[ETWolverine]

IRAQ: MILITARY GAINS, GOV'T MESS
By AMIR TAHERI

June 22, 2007 -- SIX months ago, the U.S.- led Coalition force in Iraq appeared to be largely in self-defense mode, allowing terrorists and insurgents much latitude in parts of Baghdad and the troubled provinces of Anbar and Diyala. At the same time, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeared to be engaged in a broad political offensive.

Today we have what looks like a reversal of the two situations - with dynamism in the military field but lethargy in the political. The Coalition has increased its effective force by almost 20,000 men and, under its new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has moved into offensive gear:

* The province of Anbar, Iraq's wild west since ancient times, has been partly stabilized with the help of Sunni Arab tribes who have taken up arms against al Qaeda and its Ba'athist allies.

* In those of Baghdad neighborhoods where terrorists held sway, Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. troops, are establishing an effective presence, allowing a slow return to normal. Reassured by the troop presence, the inhabitants of at least one neighborhood, Amiriyah, have chased away a terror outfit entrenched there since 2003.

* The Iraqi army, backed by U.S. and British troops, has moved onto the offensive in the Shiite south as well. This week a major operation smashed an extensive smuggling ring in Maysan province, shutting one route through which Iranian-made weapons are supplied to terrorists.

* Iraqi forces have designed and led a number of operations aimed at clearing the environs of Baghdad of insurgents and flushing out terrorist cells in Baquba's orange groves. More than 5,000 Iraqi troops and some 2,000 paramilitaries are taking part in "combing out" operations in Diyala, the largest turnout of Iraqi forces at any one time since 1992.

* A new corps of Iraqi officers is taking shape, as hundreds of NCOs and officers up to the rank of two-star general from the disbanded army are re-inserted after extensive probing procedures.

* Recruitment in the new Iraqi army and police is up by almost 10 percent; the number of battle-tested battalions is up from 22 to almost 50.

* Iraq forces, backed by Coalition troops, are finally in control of the 1,483-kilometer land and water borders with Iran, which had been left virtually unsupervised since 2003. Only last month, the Iraqis and the Coalition established control over Al Qaim, the town that controls the border with Syria.

* Reports indicate that in the last 10 weeks the various armed enemies of new Iraq have suffered their heaviest losses since the start of the conflict four years ago.

* the insurgents are suffering a significant number of defections while an unknown number are believed to have left Iraq, presumably to pursue "jihad" in other Muslim countries.

* Coalition and Iraqi forces have seized weapons from the insurgents on an unprecedented scale. More than 20 bomb-making factories have also been discovered and neutralized in and around Baghdad.

* The morale of both U.S. and Iraqi troops has been boosted by the decision by the Democrat Party to tone down its campaign against U.S. military commitment to Iraq. There is a feeling in Baghdad that the possibility of America opting for a cut-and-run strategy has decreased. That, in turn, has encouraged the Iraqi military to stop hedging its bets and enter the battle with greater resolve.

BUT the political situation has deteriorated. The Ma liki government may well be on life support. At least eight Cabinet posts are effectively vacant while two key partners in the pro-government bloc, the Fadila (Virtue) Party and Muqtada al-Sadr's group, have walked out. Another key group within the coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, has effectively switched to the opposition and is emerging as Maliki's most outspoken critic.

Thus, the Maliki government now lacks an effective majority in the National Assembly (parliament) and theoretically could be brought down with a no-confidence motion any day.

Worse still, the Shiite alliance, which provided the core element of political stability, has ceased to exist. Even Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the primus inter pares of Shiite clerics, no longer enjoys the unifying clout he did a year or so ago.

It may be premature to speak of political paralysis. But the fact is that the Maliki government has been unable to pass key items of its program. Crucial bills on the oil industry and the distribution of oil revenues remain bogged down in parliamentary committees. Also unresolved are such explosive problems as the status of Kirkuk (a city disputed between the Kurds and Sunni Arabs) and the creation of new federal entities.

The government's weakness also prevents it from setting a date and rules for the municipal elections needed to create local government units to end de facto control by militias in many parts of the country.

All this has encouraged talk of a military coup. Some political groups clearly favor a coup, in the mistaken belief that Iraqis can't order their affairs without some form of dictatorship. The coup option is also encouraged by some Arab states and by Turkey, which is concerned about the revival of Kurdish terrorism from Iraqi territory.

What Iraq needs, however, is not another moustache. It needs to revitalize its political life by forming a new government, with new partners capable of garnering greater support inside and outside parliament. If that proves impossible, the way out is through early general elections. Though set for January 2008, the next vote could be brought forward - although the Kurds, hoping to win Kirkuk with the help of a weak Shiite government, oppose that option.

The U.S.-led Coalition is making significant military progress - but it could be undone if Iraq doesn't get its politics right. It may be time for America and its allies to talk frankly with the Iraqi parties on how to use the military success as a basis for ending the political deadlock.

Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri is based in Europe.

I find it interesting that Harry Reid and company would make comments about how "the surge is a failure", that the military leadership is "incompetent" and that we should get out of Iraq, just as all this military progress is being made there.

Comments from all comers are appreciated.

Elliot

[tomder55]

As I pointed out in another thread ;the US military enjoys a 5:1 advantage in public support over Congress.

The morale of both U.S. and Iraqi troops has been boosted by the decision by the Democrat Party to tone down its campaign against U.S. military commitment to Iraq.

This is really not a correct observation . Harry Reid and Madame Mimi both publicly declared the surge a failure just about the same time the last troops deployed were landing . General Petraus has rallied the troops there .There is a sense of purpose in their mission . They atre finally in a position where they are taking the offensive instead of sitting back and waiting for the next IED to detonate .

Michael Yon : Online Magazine » Blog Archive » Arrowhead Ripper: Surrender or Die reporting from the front says :

The combat in Baqubah should soon reach a peak. Al Qaeda seems to have been effectively isolated. The initial attack on 19 June achieved enough surprise that al Qaeda was caught off guard and trapped. They have been beaten back mostly into pockets and are surrounded and will be dealt with. Part of this is actually due to the capability of Strykers. We were able to “attack from the march.” In other words, a huge force drove in from places like Baghdad and quickly locked down Baqubah.
LTG Ray Odierno visited Baqubah on the 21st. Odierno clarified that this battle is to be final: we are not going to do this again.

But ,he does express concern about the ability of the Iraqi commanders and leadership that mirrors Amir Taheri's commentary somewhat .

I have no problem with the idea of the Iraqi govt. dissolving. Perhaps that is what is needed to go forward. That Mookie al-Sadr walked with his goons is positive . I believe that al-Maliki will be able to form a new majority coalition of moderates without al-Sadr's bloc. Al-Maliki may try to broaden his circle of close advisers to include President Jalal Talabani ( a Kurd);who now only holds a ceremonial position but would be a valuable asset.

[inthebox]

Harry Reid and company don't want victory.

First - they don't believe their country can win in the first place.

Second - if the military does well, it makes them look bad - politics.

Third - their whole reason for being is to oppose the President, and desire anything that
Makes the President look worse, because that will help their party in 08.


I hope the political side of Iraq improves because as the article states, militery victory won't be enough.





Grace and Peace

[tomder55]

Yes ;it is clear the majority in Congress are invested in defeat .

But where the critics of Bush are correct is in the fact that the military has been the sole instrument in this conflict.

When Condi Rice went to Dept. of State she came in with an ambitious agenda to move the dept. out of it's entrenched bureaucratic ways . But I see little evidence of change.

Where our military is training Iraqi security forces to take over ,I see no similar effort by other American agencies to help the Iraqi government to transform . The State Dept in particular has for so many years been invested in the' same old same old' tired and worn out almost dogmatic solutions to the region they have been at least 2 steps behind events["peace process", "engagement" with Syria and Iran; various "contact groups"].

It should not come as a surprise to Amir Taheri that the Iraqi government is groping along in the dark when we have not pointed a flash light for them to follow the light.

[cal823]

The thing is, when you declare war, you have already failed and suffered defeat.
It means your diplomats failed to win the real battle, the fight to reach a common understanding.
There's only two truths to war
1#- to declare war, is to fail diplomatically
2#- people die
The U.S needs to rework its ways, to try harder to find a peaceful solution. Compromise isn't a weakness, it's a strength, and I think the U.S, and many other nations, need to learn that.

[excon]

Hello Elliot:

I'm glad to hear we're making progress...

However, you should excuse me if I'm skeptical. I think your guy Bush has said we're making progress for the last four years. Jeez, you'd think with all that progress we'd be done already.

And, you guys think I'M high?

excon

[NeedKarma]

"Mission Accomplished"

[Dr D]

The present carnage in Iraq brings to mind the film Apocalypse Now. At the end, when colonel Kurtz was telling Lt. Willard why we couldn't win in Vietnam; he stated that the American people don't have the will to commit the same horrors and atrocities that their enemy was willing to do, in order to win. When confronted with an irrational and insanely motivated enemy who has no regard for human life, the only way to defeat them is to sink to their level. I almost long for the "good old days" of the Cold War. At some future time we may be forced to sink to such depths of barbarism.

[speechlesstx]

the thing is, when you declare war, you have already failed and suffered defeat.
It means your diplomats failed to win the real battle, the fight to reach a common understanding.
theres only two truths to war
1#- to declare war, is to fail diplomatically
2#- people die
The U.S needs to rework its ways, to try harder to find a peaceful solution. Compromise isnt a weakness, its a strength, and i think the U.S, and many other nations, need to learn that.

So far that diplomacy thing has worked with the Palestinians and Israel, right? Exactly what compromise should we make with terrorists? Is al-Qaida a nation to work with diplomatically? Are they UN members? Just exactly what compromise should we make with terrorists, force all our women to wear Hijabs and bring back public stonings? Compromise is a two-way street anyway, Saddam didn't compromise with the Marsh Arabs, he destroyed their homeland and drove them away. He didn't compromise with the Kurds, he gassed their villages. Perhaps we should rethink your rules...

#1. Diplomacy with terrorists and genocidal dictators always fails.
#2. When it does, it's time to kick a$$ instead of appeasing them. :D

[speechlesstx]

Elliot, the headline on the surge article in my paper today was, "Keeping al-Qaida on run worrisome." Why, because that would mean Dems and the media would have to report progress and success?

[ETWolverine]

the thing is, when you declare war, you have already failed and suffered defeat.
It means your diplomats failed to win the real battle, the fight to reach a common understanding.
There's only two truths to war
1#- to declare war, is to fail diplomatically
2#- people die
The U.S needs to rework its ways, to try harder to find a peaceful solution. Compromise isn't a weakness, it's a strength, and I think the U.S, and many other nations, need to learn that.

I have to strongly disagree Cal.

Sometimes, war is not a failure of diplomacy. Sometimes it is just taking the necessary actions to preserve civilization, or at least your part of it. Was the USA's part in WWII due to a failure of diplomacy, or was it due to self defence and the choice to do the right thing against Nazi tyranny and Japanese treachery?

Was Gehnghis Kahn's conquest of the world due to a failure in diplomacy? Not likely, since Gehghis Kahn didn't employ diplomats.

I could go on and on listing wars that were not due to the failure of diplomacy. But the point is that without a strong military and the willingness to use it, diplomacy can NEVER work.

Diplomacy is simply the attempt to control another country's policies toward yourself and to impose your will on another country. If that country is not friendly to you and not open to compromise, then it comes down to a question of whether that country is willing to face the consequences of defying your will. And that comes down to a question of the relative strengths of your military vs. the other country's military. If the other country believes that there is nothing you can do about their defiance, then the result is that they will defy you. If they feel that you do have military option available and are willing to use them, they will take fewer chances to defy you. So military strength (and the willingness to use it) is the source of power behind any and all diplomatic relations.

Put another way, military strength is the currency of the diplomatic poker game. Eventually someone somewhere is going to call your bluff, and if you can't cover your bets with military strength, you lose.

To put that in perspective of Iraq, Saddam "knew", based on 12 years of defying the UN resolutions, firing on UN Coalition aircraft, refusing to allow UN WMD inspectors to inspect the country, refusing to return stolen property and POWs from the first Gulf War, attempting the assassination of the elder President Bush, etc. that nothing was going to happen to him for his defiance. Effectively, he was calling the UN's and the USA's bluff, assuming that we wouldn't act against that defiance. The problem was that we now had a president who could and would act against Saddam. He failed to take that into consideration.

So where was the failure in this situation? If there was a diplomatic failure in our relations with Saddam Hussein, it was in our and the UN's failure to demonstrate our willingness and ability to act against Saddam Hussein for 12 years. And that means we failed in our diplomatic relations with Saddam by failing to take MILITARY ACTIONS AGAINST HIM EARLIER. If we had, we might have been able to do it with a more limited engagement that bloodied Saddam's nose, making it clear that we could and would act, but that didn't take out the regime and leave a power vacuum. Had we done that early enough, we might have avoided the full scale war. But we failed to act militarily, and the result was that we were in a weakened diplomatic position from which failure of the diplomatic mission couldn't be avoided, resulting in full-scale major war.

Similarly, it can be argued that if we had taken military action to assassinate Osamma bin Laden back in the mid-late 90s we would have avoided 9/11 and the entire global war on terror, the front lines of which are now taking place in Afghanistan and Iraq. Again, a failure to take limited military action resulted in a bigger war.

There's another way of looking at war.

War is a mere continuation of policy by other means. We see, therefore, that war is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to war relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the art of war in general and the commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, war is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Book I—On the Nature of War, Chapter I

Clausewitz was correct. War is merely another arm of diplomatic relations, not a separate entity from diplomacy. War is a diplomatic tool and diplomacy is a tool of war. They are simply ways of carrying out political policy, and they are interchangeable tools, each of which is used when the other won't work or to enhance the other. Both are simply the tools necessary to implement political policy. War is not a "failure of diplomacy" but rather the result a political decision that war is the most effective way to accomplish a political goal than diplomacy. We didn't fail in our diplomatic relations with Iraq... war was simply a more effective way to implement our policies.

Personally, while I believe that there is some truth to this logic, I think Clausewitz was a bit of a cynic. And a bit Machiavellian, if you ask me. I tend towards the first opinion that I put forward... that war, or the willingness and ability to use military action, is necessary to maintain a strong diplomatic position, and the failure to use limited war to maintain that diplomatic strength can lead to diplomacy failing and all-out major war.

Elliot

[cal823]

Well, in some ways you are right. Many nations wouldn't bother with diplomacy, if diplomacy wasn't backed up by a guy with a gun, though this I intensly dislike, international relations seems to be more about threats than mutual gain these days, and a military is necessary to keep the peace, yet, war no longer seems to be the dreaded last resort, it seems so much easier for war to start.

Also. Consider this. 9/11 was a big disaster yes, but would it have cost any more lives, than a military invasion of afghanistan to prevent it?
American lives are worth the same as any other life, no more.
Also, this "war on terror" thing, seems to be made up entirely of conflicts that people are unsure about, conflicts with very shaky reasoning behind them.
Also, why go all out war on iraq, when they could have quietly "dealt with" Saddam, and a few other troublemakers in iraq, without declaring war, and sending these key figures into hiding, the same go's for ossama. Instead of this huge military action, it could probably have been done quitly, without a military build up and tension sending these people into hiding, instead letting them get relaxed, and removing them quickly and quietly, without massive loss of life.