Iraq War: An optimistic view

"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.

It's a sign of how things are going in the Iraq War when a pair of distinguished military analysts who are defending Bush's stay the course" policy sound about as pessimistic as the harshest war critics.  That's the case with this paper: Precedents, Variables, and Options in Planning a U.S. Military Disengagement Strategy from Iraq by W. Andrew Terrill and Conrad C. Crane Oct 2005 (Strategic Studies Institute; US Army War College; information cut-off date 08/08/05; *.pdf file).

One of the most intriguing aspects of this paper is that the authors make a "realist" argument for settling for less than a model democracy in Iraq.  (In their view, the US still has some meaningful choice in the matter.)  But then the also argue the case for why it's important for the US to insist on democratic principles and respect for human rights in Iraq.  It's almost as if the two authors had to work hard to combine essentially contrasting arguments.  Although it is true than in the real world, there are continuums in types of government that fall somewhere between the either/or choice of dictatorship or democracy.

They make an insistent case for "staying the course".  Or, more accurately, a case against setting a fixed date for withdrawal.  But their description of the requirements for success dramatically illustrate the near-impossibility of the course they recommend.  They also give a good sketch of the internal political difficulties Iraq now faces, although some of their description already sounds dated after the two months since their cut-off date on the paper.

Precedents

The "precedents" to which the title refers actually make up the weakest part of the paper, though they are presented first.  Some of the examples they cite do offer real lessons that can apply to modern attempts at nation-building: the occupation of the Phillipines and Cuba in the wake of the Spanish-American War; the post-Second World War occupations and reconstructions of Germany and Japan; South Vietnam; Bosnia; and, Kosovo.

But the treatment is too short to explain much of what is useful in those experiences.  And their brief analysis is a reminder that superficial comparisons aren't much use.  I was struck, for instance, about their comment that a "really constructive policy direction for German occupation was not completed until 1947."  They argue that by then, "the Nuremburg trials and a thorough personnel vetting process appeared to have excised the cancer of Nazism from Germany."

Say what?  This is like a comic-book version of what went on.  I can barely imagine what they mean by not having a "really constructive policy direction" until 1947.  If the Four Power occupiers hadn't been doing something right from May 1945 to 1947, the experience would be remembered as a disaster.  And the "vetting process" presumably refers to the de-Nazification program, which is generally regarded by German historians across the political spectrum as being not much more than a joke.

My inner poli-sci geek thinks that the post-Civil War Reconstruction period holds some valuable lessons about nation-building tasks.  But their one-paragraph description just made me wince:

Many sobering insights can be gained from our own national experience with Reconstruction after the American Civil War. Radical Republicans in Congress, supported by Army leaders like General Ulysses S. Grant, championed a vision of a South transformed socially, politically, and economically, but local resistance frustrated their lofty objectives. Despite early advances in expanding civil and political rights, by 1870 papers like the New York Tribune were proclaiming that the nation was “tired and sick” of Reconstruction, and pleaded for its end. James McPherson’s writings on the ensuing decade have titles like “The Retreatfrom Reconstruction” and “Reconstruction Unravels,” reflecting the disappointing course of reform efforts. A true two-party system did not reemerge in the South until the last third of the 20th century, and it took 100 years for African-Americans there to gain the civil rights and status promised them in the 1860s. (p. 5)

Ouch!  That's just painful to read.  First of all, the Radical Republicans of those days, people like Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens and Ben Butler, actually were "radical."  But they were radical democrats, committed to bring democracy and full citizenship to freed slaves on the same basis as whites.  (Most of them weren't so radical as to advocatethe vote for women, although women's suffrage began to be enacted at the state level in those days.)  They were the real heirs and champions of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democratic traditions.

Any resemblance to the Radical Republicans of today, the Tom DeLays and James Dobsons, is purely coincidental.

They don't even touch on two of the critical failures of the early "Presidential Reconstruction" enforced by the sadly conservative and irresponsible Andrew Johnson - not to be confused with that other President Andrew from Tennessee.  One was that the Federals failed to disarm the surrendered Confederate Army; soldiers owned their own weapons in those days.  And eventually, the democratic governments in the South were simply more poorly armed than the insurrections who fancied themselves "Redeemers," who eventually overthrew the democratic state governments by force, violence and fraud.

The other failing was that Johnson allowed even senior Confederate officials to be fully enfranchised and hold office.  By the time Congress seized control of the Reconstruction process, white Southerners reactionaries had regained some of their power and were confident that they could successfully resist the democratizing process.

They are on more solid ground in arguing that Lyndon Johnson's goal for the Vietnam War of preserving "an independent, noncommunist South Vietnam" is an "ideal model" for what the US can expect to achieve in Iraq-type occupation situations.

But is this the good news or the bad news? They write:

The two aspects of Vietnam and Iraq that show the most similarities involve an effort at state-building in an alien culture that is poorly understood by the United States and the attempt to sustain U.S. domestic support for a prolonged war against an irregular enemy. (p. 9)

Keep in mind: these authors are trying to be optimistic about American prospect in Iraq.

Iraqi armed forces

They argue forcefully that the US has to have considerable numbers of Iraqi forces "stand up" and be able to fight a counterinsurgency on their own for the US to leave with some hope of success.  They use the formula of developing an "exit strategy" that is also a "victory strategy."

But one of their precedents provides a grim perspective:

There is peace in Bosnia and Kosovo because of strong military forces deployed there, but the ethnic tensions that spawned fratricidal warfare remain, and the pluralistic democracy the international community wishes to establish is still a dream. Kosovo experienced deadly ethnic rioting as recently as March 2004. After 5 years of international control, that province elected as prime minister a former Albanian guerrilla leader who is being investigated for war crimes against Serbs by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. A recent alarming report by the International Crisis Group on the lack of progress in achieving liberal democratic stability opens with “Time is running out in Kosovo. The status quo will not hold.” (p. 10)

For the record, in those pre-blog days I very much supported the NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo.  But I also think that people who support wars should also be able to look at the bad news without trying to comma-dance it out of existence.

Terrill and Crane are emphasizing in that reference that setting a goal of a model democracy, as Bush and the neocons did (at least in theory) for Iraq.  But the part that jumped out at me was the statement that there is peace in those places "because of the strong military foces deployed there."  Relative to the population, the concentration of troops in Kosovo is much heavier than those in Iraq.  And was from the start of the Kosovo occupation.

I would say that one great accomplishment of the Kosovo intervention is that it did prevent Kosovo from being a staging ground for swarms of violent jihadists, despite claims to the contrary from some Old Right isolationists.  Obviously, we can't say that about Iraq.

Terrill and Crane studiously avoid discussions of numbers of Iraqi troops and local forces needed and ready.  And, as the Pentagon recently informed us, only one Iraqi batallion (no more than 1,000 troops) is considered ready to fight insurgents on its on.  Given that Saddam's prewar regular army was a force of 400,000, that is not an encouraging figure for the number of Iraqi troops that are ready after over two and a half years of US occupation.

Under Bush's "stay the course" option, which the authors strongly support, any significant reduction in the US troop presence is dependent on the availability of capable Iraqi forces.  And, very much to their credit, Terrill and Crane talk frankly about some of the key difficulties in reaching that goal:

Infiltration of both military and police forces by pro-insurgent agents is a major problem that threatens the ability of those forces to function effectively. Even elite units have been infiltrated by pro-insurgent forces, while high-ranking officers throughout the security establishment, including generals, have been relieved from their positions or arrested for cooperation with the insurgents. (p. 28)

Motivating Iraqi soldiers who are already in the service sometimes appears more difficult. Desertions and overstaying one’s leave have been common until fairly recently, and it is uncertain how the trend will develop. In the first year following the creation of the new Iraqi Army, the desertion rates were extremely heavy, especially during periods of intense combat. Most Iraqi men seem to join as a way of providing for their families, but it is not clear that the majority are willing to die to defend the new and evolving Iraqi government. They have been more likely to focus on keeping out of danger and staying alive if possible. This kind of mentality is a problem for unit effectiveness and, not surprisingly, leads to increased desertions at times of heightened insurgent activity. It should, however, be noted that the desertion rate has declined significantly over the last year, and some Iraqi soldiers do behave bravely. (pp. 29-30)

The latter quotation would be funny if it weren't such a serious matter.  When the optimists and war supporters are reduced to arguing that, well, look, some Iraqi soldiers behave bravely, that a real signs of big problems.  They also write:

Insurgents make a strong effort to join the security forces and seem to have developed an impressive intelligence network about who else has joined these organizations. Even a relatively few enemy infiltrators can produce a bonanza of information on other members of the military and security organizations, despite operational security measures. (p. 31)

And they cite an anything-but-encouraging experience:

Like the military, the effectiveness of the Iraqi police has been subject to disaster when challenged substantially by a serious enemy. In an especially serious encounter in November 2004, 4,000 out of about 5,400 Iraqi police in Mosul deserted the force in response to an insurgent uprising within the city.130 While the forces in Mosul are assessed to be much more professional now, this crisis is particularly important in illustrating how an effective enemy can roll back coalition progress in preparing the Iraqis to defend themselves. (p. 32)

... U.S. troops present in that city were cut by two-thirds in early 2004 as part of a unit rotation scheme whereby the 101st Airborne Division was replaced by a Stryker brigade. Iraqi police forces in the area appeared competent, and the city itself also appeared calm enough to justify this fairly substantial reduction in the U.S. presence. The U.S. withdrawal became a serious problem in November 2004 when approximately 75 percent of the Iraqi police forces in the area deserted in the face of sustained insurgent attacks. It is at least an open question as to whether these forces could eventually have performed to a much higher standard had they not been asked to do too much too soon. While the situation in Mosul appears much better now, the example of an apparently effective security force unexpectedly crumbling is a worrisome precedent. Additionally, the abysmal performance of the Mosul police may indicate that a security unit should not be viewed as competent until it has proven itself in serious combat. This situation also suggests that the progress of all Iraqi units must be seriously monitored, and strong efforts must be made to avoid unwarranted optimism. (pp. 39-40)

Once again, this is an optimistic case!

American public opinion

One of the lessons of the Vietnam War that became prevalent in the officer corps was the view that public support for a war effort was vital.  Unfortunately, the conventional lesson that was taken from the Vietnam War experience was that public opinion had to be more effectively manipulated by the military through censorship and public relations.

Terrill and Crane seem to share this broad assumptions of the conventional view.  And I always find this particular outlook disturbing.  It's perfectly valid for military analysts to look at public opinion in a value-neutral way - up to a point.  But when public opinion becomes seen as a variable to be managed by the military in the same way as food supplies or stocks of weapons, that is a problem.  One result of this approach is that the conventional view of the officer corps manages to overlook the role that over-optimistic and often just plain dishonest statements about the Vietnam War played in undermining public confidence in the war effort.

And, consequently, much the same thing has happened in the Iraq War.  And it is the responsibility of citizens to make judgments about what goes in in wars and how the Pentagon and the incumbent administration are handling it.  They note:

If the public views the Iraq conflict as showing little or no progress, the conflict may become redefined by many U.S. citizens as a quagmire, and pressure to withdraw would become nearly irresistible. Moreover, while many hopeful signs of progress exist in Iraq, it is not clear that the public will find them compelling if such progress does not lead to a situation where the United States can begin withdrawing troops. (p. 34)

They present this as a technical problem to be resolved.  I call it "healthy democratic instincts."  That's one thing about democracy: the people who have to do the fighting and the dying, as well as their friends, neighbors, parents, siblings and co-workers, get to pass judgment on the governments they make the policy decisions about war. If that's inconvenient for the military, that's a good thing.  War shouldn't be convenient.

They also observe:

In Iraq (and Afghanistan), many troops are required to perform a second or even a third combat tour as part of normal unit rotations. These requirements increasingly could cause soldiers to rethink the disproportionate burden that society is placing on them, while the bulk of the population remains sheltered and in some cases indifferent to the war. (p. 35)

And the soldiers' perception on that count is accurate.

One more problem

The authors emphasize that it is critical to any "exit strategy" that's also a "success strategy" that the US not insist on permanent bases in Iraq.  But there have been strong indications that permanent bases are very much part of what the Bush administration wants in Iraq.  If their optimistic scenario is dependent on Bush making a clear policy of foregoing permanent bases there, then the optimistic view becomes virtually identical to the pessimistic ones.

But their description of the option of setting a fixed withdrawal timetable is accurate enough:

The timetable option can only serve in the gray area whereby the Iraqi government may have only a small chance to survive, but the U.S. leadership does not wish to announce publicly that we have basically given up on Iraq. The timetable option allows the United States to appear before the world community as having provided Iraq one last chance before allowing it to sink into anarchy. (p. 40)

Unfortunately, an end-game something very like that is the only real option the Bush administration has left us in the Iraq War.

Their concluding though certainly reads like a heavy criticism of the conduct of the Iraq War:

All future wars should have carefully planned exit strategies based on something other than best case planning for the future of the countries involved. In undertaking such plans, the United States must take care to maintain realistic expectations of what it can actually achieve with military intervention, especially with regard to the imposition of market economies and democracy on states that we do not fully understand. Goals for intervention might attimes be maintained at a limited level and adjusted upwards if conditions permit rather than held to lofty high standards (such as total “de-Ba’athification”) which conditions may later force the United States to compromise to extricate itself from a position of indefinite occupation. (p. 47)

"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05