Optimism can be a great thing. It gets you through the tough times, keeps you on task, and inspires others. But it can also distract one from facts. Sometimes the lost City of Dorado is not over the next hill. An editorialist tries to convince us the surge is working, for example. Meanwhile, in Iraq:
Suicide bombers and militiamen fought back ferociously in the seventh week of the Baghdad security crackdown, killing at least 508 people in the past six days.
We’ve been told repeatedly that these are desperate acts of “dead enders.” This is a kind of magical thinking embraced by pseudo-realists like Rumsfeld and his neoconservative acolytes. By their own terms, one must wonder, what would it take for us to admit that we are not winning, that we do not have the means to do so (at least not now), and that our entire Iraq strategy is based on false and ideologically based assumptions.
6 Apr 2007 at 12:32 pm
Chris,
While I can certainly empathise with your pessimism, I am not sure that it is any more warranted than is optimism. Based both on common sense and on some personal experience, I do have confidence that deploying troops among the population will be more effective than conducting tactical operations out of mega-bases. I also have confidence that getting rid of Rumsfeld and his chosen military leadership in Iraq will also have a positive effect.
And while it is true that casualties continue, that is not the only metric to measure success by. 1864-1865, 1917-18, and 1944-45 were all high casualty years, while 1971-75 were very low casualty years.
I don’t think happy optimism is called for yet, but I do think that enough changes are occurring that unconditional pessimism isn’t called for either.
thanks
Dave
6 Apr 2007 at 5:06 pm
Have you read Iraq the Model lately? Have you read the reports from Anbar lately? These folks are all delusional then?
This is vey much like the Battle of Algiers, as our pessimist politics get increasingly disconnected from positive events on the ground.
One of the big deal metrics in this sort of things has to do with then effective size of the native security forces (see war skeptic Kagan’s flowing assessment) and the number of “red on red” casualties. If things are going swimmingly for Al Qaeda in Iraq, why would it be focusing on trying to kill Sunni Arab civilians in Anbar now? Those were, until recently, “their” people.
I grant that I was one of the “light footprint” idiots that assumed that what worked in Afghanistan would work in Iraq, but don’t the hordes of Sunni Arabs joining the security forces, the families returning to their homes, the continuing economic growth and the massive climb down in sectarian killings mean anything to you? Classic counter-insurgency seems to be working faster than expected.
6 Apr 2007 at 5:53 pm
There is a lack of strategic vision. There is no Iraq for Iraqis to fight for, nor an Iraqi government committed to Iraqi unity and the interests of all Iraqis. It is a good thing the Sunnis in Anbar are turning against al Qaeda, but when that’s over, their hated Shia cousins will still be running the show in Baghdad.