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July 29, 2007

We flunked the "Iraq test" from word one

Robert Tracinski has now posted his second pro-Iraq war article. I would like to make a few choice remarks.

In my earlier criticism of Tracinski, I pointed out that it was ridiculous to justify a continuing war in Iraq on the grounds that stopping now would cause us to abdicate the principle of pre-emptive self-defense, when the administration seems to have abdicated that principle long ago. Tracinski claimed that the goal of spreading democracy was never a serious justification for the war, and he embellishes on this point in the new article:

As I hinted at in the first part of this article, the greatest proof that the Bush administration did not invade Iraq primarily to spread "democracy" is the fact that they made no preparation to use military force to achieve that goal. The invasion was designed only to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, with the assumption that a relatively free society would simply emerge on its own in the absence of a tyrant to suppress it. And the administration assumed that this new liberal society would require only our diplomatic and political support--since that is the only real support it offered.

Even as late as 2006, when we were beginning to use counter-insurgency techniques in Iraq, the overall military strategy (now usually referred to as the "Rumsfeld-Casey strategy") was simply to keep the insurgents suppressed until we could goad the Iraqis into achieving a grand political reconciliation. The handover of sovereignty to the interim government, the drafting of a new constitution, the Iraqi elections in 2005 and 2006--all of these events were supposed to create that political breakthrough, on the assumption that a political reconciliation would cause the insurgency to wither away. It was assumed that purely political means could be used to win a military conflict (an illusion that still holds sway among many members of Congress). It is only now that General Petraeus is attempting to implement a unified political and military strategy against the insurgency.

My first big comment: This argument is really preposterous. Here are three reasons why.

First of all, if the Bush administration really believed that the new Iraq would require only diplomatic and political support, rather than military support, then why did they bring any ground troops at all? Why didn't they just bomb the Iraqi government to hell and let the "new liberal society" take control? Or, if they thought that ground troops were necessary to clear out the last vestiges of the Baathist regime, why didn't they withdraw the ground troops shortly after those last vestiges were gone? Why did they almost immediately start to build long-term bases? No, it defies all common sense to say that Bush had no long-term intentions to occupy Iraq. Even if he did not intend to use this long-term presence to spread democracy, it is entirely implausible to disqualify that possibility by saying that Bush only wanted to topple the regime and let the Iraqis do the rest on their own!

Second, it is utterly mindboggling for Tracinski to assert that only now is the administration attempting to use a military, as opposed to purely political, strategy in Iraq. If the military strategy has only just started, then what were we doing in Fallujah in 2004? What were we doing at Tal-Afar in 2005? Why have our troops been dying continuously since 2003? They haven't just been sitting in their bunkers. Indeed Tracinski himself has often been the one to catalogue the progress he alleged the troops to be making, urging us to continue his military solution.

Third, and this is a point that I probably should have made in my first post, but if the Bush administration never seriously intended to justify the war on the basis of spreading democracy, then why did Tracinski himself cite that justification himself in defense of Bush's war, back during the 2004 election?:

So why would Bush be better than Kerry?

He is better because of the "forward strategy of freedom."

The "forward strategy of freedom" is the name Bush has given to his grand strategy--the administration's highest-level plan of action--in the War on Terrorism. It is a grand strategy that necessarily puts America on the offensive, committing us to spreading representative government and free institutions to overhaul the political system of the Middle East....

The only long-term answer is that the Arab and Muslim worlds must be civilized. They must have imposed on them a better system of government, one that allows, for the first time in the Arab world, the material vibrancy of a relatively free economy and the spiritual vibrancy of the free exchange of ideas. This would do exactly what the clashing examples of East Berlin and West Berlin did in the Cold War: it would provide an unanswerable demonstration of the benefits of a free society on one side, contrasted to misery and oppression on the other side. It is, in my view, the most important thing that can be done in the military and political realm to defeat the philosophy that animates Islamic terrorism.

Considering the above, it seems that Tracinski's justification for war has changed as much as—and seemingly in lockstep with—the Bush administration's.

Second major comment: I find it stunning that Tracinski has now consciously chosen to try to justify the Bush administration's use of the term "War on Terrorism":

But there is one final, broader reason why an insurgency war is a strategy peculiarly suited to the advocates of modern Islamic totalitarianism. I used to grumble about the use of the term "War on Terrorism," citing the objection that terror is a tactic, not an enemy. But I eventually accepted the term, in part because terrorism is a tactic that is distinctive to our enemy and describes his particular methods and goals. The same applies to an insurgency, which is a terror bombing campaign writ large.

First response: Terrorism is certainly not a tactic distinctive to our enemy. There have been terrorists all of the world who have used the tactic to destabilize local regimes, without any ambitions against the United States. Tracinski knows this, which is why he does not (I presume) advocate exporting the "War on Terrorism" to Colombia or Sri Lanka.

Second, I would think that the proper name for a "terror bombing campaign writ large"—particularly if it is a campaign by one religious group against its civic peer—is a "civil war."

Finally, it is suprising that Tracinski should begin to embrace the term "War on Terrorism" only now that some mainstream, even liberal commentators, like Sam Harris, are starting to realize that we are fighting a War on Islam.

My third major comment on Tracinski's article regards the following:

For all their talk of an Islamic "caliphate," today's Islamists do not really have such an organized vision. Their ideology is not taken from Lenin but from Mohammed--a cruder, more primitive source. It is a charter, not for a modern state, but for tribal gang warfare, and the rule of the Islamists has been dominated by the capricious whim of holy warriors, usually without much pretense of scientific organization or the rule of law.

This can be seen in many of the societies where Islamists have risen to power: their model of the ideal society has been on display in Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, and Waziristan. It is best described as anarcho-totalitarianism: total control over the individual, not by an organized state, but by roving criminal gangs of religious zealots.

I think that this section is supposed to support the idea that terrorism is something "distinctive" to our enemy Islam. But it does nothing of the sort. The examples Tracinski cites are of aspiring or failed Islamic states, so of course they are anarchic (if they are fighting an existing regime or in the process of losing control of one of their own). But bin Laden and many other Islamist groups are very clear about wanting to re-establish an Islamic Caliphate. The fact that they don't achieve it is more a result of their differing visions about how to do it (e.g., Sunni vs. Shi'ite), than of anything inherent in Islamic ideology. The fact Tracinski cites, that the religious police in Saudi Arabia look to be a kind of vigilante force, is probably more evidence for my point: Islamists in Saudi Arabia are not in control, but they would like to be.

Finally, my last comment. Tracinski's point in urging that we do need to fight a war on terrorist insurgency, not just Islam, is completed in the following:

Let's say, for example, that we were to withdraw from Iraq now--then set out at some later point to topple the Iranian regime. Don't you think the remnants of that regime--even if they were defeated in a conventional conflict or faced an uprising from their own people--would have every incentive to turn Iran into another terrorist "quagmire," replicating the model that succeeded for them in Iraq? That would be the message of a successful Muslim insurgency in Iraq: that the US may always win on the conventional battlefield--but the Islamists will always win in the unconventional battle that follows.

...

Surrender in Iraq would validate the terrorist insurgency as an infallible winning tactic. It would validate that tactic far more thoroughly than our previous retreats from Somalia and Beirut, and losing this time would make it ten times harder to demonstrate our ability to win a counter-insurgency war in the future.

First response: Why worry so much about what will make it possible to invade Iran, when, as I emphasized in my last post, nothing can save the fact that such a war has been invalidated in the public mind already?

OK, maybe there's finite chance that we would still do something about Iran. In that case, my biggest objection to this point is that Tracinski is begging the question. He is assuming the very point in need of proof: that the best way to confront our enemies abroad is through conventional ground tactics. He assumes that if we should go into Iran, we should do so with the purpose of occuping that country and "nation-building"—just as he assumes with regard to Iraq, of course. I agree that if we were to go into Iran, we would face the exact same problems we currently face in Iraq. Which is why I would never support a war on Iran, not under the present leadership, not using the same tactics.

Tracinski neglects an approach to opposing foreign enemies that is different in-principle. As he observes, it is rather ridiculous to topple a regime only to see different hostile elements take control of the country. So instead of doing that, our approach should be as follows: Suppose that a nation state poses a genuine threat to the United States. The way to prevent the contemporary threat and its possible return is to bring such devastation to that state and its citizens that future wars will not be necessary. This may be consistent with setting up a puppet state of our own after the war, but it is not necessary. Using modern weapons, the cost of a devastating war would be small from our perspective, and still small in the case that upstart governments need reminding.

If you think it would have been ridiculous to apply a strategy like this to Iraq, then that probably reflects your conviction that Iraq did not pose a genuine threat to us. Your conviction may be different for a state like Iran which, unlike Iraq, is an openly theocratic regime, and actively developing nuclear weapons.

Posted by admin at July 29, 2007 04:14 PM

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