I just caught the last chunk of David Petraeus’s statement. As Kevin Drum predicted the other day, the Chaos Hawkery was strongly to the fore at the end. I haven’t seen a transcript yet, but the bottom line — after a Westmoreland-like catalog of investment projects and advisory teams — was, “This is a hard road, I can’t assure success, but if we leave I guarantee failure, regional chaos and the rise of Iran and other neighbors. Also, there’s no end in sight.” All of this was well forseen by Petraeus-watchers, of course. But it’s worth going back to this month four years ago when the logic of this approach, now fully articulated in Petraeus’s statement, was becoming clear.
Back in 2003 it was John McCain who was saying this, and it was people like Billmon who were — correctly — predicting where it would all lead. Everything below is from September 2003:
John McCain’s recent piece in the Washington Post calls for an urgent injection of military and civil personnel devoted to rebuilding Iraq:
bq. [Ambassador L. Paul Bremer’s] operation is nearly broke, and he admits Iraq will need “tens of billions” of dollars for reconstruction next year alone. … [C]ontrary to administration assurances, our military force levels are obviously inadequate. A visitor quickly learns in conversations with U.S. military personnel that we need to deploy at least another division. … as well as a significant increase in civilian experts in development and democracy-building.
More troops now, more money now, and nation-building for the long haul. This is the emerging consensus across much of the political spectrum, left and right. We’ve come a long way from the arguments used to justify the war, which had very little to say about long-term commitments of this sort. The new view, in essence, is that now we’ve invaded we need to follow through. There’s a lot to be said for this. Trying to clean up after yourself is clearly more responsible than installing a puppet government and bailing out as fast as you can. The domestic goal is to get the public used to the idea. McCain speaks freely of billions of dollars in the short term and a “generational commitment” for the long run, frankly acknowledging that the U.S. will be stuck in Iraq for years.
He justifies this commitment in two ways. First, he articulates the Domino Theory of Democratization, saying that
bq. Iraq’s transformation into a progressive Arab state could set the region … on a new course in which democratic expression and economic prosperity, … define a modernity in the Muslim world that does not express itself in ways that threaten its people or other nations.
For this reason, “America’s mission in Iraq is too important to fail.” I find the new domino theory about as convincing as the old one. More important, any policy that is “too important to fail” risks becoming a self-justifying sinkhole, as Billmon recently argued:
bq. In the end, policy mistakes — particularly big ones — tend to produce a kind of circular reasoning — in which those in charge try to justify the policy by citing the need to avoid, at all costs, the failure of the policy.
McCain’s second line of argument fits Billmon’s diagnosis. “Let there be no doubt,” he says,
bq. Iraq remains the central battle in the war on terror. We must succeed in Iraq because every bad actor in the Middle East … has a stake in our failure. They know Iraq’s transformation would be a grave and perhaps fatal setback to them.
Now that the U.S. is entrenched in Iraq, it must stay because to withdraw would be to give a victory to “every bad actor in the Middle East.” Iraq is where the war on terror is being fought. But of course it’s being fought there because that’s where the U.S. has chosen to put its soldiers. Which is why it must stay. Around and around we go. That is the logic of a quagmire, and it makes the analogy to Vietnam clearer. There, it wasn’t the sheer number of casualties lost in the jungles or troops fragging their commanders or anti-draft protests at home that were at the root of problem. It was that the U.S.’s presence in the region was, by way of arguments about nation-building there and face-saving here, the very reason for further escalation.
The U.S.’s day-to-day problems in Iraq may end up resembling Northern Ireland rather than Vietnam: car bombings, political assassinations, a general effort by terrorists to violently undermine civil society and resist the occupying power. The cost in terms of soldiers’ lives would be much lower than in Vietnam, but if there’s no viable way to extricate yourself the feeling of the situation may be much the same. Putting the emphasis on the political logic of involvement in Iraq seems to me to be the most plausible way of making the “Quagmire Case.” Involvement there is self-justifying and there’s no clear way to get out of the loop.
The way to argue against it is to say there are predictable changes to Iraqi society that would trigger a withdrawal. Hence the appeals to post-WWII Europe. I’m not convinced by this comparison, but others are welcome to make the case for it. My questions to them are the same ones I was asking back in March: Since WWII, how many autocratic or totalitarian countries have been invaded by a democracy, had the bad guys deposed, and a stable democratic regime installed? And how does this number compare to the number of invasions or other interventions that resulted in puppet governments, friendly autocrats, messy long-term military occupations, or outright disasters?
{ 26 comments }
norbizness 09.10.07 at 7:29 pm
Apparently, their wanting us the hell out (including 60% feeling that attacks on US troops are justified) is not part of the evolution.
dsquared 09.10.07 at 8:02 pm
it is possibly apocryphal but si no vero ben trovato that one of the first things young consultants are taught at McKinsey’s is that before you say something “has to” be done, you check that it can be done and before you say something “must be prevented”, you check that it can be prevented, in order to avoid precisely these situations where something is either vital but unattainable or unacceptable but inevitable.
I’d also further note that getting on for three quarters of a million people have died in Iraq now and more than two million are refugees or IDPs, so even if it became a stable democracy tomorrow, this policy is still a failure, unless you count Rwanda’s current stable democratic government a success for non-intervention.
abb1 09.10.07 at 8:03 pm
This is all very sad, but surely it’s a part of some grand plan and we have no choice. Close your eyes, close your eyes and relax, think of nothing tonight.
John Quiggin 09.10.07 at 9:00 pm
You were a month ahead of me, Kieran. In October 2003, I saw a report saying that the Americans were employing immigrant workers instead of Iraqis (for security reasons), and concluded “it’s time to abandon the “you broke it, you own it†stance I’ve advocated previously. Rather than pursue a strategy that is doomed to be an expensive failure, it would be better to pull out immediately, and let the chips fall where they may.”
Thomas 09.10.07 at 9:07 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t there a fair number of progressive Arab states in the middle east before we started fucking around with them in the fifties and sixties?
Might that part of the world be better off today, and more in favor of our interests, if we hadn’t tampered with their governments and way of life for half century before invading one of the only fully secular states in the region.
I’m going away before I get hoarse.
joel turnipseed 09.10.07 at 10:15 pm
Thomas, perhaps you’d prefer, like Rumsfeld, to get a mule…?
Honestly, though: it just wasn’t hard to predict this clusterfuck: no one, but no one with any kind of experience at all in changing large organizations thinks it’s easy, and knows that sometimes the whole thing just blows up in your face. As a veteran of both wars and start-ups, it was obvious that the Rumsfeld/Chalabi line of “six weeks and then flowers and democracy” was complete crap.
And now we have Petraeus channeling Hofstadter’s Law: “It always takes longer than you think, even when accounting for Hofstadter’s Law.”
Democracy is always around the corner, limited successes are always signs of large-scale improvements, and the Ouroboros that is our military-industrial complex continues to eat itself, burning through money and lives for, apparently, infinity.
What’s ass-burning about this is that we haven’t just learned this lesson on a large scale at least twice in this century: The Marine Corps first developed its Small Wars Manual after getting nowhere in its occupations of Haiti, Nicaragua (original home of the purple “I Voted” finger), and elsewhere. We also got the Montevideo Accords, in which FDR stated that the U.S. would no longer interfere in the business of other nations. From Vietnam, we got CAP and the once-promising Col. McMasters’ Dereliction of Duty. We also got the Weinberger/Powell doctrine. Now there are Lt. Cols and Majors everywhere going back to read about the adventures of Smedley Butler and Chesty Puller in the Caribbean and McMaster is the ideas guy for the ongoing disaster in Iraq.
It’s true that the corollary to Santayana’s little dictum on history is that if you pay too close attention you’re liable to miss what’s going on in front of your face, but geez, a little awareness goes a long way.
Barry 09.10.07 at 10:51 pm
“And now we have Petraeus channeling Hofstadter’s Law: “It always takes longer than you think, even when accounting for Hofstadter’s Law.—
Technically, they’re Friedman Units, but a lie is a lie is a lie….
What amazes me is the sheer power of the system to lie, f*ck up, lie, f*ck up, in short order, again and again, and *never* fall short of Baghdad Bob’s. And at least the original Baghdad Bob would have faced a grisly torture and death if he started telling the truth.
joel turnipseed 09.10.07 at 11:02 pm
Barry: Well, it’s more like: Friedman units are the i in the foo here, but yes: Baghdad Bob is starting to look good.
Uncle Kvetch 09.10.07 at 11:16 pm
our military-industrial complex continues to eat itself, burning through money and lives for, apparently, infinity.
The lives are of no consequence to the people making the decisions. And the money, a good deal of it anyway, ends up in the pockets of many of the same people. What’s not to like?
What’s ass-burning about this is that we haven’t just learned this lesson on a large scale at least twice in this century
Not to nitpick, Joel–I basically agree with you–but what “lesson”? It’s pretty clear that our occupation in Iraq is its own justification: we’re there in order to remain there. All this stuff about some things “going well” and others “going badly” is just so much noise. To the people whose opinions matter, everything has gone swimmingly, and will continue to do so as long as they can keep the lid on and keep the DFH’s from having any impact. And they scored another smashing victory today.
Oh dear, I’ve gone all shrill again. I’d better go lie down.
Danny Yee 09.11.07 at 6:36 am
Does anyone know what’s happened to Billmon? His web site (which Kieran links to) has been out of action for some time now.
Roy Belmont 09.11.07 at 6:40 am
Katrina was a disaster, a natural one, that, due to incompetence on the part of those agencies mandated with responsibility, for prevention of it and response to it, became an exacerbated, and, more accurately now described as, a man-made one.
The hideously grotesque and unthinkable idea that that disaster was, except for the actual wind and water itself – in other words the seeming “incompetence” of preparation and mortal sludge of response that are provably accountable for the devastation death of Katrina – allowed to happen, tacitly caused, passively engineered, created by heartless permission, is so discomfiting to the majority, even the sceptical left-leaning minority of that majority, and so far outside consensus reality even at this so very late date that it’s only discussable in odd and marginal quarters here and there in the more shadowy corners of the public sphere.
How much more so Iraq.
Mudge 09.11.07 at 7:10 am
Oh how I miss Billmon. He had rare insight.
Katherine 09.11.07 at 9:59 am
Um, I’m no cheerleader for decades of British action in Northern Ireland, but as an analogy with Iraq it’s pretty off. Unless you count the start of the Iraqi occupation as the equivalent of William of Orange barging into Ireland in the 17th Century or Cromwell’s earlier invasion, in which case the US had best get ready to be in there for the long haul indeed.
Alex 09.11.07 at 11:50 am
“Chaos Hawks” would be a great name for an outlaw motorcycle club, no?
Ragout 09.11.07 at 12:25 pm
It’s worth noting that polls consistently show that the Iraqis don’t want us to leave. If you look at the poll Norbizness links to, you find that 53% of Iraqis wants US troops to “remain until security is restored” or something similar. A total of 47% say “leave now” which makes this the first poll I’ve seen with anything close to a majority choosing this option. According to the same pollsters, earlier this year only 35% wanted US troops to “leave now.”
How this squares with a majority finding attacks on US forces to be acceptable, I don’t know.
abb1 09.11.07 at 12:49 pm
Q21 How long do you think US and other Coalition forces should remain in Iraq? Should they leave now, remain until security is restored, remain until the Iraqi government is stronger, remain until Iraqi security forces can operate independently, remain longer but leave eventually, or never leave?
Leave now: All 47% Sunni arab 72% Shia arab 44%
Q22 Overall, do you think the presence of US forces in Iraq is making security in our country better, worse, or having no effect on the security situation?
Worse: All 72% Sunni arab 95% Shia arab 73%
Yeah, I agree, it is weird (pdf).
Also, in Q22, obviously you don’t get get “All 72%” from 95% and 73%; why didn’t they add the third column? What’s the percentage of respondents in each column?
Jack 09.11.07 at 3:14 pm
The Kurds?
SG 09.11.07 at 4:06 pm
ragout also believes Palestinian parents raise their children to be martyrs. I am suspicious about ragout’s concern for the true voice of the Iraqi people.
MFA 09.11.07 at 4:23 pm
Since the Sunni are a small minority, I’d hazard a guess that the ‘all’ is effectively a weighted average.
Odd that Petraus is claiming all that success among the Sunni in Anbar, yet the vast majority of them want us out right effing now because they think his surge has made it worse.
Perhaps some enterprising Senator or Representative will mention the incongruity.
MFA 09.11.07 at 4:28 pm
Ragout,
It’s easy to square it.
They want THEIR security to improve and recognize that if the coalition troops leave sectarian violence may increase.
But they don’t give a flying fig about the security of the occupiers who caused the problem in the first place.
It’s similar to how some US conservatives view the Constitution. Necessary to protect their rights, but unwelcome nevertheless, and so subject to frequent attack.
Ragout 09.11.07 at 11:26 pm
SG,
My concern, or lack of concern, for the Iraqi people is hardly relevant. The credibility of the poll depends on the pollsters and their sponsors (the BBC, ABC, etc.), not on me.
I’ll ignore your slanderous claim about Palestinian parents: anyone who wants to read what I wrote is welcome to.
SG 09.11.07 at 11:39 pm
oh Ragout, is the basis for your claim I have “slandered” you that I wrote “raise” rather than “encourage”? And if it is slander to misrepresent such a vital word, does it also slander Palestinian parents to write what you wrote? Or are they subject to different standards?
bi 09.12.07 at 5:15 am
abb1:
“Q22 Overall, do you think the presence of US forces in Iraq is making security in our country better, worse, or having no effect on the security situation?
Worse: All 72% Sunni arab 95% Shia arab 73%”
Another Stalinist statistic. Ignore ignore ignore. You never saw this statistic. What, what statistic?
Ragout 09.12.07 at 12:58 pm
SG,
I don’t know why you’re trying to hijack this thread and make it about Israel-Palestine. But anyway, your out-of-context quote is slanderous because it makes it sound like I was making some universal claim about all Palestinians. Rather, I was pointing to the well-documented fact that many Palestinian parents encourage their children to become “martyrs.” Some are quoted in the article I linked to in the other thread. You can choose to ignore this reality, just as you want to ignore the BBC’s poll, but don’t blame me for the facts.
richard 09.12.07 at 2:54 pm
Since the Sunni are a small minority, I’d hazard a guess that the ‘all’ is effectively a weighted average.
Did anyone else catch the disturbing little side note on NPR’s Talk of the Nation (10 sept) in which a series of ABC polls, with a cumulative n of 4400, got 47% Shi’ites and 37% Sunnis across Iraq? Gary Langer observed, with admirable sangfroid, that the much-spouted 65% Shi’ite/20% Sunni proportion came from an “unsourced claim in the CIA world factbook.”
bi 09.12.07 at 5:46 pm
Ignore ignore ignore. Ignore all Stalinist statistics. Ignore ignore ignore!
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