This Again?
Back in the summer of 2003, the right’s big idea was that the bombing of the UN compound in Iraq was not, as it first seemed, a bad thing. Rather, it actually demonstrated that we were making progress in Iraq and the opposition was growing desperate. My post on that theory is lost to the vicissitudes of linkrot, but it was BS then and it doesn’t sound much more convincing today:
Earlier, Mrs. Clinton described the violence as the last gasp of “rejectionists” who feared that the government would succeed in creating a united and peaceful Iraq. The attacks, she said, are “in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction.”
More likely, the uptick in violence signals exactly what it seems to signal. The surge never produced political reconciliation, and in the absence of political reconciliation violence is resuming. Nir Rosen has an excellent rundown of the background to these incidents. He’s also quite confident that Maliki and his government will prevail in any renewed violent struggle. So in that sense, yes, Clinton may be right to say that this doesn’t augur a return to chaos. But it’s not a sign of progress.
16 Responses to “This Again?”
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April 26th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Agreed.
If we were interested in being scientific about all this–and we could be–we’d predesignate what is likely to be evidence for and against the proposition that we’ve made progress in Iraq. But instead of acting like (social) scientists, we tend to act like psychoanalysts or literary critics, free associating after the fact about the character and import of the evidence.
I’m not saying it would be easy or infallible to do so. But we’re capable of thinking more clearly and systematically about all this than we typically do.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Indeed. The whole point of the surge was reduction in violence, and not the more necessary reduction in political strife. This is why the conservatives are wrong to suggest we are “winning” anything in Iraq. We’ve already lost.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:25 am
The lack of reconciliation of the Sunnis and their resistance with the Shite central government was probably inevitable. It was certainly predicted. The worst thing was that the GOP ended up getting creamed in the election. The surge and the Awakening were predicated on renewing hope of ‘victory’ and provide a decent interval for the 08 election. Sadly for the GOP voters didn’t buy it.
It must be understood that a quick decisive victory in Iraq and then beyond was the lynch pin Bush’s and the GOP’s road map to absolute majority status. Everyone likes victory. Woodward always says that Bush was so very sincere in wanting to unite the country. Sure he was. Unite it behind military victory. The GOP is where it is today because they lost a war. or two.
As an Iraq invasion and GOP opponent I understood that a peaceful prosperous Iraq would be a wonderful thing for Iraqis and the GOP. I didn’t however hope for failure in Iraq. Between total ponies there and abject defeat there were degrees of success and failure and it was an absolute certainty that those not ponies would be the outcome. Saddam was not going to sit down and sign a surrender and provide a clear cut victory. The idealized total victory Americans cherish like in WWII. I never anticipated how bad it would be there however.
In the summer of 03, before the UN bomb I think, the horror hit for me when a suicide bomber in a car drove into a gasoline tanker next to a full school bus and set the bomb off. You can’t top that for sheer insane evil I don’t think, short of nukeing a city. The project for the new American Century died right there in my conception and with it the dream of GOP hegemony at home.
All so profoundly sad.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Counterpoint: When the Awakening first stood up in Ramadi, AQI launched a series of really ferocious attacks against the people of the city. Then, when the Awakening movement and mass arrests of Mahdi Army folks was starting to bear fruit in late 2007, they hit the minarets of the Samarra mosque and launched a few really, really big bombings in eastern Baghdad.
Although in general I concede the point that a bombing isn’t usually a sign of progress.
The thing to watch at this point isn’t the bombings (unless we go back to the daily drumbeat of mass-casualty bombs of a few years ago); it’s in things like how the Maliki government is dealing with the Awakenings in western and southern Baghdad and how the Anbar police deal with the influx of folks getting released from Camp Bucca.
April 26th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Is this something that diplomats have to say, that doesn’t actually mean anything?
Because there seem to be a lot of such mandatory platitudes at the highest levels of international diplomacy.
April 26th, 2009 at 11:05 am
I didn’t think it was even linguistically possible, much less legal, to question THE SURGE ™ (hallowed be its name), given that it was obviously the most successfullest program ever unveiled and the only way to speak of it was “BUT YOU WILL ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING”.
April 26th, 2009 at 11:58 am
So it seems the path to victory was not a surge of force overwhelming opposition, nor a political reconciliation with our former enemies, but rather a grand act of trickery and deceit–we just pretended there was going to be political reconciliation later, but actually we were just setting up Maliki as a strong man the whole time. So The Awakening was just another in a long list of this decades bubbles–a bubble of social capital rather than physical capital. Only, if we had intended to screw over the Sunni militias the whole time, then it was more like a pyramid scheme than an honest bubble.
Thus, the point of counter-insurgency seems to be to act like a nice guy until your enemy turns its back, then insert the knife. Or in this case, let Maliki insert the knife.
I don’t have any particular soft spot for Sunni militias. I’m just taking notes. This wasn’t the first “powers that be” versus “powers that aren’t” conflict, and it won’t be the last, so it’s useful to keep track of how they go down.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Did Matt just call his old post BS?
April 26th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Fight Linkrot. Use the internet archives!
Here’s your post, recovered from the dustbin.
April 26th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
From the NYT article:
Um, isn’t this rather a contradiction in terms? Like a “football bat”?
April 26th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Um, isn’t this rather a contradiction in terms? Like a “football bat”?
Darn right. Everyone knows that the proper term is “soccer bat.” What? That’s wrong too? I guess you’ve never played soccer with me, then, have you?
April 26th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
If the Shiites would just produce their version of Saddam, these bombings would be quelled. All this work of ours to give them their turn and they’re slacking.
April 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Consumatopia writes
we just pretended there was going to be political reconciliation later, but actually we were just setting up Maliki as a strong man the whole time.
—————–
Well, there hasn’t been political reconciliation in the sense that the Sunnis and the Shia have settled their differences and resolved to live in peace and harmony.
On the other hand, as Nir Rosen suggests, I think it’s likely that many Sunnis (ordinary citizens and leaders) have reconciled themselves to the presence of a semi-authoritarian, Shia-led government – because it’s preferable to the alternative (continued civil strife accompanied by violent threats from Sunni jihadists on one side and Shia militias, potentially backed by Iran, on the other side). Given what the Sunnis went through over the past few years, a strong state, even one with a Shia leadership, might not sound that bad in comparison. And in the meantime, the Iraqi state (or what passes for an Iraqi state) has been strengthened to the point that those who don’t accept the new realities have limited options at their disposal.
That why the “rejectionist desperation” claim about bombings against civilians seems slightly more convincing these days than it was during the years that the insurgency was taking hold and expanding.
April 26th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I’m going to pretend that the writer intended to put a conjunction in that sentence, and the editor missed it.
“Baathist and jihadist violence”
“Baathist or jihadist violence:
I would even accept “Baathist/jihadist violence” with nary a quibble.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
“The Surge.” What a farce. 50 years from now it might be a footnote in a history of the “War on Terror” if the author is ridiculously thorough. Even then it should only be seen in light of the 2008 elections, as rapier @3 points out.
Even if the Surge had worked beyond expectations the only concrete result for the United States’ “War on Terror” would be to allow the US to expedite the extraction of their forces from Iraq, which we were going to do anyway.
The needless opening of a second front in the “War on Terror,” the invasion of Iraq, was the single greatest strategic blunder in United States history. “The Surge,” at best, was a minor success in that grand strategic failure, like scoring a late goal in a 7 to 1 loss.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:16 am
You forgot to mention that “It’s All Obama’s Fault &tm;”. After all, under Bush, The Surge was working just fine. Suddenly, Obama takes over and everything’s falling apart.
Damn you, Obama!!!