Iraq: A Place of Ambivalence

[domer]

The surge was not a "direct response" to the Democrats electoral victory, it was, rather, a direct response to profound and pervasive dismay at how Bush had bungled management of the war. While one could argue  that throughout this ordeal Bush has often behaved in a petty and petulant way at times, your argument seems to carry these traits to a new low. I won't go there. Instead, it is my view that finally Bush heard the telephone ring and realized for the first time that the call was for him. As you're well aware, I'm sure, Congress could have done nothing whatsoever to change course on the surge. But they have accomplished much, as I've said.

[BT]

Domer

We disagree. The surge was an enactment and a modification of the ISG's recommendations made prior to the election. Remember Bush was hesitant to adopt pre-November. Post November he had a change of mind, most probably brought about by loss of majority control in the house and senate and a need to remind those newly powerful of the role of commander in chief and which branch controls that function.  The options before the house and senate in response to the sure are the same as they are now, deauthorize or defund, neither move being high on the dem list.

[_JS]

So, you advocate us staying there to "stay the course?"

Not at all. I advocate us staying there, yes. But "staying the course" is an area where I tend to agree with Domer that Bush (and his administration) have handled this entire conflict in a very petulant manner and completely mismanaged the entire affair.

Where I have problems is that I don't believe this parallels Vietnam. Whereas some on the right wish to create a revisionist version of Vietnam where the United States military was somehow betrayed by the dastardly politicians and selfish public, while always on the verge of winning the entire war, I have no interest in creating a victimization fantasyland. The truth was that despite our superior firepower and well-trained military, we were never going to win Vietnam because we never bothered to understand the Vietnamese people. That war was never about communism, it was about nationalism and a unified Vietnam without French or American colonial power. There were a myriad of reasons we failed in Vietnam, dating back to Eisenhower, but we had to waste a great deal of lives to make that failure complete.

In that sense I can understand where the desire for a timetable and a retreat comes from. I can also understand why cartoons showing 3,000 compared to 58,000 or questioning Democrat's manliness because they wish to leave Iraq are so pathetic and anti-intellectual, that to call them childish would be an insult to children of all proto-humans throughout time.

On the other hand, Iraq is not Vietnam. The historical context is entirely different. Whether the original invasion was justified or not (and I don't think it was), there is little question of who is responsible for the political upheavel in that nation. We have to take responsibility for our actions there and part of that responsibility is to make sure that every Iraqi can make it to the marketplace without being blown to pieces. These people have a reasonable expectation to live a decent life that is not under constant fear of sectarian reprisals, made possible by us. In my view we cannot just turn around and leave them to this fate, though quite frankly the solutions will not be easy.

[domer]

One of the few senses in which an Iraq analogy to Vietnam holds is in the concept of quagmire, a compelling consideration, and rightly so. The prospect of increased, indeed, unmitigated, violence erupting in the wake of a premature US exit is a concern both you and I share. Yet, the ultimate day of reckoning for Iraqis may truly be inevitable despite anything we might do. Traveling from that speculative proposition through all the intermediate minefields of a failed state through to unbridled Iranian hegemony, we arrive at a constant concern, testable only by withdrawal itself, that is, the American presence (occupation) actually fuels the bloodshed and strife, which, the argument goes, would subside in due course if the Americans were to leave. Whatever the merits of one or another of these armchair observations, the unalterable truth is that, if only for political reasons, we must give notice of our intention to leave with a rough accompanying timetable so that the true belligerents, the Iraqis whose animosities festered under Saddam, can work it out or fight it out. We may have unleashed the dogs of war, but those dogs were their demons, for which, in the end analysis, THEY are responsible.

[Plane]

Unless the timetable is very long,wouldn't it be a timetable for exodus of all he rich and well educated?