WalkingThinkTank.com
ideas that go places
TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2007
In the run-up to war in March 2003, I felt certain that our
country was on the verge of making a tragic mistake, though
I had no idea just how tragic. Not only has the human
suffering inflicted upon our military and the Iraqis been
horrific beyond comprehension, but this unnecessary war
has been devastating to our strategic interests.
Yet as strongly as I felt that we were making a horrible
mistake in invading Iraq, I feel just as strongly now that we
need to give the troop surge a reasonable chance to succeed.
For the damage this war has inflicted on our position in the
world, stability in the Middle East and the war against Al
Qaeda will be compounded many times over if we give up the
fight and leave Iraq in chaos.
I am writing at this critical moment because our nation’s
debate over Iraq has been distorted by politics, pride, pain,
distrust and – above all – anger at the Bush administration’s
handling of nearly every aspect of this war since the fall of
2002. The pain, distrust and anger are completely justified,
but we can’t let them obscure the magnitude of what is at
stake.
Mainly, I’m writing to talk to those who once supported the
war but understandably lost faith in the mission as they saw
the tragic consequences unfold and those who were right
from the start that this mission never should have been
undertaken. I’m writing in case there are still any open
minds among you and because there are so few voices in this
debate who are speaking the full truth.
President Bush and Republicans in Congress who have
supported the Iraq war since before it began have lost
credibility because they can’t admit what most Americans
understand: They weren’t simply naïve in believing the war
would be a cakewalk; they were negligent in choosing to rush
our under-equipped and under-manned forces into a brutal
conflict that should have been avoided.
It’s only natural for people to reject the course mapped out
by those who steered us into a disaster, particularly when it
is certain to involve the loss of life and limbs for the heroic
members of our military of whom we have asked so much,
for so long. No one can defend the way the men and women
of our armed forces and their families have been treated.
They are paying the price for the horrendous judgment of
our Congress and our president, and it is heartbreaking.
Everyone, of course, wants so badly to bring the troops
home. So it has been incredibly tempting for those
Democrats in Congress who originally supported the war to
break with an unpopular president, wash their hands of this
conflict and call for troops to begin pulling out of Iraq
immediately. And can you really imagine that anybody who
rightly voted against authorizing force in Iraq would now
support continuing a conflict that is causing so much misery
and that the public has turned against?
Well, actually, one such profile in political courage just
returned home from a trip to the Middle East. Rep. Brian
Baird, a five-term Democrat from Washington state who
voted against the war, came home with this message: “We
have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic
interest in making this work.”
“People may be upset. I wish I didn’t have to say this. . . . I
know it’s going to cost hundreds of American lives and
hundreds of billions of dollars.”
I don’t know if the Democrats calling for a withdrawal have
been blinded by their understandable hatred of this war and
their justifiable lack of confidence this president, but they are
not leveling with the public about the consequences of
leaving Iraq in chaos. Baird’s fellow Democrats should listen
to him, and so should the American people.
Because there are so few people speaking the whole truth, I
will add my voice to Baird’s. This unnecessary conflict has
been a disaster from its inception, but because the stakes are
so great and we now have a strategy that has a chance to
work, we must continue this hard fight.
I firmly believe this, yet I will also readily say that it no
longer makes sense to speak of victory in Iraq. The high-
minded mission of ending Saddam’s brutal regime and
planting the seed of democracy that would take root and
spread across the Middle East has backfired. Far from being
an example for other countries to replicate, Iraq can only be
viewed as a nightmare to be avoided at all costs.
The tyrant is gone, but there was no evidence – even with
the faulty intelligence – that he posed anything close to an
imminent threat. He certainly posed a potential threat in the
future, but that wasn’t a sufficient strategic rationale for
rushing into a war with few allies and ill-equipped forces.
The great experiment of trying to foster a new democracy
and a new future for Iraq in place of a dictatorship and
despite the age-old conflict between Sunni and Shiite was an
experiment that – if attempted at all – needed to be
conducted in a sterile environment, a germ-free laboratory.
But we set out to perform it without the manpower to
maintain order, much less to seal the borders and prevent
the inflow of Al Qaeda fighters and weapons from Iran and
Syria.
And because those who arrogantly rushed to war cared little
for international support, instead of isolating our enemy,
they succeeded only in isolating America. Yes, America’s
security can not be held hostage to world opinion, but the
fact that the world was against us wasn’t just a political
concern, it was a strategic concern.
When General Norman Schwarzkopf prepared to go to war
against Iraq in 1991, there was one principle on which he
would not budge – he insisted the first troops to enter
Kuwait City be Arab troops, not Americans. He wanted to
make sure the forces would be welcomed as liberators.
"Virtually any offensive would be acceptable, as long as two
conditions were met: first, Arab forces in significant numbers
had to fight by our side; second, we had to win,” Schwarzkopf
wrote in his autobiography. “The war would then be
remembered as western and Arab nations against Saddam
Hussein. From there, it was only a short step to what became
an inviolable principle of our planning: in any ground war
against Iraq, I told my staff, Arab forces must be the ones to
liberate Kuwait City."
By isolating ourselves from world opinion and by making the
war in Iraq America’s war, we handed our enemy a key
moral victory in the battle of ideas – the battle of individual
liberty against Islamic extremism. And we emboldened all
who wanted to see what began as a noble mission turn into a
humanitarian catastrophe. Instead of turning Iraq into a
force for stability and progress in the Middle East, we have
turned it into a force for instability and a text-book case of
how vicious extremists can hijack a country.
And by pinning our military down in Iraq for coming on five
years, we have emboldened Iran to defiantly pursue its
nuclear ambitions and we’ve been powerless to stop a
resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
So this is the disaster we have wrought. And those calling for
withdrawal rightly note that America’s image in the world
has been debased by this ill-advised war and its tragic
consequences. But do they really believe that we will
improve America’s standing in the world by abandoning Iraq
to what will likely be a bloodbath of epic proportions?
Democrats such as Sen. Barack Obama have acknowledged
such a threat: “There’s no doubt there are risks of increased
bloodshed in Iraq without a continuing U.S. presence there.”
But he said that preventing a potential genocide isn’t a good
enough reason to keep our troops there.
“If that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on
the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you
would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where
millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic
strife,” Obama said.
But there are a few critical differences. For one thing, we
bear responsibility for precipitating the civil war in Iraq. And
if we abandon Iraq to the likely chaos that will ensue, it
would be a far more serious strategic disaster than our
decision to go to war in the first place.
America’s greatest interest in the region – and in the war of
ideas – is to stand with the Islamic moderates who renounce
suicide bombings, who respect human liberty and who are
striving to build a better future for their people. Yet this is
exactly whom we would be deserting if we leave Iraq. Nor
would we only be abandoning Iraqi moderates; we would be
dealing a blow to those in the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran and
across the region. For the Bush administration was wrong
about nearly everything, but they were right about the fact
that what happens in Iraq will leave an indelible imprint on
the entire region.
It is no coincidence that important steps toward peace
between Israelis and Palestinians followed the first Gulf War,
when Arab nations joined with the U.S. in standing up for the
rule of law. And if this war with Iraq ends in a triumph of
intolerance and hatred and an explosion of brutality, then we
can expect the consequences to reverberate throughout the
Middle East and set back any hope of progress in the region
for a generation or more.
If we leave the Iraqi people at the mercy of death squads, Al
Qaeda-affiliated nihilists and Iranian-sponsored militias,
then we would be turning our back on what may be the last
hope for a Middle East where human rights, freedom and a
moderate form of Islam stand a chance against the most
vicious form of religious extremism. And we would risk the
most dire consequences by leaving the region – with its vast
oil wealth and nuclear ambitions – in the grip of the those
whose fondest desire is to erase individual liberty – and the
state of Israel – from the globe.
It is frustrating and perplexing to me that those who
consider themselves a friend of Islamic moderates and of
Israel would advocate such a disastrous course – no matter
how much they hate and regret the war in Iraq. The only
explanation is that the country has not had an honest
discussion about what is at stake.
Even those calling for our troops to start coming home now
are beginning to acknowledge that the new strategy being
carried out by Gen. David Petraeus is working. Let’s be clear
what that means. It means that we are finally winning the
battle against those who believe that blowing up dozens of
families going to the mosque or marketplace is their highest
possible calling. These people are against everything we
stand for, and if we give up this fight, they will be free to
unleash their terror on the innocent and defenseless.
Yet despite the military progress, war opponents say we
should still begin to pull out troops because there has been no
progress toward political reconciliation between Iraq’s
Sunnis and Shiites. “I do not think the Iraqis are ready to do
what they have to do for themselves yet,” Sen. Hillary
Clinton said. “I think it is unacceptable for our troops to be
caught in the crossfire of a sectarian civil war while the Iraqi
government is on vacation.”
Her logic sounds so reasonable, until you consider what she
leaves out: The consequences of leaving Iraq to devolve into
chaos would be devastating to our strategic interests, to the
region and to hopes for peace in the world.
It is understandable that Americans are impatient for Iraqis
to reach a political compromise, but this is the unfortunate
result of a war that has inflamed sectarian tensions and left
the country in a state of upheaval. And it is impossible to
know for sure whether political reconciliation can be achieved
and whether it can create the foundation for a stable Iraq,
but the only hope of political progress is to establish a degree
of security that encourages Iraqis to take a chance for the
sake of a better future. This is the rationale behind the
addition of 30,000 troops this spring. General Petraeus has
led ably. He has earned our trust. And there is still reason to
hope that security will continue to improve and political
progress will follow.
The Pentagon has said we do not have the forces to continue
the troop surge beyond next spring. They are not talking
about maintaining this strategy indefinitely. But we need to
give it a reasonable chance to work. Despite the great cost
that entails, the cost of retreat is much greater.
Some in Congress have stopped short of calling for
withdrawal from Iraq, but have talked of strategic
redeployment that takes our troops out of harm’s way.
Supporters of this approach suggest that our forces would be
within striking distance if things were to spiral out of control
in Iraq. This makes no sense. Now is not the time to give
breathing room to an enemy we have on the defensive. If we
want to look out for the interests of our troops, we can’t take
them away from a battlefield where they are succeeding and
then ask them to return to a battlefield where they will face a
strengthened enemy.
Our troops and their families have already given so much. It
is tragic that we have to ask them to give even more, but the
only way to truly honor their sacrifice is to do everything we
can to make sure that it helps produce a safer world.
We have one last possible chance to avoid a much greater
catastrophe in Iraq and the broader Middle East, but that
chance will be lost if we back away from our current
strategy. If we want to look out for the interest of our troops,
we should do everything we can to make sure this strategy
works, or else they – and quite possibly their families on the
homefront – will have to face this enemy again and again.
what do you think?
FEEDBACK:
Center-sphere?
Is there such a thing? We at RealClearBlogs believe that
blogs offer a unique platform for real-time dialogue and
debate, and we see it as part of our mission to provide a
platform for this. However, mixed in with the back and forth
of the more partisan ends of the spectrum there exists an
effort to change the tone, posit alternative ideas and provide
a voice for centrists.
This is the charge taken up by blogs like The Moderate
Voice, Donklephant and Central Sanity. Attempting to serve
as the cooling saucer of the blogosphere is a noble idea, but
can it truly be done? When President Bush and the Iraq War
represent the fuel that makes the machine run, how do you
pose a moderate, yet sensible, alternative?
Perhaps it's done by introducing controversial ideas, the kind
that go down like bad medicine for both sides.
WalkingThinkTank does precisely this in a guest post at
TMV--Why I Opposed The War But Support The Surge. . . .
country was on the verge of making a tragic mistake, though
I had no idea just how tragic. Not only has the human
suffering inflicted upon our military and the Iraqis been
horrific beyond comprehension, but this unnecessary war
has been devastating to our strategic interests.
Yet as strongly as I felt that we were making a horrible
mistake in invading Iraq, I feel just as strongly now that we
need to give the troop surge a reasonable chance to succeed.
For the damage this war has inflicted on our position in the
world, stability in the Middle East and the war against Al
Qaeda will be compounded many times over if we give up the
fight and leave Iraq in chaos.
I am writing at this critical moment because our nation’s
debate over Iraq has been distorted by politics, pride, pain,
distrust and – above all – anger at the Bush administration’s
handling of nearly every aspect of this war since the fall of
2002. The pain, distrust and anger are completely justified,
but we can’t let them obscure the magnitude of what is at
stake.
Mainly, I’m writing to talk to those who once supported the
war but understandably lost faith in the mission as they saw
the tragic consequences unfold and those who were right
from the start that this mission never should have been
undertaken. I’m writing in case there are still any open
minds among you and because there are so few voices in this
debate who are speaking the full truth.
President Bush and Republicans in Congress who have
supported the Iraq war since before it began have lost
credibility because they can’t admit what most Americans
understand: They weren’t simply naïve in believing the war
would be a cakewalk; they were negligent in choosing to rush
our under-equipped and under-manned forces into a brutal
conflict that should have been avoided.
It’s only natural for people to reject the course mapped out
by those who steered us into a disaster, particularly when it
is certain to involve the loss of life and limbs for the heroic
members of our military of whom we have asked so much,
for so long. No one can defend the way the men and women
of our armed forces and their families have been treated.
They are paying the price for the horrendous judgment of
our Congress and our president, and it is heartbreaking.
Everyone, of course, wants so badly to bring the troops
home. So it has been incredibly tempting for those
Democrats in Congress who originally supported the war to
break with an unpopular president, wash their hands of this
conflict and call for troops to begin pulling out of Iraq
immediately. And can you really imagine that anybody who
rightly voted against authorizing force in Iraq would now
support continuing a conflict that is causing so much misery
and that the public has turned against?
Well, actually, one such profile in political courage just
returned home from a trip to the Middle East. Rep. Brian
Baird, a five-term Democrat from Washington state who
voted against the war, came home with this message: “We
have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic
interest in making this work.”
“People may be upset. I wish I didn’t have to say this. . . . I
know it’s going to cost hundreds of American lives and
hundreds of billions of dollars.”
I don’t know if the Democrats calling for a withdrawal have
been blinded by their understandable hatred of this war and
their justifiable lack of confidence this president, but they are
not leveling with the public about the consequences of
leaving Iraq in chaos. Baird’s fellow Democrats should listen
to him, and so should the American people.
Because there are so few people speaking the whole truth, I
will add my voice to Baird’s. This unnecessary conflict has
been a disaster from its inception, but because the stakes are
so great and we now have a strategy that has a chance to
work, we must continue this hard fight.
I firmly believe this, yet I will also readily say that it no
longer makes sense to speak of victory in Iraq. The high-
minded mission of ending Saddam’s brutal regime and
planting the seed of democracy that would take root and
spread across the Middle East has backfired. Far from being
an example for other countries to replicate, Iraq can only be
viewed as a nightmare to be avoided at all costs.
The tyrant is gone, but there was no evidence – even with
the faulty intelligence – that he posed anything close to an
imminent threat. He certainly posed a potential threat in the
future, but that wasn’t a sufficient strategic rationale for
rushing into a war with few allies and ill-equipped forces.
The great experiment of trying to foster a new democracy
and a new future for Iraq in place of a dictatorship and
despite the age-old conflict between Sunni and Shiite was an
experiment that – if attempted at all – needed to be
conducted in a sterile environment, a germ-free laboratory.
But we set out to perform it without the manpower to
maintain order, much less to seal the borders and prevent
the inflow of Al Qaeda fighters and weapons from Iran and
Syria.
And because those who arrogantly rushed to war cared little
for international support, instead of isolating our enemy,
they succeeded only in isolating America. Yes, America’s
security can not be held hostage to world opinion, but the
fact that the world was against us wasn’t just a political
concern, it was a strategic concern.
When General Norman Schwarzkopf prepared to go to war
against Iraq in 1991, there was one principle on which he
would not budge – he insisted the first troops to enter
Kuwait City be Arab troops, not Americans. He wanted to
make sure the forces would be welcomed as liberators.
"Virtually any offensive would be acceptable, as long as two
conditions were met: first, Arab forces in significant numbers
had to fight by our side; second, we had to win,” Schwarzkopf
wrote in his autobiography. “The war would then be
remembered as western and Arab nations against Saddam
Hussein. From there, it was only a short step to what became
an inviolable principle of our planning: in any ground war
against Iraq, I told my staff, Arab forces must be the ones to
liberate Kuwait City."
By isolating ourselves from world opinion and by making the
war in Iraq America’s war, we handed our enemy a key
moral victory in the battle of ideas – the battle of individual
liberty against Islamic extremism. And we emboldened all
who wanted to see what began as a noble mission turn into a
humanitarian catastrophe. Instead of turning Iraq into a
force for stability and progress in the Middle East, we have
turned it into a force for instability and a text-book case of
how vicious extremists can hijack a country.
And by pinning our military down in Iraq for coming on five
years, we have emboldened Iran to defiantly pursue its
nuclear ambitions and we’ve been powerless to stop a
resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
So this is the disaster we have wrought. And those calling for
withdrawal rightly note that America’s image in the world
has been debased by this ill-advised war and its tragic
consequences. But do they really believe that we will
improve America’s standing in the world by abandoning Iraq
to what will likely be a bloodbath of epic proportions?
Democrats such as Sen. Barack Obama have acknowledged
such a threat: “There’s no doubt there are risks of increased
bloodshed in Iraq without a continuing U.S. presence there.”
But he said that preventing a potential genocide isn’t a good
enough reason to keep our troops there.
“If that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on
the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you
would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where
millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic
strife,” Obama said.
But there are a few critical differences. For one thing, we
bear responsibility for precipitating the civil war in Iraq. And
if we abandon Iraq to the likely chaos that will ensue, it
would be a far more serious strategic disaster than our
decision to go to war in the first place.
America’s greatest interest in the region – and in the war of
ideas – is to stand with the Islamic moderates who renounce
suicide bombings, who respect human liberty and who are
striving to build a better future for their people. Yet this is
exactly whom we would be deserting if we leave Iraq. Nor
would we only be abandoning Iraqi moderates; we would be
dealing a blow to those in the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran and
across the region. For the Bush administration was wrong
about nearly everything, but they were right about the fact
that what happens in Iraq will leave an indelible imprint on
the entire region.
It is no coincidence that important steps toward peace
between Israelis and Palestinians followed the first Gulf War,
when Arab nations joined with the U.S. in standing up for the
rule of law. And if this war with Iraq ends in a triumph of
intolerance and hatred and an explosion of brutality, then we
can expect the consequences to reverberate throughout the
Middle East and set back any hope of progress in the region
for a generation or more.
If we leave the Iraqi people at the mercy of death squads, Al
Qaeda-affiliated nihilists and Iranian-sponsored militias,
then we would be turning our back on what may be the last
hope for a Middle East where human rights, freedom and a
moderate form of Islam stand a chance against the most
vicious form of religious extremism. And we would risk the
most dire consequences by leaving the region – with its vast
oil wealth and nuclear ambitions – in the grip of the those
whose fondest desire is to erase individual liberty – and the
state of Israel – from the globe.
It is frustrating and perplexing to me that those who
consider themselves a friend of Islamic moderates and of
Israel would advocate such a disastrous course – no matter
how much they hate and regret the war in Iraq. The only
explanation is that the country has not had an honest
discussion about what is at stake.
Even those calling for our troops to start coming home now
are beginning to acknowledge that the new strategy being
carried out by Gen. David Petraeus is working. Let’s be clear
what that means. It means that we are finally winning the
battle against those who believe that blowing up dozens of
families going to the mosque or marketplace is their highest
possible calling. These people are against everything we
stand for, and if we give up this fight, they will be free to
unleash their terror on the innocent and defenseless.
Yet despite the military progress, war opponents say we
should still begin to pull out troops because there has been no
progress toward political reconciliation between Iraq’s
Sunnis and Shiites. “I do not think the Iraqis are ready to do
what they have to do for themselves yet,” Sen. Hillary
Clinton said. “I think it is unacceptable for our troops to be
caught in the crossfire of a sectarian civil war while the Iraqi
government is on vacation.”
Her logic sounds so reasonable, until you consider what she
leaves out: The consequences of leaving Iraq to devolve into
chaos would be devastating to our strategic interests, to the
region and to hopes for peace in the world.
It is understandable that Americans are impatient for Iraqis
to reach a political compromise, but this is the unfortunate
result of a war that has inflamed sectarian tensions and left
the country in a state of upheaval. And it is impossible to
know for sure whether political reconciliation can be achieved
and whether it can create the foundation for a stable Iraq,
but the only hope of political progress is to establish a degree
of security that encourages Iraqis to take a chance for the
sake of a better future. This is the rationale behind the
addition of 30,000 troops this spring. General Petraeus has
led ably. He has earned our trust. And there is still reason to
hope that security will continue to improve and political
progress will follow.
The Pentagon has said we do not have the forces to continue
the troop surge beyond next spring. They are not talking
about maintaining this strategy indefinitely. But we need to
give it a reasonable chance to work. Despite the great cost
that entails, the cost of retreat is much greater.
Some in Congress have stopped short of calling for
withdrawal from Iraq, but have talked of strategic
redeployment that takes our troops out of harm’s way.
Supporters of this approach suggest that our forces would be
within striking distance if things were to spiral out of control
in Iraq. This makes no sense. Now is not the time to give
breathing room to an enemy we have on the defensive. If we
want to look out for the interests of our troops, we can’t take
them away from a battlefield where they are succeeding and
then ask them to return to a battlefield where they will face a
strengthened enemy.
Our troops and their families have already given so much. It
is tragic that we have to ask them to give even more, but the
only way to truly honor their sacrifice is to do everything we
can to make sure that it helps produce a safer world.
We have one last possible chance to avoid a much greater
catastrophe in Iraq and the broader Middle East, but that
chance will be lost if we back away from our current
strategy. If we want to look out for the interest of our troops,
we should do everything we can to make sure this strategy
works, or else they – and quite possibly their families on the
homefront – will have to face this enemy again and again.
what do you think?
FEEDBACK:
Center-sphere?
Is there such a thing? We at RealClearBlogs believe that
blogs offer a unique platform for real-time dialogue and
debate, and we see it as part of our mission to provide a
platform for this. However, mixed in with the back and forth
of the more partisan ends of the spectrum there exists an
effort to change the tone, posit alternative ideas and provide
a voice for centrists.
This is the charge taken up by blogs like The Moderate
Voice, Donklephant and Central Sanity. Attempting to serve
as the cooling saucer of the blogosphere is a noble idea, but
can it truly be done? When President Bush and the Iraq War
represent the fuel that makes the machine run, how do you
pose a moderate, yet sensible, alternative?
Perhaps it's done by introducing controversial ideas, the kind
that go down like bad medicine for both sides.
WalkingThinkTank does precisely this in a guest post at
TMV--Why I Opposed The War But Support The Surge. . . .
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an independent's search
for fairness, responsibility
and common sense