"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.
Framing the Iraq War into a Lost Cause would certainly give white Southerners of a traditional mindset the basis to form a narrative about why the Americans lost the Iraq War. But recent poll results show that Southerners are pretty much as opposed to the Iraq War as everyone else. (See Southern and National Opinion on Iraq from the Institute of Southern Studies and the discussions at New Report: Poll finds opposition to war growing in the South by Chris Kromm, Facing South blog 10/12/06.)
Here are another couple of posts that are sounding the alarm that the option to "cut and run" in the Iraq War may be rapidly shrinking to "run - if you can".
Are things really this bad off? Unfortunately, they could well be.
Steve Gilliard weighs in with a well-thought-out post on the currrent state of affairs in Iraq in Bush and Tet 10/20/06, reminding us that if (when) the Shi'a militias turn on the American forces, the US position becomes far less tenable:
What we need to realize is that as long as the Shia only tippy toe into challenging the US, leaving is still an option without massive bloodshed. ...
What has to be understood about Iraq is that there is a disaster on the cusp. [Al Qaida] guerrillas march in the streets of Anbar's towns and the neigborhood clearance plan for Baghdad is an utter failure because they lack the men to enforce it.
He also explains how "Tet", the Tet Offensive of 1968, functions in American ideology, which is why Bush's comparison of the current situation in Iraq to Tet Offensive could mean a number of different things:
Military historians regard Tet as the greatest US victory of the Vietnam War. It broke the back of the VC and forced the NVA on the defensive for four years. What the Tet offensive did was basically destroy the PAVN/VC [the Communist forces] at the cost of the cohesion of the US Army. ...
But in American politics, Tet is a Rohrschact test. To historians, it's a military victory, buta political defeat, to conservatives, it's when the media stabbed the US Army in the back. To liberals, it's when the American public turned against the war. So of course, the White House doesn't mind it as an example, because it means many things to many people. (my emphasis)
He describes how the current position of the US in Iraq is notably different - and worse off - than during most of the Vietnam War:
What I would say is that Bush is wrong in comparing the 4th Ramadan offensive to any event in Vietnam. Because the ARVN [South Vietnamese Army] was a professional army, not an armed militia. There was real support for the existing government in Saigon, corrupt as it was. US military lived off-post and dated, even married the local women. The People's Army of North Vietnam, or what non-historians call the NVA, was a highly professional, trained Army led by a cadre of battle hardened veterans throughout the ranks.
Iraq is nothing like this. It is vastly more dangerous, despite the lack of conventional combat. When Jim Webb and some of the readers here went into the Central Highlands, they were facing soldiers in another army, with uniforms, ranks and organization. But when US troops face Iraqis, there is no such cohesion, despite their lavish armaments. I would suggest that they are the best armed guerrillas in modern history. Every Iraqi with a modern weapon and enough ammunition. Which is amazing. A country with a high degree ofmilitary training. Only [the past insurgencies in] Algeria and Kenya come close to having this level of ex-soldiers engaged in combat.
And he makes a valuable observation about today's antiwar movement:
People have mistaken the opposition to the Iraq war. The anti-war movement has blocked the enlistment of thousands of kids, quietly, effectively, helped thousands of UA members escape or stay underground, has mobilized veterans against the war. While this isn't the generation defining movement of the 1960's, it's also vastly more effective.
But because it's one on one, there is no massive repression or sterotyping of the movement. Cindy Sheehan is hardly Abbie Hoffman. The attacks by the right have largely been ineffective.
And unlike the Vietnam War, 50 veterans are running for office as Democrats, something unimaginable two years ago.
Lots of people, including many war opponents, seem to have the idea that if they don't see something resembling the Republicans' wildly-distorted memories of masses of rowdy hippies marching in the streets every weekend, then there must not be a real antiwar movement. That's not a realistic understanding of what antiwar sentiment is and how it's expressing itself. I think Gilliard sometimes gives short shrift to the anti-Vietnam War movement, but his point about today's antiwar movement is a good one, and one too often missed.
Stirling Newberry in The Facts of War: Signs of an Impending Meltdown in Iraq TPMCafe 10/20/06 also warns that American options are shrinking fast. Noting the news report that followers of Muqtada al-Sadr (the Mahdi Army militia) have seized control of the city of Amarrah, he writes:
In the last few days the destabilization point has been reached - the attempt to hold the Battle of Baghdad has been lost. As importantly it was lost to an operational offensive by the insurgency, amidst mounting coalition casualties.
These developments put even the ability to engage in a withdrawal from Iraq in danger - since Amarah would be key to any withdrawal by sea, and Baghdad a key to any withdrawal by air from the center of the country. The only exit left would be to head north by land and exit through Kurdistan and Turkey.
(Some of the reports this weekend suggest that the Mahdi Army is not directly in control of Amarah, though the nominal government in Baghdad isn't, either.)
Much of Newberry's post is devoted to general comments on counterinsurgency strategy. On the specifics of the Iraq situation, he writes:
The attacks on Baghdad, and the fall of Amarah - which figured in some of the few sharp tactical resistence moments of the invasion - show that the insurgency is executing shatter attacks. The hold of the territorial power is crumbling, and it is time to decide how to dipose of the remains of involvement. It is likely that the "elected" government will have to come to some terms with the insurgent elements, or, itself, fall. The United States and Britain must now begin planning for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, before the word "meltdown" - because that is what is in danger of happening - begins to make the rounds. Once more - the situation in Iraq is on the verge of being untenable for US forces.
We are now at the point where even withdrawal is imperiled by the monumental blunders of George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and their, even the word henchmen would imply a greater degree of competence than is possessed. (my emphasis)
Ivo Daalder on After Iraq, What? TPMCafe 10/18/06:
Bad things may happen when we withdraw; but bad things are happening while we're there.
Leslie Gelb in Would Defeat in Iraq Be So Bad? Time; column dated 10/15/06
Although the last thing Americans want is a defeat in Iraq, events may be sliding in that direction and we need to shrink the fallout. The nightmare scenario could begin now, or in the next two years as troops are withdrawn, or thereafter, abruptly or slowly. To speak of defeat is not to advocate it but to prepare to minimize it.
To speak of it is not to advocate it? It's bizarre that Gelb even sees the need to make such a qualification.
But part of his idea is to rely on the Baathists to fight Al Qaida:
We have allies at the ready (the Kurds, the Saudis, the Turks, the Jordanians, etc.) who fear the jihadis as much as we do and potential allies (the Baathists and the Sunni tribal leaders) who want to rule their own piece of Iraq and also fear and despise the jihadis. As we gradually withdraw, we and others could provide Baathists the wherewithal to crushthe terrorists. Without a large U.S. military presence, they probably would do a better job of it.
That last part has an ominous sound to it.
Bruce Jentleson looks at Iraq, Vietnam and the Credibility Trap TPMCafe 10/20/06 and the Cheney-Bush emphasis on "credibility" as some kind of vague testosterone contest:
This conception of credibility, though, is a trap. It was a trap in Vietnam. And it’s a trap in Iraq. It’s a trap because it defines credibility in terms of resolve, but not in terms of judgment. ...
[The Iraq War] is NOT just a matter of will and resolve. The American public’s unwillingness to stay the Bush course is not a lack of stomach but rather a questioning of the soundness of the strategy they are being asked to support, to pay for, to suffer for. There’ve already been good analyses done about how in going into Iraq we may well have done exactly what Al Qaeda hoped we would. And in then defining it as about resolve we’ve increased their options and reduced our own.
Brad DeLong lays out a more realistic best-case scenario for getting the US out of Iraq:
Our four possible options in Iraq that might succeed are (a) draft and train 500,000 Arabic-speaking military police, (b) pay somebody else's price for them to commit 500,000 Arabic-speaking military policy, (c) strike a deal with Iran and Syria, (d) pull out and leave it to the Iraqis.
His post references Glenn Greenwald's takedown of phony "moderate" John McCain's ludicrous posturing on the Iraq War, John McCain unveils his Grand Plan for Victory in Iraq 10/20/06.
"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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