It's true. Too many people who are 'skeptical' have not adequately explained why they are so. The arguments that I've gleaned, because I intended to address this earlier, are as follows
- Tried to secure Baghdad before, but it didn't work
- Baghdad is different and clear-hold-build won't work there (and we haven't truly even tried our own strategy fully anywhere else, to boot).
- Political solution(s) is needed among the Iraqis before, not after, the violence ends/attenuates
- It's too few troops because
- Rules of thumb for counter-insurgency suggest more needed
- Baghdad is one variable and you have to solve the whole equation, simultaneously
- The violence and capability of insurgents and/or sectarians is escalating faster
- A "surge" sounds temporary and doesn't mesh with "hold"
- The insurgents will be able to adapt to the proposed new tactics - they have before and they are a "learning enemy".
- The Shi'a in power are intransigently sectarian (cf. Krauthammer)
- We are the problem, not the solution (this is ongoing, not specific to the surge, but it works its way into the debate)
- The situation is or will be too far gone for there to be any impact, short or long-term
- There is no one to "hold" in the mid-term - the policing system is corrupt with both fear-based look-the-other-way inaction and the exchange of terror-for-terror sectarian action; the national police are too few, out of touch with locals to be highly effective, as well as being compromised from within by tip-offs and spies; the ISF, where fully competent, lack a government and judiciary (military and civil) with political will, teeth or integrity (massive stolen money), and too few prisons or political will for administrative detentions.
- We are out of time - one, last six-month chance means little when counterinsurgency operations probably should be thought of in chunks of time of 2-3 years at a clip.
- "Secure Baghdad" is not a defined enough mission (as someone said a long time ago, in a closely linked sense of what I mean, "Mr. Rumsfeld, if you cannot secure the airport road, you cannot secure Iraq").
- The unknown incompetence factor
- For Bush: he's not been able, broadly put, so far, either on prosecuting the war or on managing the domestic politics of it
- For the Army: are they fully up the learning curve, is faith in one-man (Petreas) just an admission of impotence, how do we stand of "unity of effort" across all aspects of government
- For the general populace: are we making irrational decisions, now, stateside, based on a sense of "the revolution" in Iraq that was tried and got hijacked and, elsewhere, due to mindless anti-Americanism
- "It is striking that Round Two [in Baghdad in Fall, 2006] is beginning without a word as to how U.S. and Iraqi government forces intend to handle the factions other than the insurgents, with no new initiatives to try to convince militias and local security forces to support the new operation, and with no amnesty, payoff, or inclusion plan to give the militias and local insurgency forces a package of incentives" - Anthony Cordesman. 8/1/06
- The unknown unknown: There are scenarios in which things could get far worse (including a forced withdrawal), so it would be better to withdraw early rather than hang on in search of an optimal moment for departure.
There are counter arguments to all of that.
So, whose side are we on?
The answer is plain: the side of the Iraqi people who want peace and a functioning government with rule of law, not militiamen, sharia justice, and street fighting, and the chaos and fear that are the tools of ... criminals. This means that we are everyone's friend and no one's friend.
After that, we are on our own side, which is hopefully synonymous with all that.
sullylink
