The 'Blame The Iraqis' Gambit

[SWJED]

3 June Washington Post commentary - The 'Blame The Iraqis' Gambit (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/01/AR2007060102179.html) by Robert Kagan.


When people want to justify the unjustifiable and accept the unacceptable, they try all kinds of ways to make themselves feel better about their decision. For those who want to pull out of Iraq, there is a whole panoply of excuses:

"Bush lied us into war" is the favorite of many Democrats, including presidential candidates who supported the war but now want to claim they were misled. "Bush screwed up the war" is the favorite of people such as me and others who argued from the beginning for more troops and a different military strategy and were told to shut up by folks in the Pentagon and the White House.

Both of these excuses have the same problem. No matter why we went into Iraq and no matter how badly we have fought the war up until recently, this tells us nothing about what to do now. It doesn't make withdrawal any less costly. It doesn't make an implosion in Iraq and a victory for al-Qaeda any more tolerable.

The same is true for what has now become the most powerful and pervasive excuse for pulling out of Iraq: "It's the Iraqis' fault."...

[John T. Fishel]

Robert Kagan is one of the best observer/analysts of conteporary Strategic Politics (broadest sense) I have run across. His Of Paradise and Power is a superb analysis of the US and Europe. Less well known is his first book, A Twilight Struggle, focusing on the Contras from a participant observer's perspective in DOS. So, Mr. Kagan has some Small Wars credentials when he writes about Iraq. In the interests of fairness, it should also be noted that Robert Kagan is the brother of Fred Kagan who, with GEN Jack Keane, is one of the intellectual authors of the current strategy being executed by GEN Petraeus and his "band of merry men" and women.

His analysis, IMO, is sound. But he still does not really answer the question of when the truth of the assertion that the Iraqi's have not fully stepped up to the plate outweighs the cost of supporting them. He certainly makes the argument that even though the process is slow, it is happening and it is in our national interest to support it, make it grow, etc so that we can reduce our signature significantly having achieved our objectives.

However, despite our best efforts (which I think we are finally putting forth) that may not happen. In which case, Mr Kagan does not offer an answer.

[tequila]

I have to disagree with most of this article. Mr. Kagan doesn't appear to be in full contact with the facts, not a wholly unknown situation among those of the neoconnish persuasion, of which the Kagan family are stalwart champions.


The fact is that, contrary to so many predictions, Iraq has not descended into civil war. Political bargaining continues. Signs of life are returning to Baghdad and elsewhere. Many Sunnis are fighting (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/31/AR2007053100455.html) al-Qaeda terrorist groups, not their Shiite neighbors. And sectarian violence is down by about 50 percent since December.Still in denial about civil war? Shall we continue to just call it rampant sectarian violence, then? Has Mr. Kagan not noticed the fact that even in Baghdad, whose eastern side has been largely cleansed of Sunnis and which is now a decidedly majority Shia city for the first time, sectarian murders are back up (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301780_pf.html) to pre-surge levels? And yes, many Sunnis are fighting al-Qaeda --- but that does not necessarily mean that they suddenly are beloved of their Shia countrymen. The Sunni insurgency is still just as determined to fight the "Safawi occupiers" (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/0407/iaionisi0407.pdf) as they are the American occupiers.


By far the biggest problem, and the source of most of the violence reported every day, has been al-Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Qaeda's strategy is to foment sectarian violence by killing both Shiites and Sunnis. How come? If sectarian violence were out of control already, why would al-Qaeda have to stir it up? In fact, it is precisely fear that things will calm down in Iraq that has al-Qaeda working overtime to blow things and people up.AQI and its allies in the ISI have become major players and gained strength in the Sunni insurgency. Whether they are the major generators of violence in Iraq is quite debatable. The large majority of attacks in Iraq still occur against coalition forces (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201294_pf.html), using the DoD's own figures (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/www.gao.gov/new.items/d06697t.pdf), for instance, and AQI is hardly behind the vast majority of killings of Sunnis in Baghdad, Diyala, and the north. Simply because the RJF fights AQI does not mean it has stopped fighting the coalition or the Iraqi government.

As for the extraordinarily silly argument that AQI must continually stir up sectarian violence to avert an otherwise unstoppable avalance of peace --- that ranks right up there with brother Fred's argument that making alternate plans in case the surge does not work is irresponsible and even impossible. Neocon ideology imposed over reality at its finest.

A Kagan classic, an oldie but goodie in much the same vein.

Iraq, One Year Later (http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1498&prog=zgp&proj=zusr) (written in March '04)


Electricity and oil production in Iraq have returned to prewar levels. The capture of Saddam Hussein has damaged the Baathist-led insurgency, although jihadists continue to launch horrific attacks on Iraqi civilians. But by most accounts those vicious attacks have spurred more Iraqis to get more involved in building a better Iraq. We may have turned a corner in terms of security ...

What's more, there are hopeful signs that Iraqis of differing religious, ethnic, and political persuasions can work together. This is a far cry from the predictions made before the war by many, both here and in Europe, that a liberated Iraq would fracture into feuding clans and unleash a bloodbath ...

[FascistLibertarian]

Both of these excuses have the same problem. No matter why we went into Iraq and no matter how badly we have fought the war up until recently, this tells us nothing about what to do now.
I agree with this 100%. I was always against the war and I am in the Bush screwed up the war group but right now neither of these issues are as important as what to do next. We can complain that the war never should have happened but the milk is already on the floor so to speak.

[Abu Buckwheat]

I have to disagree with most of this article. Mr. Kagan doesn't appear to be in full contact with the facts, not a wholly unknown situation among those of the neoconnish persuasion, of which the Kagan family are stalwart champions.

Still in denial about civil war? Shall we continue to just call it rampant sectarian violence, then? Has Mr. Kagan not noticed the fact that even in Baghdad, whose eastern side has been largely cleansed of Sunnis and which is now a decidedly majority Shia city for the first time, sectarian murders are

I realy agree with Tequila. I have lost all patience with the Kagan family's commentary and analysis. None of them seem to have a grasp on reality, principally because they are academics pushing an agenda in the face of all emerical data. Iraq is not calming down by any stretch of the imagination. His article is a good example of how neo-conservatives can argue both sides of the coin (no pun intended) to maintain a fantasy about their advocacy for the war as a way of remodeling the Middle East.

Here is another of his perpetually shifting justifications for that fantasy:

There is another problem with the cover story. We didn't intervene in Iraq primarily to save the Iraqi people. We went in mostly for reasons of our own, to protect our interests and our allies from the menace of a serial aggressor whose domestic repression was of a piece with his desire for regional domination.

At least he admits it never had anything to do with Iraqi Freedom


By far the biggest problem, and the source of most of the violence reported every day, has been al-Qaeda in Iraq

He had better get a grasp on reality. The day to day violence is performed by the main force insurgents (the former regime loyalists), minor Iraqi religious extremists and the Shiites militias. AQI-Islamic State of Iraq does only the TV friendly SVBIED attacks.


Al-Qaeda's penetration in Iraq is not the fault of the Iraqis

He is correc. It is our fault. This invasion policy, which he helped design, brought AQ to Iraq. AQ didn't exist in Iraq (except for Ansar al-Islam which was HQ'd in the US protected No Fly Zone.