I guess you'd have to say I'm still pro-victory (Updated) Contributed by Bill Faith
2006.12.06 Washington Times Editorial
Today, the Iraq Study Group is expected to issue a report calling for a gradual, partial withdrawal of U.S. military forces in Iraq, with a goal of turning security responsibilities over to the Iraqi military, and to shift the American role away from fighting jihadists and toward training Iraqi forces. But with the security situation in Iraq deteriorating, it's past time for a serious debate on how to win the war by defeating the Islamofascists on the battlefield, instead of deluding ourselves into thinking that we can magically train Iraqis so that they can stand on their own to fight and win the war in the next four or six or eight months.
We are also kidding ourselves if we think that "redeploying" American forces away from Baghdad and hotbeds of terror like the Sunni Triangle and western Anbar province and moving them to places like Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates or Okinawa will stabilize Iraq or that political negotiations with Shi'ite or Sunni factions will change things for the better absent a decisive victory on the battlefield over the terrorists. While significant progress has been made toward building a capable Iraqi army over the past few years, the Iraqi military is by all accounts a very long way from being able to succeed on its own. Moreover, the Iraqi police remain a disaster area -- mired in corruption, infested with spies and terrorist sympathizers.
To win the war will require, at least in the short term, additional commitments of American troops to protect Iraqis from terrorists who prey on them, as Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are suggesting.
American Enterprise Institute scholar Frederick Kagan argues persuasively that more resources combined with a different military strategy will be necessary to improve the situation. His research suggests that another 50,000 to 80,000 troops would enable the U.S. military to combat the terrorist armies now roiling in Baghdad without drawing forces away from Anbar and other dangerous parts of the country. The problem with earlier military operations such as Operation Together Forward II -- the recent unsuccessful effort to stabilize Baghdad -- is that the military failed to leave forces behind in areas that had been "cleared" of insurgents, thereby enabling the terrorists to return,
Emphasis mine. This is what I've been saying for months; flood the zone so there's nowhere to hide, then clean 'em out. Yes we're gonna take casualties, and I'll mourn every one, but in the long run is it better to mourn a few hundred soldiers now or a few thousand civilians later? After we clean out Baghdad and al-Anbar maybe a hundred thousand troops or so on Iran's border, with a few divisions more on the Afghan side, will get Ahmashiitehead's attention in time to keep the situation from getting completely out of hand. Just for the record, I still favor exit strategy:
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Stabilizing Iraq while Iran and al Qaeda are ascendant is not “victory.” By Andrew C. McCarthy (H/T: )
Iraq is disintegrating, and no one knows quite what to do.
Some, like congressional Democrats, a growing chorus of disaffected Republicans, the vaunted Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, and departing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, think the answer is fewer American troops. Others, prominently including National Review’s Rich Lowry, aptly that the only stable precincts in Iraq (at least outside the Kurdish region, the war’s much ignored success story) are those that enjoy a high concentration of American troops. Wherever we see the political establishment’s preference for a light U.S. footprint, chaos reigns.
So the question naturally arises: Do we need more troops? Answer: For … what?
To his great credit, President Bush has firmly resisted the cut-and-run approach through all the cheery euphemisms the Diplomats’ Thesaurus offers for surrender — “draw-down,” “redeployment,” “phased withdrawal,” etc. The president knows that, unlike all the solons offering him advice, he will be accountable to history for the results. ...
WHAT IS “VICTORY”? So, no, says the president. We are staying in Iraq until we win. Great. But what is winning? What is the “victory” we are seeking?
On this, there is no consensus. That is why Americans have soured on Iraq. History proves that the American people have plenty of stomach for a hard fight, however long it takes, if they understand and believe in what we are fighting for. And this, consequently, is where history will condemn the Bush administration.
Leadership, too often, has been rudderless. After 9/11, the president deployed our armed forces but told the American people the best thing they could do was go on with their lives — go shopping, lest the terrorists win. There was no sense of shared sacrifice. No stressing that the nation as a whole had a vested interest in facing down not just a relative handful of terrorists but a fundamentalist ideology, shared by millions, calling remorselessly for our destruction.
Our military, alone, was left to bear the burdens. ...
Perhaps worse, after rallying and winning reelection strictly because Americans trusted him more than Sen. Kerry to protect our security, the president went dark. From November 2004 until the middle of the following year, President Bush, leading a nation at war, was virtually mum on the subject. There were political reasons for this — there always are. ...
The “more troops” enthusiasts want to stanch Iraq’s ever bloodier sectarian strife. But Sunnis and Shia have been slaughtering each other intermittently for fourteen centuries. The thought that we infidels are going to put an end to that is as foolishly presumptuous as the pipedream that we will anytime soon achieve “two states living peacefully side-by-side” in Israel and “Palestine” — the latter’s existence being dedicated to annihilation of the former.
There is only one good reason for American troops to be in Iraq. It is the reason we sent them there in 2003: To fight and win the “war on terror” — i.e., the war against radical Islam — by deposing rogue regimes helping the terror network wage a long-term, existential jihad against the United States. You can argue that Iraq was the wrong rogue to start with; but destroying radical Islam’s will and its capacity to project power is what the war is about.
Iraq is but a single battlefield in that war. It is not “the war.” Stabilizing or even — mirabile dictu! — democratizing Iraq is not winning the war. It is the overseas equivalent of rebuilding the World Trade Center. The hard reality is that war exacts a terrible toll and its fallout must be addressed. This is why we hate war and resort to it only in the face of greater evils. But cleaning up war’s unavoidable messes is not the same as winning.
Winning the war means taking on the regimes and factions that are waging it. That is what the president promised to do after 9/11. “You’re with us or you’re with the terrorists.” ...
While our military protects Maliki, Iran, among other provocations, (a) arms anti-U.S. militias waging war against American and British forces in Iraq, (b) harbors al Qaeda members, (c) builds nukes, (d) threatens to destroy Israel and strike American targets, and (e) uses Hezbollah to wage a proxy terrorist war against Israel and, derivatively, us. Syria, meantime, (a) ushers foreign jihadists over its border into Iraq to join those killing American troops, (b) provides support and safe harbor for Hezbollah in the proxy war against Israel, and (c) works with Hezbollah to reassert itself — and crush the nascent, American-backed democratic movement — in Lebanon. Maliki, for his part, openly supports Hezbollah and draws the new Iraq into ever closer ties with Iran and Syria. ...
Iraq is a single front in a much larger war. If we don’t suppress Iran, Syria, the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the Sunni terror funding stream in Saudi Arabia, we can’t win in Iraq, no matter how victory is defined. You can’t win if you don’t take on the forces determined to see you lose. ...
There is a global jihad. It’s on, now. Like it or not. Rise to the challenge or not. You don’t want war with Iran? Fine. But never forget for a second that Iran is already at war with you.
Sooner or later, we are going to have to match with action the president’s ambitious post-9/11 promises that our enemies would be pursued globally, relentlessly, and until their defeat. Democracy promotion and regional conferences at which we pretend that the problem — Iran — may be the solution are not going to get this done. ...
“Death to America” is not just a slogan for our enemies. It’s a deeply held conviction, on which they are feverishly acting. Only when we are ready to take them seriously, when our leaders’ brave words are matched by determined deeds, can we win — in Iraq and, more importantly, in the greater war.
Contributed by Bill Faith on December 6, 2006 at 02:44 AM in , , , , |