A War We Just Might Win

In my view this is a very important piece. This is from THE NEW YORK TIMES:

July 30, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
A War We Just Might Win

By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK
Washington

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.

In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.

In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.

The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave.

In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

Another surprise was how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working. Wherever we found a fully staffed team, we also found local Iraqi leaders and businessmen cooperating with it to revive the local economy and build new political structures. Although much more needs to be done to create jobs, a new emphasis on microloans and small-scale projects was having some success where the previous aid programs often built white elephants.

In some places where we have failed to provide the civilian manpower to fill out the reconstruction teams, the surge has still allowed the military to fashion its own advisory groups from battalion, brigade and division staffs. We talked to dozens of military officers who before the war had known little about governance or business but were now ably immersing themselves in projects to provide the average Iraqi with a decent life.

Outside Baghdad, one of the biggest factors in the progress so far has been the efforts to decentralize power to the provinces and local governments. But more must be done. For example, the Iraqi National Police, which are controlled by the Interior Ministry, remain mostly a disaster. In response, many towns and neighborhoods are standing up local police forces, which generally prove more effective, less corrupt and less sectarian. The coalition has to force the warlords in Baghdad to allow the creation of neutral security forces beyond their control.

In the end, the situation in Iraq remains grave. In particular, we still face huge hurdles on the political front. Iraqi politicians of all stripes continue to dawdle and maneuver for position against one another when major steps towards reconciliation — or at least accommodation — are needed. This cannot continue indefinitely. Otherwise, once we begin to downsize, important communities may not feel committed to the status quo, and Iraqi security forces may splinter along ethnic and religious lines.

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

Michael E. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kenneth M. Pollack is the director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.

Extinct Political Labels

Do you remember the old stereotypes of the two major political parties? I remember growing up, the Republicans would call the Democrats "big spenders" and they would say things to their opponents like, "All you do is tax and spend." The Democrats were supposedly for bigger government and the Grand Old Party wanted less government. I remember members of the GOP saying things like, "We want government out of your lives" or "The government that governs least, governs best," things like that.

Boy, those old stereotypes are dead, aren't they? I was just reading an article by renound Princeton historian, Sean Wilentz and he pointed out that the administration of George W. Bush has borrowed more money than all the prevous presidencies combined. You read that correctly, "according to the Treasury Department, the forty-two presidents who held office between 1789 and 2000 borrowed a combined total of $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions." On the other hand, just "between 2001 and 2005 alone, the Bush White House borrowed $1.05 trillion." You can check out the history at the Bureau of the Public Debt.

Now, when I read that I immediately thought of somethings Wilentz didn't mention, like the cost of a Hummer driving across the desert in Iraq certainly cost more than your average horse back in the day, a musket under Washington certainly cost less than a riffle under Bush 43. Yet, those figures are staggering! Just staggering.

Bush actually inherited the largest federal surplus in American History. Now we have the largest deficit ever. I mean who would have guessed that John Kerry was the fiscal conservative in the last election? It's not just 9/11 and the subsequent wars either. Has this president vetoed any spending bills at all? What are we doing with all this money? If a lot of this money was going to the Global HIV/AID Initiative, I'd be way cool with that, but I read that the 2007 Budget that Bush sent to Congress actually had a net cut of money pledged to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. I read on Bono's DATA site that the cost to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria worldwide is under 20 Billion per year. His ONE campaign seeks a mere 1% of the US budget go toward fighting AIDS. One percent of our outlandish budget is about $25 billion dollars. I bring this up because, if all this debt we're racking up would go to something like ending AIDS, heck even preventing AIDS in Africa, or helping starving children, then it would be worth it, but that's not where it is going.

What about the concept of the government that governs least, governs best? Republicans tout that concept. But, we've gotten a much much bigger government under Bush 43. If you think about how the powers of government have been expanded under this president then you certainly must acknowledge that fact. We're talking discarding the Geneva Conventions, domestic surveillance, and the torture of detainees. Is the de facto suspension of habeas corpus something you would expect from the party that claims to distrust big government? Just curious.

How about "We want government out of your lives?" What does that even mean anymore? Maybe the Republicans want government out of your wallet, but not out of your lives. When I think about just a few issues like Terri Schiavo, homosexuals, unions, and abortion rights, it's obvious that "the government that governs least, governs best" and "we want government out of your lives" are just empty pieces of rhetoric; in practice, they're dead as the dodo bird.

I recently read an article in the Op/Ed page of the LA Times by a detainee in Guantanamo that broke my heart. Let me back up though, on September 1, 2006, in the same newspaper, Donald Rumsfeld, arguing that Guantanamo was not like a gulag, wrote: "The facility at Guantanamo Bay, by contrast, includes a volleyball court, basketball court, soccer field and library (the book most requested is "Harry Potter"). The food, served in accordance with Islamic diets, costs more per detainee than the average U.S. military ration." If you want to read his piece, New Enemies Demand New Thinking you can click on that link.

Now back to the detainee mentioned at the beginning of the previous paragraph. On October 1, 2006, the LA Times published No Holiday in Gitmo: I never saw Rumsfeld's volleyball courts during my two years in America's gulag by Moazzam Begg. Begg was taken from his home in Pakistan right in front of his wife and children. He spent one year in two prisons in Afghanistan and two years in an 8x6 cell at Guantanamo Bay: three years total without seeing or talking to his wife and children (including a son he had never seen). Begg wrote: "The principle 'innocent until proven guilty' is turned on its head. Everyone is guilty without charges, convicted without a trial." Does this seem to go with your idea of a less intrusive government?

Now before you size me up and try to pigeonhole my political leanings, let me just continue. This morning, on the way to work, I was listening to the song "I Am A Patriot" as sung by Jackson Browne, but written by Little Steven. Despite the fact that I've heard this song for over a decade, it actually brought tears to my soul. The lyrics, in part, say:

I ain't no communist
I ain't no capitalist
I ain't no socialist
I ain't no imperialist
I ain't no democrat
I ain't no republican
I only know one party
and it's name is freedom

I used to be a Democrat in the 1980s. The first guy I ever voted for was Jessie Jackson in a primary election. In the 1990s, I switched to a registered Republican. More recently, I changed that to Libertarian. But, for some time now, I have been unaffilated with a political party and registered simply as "decline to state." Part of the reason for that is articulated perfectly in the above lyrics. Another is that I see very little difference between the Democrats and Republicans nowadays. After all, the politically mixed legislative branch has largely supported the executive branch in many of the matters heretofore mentioned in this post. For example, the Republicans in Congress did not balk at the out of controll spending and the Democrats, for the most part, supported the war in Iraq.

I really don't consider myself liberal or conservative. It's funny, my liberal friends think I am pretty conservative and my conservative friends think I am pretty liberal. I will tell you that the most inspirational and eloquent political speech I have heard in the last 10 years came from Barack Obama in 2004. Here is part of what he said:

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it.

I thought that was well put. Like I said, it inspired me. Maybe that's just because I'm weird. I mean, in the most recent election last week I voted for three different political parties. If anything I would have to say that I am fiscally pretty darn conservative and socially a bit liberal. Even though it's a cliche, I really do try to look at the individual candidate. I don't have a litmus test either.

Now, before you think, "Ah, ha, Doah quoted a Democrat, he must be a liberal," please consider these other words that Barak Obama spoke in his "Call to Renewal" speech on June 28, 2006, right after Alan Keyes stated publiclly, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama." As a retort, here's part of what Obama said:

Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope . . . . And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.

You see what really makes me bothered is another outmoded stereotype: God has a preference for one policial party. For God, doesn't always come down to the heart? I mean, anyone who knows the Bible knows that King David is routinely referred to as "a man after God's own heart." However, David had Uriah the Hittite killed so that he could cover up an affair with Uriah's wife. By the way, if you want some reading that will top an episode of Desperate Housewives, check out 2 Samuel 11 and 12 (actually, I've never seen an episode so forgive me if I misstated that, but the passage is juicy). Nevertheless, Christians frequently act as if somebody who belongs to a party that supports abortion rights, cannot have a heart for God. Why is that? That's what Alan Keyes did to Obama. And, that's another reason I love that first Obama quote above because he says, "We worship an awesome God in the Blue States." How dare Alan Keyes claim to know how Jesus would vote. The funny thing is, I voted for Alan Keyes in the 2000 primary. But, what about Jesus's words in Matthew 7:1, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." Would that apply to what Alan Keyes said about Obama?

I imagine that if, six months ago, Ted Haggard was running for public office as a Republican against Barak Obama, a Democrat, Alan Keyes and many Christians would indeed have claimed that Jesus would vote for Haggard. I wonder if that would still be the case now that Haggard confessed to a sexual sin with a male prostitute? I wonder, would Jesus indeed pick somebody with unconfessed sin in their heart, leading a double life, just because they were not in favor of abortion rights? Notice I am not using "pro-choice" or "pro-life" here because it is the very contention of this post that these labels avail at nothing. I don't know. I just wonder.

I certainly do not think that the Democrats are godless or the Republicans are evil or that the Democrats are stupid or the Republicans are heartless or any of those pathetic statements that miss the grayness of life. That said, labels like "tax and spend Democrats" or "compassionate conservative" or "Party of Big Government" or "God's party" just don't matter anymore. Maybe they never did. We've had a Republican controlled Congress with a Republican executive branch since 2001 and this government seems plenty big to me. The old political stereotypes are dead. I mean really, go back to the "No Holiday in Gitmo" Op/Ed piece that I mentioned earlier. Bush ran on a platform of "compassionate conservatism" (now there's a label), but does the treatment of Moazzam Begg seem very compassionate to you?

Now, I told you I didn't want you to pigeonhole my political leanings, but I do welcome a good political debate and I would love to hear your comments. And, just to give you a little bit more to get worked up over, I'll say this in closing: If I was arrested as a suspected terrorist, I would rather be in the hands of Jerry Brown than Donald Rumsfeld. If my son had AIDS, I would rather Bono be in charge of his medicine and the finances to buy his medicine than George W. Bush. If somebody in my family was gay, I'd rather invite Barack Obama over for Thanksgiving dinner than Alan Keyes. Of course, I'd rather grab an In-n-Out burger with Sean Hannity than Al Franken though.