Bosworth Field for Bush In Iraq

The chief problem that has bedeviled the Bush Administration from the beginning in its Iraq project is that it seems to have been working with a construct of the Middle East of its dreams and desires, not of the Middle East as it is; 20,0000 years old, cradle of Western Civilization, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, a modern technological society burdened by cultural ideas from the Middle Ages, a bustling, brawling collection of tribes, clans, cults and idealists of every stripe imaginable in the human condition.

For a long time, the Administration and its supporters succeeded in getting many if not most of the American people to buy into its imaginary construct. It did this in much the same way as Peter Pan revived Tinkerbell. If we all clap hard enough and believe hard enough it will be so.

Well, facts are uncomfortable and uncompromising things. They will not be denied and they keep forcing themselves upon you. Anyone who is not completely psychotic will eventually be faced with accepting that their fantastic world view does not work in the world of facts and will change their outlook.

Not so our Glorious Leader. After a solid renunciation of his policies at the polls in November, it had the change to reevaluate. After the promulgation of the findings of the Iraq Study Group, an unwieldy collection of pretty much every rational idea put forth in the last four years for dealing with the situation in Iraq, the Administration could have made some hard choices.

Instead it has decided to throw yet more bodies into the fray. The plan Bush put forward on Wednesday would raise the troop levels to about what they were in mid-2005. This final "surge" will be combined with a push to get the Iraqi government to make a series of reforms that have been in the works since the government was empaneled in January of last year. That government has known that it needed to do these things and has not yet been able to do them. Expecting them to do so know is yet more wishful thinking.

Many Democrats have been branding this plan an "escalation" of the war in Iraq. Normally, I don't hold with such semantic shenanigans. However, it seems that escalation is indeed the word to be used here. The plan put forth to once-and-for-all occupy and pacify large swaths of Bahgdad by placing US soldiers in the neighborhoods 24/7 will force the militias who currently excersise defacto confrol to stand and fight. This will lead to an escalation in the level and ferocity of fighting.

Secondly, the entire framing of this plan as the last-best-hope for victory puts a huge mental pressure on military commanders and rank-and-file soldiery to pull out all the stops in day-to-day fighting. Former US Special Forces Colonel and Middle Eastern Expert, Pat Lang recently wrote an article Surging To Defeat:

As Robert Gates takes the helm at the Pentagon today, he is probably already aware that Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush are resolute in their decision to stay the course in Iraq (without using those words) for the next two years. What he probably does not realize is that the U.S. military is about to commit hara-kiri.

A “surge” of the size possible under current constraints on U.S. forces will not turn the tide in the guerrilla war. Reinforcement of Baghdad several thousand U.S. troops last summer simply brought on more violence. Those who believe still more troops will bring “victory” are living in a dangerous dream world and need to wake up.

Moreover, major reinforcement would commit the US Army and Marine Corps to decisive combat in which there are no more strategic reserves to be sent to the front. It will be a matter of win or die in the attempt. In that situation, everyone in uniform on the ground will commit every ounce of their being to a hope of “victory,” and few measures will be shrunk from.

Analogies come to mind: the Bulge, Stalingrad, the Battle of Algiers. It will be total war with all the likelihood of excesses and mass casualties that come with total war.

To take up such a strategy and force our armed forces into it would be an immoral course of action, both for our troops and for the thousands more Iraqis bound to die.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., spoke for many of us last Thursday on the Senate floor:

“I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore.”

Yesterday, when George Stephanopoulos asked Smith what he meant by “criminal,” he replied:

“I said it. You can use any adjective you want, George. But I have long believed in a military context, when you do the same thing over and over again, without a clear strategy for victory, at the expense of your young people in arms, that is dereliction. That is deeply immoral.”

If adopted, the “surge” strategy will be even worse than that. It will be something we will spend a generation living down.

Lastly, this week comes the news that US forces are going after Iranian operations in Iraq. The operation in Irbil last week took down a facility that was borderline to seizing diplomats. This is not necessarily a strategically or operationally poor decision. The Iranians are working actively with their clients and allies in Iraq and working their interests. The interests of Iran are not the interests of the US forces there and they could be considered legitimate targets.

However, Iran is not (yet) a belligerent in this conflict. More behavior such as that this week could change that. I believe that imprisoning Iranians qualifies as an escalation at least in the diplomatic sense that doesn't do much to advance our interests in stabilizing Iraq.

So, at the end of the day we are left with a President who has rejected all attempts by friends and foes alike at urging less-bad bad options in his Iraq adventure. He maintains is now obviously psychotic imaginary world-view of how things may be in Iraq and urges us towards one final effort to "win" "victory." He stands alone now, his former Congressional followers abandoning him in droves after seeing their colleagues cut down in November. Bush stands now alone, only his most loyal retainers by him like Richard III. A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!

Yet none have the courage or the will to gainsay the President his powers to send unknown hundreds (thousands?) of American men and women to their doom, to undoubtedly kill thousands more Iraqis -- innocent and not, and to commit yet more crimes of war.

Would that he will suffer the torments of Richard on the eve of battle.

Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.
Have mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree
Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?
Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent; and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.