overall philosophical turn-for-the-worse of US foreign policy under the new Bush Administration. With a host of loosely connected ideas churning around in the brain, I've deliberately avoided a lot of the day-to-day debate and have returned to reading some of my old favorites, trying to get a better sense of balance and perspective.

To further divert myself from gnashing of teeth and rending of garments in extreme frustration, I've decided to take up two closely-related topics, recently raised by Matt Yglesias, that I think the Bush Administration has been handling a good deal better than in the past.

Matt is advocating the "declare victory and come home" approach to getting out of Iraq. Although presented as a rhetorical innovation, I'd argue that the Bush Administration is ahead of him on this one. Robert Novak was correct last fall -- this is the strategy the Bush Administration hoped to be able to execute, and with the relatively successful elections at the end of January, they've shifted all their weight to that approach. The triumphalist celebrations over the elections themselves were the equivalent, psychologically, of declaring the war "won."

For those who have generally opposed the overall thrust of the Bush Administration's foreign policies, I believe that framing the outcomes in Iraq in terms of the US "winning" or "losing" is counterproductive. Rather, we should put the question of "winning" or "losing" in Iraq aside rhetorically, and instead focus on measures for "success" for the Iraqis going forward. To that extent, I'm a supporter of the Bush Administration's current rhetoric on the subject, because I think it's far healthier for the body politic. As an aside, and meriting another discussion entirely, I find the Bush Administration's current focus on "success" in terms of political outcomes for the Iraqis, rather than in terms of US military "victory" over a constantly shifting motley crew of terrorists, insurgents, thugs and other ill-defined enemy, to be a belated and refreshing reintroduction of some Clausewitizian strategic wisdom to the whole Iraq adventure.

For those who opposed the original invasion, it's tempting to say "We can't let the Bush Administration declare victory. We have to get everyone to understand how terribly bad the invasion policies were so we won't make the same mistakes again." But a "looking forward" strategy doesn't mean that the bleak lessons of the Iraq adventure would be lost in the future on US intervention policies. The Bush Administration is not claiming a "victory" in the sense of a clean win, with the troops marching home in triumph, spoils of war in hand, bad guys finished off. The definition of "success" has been defined downward steadily, and will almost certainly continue to be so as it takes months and years to extract the US military presence from Iraq (and for that matter, Afghanistan), accompanied by the inevitable steady drip of casualty figures and the inevitable climb of defense budget estimates.   more »

... of open, accountable government and our system of checks and balances -- including the press -- doing its job, there's this side-splitting piece of work from the normally rather staid Independent Institute, courtesy MaxSpeaks.

But then again, as Eric Martin asks, "Why bother to revise history when you can bury it?"

As I've indicated previously, I've grown increasingly cranky about the amount of heat and smoke that's been generated over whether "democracy is on the march" in the Middle East, why, and what it should mean for America's (or Democrats', or the Left's, etc) grand strategy. A modest cure for my crankiness arrived from a surprising source today: Jim Hoagland. He offers a perspective I hope a great many people can embrace, so we can stop fighting the last (US civil) war over Iraq. It's time to look outward and forward to what should be the basic posture of US policy in the region.

The status quo is certainly shifting in the Middle East. Prospects for the resolution of long-frozen poisonous conflicts are emerging, with at least a reason to hope that resolution can take place within representative political structures rather than through violence, repressive autocracies, or foreign domination. And the US can support this process in a variety of constructive ways.

Jim Hoagland is being cautious about this Beirut Spring, not solely based on his first-hand experience in Lebanon over decades. His optimism is also tempered by some useful lessons he draws from the last two years in Iraq. As he notes:

Exaggerated optimism about Iraq -- mine included -- gave rise to post-invasion bitterness and exaggerated pessimism inside and outside the administration. The overreaction -- the swift, continuing alternation in perception between "success" and "failure" -- obscured the need for a speedy transfer of responsibility to Iraqis and helped delay elections there. The political runways in Iraq were overshot, successively, in opposite directions.

So what should the US be doing? Hoagland recommends the same recipe the US has begun to follow in Iraq -- first and foremost, staying focused on the really important goal, which is to facilitate the tortuous process by which the Lebanese themselves reach a new modus vivendi that will serve as the foundation for reconstructing their political system. From the US, what is required is a sense of balance, patience, and taking advantage of opportunities to collaborate with other nations with influence in the situation.

The best way to aid Lebanon's rebirth as a nation is to keep the focus on the intricate set of political negotiations over power-sharing that the Lebanese themselves must initiate, manage and make succeed once the Syrian boot is off their neck.
[...]
France and the United States have found common cause to press Syria's Bashar Assad to withdraw troops that were first sent to Beirut in 1976 with the approval of both powers. "Paris wants to stabilize Lebanon, and Washington wants to destabilize Syria," a diplomat in Europe said to me recently. "There's something for everyone."

Hoagland's warning about avoiding the roller-coaster of excessive enthusiasm and despair is not only a way of saying we must give the Lebanese opposition the time and space to negotiate with the other Lebanese political groups. It's also important that Americans don't lose their heads if things get sticky; to think that Syrian push-back or the political expression of Hizbollah require rushing in to ensure a desired outcome. The US won't be doing either itself or the Lebanese any favors if it allows itself to get sucked into one side or another of their semi-eternal multifaceted internal power struggles. As Hoagland notes, without even mentioning the Palestinians, whose presence in Lebanon has played a far from insignificant role:

Each of Lebanon's three large population groups -- Christians, Sunnis and Shiites -- has competitively and disastrously relied on outsiders to provide a margin of domination that none can achieve alone.

I personally have a good deal of sympathy for the reported reluctance of the Bush Administration to begin discussing the possible expansion of the UN's Interim Force in Lebanon to potentially fill the vacuums left by Syrian withdrawal and/or disarmament of Hizbollah. Lots of time to get to the point of asking "who, what, when, whether and how much." Offering the prospect of another outside force in the middle would seem to just encourage the Lebanese to continue their old ways of using outsiders for their own purposes.

The Bush Administration also appears to be alive to the same danger in Iraq -- of being pulled in by one group or another to "sort things out." A danger all the more acute given the necessity of some form of US military presence in Iraq for some time to come. Complete neutrality among the contending factions is clearly impossible -- all the more so when some of those factions are trying to kill your troops. Nor am I proposing the US is or should be indifferent to the broad outlines of a final outcome.

A delicate tightrope to walk, but one that will be easier to navigate if there is a widely shared view -- at least within the less extreme of American political groupings -- that US policy should focus on supporting a participatory process in which the locals sort out their own conflicts.

{update Jan 31 9:35PM EST} by nadezhda

This article was written in the hours just before the polls opened in Iraq on Sunday. Since then we've all been absorbing the remarkable, uplifting images of Iraqis by the millions -- of all ages, gender, ethnicity, faith -- celebrating in their "wedding finest" their hopes for their future, and with a degree of courage hard to fathom.

We still await the actual results of the Iraqis' historic exercise of their political voices - one which many of us around the world have long called for. Once the votes are counted, as I note in the article, we'll have a better sense of what possibilities face the Iraqis as they take their next steps toward self-governance.

While we wait the tally, there's been considerable reaction across the blogosphere. As the article indicates, I'm not surprised by the nature of most of that reaction, though I have to admit I'm sorely disappointed in many respects.

Where I can't say I'm disappointed, however, is that chez Nadezhda has been the beneficiary of some of that froth of blogospheric excitation, with links to this essay from a number of other blogs. We haven't been Instalanched, but we have been "Dispatched" and "Winded," among others. Thanks for the positive response, and our blogging service thanks you for the extra bandwidth fees!

praktike has an great roundup at Dean's Nation of some of the best responses to the elections (best from the viewpoint here at chez Nadezhda). The quotes he collects come from the center and center-left of the blogosphere. They reflect the best thinking of those whom Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation and Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, describes today as one side of the new cleavage emerging in US foreign policy.

In a must-read essay in The Washington Note, Clemons explains that the main cleavage of post World War II foreign policy was between the realists and the liberal internationalists -- setting to one side the more strictly "anti-war" left and the "pull-up-the-castle-gates" right . As Steve points out, the dividing lines are now shifting. Those of us whose intuitions draw on the heritage of the post-WWII generation -- Truman democrats (small d) if you will -- find ourselves on the other side of an emerging and vocal alliance of neo-con "heavy" and "lite."

The relative scarcity in the blogosphere of loud responses from Truman democrats is a warning of how rare a bird we "pragmatic optimists" are in the blogosphere. Not surprisingly, I personally believe that's an important absence that needs to be redressed with more efforts like ours here at chez Nadezhda and Liberals against Terrorism.

{update: Jan 31 11:45AM EST} by nadezhda

Though we don't yet have the election results, there are some interesting initial takeaways. The always reliable Dan Darling outdoes himself with an indepth report on the insurgency and security issues surrounding the election, and what it may mean for the Zarqawi jihadists.

Zarqawi suffered an unqualified defeat today - one that he is not likely to soon recover from. Not only did he fail at his purported desire to derail the Iraqi vote, but he was unable to carry out anything resembling the kind of operations that his group has mounted in the past in either the Kurdish or the Shi'ite areas of the country. This was literally his "make or break" moment in the eyes of the al-Qaeda leadership and goes to show just how limited the insurgency is to a single geographic area of the country, only being able to launch attacks in other areas such as Irbil or Basra with extensive preparation and planning.

See "Iraqi Elections: Zarqawi Gambled -- and Lost."

{update: Jan 30 12:50AM EST} by nadezhda

Seems there's someone else who shares my suspicions of debating the metrics of success. Brad Plumer doesn't think much of any "armchair narrative we decide to impose tomorrow."

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{Article originally posted by nadezhda Jan 29 2005 4:00PM EST}

Some years ago I concluded that the common abbreviation for the United States of America -- US -- is all too apt. We have become a self-absorbed nation and society that defines everything in terms of "us."

In part, that's just human nature. Recently, however, we've displayed a bit more human nature than is altogether healthy. And rarely more so than in what passes for analysis in the run-up to the Iraqi elections. SuperBowlWeek has nothing on IraqiElectionWeek as a content-free zone of emotionally-charged vapidity.

The phenomenon is shared across the entire political spectrum, but the item that compelled me to the keyboard this morning came from Andrew Sullivan, who asks what the measure for "success" should be on Sunday.

I asked myself, is this like Howie asking Bradshaw during the pregame show -- if they beat the point spread can we also call the Patriots a dynasty?

I single Sullivan out merely as an illustration of our collective self-absorption -- on both left and right -- that produces such a profoundly wrong-headed perspective on the world. A self-absorbed worldview is a dangerous one in an interdependent world such as our own.    more »

I must apologize for being remiss in my duties here at chez Nadezhda over the past few days. The front desk has been left empty for extended periods, and it's really my fault. Praktike has been on an amazing production streak at LaT and the Chef has been covered with dust from head to toe reclassifying the entire central library collection at TerrorWiki. Prak has been kind enough to cover the front desk here from time to time.

I've been off doing some remodelling, as well as planning another room (I'm afraid I'm a frustrated interior designer at heart!). And I forgot to leave a note on the door to go round back.

So here's a bit of something until the crew leaves and I get the construction mess cleaned up.

These are comments I wrote over at Eric Martin's place a week before the inauguration. I think you might find some of it relevant to discussions since the inaugural address -- how the Bush Administration is repositioning re the "GWOT" vocabulary, the relations between the CIA and DOD in covert operations, and the rumbles of cross-border excursions in Iraq.

The comments aren't addressed to the specifics of the current brouhahas, but sometimes I have to remind myself to keep the big picture in mind as I react to specific events or disclosures, especially the more outrageous. So I find it helpful to occassionally go back to look at something I said, even if it was only a week ago. [ed., no comments about senior moments now, you hear?]

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For context, the discussion at Eric's was about Norman Podhoretz' "revisionism in real time" (to use Eric's felicitous formulation) and the various "enemies within" to which Norman's salvo was likely addressed. My remarks begin with an important and timely question from Alex:

A serious question: If Bush decides to invade another country [i.e. Iran or Syria, ed.], do you think he will attempt to use the congressional authorization from the Iraq War for permission, OR do you think that he will ask for a new authorization, OR do you think he'll just go ahead?

Sorry, I'm impatient. Can't wait for your answers. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THIS CONGRESS WITH AUTHORIZE ANY NEW WAR DURING THE REMAINDER OF THIS PRESIDENCY, excepting following an attack of course. Zero.

My response, edited a bit for readibility but otherwise just stream of keyboard:

See the excellent recent Lawrence Freedman piece on The Iraq Syndrome, which will be Rumsfeld's legacy, in the same way Robert McNamara's was the Vietnam Syndrome. My very quicky remarks on Freedman are here.

I believe Freedman is absolutely correct about an Iraq Syndrome. There's a big difference between a significant portion of the public being willing to continue to support (or at least not openly oppose) Bush and the US invasion because "America right or wrong." They get their backs up when somebody suggests that the President and the US did the wrongn thing.

It's another thing altogether for those same people to support a further adventure. They're going to be awfully gun-shy, pun intended.

The causus belli would have to be sufficiently major that it triggered the viscera of Americans across the political spectrum. The US would have to feel itself under direct attack -- not some argument of possible future threat that must be prevented or preempted. Unless we have a meltdown of our political system, the Bush Doctrine as a military strategy is dead, but there's not anything yet in its place.

If a new intervention were pushed by the Bush Administration, a much larger portion of the general public this time around would want to know in great many more of the details about military overstretch, quagmires and exit strategy, possible "blowback," etc. These issues were dismissable in the wake of 9/11, with the drumbeats being echoed by the MSM, and with the "lessons of Vietnam" dismissed as either irrelevant or "we've gotten over Vietnam by now."

By contrast, Iraq is, shall we say, still fresh in the mind? We've got a new situation that's looking more and more like quagmire from any and every angle. And this time around, the MSM has a whole other narrative in which to filter and frame pronouncements from the Bush Administraton.

I'd say the foregoing description of a general public that is more cautious or less willing to take Bush's pronounements on faith is similarly equally true for a goodly portion of Repubs on Capitol Hill. Most are not of the neo-con persuasion. Also, they're politicians, so the reluctance of a larger portion of their voters, and the willingness of a larger number of their home districts to take a hard look at the bill-of-goods the Bush Admin would be selling if they followed the Poddy script, is likely to put the brakes on any adventure. We're already hearing rumbles from Repub Congressmen after visiting their home districts.

All of this is equally applicable, BTW, to any proposal for humanitarian interventions that involve peacemaking -- not just helping disaster victims like the tsunami. The Iraq Syndrome will put any thoughts of a repeat of interventions in the Balkans, or going into a Sudan, under the microscope across the political spectrum, not just from the old-fashioned anti-war Left or the isolationist Right.

The thing to watch for is mission creep in Iraq. Please note that although Rumsfeld was pretty direct about denying US-supported Iraqi death squads (by the Pentagon, didn't say anything about the other agency, heh) he was notably less straightforward about crossing the border into Syria by US special forces.

[ed., I highlighted Rumsfeld's statements on Syria because I found astounding the naivete of certain right-wing bloggers when they dumped on Rumsfeld for being too "casual" in his reaction to the Newsweek article on the Salvador option. Donald Rumsfeld may decide to appear breezy some times in responding to the press, but his responses are never "casual." If he said he hadn't read the article, you can go to the bank on the statement as being factually accurate. If you inferred, however, that he was unaware of every last jot of every sentence in the article in terms of what he could and couldn't safely say, you are a fool. He is the only one of the leading lights of BushAdmin1 to have been caught in an out-and-out falsehood over the invasion of Iraq only once. And that case appears to have been a slip of the tongue he has regretted fiercely. Always, always parce Rumsfeld -- most especially when he's being "casual."]

I hate to keep returning to Vietnam, but there are features of that conflict that should at least be examined occasionally. One is the understandable temptation by both the WH and the military to go to where they think the source of the problem lies -- across the neighboring borders. The international and domestic political fallout can be considerable, as the Cambodian bombings demonstrated. And mission creep can also be a factor in spreading instability outside of the country of conflict. That's just a commonsense observation, not a moral judgment.

Now one of the big problems is that, unless we take Kristol's proposal and bomb the Syrians openly, the BushAdmin and the military have to conduct deniable operations. That means one or both of two things. We ultimately engage unofficial/paramilitary groups to do the incursions. We lie through our teeth about it publicly.

The latter course was adopted by the Nixon WH with respect to Cambodia (hey -- Kerry's Cambodia story to this day can't be documented because it's shrouded in a system designed for deniability). And at some point, deniability exploded in their face, and LBJ's Credibility Gap became Nixon's Grand Canyon of government-by-deceit. That was a terrible scar on US domestic politics writ large, not just on the future conduct of US foreign policy.

Now, as for Finlandization [ed. appropo of Podhoretz]. I don't have a reference for you at my fingertips that gives you a broader history. But it's the Poddy codeword for the sinister policies of creeping appeasement of the guys who were running the show in Reagan II -- not the stalwart anticommunists of Iran-contra and the NSC but the (sneer) diplomats. He and Midge were still yammering about Finlandization at conferences on Europe after October 1989!

The reemergence of Jimmy Baker must have them in a cold sweat. Baker is the incarnation of evil because he's so much more plausible than the cartoonish anti-war Left. Granted the Podhoretz crowd is all geared up for realtime revisionism (take a gander at Roger Simon's comment section on the Podhoretz article if you want to see an awesome example of your [Eric's] meme in action). But if you want to know who their real enemy is, it's Jimmy Baker and his ilk because that smooth talker is one dangerous man.

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Follow-up from Alex:

[O]ne major difference between now and Cambodia is the media. I think secret runs into Syria would land on Al Jazeera in a heartbeat, although I do allow for the possibility that there is lots going on in Iraq that we simply don't know is happening. From what I understand from press reports, the press is quite restricted from moving around by the insecurity.

Another question that I find interesting to contemplate is the military force size question in relation to the possibility of invading "the next country." Unless all the retired military analysts are lying about our force strength, attacking a new country doesn't seem feasible at this time. And that begs the question of just what we would do if WE were attacked here and wanted to retaliate. Shift forces from Iraq or Afghanistan?

I think if it really came to that, particularly following an attack, that there would be a serious readjustment in the world view to send troops, including NATO and maybe UN, to replace troops in Iraq and redirect them (maybe borrow some from Afghan., too). What I don't like is being in the position of being so vulnerable, especially for no good reason.

I heard that Baker had made a statement, but I haven't tracked down what he said yet. In fact, I have been waiting for him to speak ever since Scowcroft's and Zbig's comments last week. What I would dearly love to know is the current status among Bush 41, Brent and Baker. Can you say strained?

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From nadezhda to Alex --

Here's a link to a press report of Baker's speech.

It's about time! However, the way I read the situation, Baker is out there running interference for Dubya. This is where the BushAdmin is generally headed, but somebody's got to tell the faithful that it's time for a reality-based policy. Rude awakening for many, I fear, if the comment thread on Roger Simon re the Podhoretz article is any indication.

Atrios punchline on the completion of the hunt for WMD in Iraq:

Team has been reassigned to find WMD hiding in the Social Security Trust Fund.

Sorry, couldn't resist.