Ontario GOP has a
couple of
posts on that challenge Democrats on Iraq. Both relate to some comments made by John Murtha earlier this week. Murtha
said the following:
I think the 'surge' is working [...] But the thing that has to happen is the Iraqis have to do
this themselves. We can't win it for them.
I agree with this assessment. At the moment, we are at the peak of our deployment in Iraq, and we've also changed tactics by working with whatever faction wants to work with us. Violence is down. But, as I
said in mid-November, the issue is the Iraqis. The surge was sold as a way to give Iraqis "breathing room" so they can form an effective government. All they've been doing lately is squabbling among themselves.
Read
today's Washington Post story on Iraq, and you'll find the current spat is over a Sunni member of parliament who is under house arrest because one of his security guards was found with keys to a car bomb. The little conflicts change, but the big story remains: the Iraqis haven't decided how to divvy up the land or the resources in their country. And it's not clear that our presence there is making them work any faster.
The surge is a successful tactic in support of a strategy that's been a failure for years. The government in Iraq just isn't working, and the question is how much longer we can afford to pour the vast majority of our military and diplomatic resources into one tiny country. The Democrats' answer in Iraq is no more, and Massa and others are saying that our presence is just delaying an inevitable partition into Sunni, Shiite and Kurd regions. The Republicans' answer is more of the same will someday lead to a strong central government. I think the Democrats' position is the better choice between two crummy alternatives, and the polls say that most of the country still agrees.
Politically, the success of the surge will only hurt Democrats if they fail to make the distinction between tactics and strategy. If the Democrats are afraid to acknowledge tactical facts, such as a decline of violence in Iraq, then they leave themselves open to the charge, which GOP makes against MoveOn.org, that they're burying their heads in the sand. GOP also calls Murtha's change of opinion a "flip flop". From the quotes he uses, I think Murtha is just stating facts, not changing position. In June, he said that he saw no evidence that the surge is working, as a military tactic. In November, he now says he sees evidence. In both cases, he points to the real strategic issue: progress by the Iraqi government. He knows the difference between strategy and tactics, one that Republicans constantly blur in their quest to spin the latest news from Iraq.
GOP also mentions the recent
MoveOn campaign against Brian Baird (D-WA-3). MoveOn spend $20K in Baird's cheap media market to chastise him for changing his position on Iraq, based on the effectiveness of the surge. I think the MoveOn campaign is a waste of resources, but that's nothing new for that ham-fisted bunch. MoveOn's ads in the 29th last cycle contained a error that gave Randy Kuhl an excuse to play the victim. As a political movement, MoveOn is mostly a noise machine appealing to a core constituency who are already politically active. Real change will come from political movements that are able to get new faces to the polls. I see no evidence that MoveOn is able to do that.
Comments
I'm not convinced "the surge is working". The reduction in violence Baghdad may stem from the fact Al-Sadr put in a six month true about three months ago and in the Anbar province it's because of an agreement with tribe members that predate the surge.
I'm disappointed that you continue to link to Ontario Republican's Cromagnon recitations of right-wing talking points. He's clearly an idiot.
I take it back, I see what you're doing. The more intelligent Republicans on the net locally -- Elmer, DiCaro, Mustard St., etc. -- aren't really Bush/Randy fans. Of the Bush/Randy fans, OR is probably the least ridiculous, so that counts for something.
I think that discussing the arguments made by Republicans on the net is a worthwhile. We will be seeing them again next Fall.
As for the point on the surge, I always feel reticent about opening cans of worms like Iraq, because I either have to write a post the length of a novel, or I glance over points. "The surge is working" is shorthand for "at this time and place, it appears that there has been some reduction in violence, some of which is related to greater presence of US troops, and a change in tactics that deploys those troops closer to the population, and makes alliances with whomever shares our short-term goals." Since the beginning and end of the surge have been well-publicized and are based on pretty hard limits on our resources, presumably some of the success of the surge is due to the smarter insurgents hiding until it is over.
The important point of the post is the distinction between strategy and tactics, and making sure that war opponents don't get hung up by short-term tactical success.
I think that a lot of anti-war people are unwilling to recognize that the administration is achieving success in Iraq since they fired Rumsfeld and started listening to anti-insurgency experts like Petreaus. Now the Bushies are in an interesting position. They have a government in Iraq that represents the majority. But many among the minority Sunnis are:
1. used to running the country and somewhat good at it
2. loathe give up their position of power, wealth and prestige
3. terrified of retribution from the Shia majority
4. in possession of wealth, worldwide political and commercial networks that make them problematic in a "Free (sans US) Iraq"
5. kissing up to the Americans in the hope that they may be able to overthrow the currently ineffective government and regain power.
From the administration's point of view, a Sunni-run Iraq would be nice, but would of course cause people to wonder why we bothered to invade -- just to eliminate Saddam?
Diplomatic efforts to get the parties in Iraq to cooperate are as complex and unpredictable as the Israeli/Palestinian problem. It's compounded by our need for oil. The solution will take a lot of time. If the stability becomes robust, we will be able to move most of our military people home.
The Sadr faction and other Shia militias will be considering all this as they decide when and if they restart their operations. For us, just leaving isn't the moral equivalent of not going in in the first place. That's what the anti-Iraq war groups are missing in my opinion. Given that we caused the instability in Iraq, and given that there is evidence that our people are finding some success at separating the warring parties and establishing a semblance of order, and that the bulk of the ethnic cleansing is done, an honest effort to allow the parties to achieve a stable country seems to be consistent with our image of ourselves as honest brokers and peace keepers.
I still don't think it's right to say "the surge is working" even if you think it shorthand for something which seems to be true. Why not just say "violence is down" if that's what you mean? Suppose I have a cold that goes away, and that I drank herbal tea in a misguided belief that herbal tea strengthens the immune system. Would it be correct for me to say "the herbal tea worked"? I don't think so.
And it's worth nothing that violence is still at the same level as it was in 2004 when it was considered too high. So things aren't going so great. On this last point especially, this isn't about partisanship. One might use the claim that things are tranquil there to argue in favor of redeployment as easily as anything else. I favor redeployment, but I'm not going to claim things are peaceful there to advance this argument.
I'm all for engaging Republicans. My thought is that it's better to engage more thoughtful ones, but most of those are not Bush fans either, so OR may be as good as it gets among real Bush-supporting Republicans. So I take back my complaints.
Vincent: I agree with your analysis of the Bush conundrum. I assume that Bush & co. will throw out a smokescreen of rhetoric and bs to help obfuscate the connection between the new boss and the old boss.
Your last paragraph is spot-on.
Exile: "Working" is always relative in Iraq, where everything is broken. So, perhaps I'm conceding too much to say that the surge is "working". But my sense is that it's had an effect that's more than the herbal tea analogy.
Nice circle jerk, guys! Very amusing.
Since you're a Republican Capitol Hill staffer, Erik, I'm not surprised by your choice of metaphors.
Actually not a Republican or a Hill staffer (although I do get to the Hill every so often), but other than that you're spot on, Sparky.
Shrivel me timbers, it's Erik(a).