Iraq: Myth and Reality

David Kurtz reviews some myths and realities about the politics of Iraq. In short, George W. Bush is still the president and the country is still S.O.L. -- he's not letting polls or elections or congress constrain him. So we're going to implement a "surge" into Baghdad which, as Henley notes is going to coincide with the normal seasonal decline in violence and thus be claimed as a victory. Victory, of course, will not be forthcoming.

This set of realities and not, say, Evan Bayh's decision not to run is going to be the key factor in the 2008 Presidential election. A frighteningly large number of people seem to be counting on the idea that the war will be mostly over and the troops mostly withdrawn by 2008. But then again, people said Bush would "declare victory and go home" in time for the '06 midterms. And they said he would do it in time for the '04 election. But it's not going to happen. The troops will leave if and only if a new political leader is elected and that leader wants to withdraw the troops.

12/16/06 12:10PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

The pattern of violence doesn't really break off during Winter months. The only consistent seasonal pattern has been a large drop during Ramadan every year and that has happened during the winter. This year violence has surged following the bombing of the shrine in Najaf in February, the end of winter. This has made Summer 2006 more violent than Winter 2005/2006. Prior to that the violence during Winter 2005/2006 winter (except Ramadan, in november) appears slightly higher than summer 2005. As for winter 2004, there is wild variance that makes it difficult to say anything about it. Because the Bush Administration has not published the data on the number on enemy attacks following August 2006 (hmmm I wonder why), we don't know about the effects of Ramadan (october this year) on violence during 2006.

In short, this is a classic example of confusing correlation and causation. Summer violence has tended to be slightly higher, but once you control for Ramadan and political developments, there is really not much data to support this idea.

Personally, I would expect winter to be more violent as the nice weather means that people are more active. Not only is it easier to conduct operations but you get more civilian cover, as people are out in the streets rather than cooped up by their ACs.

Posted by: Skyler on December 16, 2006 02:26 PM

I think the bombing was in Samara not Najaf.

Posted by: Eric the Political Hack on December 16, 2006 03:09 PM

I think the bombing was in Samara not Najaf.

Posted by: Eric the Political Hack on December 16, 2006 03:10 PM

Double postings are awesome.

Posted by: Eric the Political Hack on December 16, 2006 03:11 PM

Hah, my bad.

Posted by: Skyler on December 16, 2006 03:35 PM

Skyler: Too much expecting, not enough data in your critique. I would have believed the "summer months are quieter" theory myself, for the same reasons. But the data does. not. show. it. What it reliably shows is a drop in insurgent opstempo between November and Jan-Feb every year since the fall of Saddam. Logan has a recent version of the graph in a post from October. Take a look. In every year, the summer months have had a higher rate of insurgent attacks than the winter months. Those crazy Iraqis, yeah! But facts, to the extent the Saban Center can determine them, is facts.

Of course the big story is the first-order trendline, which is up up up from year to year.

Posted by: Jim Henley on December 16, 2006 03:43 PM

If I'm not mistaken, Skyler, I think you've actually got that backwards. Guerrilla activity seems to be highest during the auspicious month of Ramadan, and lowest during Dhu al-Hijjah (when, presumably, people are performing the Hajj.)

See http://icasualties.org/oif/US_Chart.aspx (In recent years, Ramadan has corresponded roughly to Gregorian November; Dhu al-Hijjah has roughly corresponded to March.)

Posted by: Shab al-Sham on December 16, 2006 03:49 PM

Thanks for your comments. I used the GAO data, courtesy of TPM. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/gao-iraq-attacks/

I realize, looking at your numbers, that I should have provided my source, as the GAO numbers differ from Brooking.

Shab, thanks. I was confused about the Ramadan dates. You're right, the violence rises during Ramadan, but I'm not sure Dhu al-Hijjah causes the decline. The violence only declines to the level before Ramadan season.

But, even if I messed it up, my point still stands. The violence tracks a lot more closer to Ramadan than winter. Henley, looking at your chart, roughly the same pattern emerges each year. The violence spikes just before and during Ramadan, then declines immediately after to levels equivalent to or slightly higher than the past summer. Especially last year, when the violence was higher every single month of winter than summer. So it looks like Ramadan raises it temporarily then it simply regresses back to the general upward trend. This seems especially likely since each year the pattern seems to advance by roughly a month in keeping with Ramadan schedule.

Anyway this is a dumb argument. There's so little data to compare and so many outliers to any that the only thing one can really be sure of is the general trend: up up and away!

Posted by: Skyler on December 16, 2006 05:17 PM

Sorry Shab, you're right it does decline during Dhu al-Hijjah. I confused that with the minor hajj that people do right around during Ramadan. Its really pathetic I haven't gotten the Muslim holidays all down cold yet considering I live in an Arabic country.

Posted by: Skyler on December 16, 2006 05:21 PM

The Dem nominee in 2008 will have to deal with the war, but my WAG is not in the sense that everybody thinks.

By 2008, we'll be getting our butts kicked out of country, if it hasn't already happened by then. It'll help if the Dem nominee is someone who's been saying for awhile that the war was a mistake, and we needed to get the hell out of Dodge.

That basically means we'd better not nominate Hillary. Other than that, we're in pretty good shape: we've got a bunch of guys who've been against the war for awhile now. Edwards, Obama, Gore if he runs, Richardson, Clark, have all been saying let's get out. Most of them were against the war from the beginning, and Edwards came around early enough that he, like the others, can credibly run against McCain, asking "why did you advocate throwing yet more American lives into this lost cause? Why didn't you say, 'let's pull out and rescue Afghanistan while we still can?'"

Which brings me to my second point: Dems need to start making an issue of rescuing Afghanistan NOW, before it too becomes unwinnable.

If the Dems are loud about saving Afghanistan this winter, before the bottom falls out in the spring, then in 2008 they'll be in position to say, "if the Dems had been in the White House, we could have won one war, instead of losing two."

Posted by: RT on December 17, 2006 06:19 AM

McCain seems to have bet the presidency on the "surge plan" working at least well enough to be spun as sucessful. After all, the "surge plan" is basically the "McCain Plan".

HRC similarly seems to have bet the Democratic nomination on Iraq not going to hell. That bet means she'll never be president--if things are going well enough in Iraq for her to get the nomination, she will lose the general election to McCain.

Unfortunately for us all, things are NOT going to go well in Iraq . . .

Posted by: rea on December 17, 2006 08:56 AM

Well Sullivan thinks it's a good idea and I always defer to the views of middle aged men who have spent their entire careers expressing opinions about American politics but never bothering to get American citizenship and expressing opinions about the Arab World but never so much as taking a gay riverboat cruise up the Nile with speedo-clad Egyptian men let alone learning the language and getting to know the people whose countries you'd like to invade.

Posted by: Linus on December 17, 2006 11:09 PM

I think I could have stopped at always deferring to the opinions of middle aged men who have spent their entire careers expressing opinions about American politics (nothing further), but that particular formulation would have excluded the gay riverboat image.

Posted by: Linus on December 17, 2006 11:12 PM

sohbet, chat, arkadaş

Posted by: sohbet on August 29, 2007 07:26 AM

Good comment.Thanks admin.

Posted by: youtube on November 16, 2007 03:01 PM

Thanks
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