. . . . Nate Sassaman was a misunderstood saint?

Seriously: What if the purpose of the surge was to give the Americans an exit and give the Iraqis an opening? I think that is what it did. If that was its purpose, it succeeded--tactically and perhaps strategically.

But if its purpose was to transform Iraq, it failed.

Best,
Tom

Tom:

you said this:

". . . . Nate Sassaman was a misunderstood saint?

Seriously: What if the purpose of the surge was to give the Americans an exit and give the Iraqis an opening? I think that is what it did. If that was its purpose, it succeeded--tactically and perhaps strategically.

But if its purpose was to transform Iraq, it failed."

Come now Tom, where in my post did i say anything about turning Sassaman into a saint. I mentioned an assessment done by 4ID (an assessment i came across doing primary source research in the Casey papers) in late 2006 many years after Sassaman had been long gone.

To your other points, sure that is what the Surge actually was, something that looked kind of different to the American political scene that allowed the President to boost the political support for a continuing effort in Iraq. But it was not a strategic shift in any significant way. To be sure there was an operational difference in the increased number of brigades but tactically, aside from the increased number of brigades and a higher emphasis on killing AQI, there was continuity from what came before. This is what your book The Gamble got wrong. And the real condition that produced the lowering of violence that occurred in late summer early fall of 07 was the fact that the sectarian violence had peaked in December of 2006 and then started to drop (Casey actually noticed and reported this) which allowed for the precipitous decline over the next 7-8 months. The data base Iraq Body Counts confirms this.

Lastly what is interesting to see in the documents how NSC folks like Hadley, Crouch, O'Sullivan went through all of these contortions to convince themselves that they were doing something different strategically and operationally with the Surge when in fact what they were not. The only difference was the perception of difference created in the American political scene and in the wrong narratives that came afterwards.

Tom,

As COL Paul Yingling put it, "Augustine counsels us that the only purpose of war is to achieve a better peace."

Saint Augustine, as part of the Just War theory crowd, along with being a skeptic, might have backtracked on that statement were he alive today in seeing how far we've taken it?

""Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred."

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Send a relatively small force to charge the cannons at the end of the valley. They are heroic, and even capture the guns. But the guns to the right and left remain silent, awaiting the opportunity to fie on each other.

Why?

Because the real issues were internal, and not part of the Mission or resourcing of the Light Brigade's Charge.

The real numbers of Iraq, prior to 2003, paint a picture of systemic brutality and murder (perhaps a million killed since 1976), which indicates a "system" of murder extending far beyond a handful of Saddam's cousins. Millions were involved, millions more survivors.

Imagine, for a minute, the logictics of such a breathtakingly pervasive killing machine, and how many were involved (or became victims/survivers). The block captains to report their neighbors. The local gendarmary to pick them up and process them. The bus and truck drivers carrying this million into the desert. The death squads themselves. And the bulldozers to cover it up.

There were millions of people, as in most instances of this, with blood on their hands, deep animosities, and vengeance/justice/healing required. And a system which was very well-aware of the need to defend itself to the last, then conceal and protect itself after (War Crimes).

This against an already shell-shocked population demoralized and disaffected by decades of war, brutal oppression, economic and societal collapse (added to by the embargoes, which spawned their own black markets and desperation).

The compound problems of deeply embedded brutal regimes, demoralized populations, and collapse have nothing to do with a Light Brigade Mission targeted solely to "capture the guns at the end of the Valley," and everything to do with why that mission, in the end, could do little more than: (1) remove Saddam; (2) exit the field; and (3) leave a very troubled society to sort its deep problems out.

The alternative "Road Not Taken"---a broadly focused intervention, transitional occupation, stabilization and support mission---was not taken, so the Light Brigade ended up in trap which took years to extricate itself from at great human and financial cost.

As the Baathist Murder Regime continued to protect itself against the primarily Shia and Kurd victims, was the possibility that, absent US/UN action, would force Iranian intervention as the only last resort for those groups. US or the Iranians. Someone had to stop it before the externalities, at a critical geographic location, spilled beyond containment.

The problem, on intervention by any force, was how to root out a deeply entrenched murder regime, and cure a seriously demoralized population and economy.

This required compound lessons of WWII, major drought/famine reliefs, and multi-tasked and highly coordinated responses, which were never considered, staffed, resourced or provided---and got lost in the US internal media message of quick and cheap war. The message destroyed the mission in so many ways.

Would the US public ever have tolerated such an endeavor?

Was it better just to bomb and leave?

What role did the Bush I decision play in creating these circumstances?

Did Bremer really have a choice to leave the current regime in place?

Was the tired old Lawrencian Idea of the Noble Tribes and Money as the Weapon a "quicky, cheapy" and naive effort to patch over the serious problems, but that was doomed to fail?

So far, I see these early skirmishes and limited debates as something which does not reach an appropriate analysis of the problems (as many responders are pointing out).

The armchair quarterbacking and official post-retirement "do-overs" add little to a serious analysis.

Whe Iraq started I told a friend that at best Iraq would go down like our invlovment in the Philipines and Cuba a hundred years ago... foot notes in foreign affairs.

Is the political aspect of party against party much different even than the Mexican/American War 70 years before that?

... and probably reading like one, long, effusive press release worthy of the retired general's best communications officers.

Petraeus is probably concerned about his legacy. Even in the power seat in the CIA, this is a man who hungered for more (Joint Chiefs head) and was passed over. He craves the spotlight, and this bio by a starry-eyed young West Point grad. is one more opportunity for her hero's jog in celebrity land. This said, he's fun to read about because he's so damned arrogant and studied. Also to consider, the results of the wars, in all their numbing horror, are yet to be determined. He could get an "honorable mention" out of it
in another decade or so. The following is a more objectively written piece:

http://www.salon.com/topic/david_petraeus/

If you look at his grades from Canoe U, you'll see he's never been the sharpest tool in the shed.

Basing things off peoples Academy scores? (Guess I am screwed). Maybe Mccain is a a bit of a schmuck because he got the tar beat out of him on a regular basis in Hanoi. In which case he deserves, just a little bit, to be a curmudgeon.

I wish he had made more of a stir at the time, and I also wish he'd made a more public stand on the enhanced interrogation techniques - although I have learned he did much more than I previously thought - but I'll cut him a bit of slack for his "time served."

Being the smartest guy in the room isn't always an advantage. Patton also scored horribly in school yet went on to become quite an accomplished person. Maybe you've heard of him. As for McCain, he turned a stint as a tortured POW into quite a successful second career as a politician, even so far as to winning his party's nomination for President and, if not for his age, the economy, and an opponent so charismatic that there is likely no one who could have beat him, he had a decent shot at winning. That's not too shabby for not being "the sharpest tool in the shed."

The guy has done and suffered more than you or I have, cut him some slack. Grades also do not equate to intelligence, if that were true then Einstein would not the "sharpest tool" either, many others would fall into that category too.

Read "The Nightingale's Song" by Rob Timberg, a great book that covers a lot of the folks in power when Reagan was in Office and about their time in the military and the academy. It made me like James Webb a lot more and North a lot less. Try it ducky, it covers McCain too.

...and discussed it with him. I hold Timberg in highest regard, as a writer and as a man.

Intellectual ability is a useful skill in politics. Perhaps best proof for this this is the results you get when the politician ain't very bright. Vide GWB. Vide JPWREL's comments on McCain. Do Academy grades measure intelligence? To a first approximation, yes. Go argue about something controversial.

but just because someone is a grumpy old man does not mean they are not intelligent ;)

You're full of crap. Some Academy grades have to do with tough choices. See, I could have skated by and studied something easy which I was very good at - like History or English. But even though I struggled with higher level math I did what I wanted to from the outset and studied a full plate of engineering. I completed the program and I am a degreed engineer as a result, but I would never say I am proud of the grades I got in the process. I am proud that I did what I wanted, and fulfilled my goals.

Anyway there's a pretty good argument that the program at the Academies is a bit more difficult that that at regular old State U anyway. Especially when you consider many people never, ever do a lick of Calculus. And for all Academy students that is the first course you take. Many people also don't take any engineering courses if they are studying humanities etc., again the Academies make it mandatory...even if you are an English major.

I don't know what Mccain's grades were but I'd pretty much give him a one letter boost on all of them in comparison to someone at a less demanding institution.

Finally, you started attacking the man for his grades, so why not argue about something important instead of controversial?

(BTW as a sometime civilian engineer you know how much math I use, day to day? Very little beyond simple arithmetic. And what I do use is either done once in a Excel spreadsheet and repeated ad nauseum or handled by specific software. Doesn't mean I can't do it by hand, just don't have to)

While seeking the presidency of the United States, Mr McCain in an open meeting explained that he approved of more wars for the United States and offered tips of what he thought to be good ones, examples to be followed. Examples like Panama, which was not a war at all but mass killing of Panamanian civilians, initially from the air, by night, in retaliation -- possibly -- for the death of an American serviceman slain in a bar fight; possibly for the shooting in a Panama City street of a Marine lieutenant. The military response, named Just Cause, was nothing in the way of a targeted response upon any responsible Panamanian killers.

That was the day Mr McCain permanently erased his name from any rational list of rational Americans.

It's not entirely clear that anybody much recognizes the religious element to Iraqi defiance of the United States in the past decade. And the foreseeable future. Speeches against the Bush invasion and occupation read much like similar speeches made by Arab leaders against the Crusaders 900 years ago, and match almost word for word the call to arms of Russian tsar Alexander in the face of Napoleon's invasion. These damn foreigners, he made clear, were committing military offenses, and also, they were foes of religion -- which is to say, God. Sundry American crazies of whom Mr Boykin was probably the most flagrant publicly made clear their views that the Iraq adventure was war between religions. His Christian God, he smugly told American audiences, was more powerful than the Muslim one. Success in killing Muslims proved it. What a great way to persuade devout Muslims to fight to the death against America, more or less forever.

McCain is still fighting the Viet Nam war from 40 years ago. If he is still so enthusiastic about re-occupying, have him bring Rick Perry along and they can lead that 15,000 person Super Embassy staff on the new surge. Idiots All!

. . . region.

Giving US military personnel immunity is really, really unpopular.* (In 1964, R. Khomeini preached a sermon against it that had so much power it generated riots by 10s of thousands,leading to Khomeini's banishment.)

Ai-Maliki already wanted the US to stay. A large number of representatives in parliament did too. But they knew there was noway the Iraqi public--let alone al-Sadr--was going to tolerate it.

* And good grief, think about it.** Some 50% of the US population thinks the US government is an oppressive, corrupt entity bent on crushing their freedoms. How would Americans take it to have American troops in their communities, acting with legal impunity?

** It continues to amaze*** me how allergic so many Americans are to the simple exercise of common-sense and imagination.

*** I know, I'm a slow learner.

I do have some understanding of the region, I just try not to post ten paragraph missives that cover every possible facet of an issue.

My point simply put is this: The president's solitary pursuit of an exit and his failure to build any trust with the Iraqi leadership rendered the details of any potential SOF agreement mute. President Bush to his credit engaged in weekly video conferences with Maliki and seemed to build a relationship of trust (and don't misunderstand me here, this is his damned mess). Obama seems to have engaged only at the photo op level and Biden mostly spoke at them.

. . . relationship with al-Maliki may or may not be true.

Either way, it wouldn't have mattered.

"In Washington, many Republican lawmakers had spent recent weeks criticizing Obama for offering to keep a maximum of 3,000 troops in Iraq, far less than the 10,000-15,000 recommended by top American commanders in Iraq. That political point-scoring helped obscure that the choice wasn’t Obama’s to make. It was the Iraqis’, and recent interviews with officials in the country provided vivid evidence of just how unpopular the U.S. military presence there has become -- and just how badly the Iraqi political leadership wanted those troops to go home."

"Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, for instance, is a hugely pro-American politician who believes Iraq's security forces will be incapable of protecting the country without sustained foreign assistance. But in a recent interview, he refused to endorse a U.S. troop extension and instead indicated that they should leave."

""We have serious security problems in this country and serious political problems," he said in an interview late last month at his heavily guarded compound in Baghdad. "Keeping Americans in Iraq longer isn't the answer to the problems of Iraq. It may be an answer to the problems of the U.S., but it's definitely not the solution to the problems of my country."
Shiite leaders -- including many from Maliki’s own Dawa Party -- were even more strongly opposed, with followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatening renewed violence if any American troops stayed past the end of the year. The Sadr threat was deeply alarming to Iraqis just beginning to rebuild their lives and their country after the bloody sectarian strife which ravaged Iraq for the past eight and a half years.

"The only major Iraqi political bloc that was willing to speak publicly about a troop extension was the Kurdish alliance which governs the country’s north and has long had a testy relationship with Maliki and the country’s Sunni and Shia populations. But even Kurdish support was far from monolithic: Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker considered one of the most pro-American members of parliament, said in a recent interview that he wanted the U.S. troops out."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/u-s-troop-withdrawal-motivated-by-iraqi-insistence-not-u-s-choice-20111021?mrefid=site_search&page=1

Two years earlier it would be relevant. As written, it is simply the collective excuses of the failed parties. The critical moment was 2009 and the arrival of a new administration, not 2011.

. . . of critical moments for the Iraqis.

But that's the thing--they represent a limit to our power, and we don't like acknowledging that the power to destroy is not the power to control. You''re perpetuating that, and that way leads to no end of tragedy.

But, tell you what. If you can show me anyway al-Maliki stays in power without the Sadr block, and if you can show me anyway we could have gotten al-Sadr to acquiesce in a SOFA-with-immunity, I'll concede your point.

>Some 50% of the US population thinks the US government is an oppressive, corrupt entity bent on crushing their freedoms. How would Americans take it to have American troops in their communities, acting with legal impunity?

I sometimes entertain the fantasy of shipping these people to China (along with people who honestly believe China will make a better global steward than the US) so that they can live under a truly oppressive government for a little while.

Where do you get the number that "50%" of Americans think the US Gov't is oppressive and attempting to take away their freedoms?

. . . complex calculus, that if I tried to explain it, would induce a migraine in 62% of our readers, leading to 46% of those to miss work for a day, with a consequent reduction in GDP for this fiscal year of exactly 0.0007, which would weaken America and increase the likelihood that the terrorists will win. So, I'd better keep that calculus to myself. National security and all that, don'tcha know.

Sorry but you are wrapped up in the US side of the story, Bush was good and if only he had magically stayed in office he would have magically changed the SOF agreement that he himself had signed. Obama is a bad man because he did not when the entire word economy was going to hell spend time on a weekly basis building a relationship with Maliki, a weak leader of a minor Mid-East state, made important by a mistaken war which Obama announced in advance before his election he did not believe in.

From an Iraqi perspective there is history going back to status of Forces agreements with the Brits in the 20's and 30's and to the lack of control over Military contractors in 2003-8. When the MNF was negotiating in 2008 several other countries were willing to stay longer but Iraq was firm everybody out. The Brits were training the Iraqi Navy, but the Iraqis made a point of kicking them all out first before allowing 50 or so back. They wanted to make the point that they were in charge.

The US either uses it's power as the Brits did in nominally independent Egypt prior to 1952, i.e. surround the Parliament and arrest the MPs if you do not like the decisions, or your influence comes from something other than having a few thousand men inside Iraq. We are still assuming the new Iraqi Air Force will be based on F-16 and the Army around M-1 that will need US support, the point is they will be hired and employed by Iraq, not Washington, so it will be influence not control.

If you want a colony then you could have stayed, if you wanted a democracy you should go. If you wanted a democracy which wanted you to stay, well you should have behaved better while you were there! the Iraqi pols would not risk voting for a US forces immunity SOF agreement because the Iraqi people wanted you either out under all circumstances, or only on their soil if you were subject to their laws.

ha! Ok, that was the funniest and best write up I have seen in a long time for explaining that the stat was pulled out of your......well played sir, well played. Good post to wake up to with my coffee, thanks!

Sidney Greenstreet reference either. Here's lookin' at you!

Plus the President delegated Iraq to Biden. I think Maliki saw the writing on the wall. I think Iraqis had doubts about Biden's influence.

I am just glad that I will never have to go back.

I must admit, I look forward enthusiastically to your metaphoric descriptive multipliers. . .but, perhaps a slight nuance: fecal matter started overflowing the fine sewer system built under the Golden Age of the Abbasids after their decay and eventual demise. . .just saying. : )

Tyrtaios-it wasn't a metaphor. I'm talking literal rivers of poop winding their way through landscapes made of hills of excreta, fecal valleys, shit glaciers and waste icebergs. Everyone in the neighborhood has satellite dishes and 3G dual SIM phones, but throwing together a little bit of cash to dig some ditches and cover them over is like launching a mission to Mars.

I did mean since the fall of the Abbasids to the Mongols. I am not familiar enough with Abbasid history to say whether it was a disgusting mess back then, too. I will say that the best thing I've read on the place is Elie Kedourie's The Chatham House Version. There's a whole chapter in there on Iraq from the time the Brits "liberated" it from the Ottomans and gave it to King Faisal. BTW, did you know that until the 1950s, the largest ethnic group in Baghdad was the Baghdadi Jews?

...Iraq was greener and cleaner when Saddam and his crowd ran things. That's a relative sort of green and clean, and probably did not extend to all areas. My impression was that too many Iraqi males aspired to hanging out, smoking cigarettes and watching soccer games. Traffic wasn't a problem since the traffic cops had the power to shoot your car.

From the vantage of a chopper, I did see lots of people working hard in the palm groves and fields and on that lake out in Anbar. Seemed like a lot of the workers were women.

I know someone who was in Iraq in the late 80's/early 90's. He mentioned that Iraq worked through the efforts of foreigners, paid for by petro dollars and Arab government bribes. American and Brit docs and engineers, Palestinian administrators, Egyptian road workers, Sudanese laborers, etc.

I heard a sad but funny story about what's planned for the American tanks: skip the maintenance package, buy a few extra M-1's, park and point the barrels toward Iran.

Once the Iraqi government and political elites settle scores, make deals, share spoils, and develop a status quo with the Kurds, Iran and the Sunni world, things will "calm" down, and the foreign workers from many (but not all) countries will come back. American guest workers will be about as likely as George Bush High School in Baghdad.

Agree that a residual force would add nothing to anything, except for persistent delusions of American grandeur.

Indeed _B _, I did know about the history of the Jews, and its moderate comeback under the Ottoman Empire (a word corrupted from Osman), who early on didn't care who you where, but looked toward your talent.

If you are interested, there is a new book out, "Shadow of the Sultan’s Realm: The Destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East." It even has a picture of Gertrude Bell with T.E. Lawrence . .Bell of course played a large hand in creating Iraq, obviously knowing the British would be on top, oil would flow to Britain, and that shit would flow down hill! : )

Always good to hear from you on matters great and small, to include health and sanitation.

Toujours Fidele

I'll check the book out. If Bell, Lawrence and the other Brits who made the Middle East what it is were really concerned about making sure the oil and other wealth kept flowing, it would have been much better-they would have created something that lasted and kept producing wealth for both the Iraqis and the Brits. I honestly think they were motivated by a combination of a desire to gain prestige within their bureaucracies and social circles, and, as Kedourie puts it, "the shrill and clamant voice of English radicalism, thrilling with self-accusatory and joyous lamentation." It's always fun and career-enhancing to make up for imaginary sins of the past by dispersing Other People's Money. Obviously, nothing has changed since we've replaced the Brits.

it's Admiral! Welcome back, you're just in time...to leave again. See ya in three months.

Ok, so based on the many, many reason's why we went (or why we were told we went in) I believe we accomplished all of them. But why go back? You can't win a civil war for someone else without choosing sides (which you have to agree would mke the situation worse). If we go back to stop what I believe was inevitable (once Sadam died or maybe earlier) then we would have to stay forever (personnaly I hate the place, not the people, just that place).

So why go back? This is not like an ex-girl friendthat you could see where you went wrong and patch things up (that would imply there was once a good relationship). This would be more akin to something much much worse. We are out, the Iraqis are going through the process of determining their own future and I say lets let them do that.

As far as taking the heat as a nation... we would take the heat from someone who feels wronged by our actions there regardless, we are built to take it.