As it becomes increasingly clear that Bush is going to ignore the recommendations of the Iraqi Study Group (and it could be argued, the midterm election result) and go with Pentagon plans to send 50 000 more troops into Iraq, you have to wonder about the politics of this. Presumably Bush hopes that he can somehow freeze the situation in aspic (or rather, blood) until he leaves office, to avoid being roundly condemned as an absolute failure. But the situation is already far too dire. And ranks are breaking every which way but loose. Colin Powell is the latest to question the wisdom insanity of this change of course, pointing out there are actually no more troops to send. You’d have to expect some of this to start rubbing off on “maverick” John McCain, who’s been the loudest proponent of the more troops strategy. McCain, however, is fighting a war of his own, against blogs. Let’s hope the turnover of power to the Democrats on Capitol Hill in a couple of weeks time brings an end to the disconnect between the White House and any possible reality anywhere.
For instance, the insanity being flagged from Cheney’s office that America should take sides in the civil war and support the Shi’ites, dressed up in an idea made up out of whole cloth – the Darwin Principle. As Helene Cooper points out:
Can you just hear President Bushâs speech to the nation? âMy Fellow Americans, the United States has decided that there are more Shiites than Sunnis in Iraq, so we are therefore going to side with the people most likely to win a fight to the death. Weâll figure out how to deal with the rest of the Arab world, where there are more Sunnis than Shiites, later.â?
Elsewhere: Tim Dunlop looks at the chaos in foreign policy making that mirrors the chaos in Iraq.
You know things are bad for the US when even Colin Powell can see the writing on the wall. This is the man who casually but fatally mislead the world at the United Nations. He has zero credibility on Iraq. Nevertheless it’s another sign that Bush is losing all authority in the US. Even on the right, everybody now feels pretty happy to criticise him.
The Iranian elections have turned out to be a boost for the reformers and those not happy with Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric. Which is good unless the US continued their blinkered approach to dealing with Iran.
The whole idea of the ISG was to give Bush an excuse for “peace with honour” – but he fought them off bravely. Hugh White explains well why the US is stuck there for a long time.
The US’s problem is not ours. The 500 or so Australian troops guarding Japanese/Dutch/whatever troops in Iraq are a token effort and there is no real excuse for keeping them in harm’s way when there are more urgent tasks in Afghanistan, as well as closer to home.
“Let’s hope the turnover of power to the Democrats on Capitol Hill in a couple of weeks time brings an end to the disconnect between the White House and any possible reality anywhere.”
Of course much will depend on the health of a Democrat senator. Sen Tim Johnson is not a well chap and if he is called to ‘the other side’, Republican Governor Mike Rounds will decide his replacement. That might create a 50/50 split with Dick Cheney gaining the casting vote. Yuk.
Hugh White claims that America can’t leave Iraq because it would leave Iran in de-facto charge of the southern part of the country, and eventually the whole Gulf, and that this would be some kind of apocalyptic disaster.
Aside from what seems to be unjustified paranoia regarding Iran, I don’t get why the additional strategic concerns are quite as dire as White says. Iraq is basically landlocked. Iran already has coastline covering virtually all the entire Gulf. It already sits on the straits of Hormuz, the key chokepoint controlling access. They already (theoretically) have the world’s oil supply at their good grace – though the Saudis have already got pipelines to pump oil and gas to the Red Sea ports. And, as I understand it, the majority of Iraq’s oilfields are in the north, rather than the south, and there are export pipelines to Syria and Turkey, so the stuff doesn’t need to be exported through Basra.
What am I missing?
“What am I missing?”
All you are missing, Robert, is the will to prevail. Over an Iran that’s the US’s longest standing target for “regime change”.
But don’t worry, most of your fellow appeasers miss this ‘n all.
Anrew E – what more pressing jobs do you have for a Mechanised Battlegroup??
What you are missing, robert, is this:
In October 2006 this happened;
The Azadegan oilfield is adjacent to the Southern Iraqi border. It would be a simple matter to build a pipeline from Azadegan to the large oilfields on the Iraqi side of the border.
The US doesn’t want this to happen. and the US doesn’t want to be seen fighting an ally like Japan for political control of this oil.
However, fighting Russia and China is another matter altogether…
It’s all about oil.
There are the troops to send, it is simply a matter of how far the military is willing to go to get them – it could shift part of the forces in Germany and Japan (not a huge number, but still significant) as well as those in the Pacific (the largest concentration is in Korea, but considering that it is mainly a tripwire force – if N.Korea invades it will end up attacking US forces, which will bring it into the war automatically, something N.Korea doesn’t want – so troops could be reassigned to Iraq.)
Also, further parts of the Army Reserves (of which a large number is made up of the full time forces when they were made redundant in the RIF’s under Bush Snr. and Clinton) could be called up for service, along with further national guard, and deployed to the quiet regions, allowing the combat brigades to shift to Baghdad and then the Anfal province.
So it isn’t a matter of finding the troops, it is working out where to get them from – either from overseas (unlikely in totality), or calling up domestic troops, or both. And the hardware is definately there – if nothing else, the Cold War left enough hardware to finance the ground side of the 2.5 war strategy (win, win, hold), even if under Clinton not nearly enough money was spent on transport, combat stocks and general infrastructure and logistical support components to carry out three conflicts. And the level of attacks and general casualties on troops outside Baghdad and Anfal province are rather low, so greener troops could be moved there, to allow more seasoned forces to move into the areas of need.
Powell’s point, Stuart, is that lots of the National Guard are on extended tours already.
Razor – personally, none. Not much for the dropshorts in that plan either. A direct hit on that bit of kiteflying.
Robert, the assumption that Iran is some kind of benign presence needs rethinking – unless you assume that the US has lost all right to act in its own interests. If you could get Iran to pull its horns in, issues like Lebanon and Palestine would be easier to deal with as violent fools could be more easily marginalised than is possible now that they have Iranian help.
Once it becomes possible to build oil pipelines from Iran to China without the oil freezing atop the Himalayas, the US stands to be frozen out of the Middle East – except for Saudi, whose regime has the whiff of Louis XIV about it.
Katz, it’s all about oil so long as you fail to recognise the reality of Muslim paranoia about western mass culture. In Australia and other western countries, “culture war” is an umbrella term for asexual wanking in public discourse, but in the Muslim world it is real and the fuel for terrorism. The US has to have a presence in the region from which this war is fuelled or it is in the same position it was in 1812, just sitting around waiting to be attacked.
I know, Kim – but that doesn’t mean that there are no troops to send, simply that there are not 50,000 soldiers waiting around with kits ready to board planes and boats. And there is plenty of slack in the capabilities of the the US military, it will just take a while to utilise it properly.
But the Army Reserves are a seperate branch to the National Guard, and they are, while not entirely untapped, at least less used than they could be.
I can’t work out what this means.
This war was fuelled in Houston and DC and Wall Street. That wasn’t Bush’s fault. He simply inherited a situation which he has made much worse.
The Islamic Middle East has for the last 60 years been the richest source of oil in the world. Oil is the most important natural resource in the world.
The US, since the overthrow of Iran’s Mossadegh in 1953, has stultified Middle East national aspirations. The US has propped up unpopular dictatorships.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 has been the region’s only successful revolution against a US puppet. Absent secular nationalism, the only credible countervailing force available was Islam.
Islamism grew out of national failure. National failure was US strategy in the Middle East.
The US encouraged Islamism only where it didn’t control — Afghanistan under the Soviets.
Now Islamism threatens throughout the Middle East, from Pakistan to the Sudan.
The US has had a “presence in the region” for more than half a century. The US has made the modern Middle East.
The only major Islamic country in the region that is not either an out-and-out dictatorship or a failed or failing state is Iran. Iran assisted the US in Afghanistan. The US has 140,000 troops parked on the border of Iran.
And indeed the Iranian authorities may be paranoid about Western mass culture. But I doubt that you would assert that those 140,000 troops are there to make Teheran safe for Mickey Mouse.
And I doubt that you would assert that the Iranian authorities are paranoid in their fears of what the US may do with those 140,000 troops, especially when under orders from a Commander-in-Chief who is a bellicose cretin.
There is no reason why making Middle East oil safe for the US and making Teheran safe for Mickey Mouse should be contradictory ambitions. However, Bush has blatantly failed to achieve either of these aims.
Stuart, aside from the deaths and the casualties, one big sleeper in the loss of support for the Iraq War was the extended tours of National Guard service people. As Sir Humphrey would have said, it would be a very “brave” President who cast the net wider.
The Army Reserves is a federally funded outfit, as opposed to the National Guard, which is organised by the various states, and only becomes active overseas when federally enacted. While some of the Reserves have been called back to active duty, many have not – and almost all reserves were former full time military personell, as opposed to the ‘weekend warrior’ outfits in the National Guard. That is not to say that there are no former active service members in the National Guard units, far from it, but it is still a far lesser proportion.
And while extended tours may be unpopular for the National Guard, if more units were called up from across the various states, and further members of the Reserve called back into full time military service, it would both reduce the length of time National Guard units would be in Iraq (a good thing in many aspects, but it does thin out experience and knowledge of the terrain, the populace, tactics of the insurgency, etc) and enable more troops to be on the ground. The issue is that this would cost more, and leave less reserves available for other potential conflicts. However, it seems that this is one of the few options left for actually winning the war. Though I can see US troops in Iraq to some degree for a long time ahead – indeed, US troops and bases are still in Germany, Japan, Italy, Korea, etc, long after the wars have finished.
Andrew: The War of 1812? The US is gonna invade Canada again?! My god, I never knew the situation was so dire!
(Oh, and the US started the War of 1812, it weren’t sitting around)
True, Leinad, but the Americans were not really prepared for the war – indeed, they fared pretty badly in Canada, and then the British turned around and stomped them, both at sea after some inital reverses, and on land, where they burnt down the White House.
Heh Mark.
I’d like to quibble on what has lost support for continuing the war in Iraq.
Back to back rotations for the troops (no matter what branch of service) is tiring for the troop and families. That is not the prevailing thought that is causing any change of heart.
What is changing hearts and minds in the US is the perception of total ineptitude on the part of the federal government..State Dept., DoD and any intelligence agencies.
It’s a hoot reading of imperial designs and grand schemes.
More a matter of lost confidence in the abilities of the government to do anything right. Republicans or Democrats.
Think cluster fuck and you’re closer to the truth than any Machiavellian anything.
Stuart, you have no idea what North Korea does or doesn’t want. A reduction in US forces in Korea rules them out as a player in that game. It would be an appalling case of short-term politics trumping longterm interests, exactly the wrong message for the US to send. This would result in US forces being shuttled around the world putting out spot fires.
In terms of finding hollow logs packed with spare troops – all evidence points to the idea that US forces are overstretched. It is significant that the US generals who spoke out against Rumsfeld before this year’s Congressional elections said explicitly that to plunder the Army Reserve would be the last straw and leave the US defenceless at home in the event of a major attack – like the four fighter jets defending the US eastern seaboard on 11 September 2001, or the inadequate response to Katrina. Recruitment programs have slowed to a trickle. Following the Vietnam-era phenomenon of “chickenhawks”, those who are keenest to fight are least willing to do so. You can only draw down the military so far – for conservatives to ask too much of military personnel is to damage their long-standing perception of being strong on defence.
Why US troops would have to move to low-casualty areas – rather than these being ideal locations to remove US forces from – is a mystery.
Stuart, what happens when the government persists in doing something dumb is that it loses authority. This is what Another Kim is saying. Conservatives hate the loss of authority more than anything.
Razor, it means someone is disagreeing with you and questioning your assumptions. Won’t hurt.
I was talking about the resentment of western popular culture by Muslims which has led to organised violence, and is finding an outlet in carbombings etc. in Baghdad and surrounding areas. The US invasion in 2003 was significant but as time has gone on it is a small part of a wider conflict. To focus too much on WMDs and other actions of the current US government is to assume that Muslims are passive victims of US aggression.
Thanks for the history lesson, and how cute were all those straw men hiding behind the phrase “I doubt that you would assert”? Put some in uniform and send them to Stuart.
Nationalism is not an end in itself, it is a means for realising cultural aspirations. Yes, nationalistic aspirations have been thwarted. What you have missed is the notion that the Iranian regime is fomenting the idea that the soft power of US culture can be beaten with violence and that they are happy to fund the violence. If you listen to what they are saying, Mickey Mouse might be less injurious to Muslim values than, say, these examples of uncovered meat.
This has been often invoked as the last time the US lacked the ability to deal with threats offshore, providing a determination that it was better for the US thereafter to go abroad to deal with threats from abroad rather than having to do so on US soil.
Another Kim, I was just going on a raft of stories I’d read over the past year or so about the shift in opinions in both small towns with military traditions and also in the military itself.
But I won’t expand on it because I’ve made a vow to myself that I won’t write another word on politics til 2007. So I’d better start keeping my pre new year resolution!
1. I still don’t understand the point you are trying to make Andrew E.
Are you saying that the US is in Iraq because of 1812?
Exactly what assumptions are you trying to get me to examine?
2. I wasn’t trying to construct a straw man when I ventured to suggest:
Let me rephrase it:
Do you believe that 140,000 US troops are in Iraq to make Teheran safe for Mickey Mouse?
If so, how?
Mark…
Since the expiration dates on New Year’s resolutions is apprx. one day, you won’t have to wait long. That’s not even taking into account that it’s a pre-New Year’s resolution.
You are hereby released.
Questions like ‘where the hell are they gonna find 40,000 troops?!’ aside, as Nitpicker points out, the more important question is ‘what are these extra troops actually going to do?‘.
The ‘sectarian conflict’ (it so isn’t a civil war, like c’mon, neither side has blue or grey uniforms!) in Iraq isn’t going to be solved by more US patrols of Baghdad (the ‘surge’ option, as far as I can decipher it), these soldiers aren’t going to be rooting out SCIRI operatives in the police force (I doubt more than threescore will speak Arabic); indeed all the US soldiers in the world can’t stop the factionialisation process within all levels of Iraqi civil society, a process now in its fourth year.
This is Bush’s attempt at a ‘decent interval’ strategy: 1. send in ‘one last surge’ to show his commitment to the utterly meaningless “stay the course” slogan, 2. wait for strategy to fail, 3. bullisht your way out with a combination of “we’ve fufilled our mission guidlines, the Iraqi army is ready and able to fight for itself, we did our best, they didn’t want us to help, we still killed lots of terrorists etc etc” and then leave, sometime around 2008.
Nitpicker
Andrew E – The entire point, indeed just about the only point of having US troops in North Korea is simply to act as a tripwire force – they are only 40,000 strong vs the 600,000 man strong South Korean army, and a significant portion of US troops along the DMZ isn’t mechanised. The point of having them there is to make sure that if North Korea does invade, US forces will have been attacked, both enraging public opinion back in the US to galvanise them for a war, and giving a complete reason for the US to defend South Korea (because we all know that the UN is useless, and would be arsing about having meetings while Seoul was being shelled).
So, if there is, outside of the various infrastructure and hardware stocks, very little valid military purpose apart from a supporting role for the US in Korea in anything short of an all out war, then it makes sense that some troops could be transferred.
And what I was saying is that you would move the greener troops from the National Guard or the Reserves (who would be most likely to make up the 40,000 odd troops needed) to the quieter areas, and then move those troops already in those areas to Baghdad and Anfal province, as the troops that have already been there for a while have better local knowledge and conditioning, and would be more effective. This way you better shield those new troops who don’t know as much about the country, the terrain, the insurgency and their tactics, etc. Also, you could use them to properly patrol the Syrian/Iranian borders, to help stop more weapons from Iran entering the country.
Why not just have an actual tripwire?
Leinad – huh?