Shorter Fred Kagan

Matt, I’d like your comment on something I think the MSM really misses. Bush often states Iraq must, among other things, become a nation that can defend itself. Bush’s statements also make it implicit the U.S. assumes some responsibility for helping them achieve that capability. Defending itself from both internal and external threats requires a modern military. Iraq is obviously in a region of festering problems, revolts, insurgencies and outright wars. Their neighbors are mostly armed to the teeth and at any time for a multitude of reasons could launch an assault. Even in the absence of an imminent threat of invasion a modern military is needed to exercise diplomatic and political leverage. Does Bush think Iraq could fend off a foreign invasion without a modern air force, mechanized armor, short or intermediate range missiles, advanced radar and reconnaissance systems and all the other wish list items a capable military requires? Of course he doesn’t. Is he proposing to give, loan or buy all this stuff for Iraq? No, not that I’ve heard. We’ve created a lot of hatred in Iraq, much of it within the ranks of the Iraqi military. Handing Iraqi pilots the keys to a dozen fully armed fighter-bombers and trusting they wouldn’t level the Green Zone shortly thereafter is a leap of faith Rummy wouldn’t make. Same goes for a bunch of tanks or mobile rocket launchers. Isn’t it safe to say that as long as U.S. personnel are in Iraq the Iraqi military is not going to be modernized to a level of equality with its neighbors? Or even after we leave? If one of your roommates was sullen, depressed, hungry, injured, pissed off at you, distrusted you and felt his future held no hope would you give him a pistol? I’d like to see someone pin down Bush on exactly how Iraq is supposed to be able to defend itself when the sum total of its weaponry is small arms and maybe a few small bore mortars. Why isn’t he asked that question?

Unfortunately, this characterization, while it sounds bad, is also true.

I'm sorry, but there is no happy ending to this story; and I'm not sure that facing up to things now rather than later will help.

matt,
i read the article and rings true to me in some ways. i would like you to answer this. what do you think USA should do in iraq? (phased withdrawal?) and what might happen (no body can assume, but i think you can intelligently estimate the possible scenarios) or the consequences of going forward with your plan (or the plan you support)

thanks.

don: I'm not Matt, and I'm sympathetic to Kagan's underlying principle - we've seriously fucked up Iraq, and it's incumbent on us to un-fuck it.

The problem is, we've got to (a) decide whether it's even possible to un-fuck it, (b) count the cost of un-fucking it, and (c) decide whether it's a cost we're willing to pay.

For instance, Iraq's been going to hell in a handbasket while we've had 140,000 troops in country. How many more troops will it take to un-fuck Iraq?

Before the war, Gen. Shinseki said we'd need several hundred thousand troops to maintain order, and he was presumably envisioning their operating in an environment more like the Iraq of mid-2003 than the Iraq of late 2006. So how many troops now? 500,000? A million? I don't know, but at this point, anything less than that half-million is simply not credible.

So where are we going to get the additional troops from? We don't have any - any at all - to spare. Are we going to draft a million or so young men, so that one-third of them can be in Iraq at any time while the others rotate in and out? Do you think the American people will support a draft? I don't.

So if we don't have the troops to bring some semblance of order to Iraq, and we aren't going to institute a draft, then we can't improve conditions there. Period, end of sentence. What's more, the only reasonable expectation is that things will continue to get worse despite our presence, just like things have continued to get worse despite our presence over the past three and a half years.

So we've counted the cost, and it's more than we're willing to pay.

Yes, we should hang our heads in shame over the fact that we've turned Iraq into a bloodbath, and sooner or later, we're going to abandon it to its fate. But if we aren't willing to actually put enough troops into Iraq to save it, what else is there to do?

Another shorter Fred Kagan: some problems are insoluble, so we must stay in Iraq.

Thanks
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