Via Greenwald, I see that Fred “The Surge” Kagan has gone completely mad. In an article called “The Gettysburg Of This War,” Kagan writes about (wait for it) the President’s surprise trip to Anbar (which, Kagan tells us, “should have surprised no one who was paying attention.”), about which he has this to say:
If ever there was a sign that we have turned a corner in the fight against both al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgency, this was it.
Yes, friends, he did say that. Turned a corner! Viewed another way, one might conclude from the location of the visit that Baghdad and even the Green Zone have become so dangerous that the President dared not go there. Kagan continues:
It should be recognized as at least the Gettysburg of this war [bold mine-DL], to the extent that counterinsurgencies can have such turning points. Less than a year ago, it was common wisdom and the conclusion of the Marine intelligence community in Anbar that the province and its people were hopelessly lost.
Of course, last year it did seem hopelessly lost, and barring the remarkable change in local attitudes that did, in fact, happen it would have remained so. The Marines don’t throw in the towel unless things are genuinely hopeless. What changed was an extraordinary shift in local opinion against putative “Al Qaeda” elements. Some of this was facilitated by U.S. forces before the “surge” began (as those paying attention already knew), but it was essentially a move by insurgents to side with their enemy (our armed forces) against an even worse enemy. Kagan dismisses all of this and more, of course, which is how he can say cracked things about Gettysburg and turning corners. Then again, I suppose if I were prominently associated with authoring some form of the “surge” plan, as Kagan is, I might look for anything that would vindicate what I had advocated.
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September 4th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
scott.n
I’ve not read a large amount of Kagan’s work, but this article is stunning in its duplicity. Rudimentary google research shows that Al Asad airbase is far from being in “the heart of Anbar province” in any sense other than the most strictly geographic. Al Asad is a heavily fortified enclosure, equally, if not more secure than the Green Zone itself. The 2nd Marine Air Wing (which I understand is currently based there) would never consider parking its multi-million dollar jet and helicopter fleet there unless it was absolutely secure.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Roach
I’ll just cut and paste my recent conclusion about what all this means, and it has little to do with kumbaya sentiments or an impending victory, which depends on a functioning and widely supported Iraqi government:
The recent turn of events is somewhat puzzling. Sunnis who were once our fiercest enemies in Iraq, all of a sudden in late 2006 and early 2007 began to cooperate with Americans. The worst locales–Ramadi, Fallujah, the Iraq-Syrian border–all see improvements as reported by the guys fighting on the ground. At the same time sectarian fighting rages in Baghdad, only tamped down temporarily by the surge. The Shia regime, though formally dependant on and desirous of a continued US presence, fails to meet various benchmarks and goals directed by the US to lead to national reconciliation. It’s behavior can be described as “passive aggressive” at best. Finally, observers on all sides see the prospect of a US withdrawal within the next year or two.
These facts make sense as follows. No one, of course, is really our friend in Iraq. But the Sunnis, a traditional governing minority, see their fortunes declining under the nascent Shia regime. At the same time, they have also grown sick of their extremist and ideologically motivated al Qaeda “friends.” Sunnis are reasonably practical, in particular in the form of the Sheiks and their manifold business interests. They are fighting as much for identity and power as for any abstract religious concerns. Their most important concerns are prosaic: they fear they’ll be oppressed or exterminated under a Shia-regime in the absence of US forces. Though they initially thought their goals could be achieved by an aggressive insurgency aimed at our expulsion, they now realize that they’re better served by getting training and arms and money from the US before our inevitable withdrawal. They also realize, at least for a time, that they’re safer with US forces on their side than if left to the mercies of the Maliki-Sadr regime.
An Iraqi civil war is underway and the Sunnis have finally met the US halfway. In doing so, they are giving us an opening to achieve what may be a practical second-best solution: a federalist Iraqi regime, comprising two strongly supported Sunni and Kurdish enclaves with some US forces based there by permission, and a Shia regime which the US self-consciously must treat as an unreliable Iranian proxy. The long-term goal would be to prevent a genocide that would not have happened but for our intervention, to increase our prestige with the oil-rich Sunni nations of the gulf, to exit the most volatile parts of Iraq such as Baghdad, to avoid direct (and dangerous) counterinsurgency activities but instead to keep conventional forces as a reserve, and to prevent Iran from being strengthened any more than necessary by our short-sighted installment of a Shia regime in Iraq. We and the Sunnis alike could ignore the central government as necessary. Finally, this outcome would allow us to achieve the main long-run strategic benefit of being in Iraq: The ability to deal with and deter any regional threats with military power, including al Qaeda, Iran, and Syria. This analysis and conclusion is not the stuff of high idealism, of course, but it’s realistic, it’s achievable, and it has little to do with the propaganda exercise we’re about to hear regarding the fabled Surge.