"I think we are winning. Okay? I think we're definitely winning. I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05
"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.
Joe Conason joins in the criticism of Howard Dean this week over his framing of the Iraq War. Conason argues in Mission to be decided Salon 12/08/05:
Although Dean now insists that he was quoted "a little out of context" - and that in fact he believes "we have to win" the war - his comment in San Antonio Monday offered every conservative pundit and Republican flack the perfect opportunity to portray Democrats as defeatists. Citizens across the political spectrum are well aware of the futility of the Bush strategy and the president's terrible mismanagement of the war, but their doubts about the likelihood of victory are not the same as admitting defeat. Talking about getting out requires very careful attention to national pride and honor, emotions that are easily subject to manipulation by the unscrupulous politicians in power.
Conason prefers Juan Cole's notion of "winning smart" which Cole discussed in his own reaction to Dean: Dean v. Bush: "Winning" in Iraq: Or Winning Smart? Informed Comment blog 12/07/05.
Conason and Cole are two of my favorite writers on contemporary events. But I don't quite see eye-to-eye with either of them one this point.
Part of the reason is that I haven't been so focused on marketable slogans for Democratic candidates as they are in the comments I referenced.
But why to we have to make up Orwellian slogans to describe a war that most Americans have already decided is a mess? Short of a simultaneous mass surrender of insurgents all over Iraq, it's hard to see how public opinion in the US will rebound in favor of the war.
So why can't we call a disaster a disaster, or a loss a loss? Richard Reeves wrote this week ('Victory in Iraq': A Strategy to Mask Defeat RichardReeves.com 12/08/05; also at CommonDreams.org):
In fact, the "Plan for Victory," as the president called his speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, is a strategy to mask defeat.
It's not so much that I disagree with the points Conason and Cole are making. Conason talks about trying to exploit opportunities for some kind of negotiated settlement with the insurgents in Iraq as part of a deal allowing the US to withdraw troops. Back in August, I posted here about a proposal by Gareth Porter for such an approach: Iraq War: The best we can do? 08/28/05.
But I think in this instance they are worrying too much about the wording. We don't so much need - and I rarely use the phrase I'm about to use because it's meaning has become virtually indecipherable - "politically correct" slogan to describe the need to get American troops out. We just need the Democrats, and even Republican war critics if they really have the nerve to actively challenge Bush's policies, to start talking frankly about the real situation and about what a scamster Bush has been from the start on the Iraq War.
What are the war goals?
Conason is more careful in his wording on this point that some war critics have been; he says:
President Bush says we cannot leave until the mission is accomplished, without adequately defining what that means or how many years he expects the mission to require.
But is it really the case that there is no clearly-articulated goal in the Iraq War?
It may seem hopelessly quaint. But I don't understand why the war critics are hammering the Republicans over the Congressional war resolution. I've said before and I'll say again, it was a serious mistake for any member of Congress, especially Democrats, to vote for the Iraq War resolution in October 2002.
But it's a sign of the muddle of our political environment that the Dems who did vote for the thing have found themselves so much on the defensive over it. For one thing, they are now making a somewhat more coherent defense of themselves. As Mark Benjamin puts it (After Murtha Salon 12/09/05) with reference to John Kerry and Joe Biden, among others:
They are all quick to add, though, that while they voted for war, Bush screwed it up all by himself. They certainly would have thought twice if they had known the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was bunk. But they also say they regret giving authority to a commander in chief who would proceed to spurn the international community, abandon weapons inspections, and then botch the war after the initial campaign.
That's just not so hard an explanation to understand. Again, their position would be stronger if they hadn't fallen for the war-resolution trap to begin with. Still, anyone but a dyed-in-the-OxyContin Republican can understand that position Benjamin describes.
The goals of the war
But what did the war resolution itself say about the goals? I won't rehash my 11/20/05 post about the resolution here.
But that resolution sat two conditions on going to war against Iraq: (1) that all non-military means of dealing with Iraq's (nonexistent) "weapons of mass destruction" had been exhausted; (2) that the Iraq War be connected with the fight against Al Qaeda and specifically with those who attacked the US on 9/11. The resolution includes a list of "Whereas"es. No official war aims are given there. But it's reasonable to extrapolate the official goals from those two conditions:
1. To end the (nonexistent) threat of Iraq's (nonexistent) WMDs.
2. To end the Iraqi regime's support of Al Qaeda.
Those goals have been accomplished. In fact, they were achieved before a single shot was fired. Mission accomplished. Job over.
In Bush's speech of 03/17/05 announcing a 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam's regime, Bush said:
My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991. ...
Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. ..
Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power. ...
If these claims about Iraq's WMDs had been true, this would have been in line with the first condition of the Congressional resolution. He did promise "liberation" to the people of Iraq, though it would be a real stretch to say he presented this as the purpose of the invasion:
Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country andnot against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.
The parts about "no more executions of dissidents" and "no more torture chambers" have a bitter ring to them now.
But his justification for the war stressed the two conditions of the Congressional resolution, WMDs and Iraq's alleged connection to terrorism":
We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.
The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities. In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators, whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war. In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.
Terrorists and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in formal declarations - and responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.
Here again, mission accomplished.
In his speech of 03/19/03 announcing the beginning of the conventional war, Bush didn't offer additional goals. He said:
The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.
Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory.
Once more, mission accomplished.
In the recent pamphlet National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, the administration laid out the following as goals of the war:
The ultimate victory will be achieved in stages, and we expect:
In the short term:
* An Iraq that is making steady progress in fighting terrorists and neutralizing the insurgency, meeting political milestones; building democratic institutions; standing up robust security forces to gather intelligence, destroy terrorist networks, and maintain security; and tackling key economic reforms to lay the foundation for a sound economy.
In the medium term:
*An Iraq that is in the lead defeating terrorists and insurgents and providing its own security, with a constitutional, elected government in place, providing an inspiring example to reformers in the region, and well on its way to achieving its economic potential.
In the longer term:
An Iraq that has defeated the terrorists and neutralized the insurgency.
An Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure, where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country.
An Iraq that is a partner in the global war on terror and the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, integrated into the international community, an engine for regional economic growth, and proving the fruits of democratic governance to the region.
Admittedly, this laundry list is neither consistent with the Congressional war resolution nor inspiring of a great deal of confidence.
But we can't really say that the administration has not articulated goals. And despite the varying points, it includes the one thing that most Americans would presumably understand as "winning" at this point: the military defeat of the insurgency.
There's a lot to be said about that goal, and the more expansive laundry list in the official pamphlet. But Iwouldn't say that Bush has failed to lay out a goal. Or even that the goal of defeating the insurgents is likely to be unclear to most Americans. When they hear the term "winning" or "losing" in relation to the Iraq War, is "providing an inspiring example to reformers in the region" the first thing that pops into people's minds?
So why shouldn't the Democrats and everyone else talk about this goal for what it is? And talk realistically about what achieving it would entail? These goals that no one in Congress ever voted as goals. What's so terrible about saying that the US has done enough and the goal of defeating the insurgency with American troops at a reasonable cost is lost, unattainable, unachievable?
However, nice it sounds as a bumper-sticker slogan, "winning smart" - just like Bush's "plan for Iraq" - is, in Richard Reeves' words, "a strategy to mask defeat". Why shouldn't the Democrats say it's a loss, and it's all Bush's fault for screwing it up, and we should try to negotiate the best possible deal to achieve a peace settlement and the withdrawal of American troops?
And the Democrats shouldn't worry about mealy-mouthing around what a real strategy for achieving the "Victory in Iraq" laundry-list of war goals would involve. It's certainly possible to "win" in the sense of defeating the insurgency. No insurgency is invicible.
But there's no great mystery about what it will take:
* Putting an American force into Iraq of 400,000-500,000 soldiers, versus the 2005 baseline of 140,000 or so.
* Instituting conscription (the draft) broad enough to allow the Army to keep a force of that size in the field for up to five years.
* Adopt it as a clear policy that the US will expect to have a troop presence in Iraqfor the next 5-10 years.
* Give up most of the rest of the administration's laundry-list of goals; besides defeating the insurgency, maintaining a united Iraq with a pro-American government that generally respects basic human rights would be a difficult enough additional goal to achieve.
* Get real on the financing of the war and roll back some of the upper-bracket tax cuts to pay for it.
* Appoint an independent commission and/or a special prosecutor to thoroughly investigate how false claims about WMDs got the US into this position.
* Prosecute all war crimes, including torture, according to US and international law.
* Clean up the Iraq-related contracting process, investigate the massive financial irregularities of the last 2 1/2 years, and set up some kind of anti-war profiteering laws.
If the Bush administration decides to do all this, we could also add one more inevitable corrolary:
* Kiss the Republican Party as we know it goodbye.
That's why there will be no serious effort to "win" in terms of militarily defeating the insurgency. To do so would require today's Republican Party to discard its heart and soul, its basic reason for existence, which is its mission to comfort the comfortable. They won't do it. They won't consider doing it.
That's the real situation. And I would prefer to see the war critics deal with it straightforwardly. Finding a new marketing slogan to make one brand of accepting defeat in the goals that the Bush administration set for itself is pretty useless, it seems to me. After all, the Republicans are going to keep on howling that the Dems are traitors trying to sell out the country to The Terrorists anyway. That is, unless the Dems all pull a Joe Lieberman and parrot the White House positions so exactly that Bush's speechwriters can use the texts of their speeches and articles verbatim for Bush's speeches.
And blame Bush for the defeat. It is the administration's fault. They set goals far beyond the goals for which virtually all Republicans and many Democrats voted for in the war resolution of October 2002. The goals that Dems like Kerry and Biden voted for were achieved. We "won" those. And they were won before the war even started. It was only after Bush ordered the invasion that "defeat" began.
Besides, the hardcore Iraq War supporters are already sounding like unreconstructed Southerners romanciticizing the Lost Cause.
Are Democratic war critics going to be the last ones to actually call it that?
"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05
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