The Iraq Surge
With all the talk about the surge in Iraq, you may be wondering how I'm feeling. I've always been cautiously optimistic about Iraq, since the very first stages of the war. Even when things seemed to be going very well right afterwards, and after the first couple of elections, my optimism was still cautious. And when thigns were going bad and violence was surging, I was still optimistic, if more subdued. You have to look at the long-term trends rather than get bogged down in the day-to-day events. It's difficult to make sense of the day-to-day events, with the media calling Iraq a failure no matter what happens, and the military putting its own spin on things.
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people are wondering why Bush is only doing this now, after the midterm elections, when he should have done it a long time ago. And frankly, I think it's because Bush's attitude is close to mine. Through 2005, things seemed to be going pretty well in Iraq. Granted, there was still violence, but Iraq had its own government, and it looked like soon the Iraqis would be able to take charge. Things only turned nasty in 2006, and while Bush may have wanted to try a different approach, Rumsfeld and the generals on the ground didn't. Bush had put his trust in these folks, and they had been pretty successful so far, and they were there and knew the situation better than anyone, so I can understand his reluctance to get rid of them. An uptick in violence for a few months did not make Iraq a catastrophe any more than the previous upticks had. Only when the long-term trends made it clear that Rumseld's and the generals' methods weren't working, and they showed no sign of being willing to change them, did he make the decision to replace them with people who would get the job done. Unfortunately, midterm elections probably had a role in this, and for numerous reasons, Bush didn't want to be seen as changing tactics right before the election. For one, it would have been seen as a political ploy rather than a serious bid to change the course of events in Iraq. And maybe he did fear it would cost Republicans some votes, although everyone else was arguing the opposite. I still don't know whether it's such a bad thing that the Republicans lost big. I think that, to some degree, having an opposition government has made Bush freer. He doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected, and now he doesn't have to worry about keeping his party in power by not doing anything to offend the "moderates" whose votes they depended on. Granted, the Democrats will try to stop this, but they're pretty limited in what they can do. It's one thing to call for troops to return, but they lack the Constitutional authority to actually force that to happen, and not too many will be willing to actually stop funding the war. It's one thing to oppose sending troops, another thing entirely to abandon those now there.
Anyway, that's the political side. Do I think we should be doing this? Ever since we caught Saddam, I've believed we were doing the right thing in Iraq. Before the war started, I wasn't so sure, as I was always a bit iffy on the whole WMD issue. But once Saddam was caught and we'd completed our initial mission, the question was do we just leave and let a society rent apart by a tyrannical dictator further destroy itself, or do we stay and try to help them create a new society. We had what we wanted, and what we had to gain by staying was very idealistic: a civil society in the Middle East that would hopefully be a model for others. That's all. For all the talk of blood for oil, I don't see it. We decided to stay, and it was the right thing to do. A very hard thing, true, but the right thing. And if we're going to do it, we need to do it right, and that means winning. I don't think our former strategy could accomplish that, but I think this one might. It's not guaranteed, but let's just say I'm cautiously optimistic.
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people are wondering why Bush is only doing this now, after the midterm elections, when he should have done it a long time ago. And frankly, I think it's because Bush's attitude is close to mine. Through 2005, things seemed to be going pretty well in Iraq. Granted, there was still violence, but Iraq had its own government, and it looked like soon the Iraqis would be able to take charge. Things only turned nasty in 2006, and while Bush may have wanted to try a different approach, Rumsfeld and the generals on the ground didn't. Bush had put his trust in these folks, and they had been pretty successful so far, and they were there and knew the situation better than anyone, so I can understand his reluctance to get rid of them. An uptick in violence for a few months did not make Iraq a catastrophe any more than the previous upticks had. Only when the long-term trends made it clear that Rumseld's and the generals' methods weren't working, and they showed no sign of being willing to change them, did he make the decision to replace them with people who would get the job done. Unfortunately, midterm elections probably had a role in this, and for numerous reasons, Bush didn't want to be seen as changing tactics right before the election. For one, it would have been seen as a political ploy rather than a serious bid to change the course of events in Iraq. And maybe he did fear it would cost Republicans some votes, although everyone else was arguing the opposite. I still don't know whether it's such a bad thing that the Republicans lost big. I think that, to some degree, having an opposition government has made Bush freer. He doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected, and now he doesn't have to worry about keeping his party in power by not doing anything to offend the "moderates" whose votes they depended on. Granted, the Democrats will try to stop this, but they're pretty limited in what they can do. It's one thing to call for troops to return, but they lack the Constitutional authority to actually force that to happen, and not too many will be willing to actually stop funding the war. It's one thing to oppose sending troops, another thing entirely to abandon those now there.
Anyway, that's the political side. Do I think we should be doing this? Ever since we caught Saddam, I've believed we were doing the right thing in Iraq. Before the war started, I wasn't so sure, as I was always a bit iffy on the whole WMD issue. But once Saddam was caught and we'd completed our initial mission, the question was do we just leave and let a society rent apart by a tyrannical dictator further destroy itself, or do we stay and try to help them create a new society. We had what we wanted, and what we had to gain by staying was very idealistic: a civil society in the Middle East that would hopefully be a model for others. That's all. For all the talk of blood for oil, I don't see it. We decided to stay, and it was the right thing to do. A very hard thing, true, but the right thing. And if we're going to do it, we need to do it right, and that means winning. I don't think our former strategy could accomplish that, but I think this one might. It's not guaranteed, but let's just say I'm cautiously optimistic.
