Be Careful What You Wish For

My last post ended with a statement that we could not leave the field to Iran. One must look at the consequences of an American withdrawal from Iraq. This is why it is difficult for me to understand why the anti-war factions take the positions that they do.



An American retreat from Iraq would leave Iran as the only country in the Middle East strong enough to exert it's hegemony over the region, and they certainly have let it be known that is what they intend to do.



So, let's assume that the anti-war Left wins, and we withdraw from Iraq. The Gulf States are then under Iranian guns. Should we worry about that? Apparently not, if one listens to the Left. "What do we care about that region?", they seem to say. Or do they say they won't let that happen? We can negotiate our way out of the mess.



I can go on in that vein, but what is the use? The Left is anti-war, but often blindly so. They are against it, but have no real solutions to avoiding war except for platitudinous resort to negotiation with people who won't negotiate, or to getting help from countries that have no intention of helping. It all sounds good to the unthinking, but it just won't work.



In my reading today, I ran into a piece by one Juan Cole, the Middle Eastern guru favored by the Left. He makes some good points that perhaps the Left should pay attention to

"....But in all likelihood, when the Democratic president pulls US troops out in summer of 2009, all hell is going to break loose. The consequences may include even higher petroleum prices than we have seenrecently,which at some point could bring back stagflation or very high rates of inflation.

In other words, the Democratic president risks being Fordized when s/he withdraws from Iraq, by the aftermath. A one-term president associated with humiliation abroad and high inflation at home? Maybe I should say, Carterized. The Republican Party could come back strong in 2012 and then dominate politics for decades, if that happened....." (read the whole
thing)

Now wait a minute! Is he saying that they should know withdrawal will be a disaster? Of course they know. This is not about the national interest, this is about winning elections...at least to them.

Funny how he should mention Jimmy Carter, and him having been "Carterized." By this he means unjustly criticized and defeated for re-election. I am reminded that Jimmy Carter is the last leftist to be called upon to lead our country amid troubles with Iran. It should be noted that Mr. Carter abandoned the Shah, which led to the present bunch of crazies being in charge. They turned on him quickly, though, and took over our embassy, holding Americans hostage for months. Negotiate, sure, he negotiated. With himself. To no avail. Then he tried a pathetic rescue attempt by unprepared and poorly equipped troops, which was a total failure. At least he finally tried something.

We all need to remind ourselves that this is the type of individual that is seeking to benefit from our difficulties in Iraq. Mr. Carter was soundly defeated, but only after the damage was done. Will history repeat?

I will close with a warning to the Left: be careful what you wish for. It may come true, then what will you do?

The Mistake Filled War

Having followed the testimony this week of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, one is tempted to indulge in a lot of thinking about what could have been or what should have been. Retrospect is a perfect perch for doing that, of course, and critcisms now of mistakes made at the beginning is much easier than forseeing what will occur.

Like probably most Americans (and almost all the current opponents of the war) I was in favor from the start. Saddam Hussein needed to be deposed, and an American invasion was needed to do so. Also like most Americans, I assumed that appropriate intelligence and war planning would take place before an invasion. As did many, I fell for the "slam dunk" quote from CIA Chief George Tenet even though I did not particularly trust him. As we have found, that was a mistaken assumption on my (our) part.

Clearly, contingency planning was not in place for an occupation, particularly one with an active and deadly guerrilla insurgency. The invasion was done on the cheap, with bad intelligence and far too few troops. (I am pretty certain that this was the subject matter of the dispute between Colin Powell and Rumsfeld so there was probably another side presented to the President. He picked the wrong side if that is what occurred.)

Even after it became clear that was the case, our leaders stonewalled and spinned the reports in order to maintain a policy that was obviously a failure. This went on for over three years, with lives and time and treasure wasted because the government could not or would not admit error, and make appropriate changes in strategy and tactics.

The three years were critical. During that period, Americans became impatient. The public saw a drumbeat of negative news from the war zone, with hardly any of the positive things that were happening being reported in the media. The negatives (and there were many) were emphasized by the media, Hollywood, and the Left. The anti-war movement got stronger, and the American Left started forcefully opposing the war and agitating for an immediate timeline for withdrawal. Even many that favored the war changed positions, and now are pushing hard for our forces to retreat.

After the 2006 elections, when the Democrats won control of Congress at least partly on an anti-war platform, the Bush Administration finally awakened and made the changes that should have been made years earlier. Rumsfeld was let go and new strategy, tactics and rules of engagement were put in place. Another 30,000 troops were surged into the battle zones, and were finally in place in June of 2007.

Now, three months after the surge battle operations actually started, the new men in charge have been home for a progress report. The report, of course, has been mixed. The military portion of the new strategy is showing some success, but is not over. On the political side, there is less (or no) progress, but Ambassador Crocker maintains that with time, that will improve.

How much time? That is hard to tell. Even steadfast Republicans are beginning to get very nervous at the anti-war sentiment in the country, but it appears that there will be a slight consensus for following the recommendations of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. This means that we will probably have over 100,000 troops in Iraq at the end of Bush's term. Then it will be up to whomever succeeds Bush to deal with the situation. That is when it will get interesting.

Where do I stand? I think we should give the new strategy a chance to succeed, but also plan for what must be done if it does not. We cannot leave the field to Iran under any circumstances.