In presenting what in his view is the best remedy for the crisis in Iraq, Bush makes straight for the easiest diagnosis, invoking 9/11 and referring specifically to “outrageous acts of murder” by “Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents” following the December 2005 Iraqi elections. This is, of course, a faulty diagnosis, perhaps deliberately so. It elides the critical errors the US made right before, during, and immediately after the war, the original sins of this ill-conceived enterprise, and puts the blame on one side in a growing sectarian conflict.

The historical record tells us differently: The violence that happened in 2006 was not the opposite of what had happened the previous year, as Bush claims, but a direct consequence of it, and the better elections to invoke are the first set, in January 2005. Lack of Iraqi consensus then about how to proceed led to elections from which the Sunni Arab community largely absented itself (calls for a delay to work things out were shoved aside by a Bush administration intent on meeting deadlines that served its own domestic agenda). On the basis of the newly elected, heavily skewed transitional national assembly, a constitution was drafted that institutionalized the Sunni Arabs’ exclusion from the new order and the future of Iraq. Big surprise that they didn’t go for it.

Through a last-minute compromise, their political leaders did agree to participate in the constitutional referendum in October 2005 and the second set of elections two months later. They fell a mere 80,000 votes in a single governorate (Ninewa/Mosul) short of defeating the constitution. Their participation in the subsequent elections ensured better national representation, but since there were no new provincial elections (which were held in January 2005), Sunni Arabs remained excluded from, or a marginal presence on, governorate councils, even in provinces in which they have the demographic majority. This is how they started the year 2006.

Meanwhile, the Shiite Islamist parties, especially SCIRI and its Badr militia, had taken over the Interior Ministry after the January 2005 elections and, under the useful cover of police uniforms and vehicles, set about taking revenge for sectarian attacks against Shiites launched by the Zarqawi group (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) in late 2003. The violence escalated markedly at that point (summer of 2005), not after the December 2005 elections.

To construe the past year as Bush has done is self-serving, of course, but also leads to the wrong recipe for rolling back the armed groups: These are fighting over real issues (not religious differences), and it is these issues that must be addressed most urgently. In the absence of any significant political initiative, a military effort to pacify Baghdad is bound to fail.

Foreign powers bogged down in Iraq have tended to externalize their problems before. After the 1920 revolt against the British, some analysts in London were convinced that the main problem was in Persia (and in pan-Islamism) even though this uprising was first and foremost a local affair (or a collection of local affairs). Bush is at least more nuanced here than the UK’s Tony Blair – who tends to ascribe most of Iraq’s problems to evil Syrian and Iranian influences. Clearly, there is an element of truth in some of their accusations, but this should not detract from the profound challenges facing the internal Iraqi national reconciliation project.

Reidar Visser raises a good point about blaming external forces. Her mention of the 1920 uprising of Sunni and Shia Arabs and Kurds also points to one of the most outrageous lies by omission of the U.S.-British invasion and occupation. The British pillage of Iraq from the end of WWI until they ere forced out in 1958.

A short annimated history of this occupation created by Deep Dish TV as part of its 12 part series on Iraq can be seen at
http://www.blip.tv/file/130725

The League of Nations handed Britain “official” colonial rule over Palestine and Mesopotamia (now Iraq) after the conclusion of the war. By 1920 the peoples of the Tigris and Euphrates valley were in open revolt. Winston Churchill ordered the use of poison gas against the uprising. Then in 1921, at a conference in Cairo, Egypt at which several hundred Brits and 2 Iraqis were present, the British established the modern state of Iraq, after carefully detaching the oil rich area of Kuwait from the province of Basra. They appointed Faisal ibn Husayn, son of Sherif Hussein ibn Ali former Sharif of Mecca as Iraq’s first King. They made his brother the king of Jordan. The British military band played “God Save the King” at his coronation. The new king was then forced to sign a 75 year oil concession pact that gave the British all profits from Iraii oil. 82 years later the British returned once again as occupiers of Iraq, this time in the pocket of the Americans.

If the Bush administration benefited from the “thoughtful recommendations” of the Baker-Hamilton report, it certainly is showing no evidence of it. Aside from the ISG’s recommendation that its proposals be taken on wholesale rather than piecemeal, none of its key recommendations are reflected in Bush’s speech (most importantly perhaps, the idea that Iraq cannot be stabilized without some form of cooperation from Iran and Syria, nations that should therefore be engaged), and in proposing a surge in military deployment Bush is directly contradicting the ISG report.

I agree with Joost there. The disingenuousness of Bush’s reference to the ISG was quite stunning.

Further down in the paragraph, he starts to talk about the dire consequences of “failure” in Iraq, and this discussion on failure and success continues through the paragraphs that follow. He seems to assume we all know, and agree with him, on what actually qualifies as “success” or failure.” The closest he comes to defining success comes in para 13, where he writes (as the sort of rosy scenario) “Most of Iraq’s Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace – and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible.”

I agree with the view that this is one key component of a “successful” outcome– successful for Iraqis, that is. But it could come about through many different routes.

It strikes me that, especially after the record of the past 3.5 years, the continued presence and operations of US troops is extremely unlikely to do anything to further intra-Iraqi reconciliation. Such reconciliation might also come about as a result of a US announcement of a decision to undertake a speedy, total, and orderly withdrawal, as I have written about here…

We really do need, as a citizenry, to do a lot more to explore what it is we mean by “success” and “failure” in Iraq.

“Eighty percent of Iraq’s sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles of the capital.” This may be true. But not all violence in Iraq is sectarian. The country has suffered from rampant lawlessness and criminality, in some areas more than in others, and in Basra there are serious conflicts, often violently expressed, between three Shiite groups (Fadhila, SCIRI and the Sadrists). The focus on Baghdad, though, is correct: If you can sort out Baghdad, you can then start sorting out the rest of the country. But again the approach should not be strictly military.

Here we come to what should have been the main thrust of Bush’s approach to Iraq but sounds instead more like a minor item on the agenda. And it is totally misdirected. To think that the Maliki government, which barely can tie its own shoes, is going to meet agreed benchmarks is to fantasize. It has neither the ability nor the will to reach across the table and come to a true national compact with all of Iraq’s political actors (including insurgents). The Kurds are quite content with the current situation (no one is bothering them up in Kurdistan, certainly not attacking them with chemical weapons) and the Shiites are not going to let the Americans cheat them out of this historic opportunity to rule an Arab country. Only a concerted international effort could bring these parties to the table and force them to compromise on the key issues that divide them. This Bush is evidently not prepared to do.

There are many problems in his policies, but President Bush must be lauded for holding on to this vision of Iraqi coexistence.

The president seems to be understating the acute need for progress on the constitutional revision front.

Another fanciful notion: No way is this Iraqi government, in the absence of a national compact amounting to an overall peace agreement, going to be able to assume full security responsibilities in all 18 governorates by November. As for the oil legislation, we have been receiving tantalizing titbits suggesting that an overall compromise may be within reach. But to state, bluntly, that the Iraqis “will pass legislation” — and legislation representing a true compromise acceptable to all major actors — is, I would venture, rather premature. The same goes for the assertion that the government will reform de-Baathification. Reform how? By chiseling at the edges of current legislation? That simply will not suffice to overcome the blunders of the past. And finally, concerning the constitution, it is fine and well to posit a fair process for considering amendments to the constitution, but the Kurds don’t want the constitution amended on key points (the current one serves their interests quite nicely) and through their more-than-two-thirds majority in three governorates (Erbil, Suleimaniyeh, and Dohuk) they could simply defeat the package of amendments in the referendum that is to follow. Add to this opposition to substantial amendments from some of the Shiite parties, and the whole notion that the constitution can be significantly changed, through a fair process or otherwise, goes out the window.

“Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population.” Should one laugh at the audacity of the lie or cry over the state to which Anbar has been reduced by the combined efforts of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, other insurgent groups, and US forces fighting them? American troops cannot move ten yards without being attacked, and no citizen of Anbar would claim he or she is receiving effective protection from them. The sad truth is that Al-Qaeda in Iraq has become the strongest force in Anbar, funding and sometimes coordinating with other insurgent groups, such as the Islamic Army and Muhammad’s Army, as well as smaller secular and independent grouplets. Anyone needing protection has only one address to which they can go, whether they like it or not: the insurgents.

I think we should cry, Joost. Cry, too, that no less a personage than the US president seems to think that crowing about the number of persons “killed or captured” in such a vastly unequal fight is any metric of success. (Maybe he should go learn a bit more about the theories of counter-insurgency?)

No doubt the people of the region want a future of peace and opportunity for their children, but they have been looking at Iraq for some time now and are making very clear that above everything they want foreign forces to leave. They know very well that foreign interventions in the Middle East over the past century have only brought more grief, compounding as they have the very serious problems of authoritarianism, inequality, economic dislocation, and poverty that exist. The US adventure in Iraq has roused deep anti-US sentiments in a region that suspects behind every American move a plan to grab more oil or promote Israel’s interests.

If George Bush had a last opportunity to get it right on Iraq, he has just missed it. By shunning the Baker-Hamilton report which, for all its weaknesses, was by far the best plan on the table because at least it recognized the importance of the political dimension, and by pushing a military option that does not even enjoy the full support of his generals, he is giving the American public, and the world, a Hail Mary operation that will do little to stem the escalating violence, simply because it neglects to address the underlying issues that divide Iraqis, issues that form the very raison d’être of the insurgent groups and militias that are wreaking havoc in the streets of Baghdad and beyond.

Had he been both wise and courageous, he would have initiated a political process with key allies to bring together Iraq’s neighboring states, including Iran and Syria, in a joint effort to persuade Iraq’s divided communities to come to a new national compact (the one the constitution was meant to be). He would also, to repair some of America’s standing in the region and increase the effectiveness of US diplomatic efforts, have relaunched the peace process. Instead, we get nothing but a surge, a temporary projection of military might into Baghdad and Anbar, with no prospect whatsoever that this time around military solutions will be any more effective and long-lasting than earlier ones, all of which were dismal failures. Heaven help us all.

Bush talks about “defending its territorial integrity” . when it is the United States that violated Iraq’s territorial integrity in the first place and continues to do so by its military occupation. He talks about “stabilizing” the region when it is the U.S. that has created the enormous instability thatwe face now. He talks about “the flow of support from iran and Syria, which is a way of dodging the fact that it is the Iraqis themselves, whether they get outside support or not, who are the opposition. It reminds us of Vietnam, when Nixon saw Cambodia and Laos as aiding the VietCong and launched futile attacks on them, avoiding the fact that the NLF in Vietnam dr ew i ts support internally.

I would take this opportunity to make a few general points.There was not a hint of emotion in a speech that sends young Americans to death or dismemberment or psychological trauma and dooms more Iraqis to endure the hell that we have created for them in their own countr. Not even the modest emotion of sincerity in a speech that could have been delivered by a robot with more feeling.

The only thing I could think of as Bush spoke was the Vietnam era song by Pete Seeger referring to Johnson’s insistence on escalating the war: “We’re waist deep in the big muddy, and the big fool says to keep on.”

Last night President Bush announced his adoption of a tri-partite plan for the pacification of Iraq in the context of his vision of the world as a Manichean array of the righteous opposed by the evil, a moiety reminiscent of the war in heaven described so ably by Milton, among others.

His plan represents the application of the counterinsurgency doctrine followed with mixed results by the United States in the 20th Century after its development by the French Army. This doctrine has now been “discovered?” by General Petraeus and friends and described in prettier words and a more literary style than the nasty old “paras” of my experience could ever have managed.

As Bernard Fall elucidated the doctrine: “Counterinsurgency = Counter-guerrilla operations + Political Action + Civic Action.”

In Bush’s plan:

1-The counter-guerrilla operations will be taken care of by Odierno’s Corps hopefully reinforced by Kurdish and Shia allies. In “Bushworld,” the Iraqi “people” yearn to be freed from the depredations of various kinds of “bandits” without regard to the ethnicity of the “bandits” or the Iraqi government forces and so will welcome an increase in the activities of US and government forces throughout Baghdad. In “Realworld,” the Shia population and militias are intent on driving the Sunni Arab population of the city out in order to make Baghdad a secure capital for the Shia “rump” state of Iraq. To that end the Shia are seeking to drive a “cordon sanitaire” across north Baghdad to isolate the Sunni Arab population to the south and make their departure inevitable. Since the “Bushworld” and “Realworld” conceptions of truth clash, it is inevitable that the forces engaged will also clash. Outcome? Who knows. The troops will fight well.

2- The Civic Action component of the plan will be provided in the form of a “lake” of money to be placed under the control of US field commanders for employment projects in support of the counterinsurgency. Good idea.

3- The Political Action part of this plan is where the whole scheme is going to collapse. In “Bushworld” the Maliki “government,” sheltered behind American troops in the Green Zone is somehow the equivalent of George Washington’s “infant” first administration in that it is groping toward a consolidation of its power in the context of a true regard for the interests of the various peoples of Mesopotamia and Kurdistan. In “Bushworld” all that is needed is to be sufficiently encouraging and mentoring with Maliki and his ministers to “jump start” the functions of a federal state endowed with a reasonably strong central government. In “Realworld” Maliki is merely another Shia Arab activist seeking to consolidate Shia Arab control over as much of the old Iraq as can be managed. In “Realworld” Maliki can not suppress the Shia militia leaders because he is their brother, embarked on the same quest for Shia power. In “Bushworld” we have asked the Maliki government to participate with us in fighting, if necessary, (and it will be) the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr. In “Realworld” Sadr is an ally from whom Maliki may not distance himself, because he and Sadr represent the same cause. Think not? Think about Saddam’s execution. Think about it. Who ran the execution? Who set the terms and circumstances? Was it Maliki? Patrick Lang

This is an important paragraph. How are we supposed to read the sentence “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me”? It perhaps aims at being– but certainly is not– an apology. Firstly, he is not actually admitting that any mistakes “have been made”, far less coming out openly and say “I made them.”

And then, I suppose the term “unacceptable” is intended to carry some real weight. (He used it often enough!) But it ends up sounding, to me, merely petulant, like a two-year-old banging his spoon upon the table. Maybe I’m jaded. I guess he was trying to sound a convincing emotional note here. But he seemed to me to fail.

I have to suppose that he very sincerely believes this rhetoric, grandiose and devoid of content as it is. It’s notable to me how he seemed to avoid engaging in the discourse of “democratization” which was his leitmotif a year ago, and even more recently than that. The fact that his administration is actively undermining the democratically elected government in Palestine and did nothing to help shore up the democratically elected government in Lebanon during last summer’s Israeli assault on the country will escape few Middle Easterners.

So instead of democratizatiopn we now have a global battle between, on the one hand, “those who believe in freedom and moderation”, and on the other, “extremists.” The freedom discourse is particularly inappropriate given that today– Jan. 11– is the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees in Gunatanamo; and in light of Abu Ghraib, the necklace of secret CIA prisons around the world, the renditions to states that torture, etc….

But he’s trying to pitch himself at the level of a Winston Churchill? I find it very sad…

Bush continues to speak of “our mission” in Iraq, and for the most part the commentators in the Democratic Party and the foreign policy think tank establishment echo the term without being much more truthful about its definition than Bush was about the rationale for the invasion in the first place. The uncontestable fact is that “the mission” is to establish a reliable, stable client government in Iraq that will be part of the larger strategy to secure American interests in the region. The next question: how do the war architects, their backers (and the former backers who have now become strategy critics) define “American Interests” in the region? Do American interests permit Chinese, Russian or EU equal access with the U.S. to the regions oil resources? Does it permit independent states of the region to determine their own oil policy? Would American interests allow euro-denomiated petroleum markets instead of petrodollars? Of course not. Shouldn’t the real debate here be about the “mission” and the “interests” rather than about the strategy and tactics for success?

Mr. Bush tells us that the year ahead will demand sacrifice, yet the only sacrifice he calls for in this speech is on the part of the men and women fighting in Iraq, and their families. Nothing better exemplifies the approach of the administration to this war, which has begun to approach dissociation.

Much has already been of Mr. Bush having “admitted” past mistakes, when in fact he did no such thing, only announced that he would accept responsibility–as if we need to be reminded that the commander-in-chief is ultimately responsible for the conduct of this war.

Yet in reality, Mr. Bush is directly to blame for all of the mistakes that have been made in Iraq, by defining the parameters of the war as he has. That is, by insisting that the war be fought as cheaply and quietly as possible, so as not to inconvenience the bulk of the American people in any way whatsoever, and by his every, preconceived notion regarding the Iraqi people and modern military strategy.

From this initial decision has flowed every other “mistake” in Iraq; from the insufficient troop levels, to the lack of protective body and vehicle armor, to the untrained and poorly led personnel guarding Abu Ghraib prison, to the slapdash economic development initiatives, to the shoddy intelligence effort, to the turning of critical civilian offices into a patronage mill, to the grand total of six (6) fluent, American speakers of Arabic in the Green Zone.

Yet for all his insistence on defining a “new way forward,” Mr. Bush has refused to abandon his old parameters. The relief he offers is paltry, at best. The addition of 17,500 troops in Baghdad, over the course of four months, is unlikely to bring any real order to a heavily armed city of six million. The $1.1 billion he has offered to pony up for new, civilian economic projects is about the cost of fighting the war for one week.

Nor, he makes clear, will anyone budge him from the course he wishes to pursue. He claims to have consulted with Congress, but those meeting have been widely described as perfunctory, at best. He claims to have consulted with our allies, when they have been reduced, in Iraq, to Tony Blair’s lame-duck government. He claims to have “benefited” from the Iraq Study Group report, when in fact he has already rejected its main proposals to move toward withdrawal and embark upon wide, regional negotiations.

Indeed, far from entertaining the idea of any negotiations, Mr. Bush’s vague threats to interdict insurgents and supplies coming over the borders from Syria and Iraq threaten to expand the conflict exponentially. His insistence on “clearing and securing” Baghdad neighborhoods exposes a fatal refusal to recognize that most of the “insurgents” are now Iraqis themselves, engaged in a grim civil war, and not outside provocateurs. Should he seriously pursue the strategy he outlines of evenhandedly attacking partisan militias into Sadr City, he will bring down the Maliki government and throw the country into even deeper chaos.

In short, it is Mr. Bush’s speech itself that is a quagmire, or more accurately a cesspool, into which has drained all of the right-wing’s foreign-policy fantasies since the end of World War II. Here have gathered all of the old platitudes as to how victory is merely the sum of firepower and will, from the first calls to end the Korean War by nuking the Red Chinese and laying a corridor of cobalt across the peninsula, to the demands that we turn North Vietnam “into a parking lot,” to the suggestions that we escalate the Cuban Missile Crisis into a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

During these past crises the right wing did not, thank God, have the power to act on its demogagery, only to spew it about for domestic political advantage. Now, at last, they have a president who really believes that the world can be made just as he wants it to be, merely by saying so. It is he who will convert a costly misadventure into a true debacle.

“and Iraq’s other leaders” – these innocuous words may be of considerable import. The number of Iraqi leaders whom Bush has spoken directly to over the last period is probably quite limited. Who are they, aside from Nuri al-Maliki, Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, Tariq al-Hashimi and Jalal Talabani? This might be an indication that the Bush administration is indeed hoping to control Iraq through a handful of selected “communal” leaders (whose influence within their supposed “ethnic” constituencies Washington tends to wildly exaggerate). SCIRI claims that Hakim spoke to Bush again on the phone as late as 10 January in the evening Baghdad time – only hours ahead of Bush’s address.

The big news about Bush’s New Plan is the debate it has unleashed in the U.S.

There is a mounting level of panic in the American government and foreign policy establishment as Iraq seems to spin out of control and perhaps out of the U.S. grasp.

The U.S. now faces a “defeat” that could have immense consequences for its global dominance, with serious ramifications on the American economy and political stature. “Failure in Iraq,” said Bush, “would be a disaster for the United States.” Sharp splits have emerged in previously unified and confident American elites as they scramble to find a workable strategy to salvage U.S.objectives in the region and avoid wounds that might prove fatal to its imperial primacy.

The spectre of a “radical Islamic empire” that Bush conjures is a totem for the real threat of the emergence of a rival Chinese or European or resurgent Russian empire. These are complex and long term political tectonics. But potential global rivals smirk from the sidelines as the U.S. sinks into the quagmire of its efforts to crush the reactionary fundamentalists networks it has spawned and defeat nationalist resistance to occupation.. America’s mighty military machine stumbles in the face of Lilliputian assaults that seem to proliferate and strengthen with every mention of “the war on terror.”

The spectre of “Vietnam” is also raised by pundits and politicians. Bush blames too few troops and too many restrictions for the current debacle and proposes a major increase of men with guns freed from pesky restraints. Iraq is not Vietnam. The stakes now are much higher and the risk of wider conflagration much greater. But Bush’s New Plan for dealing with resistance and sectarian slaughter stirs memories of “search and destroy” missions and the’ “snuff and snatch” (kidnap, torture, kill) counterinsurgency efforts of Operation Phoenix. In Iraq the light at the end of this tunnel seems blocked by the resistance and the patriot missiles and flotillas of warships Bush is waving at Iran and Syria.

Most alternative “deciders” see the Bush “escape forward” strategy as lunacy. Those neocons still hanging around the White House challenge critics to “put an alternative on the table.” They have. But none of the congressional or “elder statesmen” plans calls for abandoning the mission or relinquishing U.S. military control of the region.

The leading alternatives all include:

1. “Redeployment.” – Pull U.S. troops back to Kuwait and Kurdistan and let the Shias and Sunis fight it out. (The Murtha Plan) Or pull U.S.troops out of the cities and put them on the boarders to seal the country from supplies and fighters from Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc. (The Chuck Hagel suggestion).

2. “Reconfigure”, “Repurpose” and Redeploy: The Baker Hamilton Plan argues to reconfigure U.S. forces and scale back the number of combat troops. It argues for embedding U.S. troops with Iraqi batallions to train, provide intelligence and logistics support. Baker and Hamilton also assert that:

“Even after the United States has moved all combat brigades out of Iraq, we would maintain a considerable military presence in the region, with our still significant force in Iraq and with our powerful air, ground, and naval deployments in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, as well as an increased presence in Afghanistan. These forces would be sufficiently robust to permit the United States, working with the Iraqi government, to accomplish four missions:
*Provide political reassurance to the Iraqi government in order to avoid its collapse and the disintegration of the country.
*Fight al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in Iraq using special operations teams.
*Train, equip, and support the Iraqi security forces.
*Deter even more destructive interference in Iraq by Syria and Iran.

These four missions are the visible face of the fundamental mission: to ensure the protection of American “interests” i.e control of the resources and people of the region. All global powers understand this to be the key to top dog status and the ability to exercise global hegemony. There is agreement among Bush planners and critics on the continued validity of the 1948 State Department assessment that the Middle East represents “the greatest strategic prize in history.” Neither Bush or his loyal opposition is willing to throw that prize away.

All the contending plans nod to another Vietnam era cliche: the necessity to win the hearts and minds of the people, this time supposedly by providing security, electricity, water, food, jobs, perhaps even a slot on American Idol: cruel opposites of the living hell 12 years of sanctions and 4 years of war have brought down on the people of Iraq.

There a continuing refusal by the administration and its congressional and think tank critics a to admit the unspeakable suffering that the U.S. invasion and occupation have caused. The carnage by murderous Shia and Sunni militias (set in motion by the invasion) is used to deflect attention from the murderous barbarity of the occupation itself. The invasion of Iraq was an illegal act of aggression, a war crime. The torture and murder of innocent civilians compounds that crime. The debate should not be about a better way to carry out the crime, to make the victims feel better about it. The crime should stop. Now. It’s purpatrators should be punished, not debated.

Bush, Baker & Hamilton, Murtha, Hagel, Clinton et. al seem like Dr. Frankenstein and his now disloyal Igors rushing into the village shouting “I’ll save you, I’ll save you,” from the monster they have created and unleashed. It would be quite foolish to put faith in people whose only real plan is to preserve their investment and safeguard the laboratory that churns out these monsters.

On the surface, it appears as though President George W. Bush, while revealing his new Iraq strategy, is betting on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to rescue his presidency, his party and America’s grandeur, while escalating militarily by adding a mere 21,000 soldiers, when the real task at hand requires many times that figure. It appears as though his strategy is based on further embroiling America in the Iraqi quagmire, without a Plan B for withdrawal, when necessary. In fact, when scrutinizing his words, Bush seems to be adamant on informing Maliki that if he wants American forces to continue to help the Iraqis, he needs to break away from Iran and the extremist Iraqi militia with which he has an intimate relationship, such as the militia of the young Shiite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. Should he be reluctant, or should he decide that the better address for Iraq’s salvation and security is Tehran rather than Washington, then the US has the option of redeploying its forces and its aircraft carriers in the regional waters. The American President’s hints about the enchantment of the already present aircraft carrier are an implicit message to both Tehran and Baghdad that the US is not without options. Bush’s deliberate rejection of the Baker-Hamilton report’s recommendation to engage in a diplomatic dialogue with Iran and Syria is a clear indication that he is not about to make any deals with those who participated in turning Iraq into a living hell for him and the US forces. In fact, he pledged to interrupt supplies used against the US forces flowing into Iraq from Syria and Iran with tangible consequences. He warned al-Qaeda network and its likes that he is not about to retreat defeated from Iraq to offer them a victory over the carcass of American prestige. He also pledged that he would never leave the Arab region a prey for terrorism so that it curses the moment that that brought to it George W. Bush waving his perceived divine mandate to topple tyranny and dictators and promote freedom. The pressing question now is whether Bush’s resolve and insistence on ‘victory’ is possible simply by a limited increase in the number of troops-even if they are qualitatively different and of superior capabilities-or if the American administration has a secret Plan B in store whose essence is the needed surprise in the decisive battle of the Iraq War.

The Democrats, who control Congress, do not want that victory the Republican President is referring to; a victor that will not look like the one known to our fathers and grandfathers, as he said. The Democrats want to produce and manage the ‘victory’ which ensures a kind and gradual withdrawal from Iraq. That is why they oppose the increase of troops because reinforcing the forces on the ground undermines the chances for a soft and kind withdrawal accomplished through hidden messages and quasi-deals with players such as Syria and Iran.

What the Democrats say, in short, as expressed by Democrat Senator Dick Durbin following Bush’s speech Wednesday night, is this: that “America has paid with a heavy price” and “gave the Iraqis so much” since it “delivered them from a despot dictator” and helped them “setting out a Constitution” and conducting “elections” while also “protecting” Iraq. Now, after four years, “It is time for Iraqis to stand up and defend their own nation. The Iraqi government must “disband the militias” and begin to assume responsibility.

What Durbin also said is that the time has come to put an end to the pattern of calling for a rescue and a bailout; not every time the Iraqi government calls the 911 emergency number — it will get some 20,000 additional US troops.

He said that what is taking place in Iraq is a civil and sectarian war, hinting that it did not result from the US invasion and occupation, but that it is a sectarian war with roots stemming from the sixth century; it not a product of today. He added that “20,000 additional troops are not enough to end a civil war” and centuries of sectarian wars.

This statement is important, not only because it reflects political outbidding and a fundamental difference with the Republican president, but also because it involves deep-rooted differences over Iraq and the nature of the American mission in Iraq and in the region.

The Democrats of today are isolationists, whereas the Republicans are traditionally the bastions of isolationism. After all, a great many of them in the Senate supported the decision to go to war with Iraq, among them the former candidate for the presidency, Senator John Kerry, and the potential candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton. Today, they want to disown this failed war, pack up and leave honorably from Iraq.

Bush is telling them that there is no honorable way of withdrawing from Iraq. He is saying that withdrawal in itself is not honorable for the US. He is telling them that withdrawal means defeat for America and victory for the terrorists. He is right about that. But some immediately reply to him: ‘this is of your doing, and the country no longer trusts you.’

Admitting that he made mistakes in the Iraq War and that he bears the responsibility for these mistakes personally, as he did in this speech, will not help George W. Bush when it comes to those opposed to the war, or when it comes to the political opposition. His political reputation is tied to dragging the US into this war under false pretenses and justifications. His personal reputation is marred by his characteristics, namely, his stubbornness and his belief that he was chosen by God to spread freedom and democracy. But there are many Americans, Democrats and Republicans among them, who believe that a cabal of neo-conservatives hijacked and held the American President hostage and embroiled the US in the Iraq War for their own narrow political and financial interests.

Even those who agree with Bush on the need to combat terrorism, at least in the wake of September 11, 2001, really hate him and are furious because they believed that if the Afghanistan War had been completed, then the al-Qaeda network would have been dealt a deathblow. But the neo-cons convinced Bush to invade Iraq, and therefore transformed it into a major front in the war on terror. This is an unforgivable sin for the vast majority of Americans angered by the Iraq War.

The mistakes of the Iraq War are catastrophic, beginning with the summoning of terrorism to the Iraqi arena to somehow contain it there, passing through the slippery and deceitful excuses made to trick the American people and the world, and ending with the cataclysmic failure of the only remaining superpower in Iraq. This does not, however, mean that the war in Iraq has ended in an American defeat in the war on terror. It does not mean that the Iraq War has ended decisively in the dissolution or division of Iraq. The jury is still undecided on that one.

The American president swore to protect the “territorial integrity” of Iraq in his speech, and this is quite reassuring at this juncture, if not reassuring enough. What is more important is that there is still no victorious or defeated party in the Iraq War. It is true that a brief glance at the current situation would indicate that the US has been defeated in Iraq because it still is not victorious, though it is the superpower. What is also the case is that the other powers have not won a decisive victory in Iraq – not powers like al-Qaeda or the forces pledging allegiance to the former tyrant, Saddam Hussein, and not the small or large militias such as Muqtada al-Sadr’s, and not even Iran, at the end of the day.

Iran has benefited from the Iraq War and remains now a benefactor from the continued presence of US forces in Iraq. But Iran is not victorious over the United States nor is it at all secure if the US decides to pull its troops out from Iraq. Even the Baker-Hamilton report talks about this aspect; that an American withdrawal from Iraq could ignite sectarian and ethnic strife within Iran. This is in addition to another important aspect: that an American withdrawal would leave Iran to inherit its miserable investments in Iraq and fight the likes of al-Qaeda as in its immediate neighborhood.

In other words, one of America’s most potent weapons against Iran is the weapon of immediate withdrawal from Iraq. This was part of the primary message that was delivered to Tehran by offering its friend, Nouri al-Maliki, one last opportunity- along with an ultimatum- to take up clear and detailed tasks within an implied time schedule.

The other most important weapon is the aircraft carriers which can more than intercept supply lines; they can close off the Straits of Hormuz in the event of a military confrontation with Iran. The US excels in this field, and Iran understands the language of superiority, when it is forced to.

The American Administration’s new strategy sent this stern message to Tehran just as it sent it to Damascus. The message is clear enough: there is no reward for blackmail nor will there be forgiveness for what has passed; no dialogue to win the good favor of some and no room for bargaining. George W. Bush substituted the recommendation to provide incentives for Iran and Syria to cooperate with the US for the sake of an honorable withdrawal from Iraq with explicitly holding them both responsible for supporting the militias who are killing Americans in Iraq. This is a refusal to bow before dictated necessities and circumstances in Iraq and it is an important barometer of US policy toward the other issues related to Syria and Iran in the region, starting with Iraq and ending in Palestine and Lebanon.

The American policy, as Bush sees it, is based on an indispensable US victory in Iraq because failure would be a disaster for the US and a victory for the terrorists, the Islamists and for chaos.

What Bush hinted at, when he alluded to the States in the region, was the pivotal roles that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf must play in supporting the Iraqi unity government and their role in preventing the region from becoming a sanctuary for extremism and terrorism. He talked about the “ideological struggle”, making it clear that the States and the peoples of the region must decide what they actually want then work for it themselves. He admitted to his mistakes as a prelude to turning a new page in the aftermath of the lessons of these errors. He said that the new military, political and economic strategy focused on shifting the responsibility to the Iraqi government but supported with new tactics and the momentum of additional soldiers. He spoke of a strategy of two parts: one is centered on Baghdad, where the burden on the government is countering the Shiite militias; and the other is in al-Anbar, where the burden is on the Sunni leadership to counter al-Qaeda and its likes. Both efforts will involve an essential role for the US forces. He set objectives, alluded to a timeframe, and warned the Iraqi government.

Making do with just 21,000 troops means either that the American President is making yet another blunder to be added to the chain of mistakes he has made in Iraq intentionally or not or that the Administration is planning a military escalation as a cover for withdrawal. And this is a classic technique in the art of war. Either that, or George W. Bush has another hidden secret plan he is mobilizing and preparing for while the world is distracted by the very publicly declared strategy that the President revealed in the speech which put his presidency and legacy at risk.

Bush’s adventure is in his betting on extracting Maliki from Iran. It is a bet similar to that some Americans, such as James Baker, are waging on Damascus; that it actually could be peeled off Tehran by the temptation of a deal with Israel for the Golan Heights. Some of those readings are utterly wrong and some are excessively optimistic or woefully ignorant of the patterns of alliance in the Arab region.

This does not deny at all, however, the responsibility of the Iraqis because four years have passed since the war which brought down Saddam Hussein, as perceived by Iraqi government. And the United States is right to refuse to apologize to the Iraqi government-which came to office thanks to the US invasion. This does not deny that the sectarian war is an Iraqi war regardless of whether there are any foreign powers behind it. This does not deny that Iraq is broken and shattered and that it will not be repaired except through an Iraqi decision, governmental and by the people of Iraq.

It is not true that Iraq is an exclusive American responsibility any more than it is true that the US is the only wrongful doer in Iraq. The truth is that admitting errors has begun and the stage of holding accountable those who erred, whether oneself or others, has begun, and that choices are by no means limited, contrary to the insinuations, analyses and the wrong assumptions.

http://www.raghidadergham.com

Like Howard Zinn, I’ve wondered about the raw psychology of Bush’s situation. The possibilities are limited and terrifying. What does it feel like to be told that you’ve made stupid decisions over a period of years that have led to the deaths of thousands, the mutilation of ten times that, and psychological trauma to…just about everybody involved? How does that lead you to decide: send more? It is strictly unfathomable to me. Not human. I cannot project anything I know about my own inner life on Bush. He is as inscrutable to me as a character from Greek tragedy: Agamemnon slaughters his own daughter for the good of the cause and then sails home looking for the hero’s welcome? Psychologically, Bush feels to me like something that has fallen from outer space. I don’t know what the hell it is, but I can’t deny it’s there. He seems to me to have the self-awareness of one of those Easter Island monolithic heads. It’s terrifying. One falls back on cliche: he’s in denial, he’s doing his job, he’s a man without conscience. The question is what do those of us who are captive to his rule do about someone who is commander in chief, the Decider, and with all the psychological plausibility and responsiveness of the Sphinx? “We will seek and destroy.” Is that something that a human being without neurological damage can say with a straight face? Or is it merely ritual incantation coming from a block of stone?

I find Raghida Derghan’s analysis brilliant and illuminating. What’s most unexpected is the suggestion that the Bush administration is thoughtful. It is capable of strategic misdirection, a sort of politics of irony. “I seem to do this and mean this, but I’m really thinking and anticipating something entirely different.” Of course, the thoughtfulness of strategic analysis requires that the entities it analyzes must be at some level thoughtful too. Otherwise, what’s the point? Where’s the fun in analyzing the strategic thinking of people who really aren’t capable of thought? What if they are just stupid and arrogant and willing to move from blunder to blunder? The Athenians, in their war with Sparta, were stupid and arrogant and willing to move from blunder to blunder, and they were a hell of a lot smarter than Bush.

I would be entirely persuaded by Derghan’s analysis, her way of thinking, if it weren’t for the fact that I can’t accept her basic unspoken premise (indeed, the unspoken premise of all realpolitik) that the players involved (nation states) have moral legitimacy. Of course, realpolitik wants to argue that we have no choice but to accept its premises because—they’re real. But it seems to me that a real interest in the real would first want to unpack the fiction that there is something called a nation that has strategic purposes and national “interests” (as a certain class of murderer likes to put it). It would be more “realistic” to look at the situation our strategic thinking has produced and say, as Dostoevsky said of his prison in Siberia, “This is the House of the Dead.”

What if we looked at the war as a relation of human bodies and not of nation states? On this side we have bodies that live through machines. TV, computers, cell phones, etc. Our bodies have become the ghost in the machine, while our real bodies come increasingly to look like the fatted animals we breed to eat. Genetic mutants with no real capability for life in the natural world. Nothing else in the world gets as fat as we do without being eaten. To maintain this charming state of affairs (often referred to as our “lifestyle”) we need the carbon energy compressed over eons and then discharged in an instant by us as if we were children letting the air out of balloons just for the thrill of watching it zoom recklessly around the living room. But we don’t have much of this carbon based stuff of our own (or not enough for all of the balloons we intend to launch), so we have to control the stuff of others. 85% I think is the figure for Iraq. That is their tribute to our Empire: 85% of their oil at our price.

But what of the bodies of the Iraqis? Their reality is not mediated by cell phones. Their reality is mediated by shrapnel and what their body might run into on its way to buy groceries. It is as Pablo Neruda put it:

“Bandits with planes and Moors,
—
Came through the sky to kill children
And the blood of children ran through the street
Without fuss, like children’s blood.”

In reality, the Bush Escalation will bring the number of American forces in Iraq to over a quarter of a million. In addition to the 140,000 or so there now and the 20,000 plus he plans to add, the Washington Post today reminds us that there are over 100,000 private contractors bourght in by the U.S. to carry out functions from serving food to interrogating prisoners. Functions that in previous wars were handled by official military personnel.

“a nation which has lost the initiative has lost the war”
–Benito Mussolini

Watching President Bush deliver his awkward remarks about Iraq–yet another Internet video clip of a man being pilloried for his brutal rule in Iraq–I could not help but think: “Where is Saddam now that we need him?” To hear Bush describe the front lines, the United States and its allies are confronting civil war, although here it is defined with words like “sectarian violence” (a phrase that might also have worked for Gettysburg). In other words, the center has not held around Baghdad. The response of the Bush administration, which has invested $359 billion dollars in the concept of a democratic Iraq, is to send in 20,000 more American troops and lure suicide bombers away from their missions with offers of on-the-job training. Sadly, neither embedding American forces in Iraqi patrols nor stuffing ballot boxes in the provinces will alter the reality that to keep Iraq together as one country, you have to adopt Saddam’s methods and brutality. Judging by the 34,000 civilian Iraqi deaths in 2006, it might be concluded that the U.S. is at least giving it a try.

The reason the President has become Saddam’s surrogate is because he believes that Iraq is an important domino in his War on Terror. In his address the President states that, should Iraq fall, “radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.” He believes the U.S. is fighting enemies that have “declared their intention to destroy our way of life.” According to the President, the politics of the Middle East constitute “the decisive ideological struggle of our time.” The Great Game between Islam and the West looks and sounds a lot like the old Cold War.

Not since the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon has the domino theory had such an advocate as it now finds in President Bush. By his logic, the war in Iraq–like Vietnam to an earlier generation–is a test case of America’s resolve. Win in Iraq, and you will have broken the will of terrorism. Admit defeat and withdraw, and Iraq will slide into the terrorist camp from which attacks will be launched against the U.S. Cutting and running from Iraq will also embolden Iran to continue with its nuclear research, give al-Qaida access to oil revenue, and strengthen Syria–all at the expense of American interests.

The original pretext for the American-led invasion of Iraq was to dislodge weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam might use on his neighbors, and to remove the Ba’athist regime. (“We’re taking out that fucker,” is how the President summarized his war aims to his then National Security advisor, Condoleezza Rice.) Previously, the front lines in the War on Terror were further east, near the Hindu Kush, where the followers of Osama bin Laden were in mountainous caves hatching plans against the West. In his speech, Mr. Bush tiptoes bravely past that graveyard–”America’s men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda’s safe haven in Afghanistan – and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq”–although from all accounts the Taliban has recently made inroads in recapturing large parts of Afghanistan. Nor was there any mention of Osama being wanted ‘dead or alive’. Instead the President is betting the ranch on winning the battle for Baghdad, on the theory that winning in Iraq will make “success in the War on Terror much easier.” He seems unfamiliar with the military maxim, “never reinforce failure.”

Oddly, given the stakes (“our way of life—”) in such a professed global struggle, the President’s tactics fail to rise above the defeatist posture of Vietnamization, President Nixon’s strategy to dump the war in Vietnam on Saigon. In Iraq, President Bush speaks of embedding American forces (as if they were television reporters) in Iraqi brigades and holding the Baghdad government accountable to “benchmarks” (as if it were an illiquid hedge fund). Under this logic, the administration says the U.S. is fighting a mortal enemy, one that threatens American society to the core; in response to this grave threat, our plan is to order American soldiers out on joint patrols with Iraqi police (who may or may not show up for work).

One of the dirty secrets in the War on Terror is that the U.S. is running short of front-line soldiers, which may explain the decision to outsource to the Iraqi police. Despite a Homeland Security and defense budget of nearly half a trillion dollars, for the U.S. to do battle in Iraq it has had to rotate the same Army and Marine Corps divisions in and out of the country. Some regiments of these elite divisions (First Marines, 82nd Airborne) have done five or six tours of duty. In his speech, the President pleads: “We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Maine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century.” At the same time weekend warriors from the National Guard find themselves forgotten in Iraq, stranded at bases scattered around the country as if forming a Muslim Maginot Line.
All the “surge” in American forces accomplishes is to bring up the troop numbers, in country, to what they were in May 2003. It tops up with Americans those soldiers withdrawn from the coalition of the increasingly unwilling. Using the ratio of five supports troops for every soldier in combat, the numbers of those doing the actual fighting in Iraq would be about 30,000. More likely only about 15,000 American soldiers are at the sharp end, in a country geographically larger than France. Even Alexander the Great came to Mesopotamia with more men.

[...] Hinsichtlich der Kommentar-Struktur von Weblogs gab es relativ lange wenig Innovation. Das wird sich vermutlich ändern, wenn demnächst Commentpress des Institute for the Future of the Book als allgemeines WordPress-Plugin erhältlich ist. Damit wird es möglich, Texte direkt zu annotieren, d.h. die Kommentare auf bestimmte Absätze des Textes zu beziehen. (Ein Beispiel) Es entsteht gerade bei längeren Texten dadurch eine viel bessere Möglichkeit des Diskurses. Und wenn man solch ein System auch auf Privat schalten könnte, hätte man ein prima Annotationsmöglichkeit für elektronische Texte… [...]

[...] So I was also thinking of how we could make the debates – whether live or asynchronous – more informative and enlightening, in the face of TV hosts who often just want to play up the personal conflicts, to get more viewers. A typical event is a politician citing a fact or an event, that the other politician disagrees about, with the host saying “Well, let’s not get into the whole numbers game – let’s move on”… But when it comes to numbers and facts – they can actually be objectively proven. So what if for example the debate was not live, but pre-taped, and fact checkers then went out and checked out each statement by the candidates (during our presidency pollution was reduced by 20%), etc, and then inserted those details into the final broadcast? Or what if we could create a massively tagged and commented version of the debate transcript – using crowd-sourcing to look up references, link to statistics and analysis etc. CommentPress is one example of how this might work, here is an example of a Bush speech marked up like this. [...]