"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.
I close most of my Iraq War posts (including this one) with a quote from two McGoverns saying, "Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." That's not just a rhetorical flourish, as Brian Whitaker reminds us in Nowhere to run Guardian 11/29/05. Whitaker is commenting on this article by the eminent military historian Martin Van Creveld: Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War Forward 11/25/05. Van Creveld discusses the applicability of a Nixonian Vietnamization program - an informed discussion, not some frivolous analogy like the ones that Victor Davis Hanson pours out regularly.
Van Creveld thinks that a Vietnamization-type model (which I discussed in a recent post) is not practicable or advisable in Iraq. He essentially says that the US should accept that we've lost and pull out:
Clearly, then, the thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a classic withdrawal.
Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israelout of Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will happen in Iraq.
Not only are American forces perhaps 30 times larger, but so is the country they have to traverse. A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not.
A grim prospect. Van Creveld argues that the US needs to keep a military presence in the Middle East for several reasons. But he's notably vague about how to arrange that.
He concludes with a memorable characterization of Bush's War in Iraq:
Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a team different from - and more competent than - the one presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon.
For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins. (my emphasis)
Whitaker in his column reminds us of some of the consequences of this misbegotten war:
Back in July 2003, terrorism in Iraq seemed a manageable problem and President Bush boldly challenged the militants to "bring 'em on". American forces, he said, were "plenty tough" and would deal with anyone who attacked them.
There were others in the US who talked of the "flypaper theory" - an idea that terrorists from around the world could be attracted to Iraq and then eliminated. Well, the first part of the flypaper theory seems to work, but not the second.
As with the Afghan war in the 1980s that spawned al-Qaida, there is every reason to suppose that the Iraq war will create a new generation of terrorists with expertise that can be used to plague other parts of the world for decades to come. The recent hotel bombings in Jordan are one indication of the way it's heading.
Contrary to American intentions, the war has also greatly increased the influence of Iran - a founder-member of Bush's "Axis of Evil" - and opened up long-suppressed rivalries between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Ah, "brang 'em on". Have there ever been dumber words coming out the mouth of an American president?
"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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