The only thing that one might conclude with reasonable certainly ... is that the estimate of a $2.5 trillion dollar effort is sound. Will it be paid back ten fold?
That and that Baker-Hamilton, not even yearling, is ... not operative.
Can you win a counter-insurgency, six months at a time? Or, do you end up drowning yourself in your thirst, as you pursue a tempting mirage?That and that Baker-Hamilton, not even yearling, is ... not operative.
Such is the case with the latest strategic assessment from Iraq. We take two points in time, we measure, but what does that mean, when visibility beyond "another six months" is so low?
The only thing that one might conclude with reasonable certainly from the combination of the Pretreaus/Crocker reports and the Commission on the ISF is that the estimate of a $2.5 trillion dollar effort is sound, given that another 2-4 years of 'gradual progress' is on offer, in which is it optimistically supposed that the forces of order suppress the forces of chaos. Will it be paid back ten fold?
That and that Baker-Hamilton, not even a yearling, is ... not operative. Did anyone hear even a mention of this expensive report that Baker got assurances wouldn't be dead on arrival from his friend "W"?
Smart people have noted the not-so-time-bound "transition vision", of an orderly pickup by the ISF, one key, strategic ingredient to any 'transition'. Who is to say that this transition will look anything like this? When one starts thinking about all the ways that it could head south quickly and the amount of time that cancel-and-correct would take, far longer periods of time round out a range of possible 'end-dates' from 2-4 to maybe even 5-9. Forecasting error has to be high, right?
Holding the wind
We can use third-party force to stop violence, to diminish the capacity for it, to prevent it spiraling. But, can third-parties stop or "wait-out" the intent to do harm? Petreaus says no, that the conflict among groups in Iraq will occur, it's just a question of armed or not. The Lebanese experience also says "no". The Algerian experience ... says "yes" and "no".
It's not just the trends, it's the cumulative impact of the levels of violence and disarray, including despair related to economic depression, including a soaring inflation rate (and now a depreciating dinar), most recently:
"But by the time he got to Iraq, I think the war was no longer fightable according to the counterinsurgency doctrine we drafted." - Newsweek
Why we cannot help ourselves
Because "progress" in Iraq is not entirely in coalition hands, as Rumsfeld pointed out in his own style a long while back, one can, of course, execute a perfectly reasonable set of tactics, yet still fail to meet strategic objectives, through no fault of one's own. (Not that Bush has yet to execute anything close to our own strategy of clear-hold-build in many places consistently or even thoroughly ...).
Of course, this can lead to faulty assessment: like a mirage, success is always just one step away. If only Muqtada weren't mucking things up. If only there weren't spectacular car bombs, then the security situation would be better. If only the Democrats weren't giving aid and comfort to al-qaeda, then their hope and support would dry up. If only Syria would do more. If only Iran weren't so murderously insulting. The French. After all, one could argue that it was a range of 'contingencies' that kept Rumsfeld-Myers-Casey in charge for too long, propounding that their strategy, tactics and force structure were well calibrated.
Is there a fuller set of political tactics that compel success, so far beyond the reach of the competence of Bush, et. al.? Can we force a reform of the Interior Ministry? Can a non-sectarian police force ever be raised? Can the al-Malki government and its stubborn opponents be forced to compromise? Can such compromises, forced by external pressure, be made lasting? To borrow Rumsfeld's logism, is there a set of political tactics that force people to bet their future "on a piece of paper", the new Iraqi constitution?
The answer is probably both "yes" and "no". The military observation that "yes" is only possible during period of calm is probably true, but probably not a chance worth bearing the cost-of-time for ad infinitum or, perhaps, even for short periods without forcing a "new game", so to speak, stirring-the-pot and trying another configuration, another set of 'initial conditions'.
By the numbers: One Province, One General, One Network, One Neighborhood, One bullet at a time ...
People are always underestimating the speed and magnitude of how quickly things turn to the worse or for the better.
You can pick up interesting, informative, and somewhat encouraging stories about the fight in Baghdad's neighborhoods here. But, toggle the ethnic area maps provided by the BBC and you see another reality emerge, too.
If all you read was the August 29th unclassified "status" report, you might think that the tide was turning. The Sunna have staged a 'walk-in' because of a reported compromise, al-Sadr wants a six-month hudna or something, the wheels of Justice seem to be functioning with high-profile trials, the Iraqi Air Force is fighting hard, and the Iraqi Army (IA) are, some of them, on a crash course to learn how to ... fix trucks. (btw, If anyone can measure "status" from this report, you are better than Nostradamus. It utterly fails as a "project management" document or anything that measures up robustly against a strategic framework. Even presentation is poor. Just have a look at the Iraqi Bond chart, p. 17, and see if you can tell if bond prices are up or down ...).
Reading these detailed reports, one gets a sense for how those 'in theater' must feel when coming back to Washington and hearing the broad terms and platitudes by which things, perhaps by necessity, get measured.
They must feel like they are taking crazy pills.
The Well Calibrated Citizen
The Dems risk a lot if they let their rhetoric range beyond the facts on the ground.
On the other hand, despite all this ad-hoc reporting, there is still no systematic picture of advance or retreat coming from either the Congress or from the Administration (at least in unclassified hands).
Nor does anyone seem to be rushing to provide one. This hints that the attitude behind the scenes has not changed much, even as the sophistication of the electorate to digest has vastly improved. New civilian leadership is still required at the top. Perhaps an unwillingness to expose any harsh realities abides (e.g. oh, "give me all your sixes"). One can imagine that the behind-the-scenes attitude is "do your best, play for time, and don't say too much because it interferes with the ability to steer the apple cart ourselves using 'trust me' statements".
The Republicans, after having dismissed September as artificial because 'the enemy' could launch an offensive just before the dipstick went down, made no bones about allowing Petreaus to use August in his slides, afterall. None of them insisted on seasonally adjusted figures, even though Rumsfeld assured us that violence was seasonal.
After having rightly dismissed "deaths" as a first, best measure of counter-insurgency progress, Petreaus presented ... total civilian casualties. (Which made me feel like I'm taking crazy pills).
In summary: The Road to the airport is not secure
Security is improved in Baghdad and Anbar for now, but, as someone remarked a long, long time ago, "General, if you cannot secure the road from the airport, you cannot secure Iraq". The pot is on simmer, with 160K troops guarding the flame. If history is a guide, where it goes next is nothing more than a guess.
The situation remains in flux, perhaps even radical flux if one takes suggestions that the police and the government be dismissed wholesale, with few indications of self-reinforcing or sustainable trends - in security, economics, or politics - that might tip the scales in favor of order over chaos, let along in "six more months".
Another six-month, debt-red "chip" in the betting pot that is Iraq will cost $50 billion for this year, and another $150 billion or so, most likely, for next, along with hundreds of US GIs; and maybe $600 billion more, at the margin, by the time it all winds down, including interest on debt. This puts the USA well on the way to spending nearly $100,000 per Iraqi by the time all the costs of the effort are included and over $22,000 per US household.
There are still no good choices and little in the current strategic assessment that suggests that attainment of the mission objectives remains anything but remote. What more is owed to a strategy that is neither proved nor disproved on the numbers? At what point does reason or practicality triumph over hope?
For now, the answer appears to be "another six months".
