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AN ISCI SURGE.
Fred Kaplan lays out the depressing state of play in Iraq, where various internal groups have turned to combat, and where there's no obvious role for the US to play or horse for us to back. It's probably boring by now to constantly remind people that as the Surge has gone on, the Bush administration has eschewed a strategic approach for tactical goals that lead nowhere but are achievable through military force and are popular here at home. The result is situations like this one, which exposes how orthogonal the surge is to the factors that actually dictate stability in Iraq.
COMMENTS (4)
"Teh SURGE!!!(tm)" per se involved, but was not really defined by, military [or strategic or tactical] considerations.
The main goal of "Teh SURGE!!!(tm)" was to avert any possibility of changing the U.S.' ongoing occupation due to pressures on the administration which arose from (1) the "Iraq Study Group" collection of elite opinion; and (2) the 2006 Congressional victories.
To this end, the military was involved both to implement the escalation and Sunni payoffs ("change in strategy") and to assist the Bush Jr regime and its toadies' accusations that any voice demanding a change from perpetual occupation was anti-military, un-American, cowardly, pro-terrorist, and troop-hating.
DO YOU ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING? DO YOU ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING? BUT YOU MUST ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING!!!!
To the extent that "Teh SURGE!!!(tm)" is defined as changing the conditions on the ground so as to change anything fundamental in Iraq, it could not succeed.
To the extent that "Teh SURGE!!!(tm)" is defined as a domestic propaganda operation aimed at undermining the massing support in 2006 for a change from perpetual occupation, it was a blinding success and most Democratic leaders played along nearly 100%.
Posted by: El Cid | March 29, 2008 10:14 AM
from swimming freestyle:
"Iraq is a sovereign state, or so we claim. Why would U.S. forces assist the sovereign Iraqi government and Iraqi Army in their attempts to squash internal, anti-government insurgents?
We don't have a horse in this race. Wouldn't it be in our national interest to allow Iraq to settle it's own internal power struggles?
from http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com
Posted by: Jay McDonough | March 29, 2008 7:19 PM
Look, I agree with you completely here, but I had to read your post three times to figure out what the hell you were saying.
"...eschewed a strategic approach for tactical goals..." - Maybe you're an avid wargamer and you consistently differentiate between these words, but I had a mental block because I read "strategy" simply as "a plan" and needed to pause and rewind when you employed "tactics". It took me a long moment to realize you were talking about differences in the scale of planning. Adjectives ("broad" and "narrow") would have been helpful.
- "how orthogonal". Again, there was a mental break with the flow of your thoughts for me to internalize the possibility of a non-binary conception of orthogonal. Asking "how" orthogonal leaves open the possibility that something could be "very" orthogonal, or "just a touch" orthogonal, which is (in a narrow technical sense) meaningless. I realize you're using it figuratively, which is entirely your prerogative, but maybe a less technical term might've worked better to get your point across. "Skew" coulda been a nice choice there.
Everyone has an off day, but a little more consideration for the reader goes a long way.
Posted by: Kendall Jackson | March 29, 2008 10:00 PM
test
Posted by: x | April 2, 2008 12:44 PM