Surge: Losing GOP Support?
Brian Doherty | May 14, 2007, 9:04am
From U.S. News and World Report:
American patience for the war is running out...was the...message that moderate Republicans delivered last week to the president in a candid, closed-door meeting at the White House. "People are always saying President Bush is in a bubble," noted Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia. "Well, this was our chance, and we took it." They presented Bush with poll figures showing plummeting party support in their districts and told him that his credibility on the war front is all but gone.
In short, the president can't count on GOP support for the "surge" much longer. There is a sense "certainly by the Democrats and growing among the Republicans that there has to be some progress, significant progress to sustain [the surge] beyond September," said Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican.
And the Los Angeles Times reports on trouble for one of Bush's benchmarks for ending the Iraqi civil war, a new oil bill:
It has not even reached parliament, but the oil law that U.S. officials call vital to ending Iraq's civil war is in serious trouble among Iraqi lawmakers, many of whom see it as a sloppy document rushed forward to satisfy Washington's clock.
Opposition ranges from vehement to measured, but two things are clear: The May deadline that the White House had been banking on is in doubt. And even if the law is passed, it fails to resolve key issues, including how to divide Iraq's oil revenue among its Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni regions, and how much foreign investment to allow.....
The problems of the oil bill bode poorly for the other so-called benchmarks that the Bush administration has been pressuring Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government to meet.....Republican leaders in Washington have warned administration officials that if the Iraqi government fails to meet those benchmarks by the end of the summer, remaining congressional support for Bush's Iraq policies could crumble.
While on Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol saves the day for the administration by pointing out that any Republican who dares think of turning back on the war is "being extremely stupid. I mean, the idea that they will get credit for deserting the war at this point -- they voted for the war. ... It's a ridiculous political calculation as well as a dishonorable one by those Republicans who are thinking of jumping ship."
joe | May 14, 2007, 11:18am | #
"First, many Sunni communities are rejecting AQ now, so our departure doesn't seem to be necessary for this to happen."
Many more are not. It we want to see this happen to the extent necessary to actually deny these fish the water they swim in, out withdrawal is a necessary condition. The CIA has been telling us for years now that the American presence was the primary driver of the Sunni insurgency.
"Second, I think its plausible that our pulling out will blow the lid off the civil war, which by definition is a fight between internal factions and not a fight with the US. In that case, why wouldn't the Sunnis welcome AQ back as an ally against the Shiite death squads."
Agreed, when the Sunni part of the country is in an active civil war vs. the Shiites, it becomes very much in their interest to have the support of the foreign jihadists.
But I find it unlikely that our withdrawal would "blow the lid off the civil war." For one thing, that lid is pretty well blown.
For another, our exit eliminates the primary driver for the Shiites to wage the civil war. It would allow those Sunnis whose opposition to the government is primarily a function of their opposition to the occupation to work towards a peace deal with the Shiite authorities. Keep in mind, Sunni politics there exists along a spectrum from Jihadist to Iraq nationalist, with those on the nationalist end - a majority - holding their nose and working with foreign jihadists only as a marriage of convenience. These people don't want to seceed from Iraq and form a Sunni state, but to have a united Iraq. And they like furrners about as much as Tom Tancredo.
It would also shift the balance of power within the Shiite community from the Sadrists to the Sistanis, by demonstrating that the political process, and not open rebellion, can produce the important results of getting the Americans to leave, as well as reducing the Salafist terrorism that's been targetting their (Shiite) communities.
These outcomes are possible if we announce our withdrawal, renounce our bases and oil claims, and start pulling out (as opposed to impossible if we continue our occupation and ugly urban counter-insurgency war), but they are by no means a sure thing. They'd need to be accompanied by a political/peace process among Iraqi factions, and among the regional troublemakers - er, neighbors - who have the capacity to either stir up or tamp down trouble in Iraq.
joe | May 14, 2007, 1:11pm | #
RC,
"I guess it could work that way. I just think its more likely that the removal of the US presence is likely to free up the two sides to really go at each other, given that they have a good start on it now."
Maybe. It certainly would have been better to do this three years ago, before the Sunni insurgency gained strength, the foreign jihadists established a strong presence, and the civil war broke out.
"Our departure will weaken the government and ease the pressure on radical elements, opening the door for more violence." Hold on, there. Our departure would reduce the military force available to fight on behalf of the Iraqi government, weakening it in one sense. It would also dramatically change the political dynamics in Iraq, allow the government to cease being a "stooge of the Americans," thereby enchancing its political standing among the Iraqi populace, particularly the Sunni nationalists and the most anti-American Shiites. Given the fact that the United States military can't pacify Iraq, but it was pacified under other governments which had much less available firepower, it seems pretty clear to me that it is political legitimacy among the public, not the inability to use force, that is hobbling the Iraqi government.
"A more anarchic Iraq is a better place for AQ to operate." Agreed. If the civil war became larger, and the Shiites were unable to win it decisively, Al Qaeda might be able to operate at an even higher level. This is why the Baker Commission, the Murtha Plan, and my own ideas all involve keeping a decent force available for counter-terror operations, just in case. But I'll point out that 1) our presence has done nothing to stop the civil war - it developed and has grown and grown right under our noses - so the "stay the course" strategy could just as well cause that greater chaos to come about, and 2) the Sunnis would probably not be able to fight the Shiites to the standstill, but would probably lose an all-out civil war quickly. In this sense, our presence is merely extending the chaos.
"If we're not there, who exactly is going to broker the peace? The Pakistanis?" Well, we would be there, at least for a while. A responsible withdrawal would take some time. Our efforts to further a peace/political process would have to be done in conjunction with that withdrawal.
joe | May 14, 2007, 2:30pm | #
RC,
The point I've been trying to get across is that "should we stay or should we go" isn't the only variable here. There is also the matter of HOW we go. You assume that a hasty, wash-our-hands-of-the-whole-mess bug-out is the only alternative to staying the course, but that is not so. I'm quite confident that, if we stay in Iraq for another five years until a majority of Republicans turn against the war, that is exactly how our exit would be accomplished, but that is not what I am arguing for. As a matter of fact, I have been arguing for a withdrawal on our terms for the past few years largely because it has a greater chance of producing an acceptable outcome than if we "hang in there" like Nixon from 1968 onward. You, and your Iraq Hawk ilk, are just as determined not to let the country fall to our enemies and descend into chaos as the people who ended up flying helicopters off the embassy roof in Saigon.
"Available where? Deployable how?" Those are details that can be answered once the important decision has been taken. Preliminarily, I'd say Kurdistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and on ships in the Gulf and Med.
"What constitutes "terror operations" that we should be "countering" as opposed to the civil war that we should be leaving strictly alone?" Efforts to organize Al Qaedist operations and bases. You remember, the actual war on terror? Look at the Phillipines, Somalia, the missile strike in Yemen, Clinton's old missile strikes on bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan - the use of the military to disrupt the operations of international terrorist groups.
'And when we do "deploy" our "counter-terror operations", won't that convert the government of Iraq back into being American stooges and undo all the good work that was accomplished when we left?'
There might be some such response at the margins - I'm sure the hardcore jihadists would attempt to rally support from this - but the effect would be dramatically different than having 150,000 American soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder with the government's forces, and putting their filthy infidel hands up under the chadors of Iraqi grannies.
joe | May 14, 2007, 5:25pm | #
RC,
"But any real end to totalitarian control of the Iraqi state was going to set off conflict betweein the Shiites and the Sunnis, with neighbors weighing in as they saw fit."
Conflict between competing interests, yes. Breaking out into civil war? No, not necessarily. There are many ways such conflicts could play out; a civil war characterized by the mass murder of civilians only happened when a third party spent years working to provoke them.
"You don't suppose our presence had anything to do with that?" No, our presence had nothing to do with avoiding the civil war. Our presence provoked the civil war, by making it impossible for the central government to gain the support of Sunni nationalists. In case you didn't notice, nothing we have been doing has worked to alleviate the civil war.
"And that situation could not go on indefinitely. It was inherently unstable. Sooner or later it was going to resolve toward either a stable, civil Iraq or more violence. God knows that we and our Iraqi buddies blew some chances to tip it our way, but we did." Yes, we did. We could have removed what the CIA, and all 16 American intelligence agencies, have been telling us since 2003 was the major driver of the Sunni insurgency - our presence. But one half - the shrinking half - of our political culture refused to do so, and is refusing still.
"So now what are you going to do to put the genie back in the bottle?" I've answered that already.
"I notice you didn't really answer my questions about the degree to which we would be continuing to fight in Iraq and on whose side." Yes, I have.
If you want to go back through my comments and find the answer, feel free, but I'm going to repeat myself.
