In todays London based, “Independent on Sunday” Wesley Clark has written a piece slamming the planning of the Iraq war and the idea of the “surge” of maybe 20,000 (30,000 in some reports) US troops in particular.
The opening sums up Clark’s view.
The odds are that President George Bush will announce a “surge” of up to 20,000 additional US troops in Iraq. But why? Will this deliver a “win”? The answers: a combination of misunderstanding and desperation; and, probably not.
Clark goes on to explain why Bush has come up with this big idea after the Democrat win in the mid-terms and apparently rejecting a draw-down as a sign of weakness.
From the administration’s perspective, a troop surge of modest size is virtually the only remaining action inside Iraq that will be a visible signal of determination. More economic assistance is likely to be touted, but in the absence of a change in the pattern of violence, infrastructure enhancement simply isn’t practical. And if the President announces new Iraqi political efforts – well, that’s been tried before, and is there any hope that this time will be different?
Clark explains how there have never been enough troops on the ground in Iraq, calling on his experience in Kosovo. The failure to have a sufficiently large invasion force to secure the county way predictable to anybody, even without military experience who read anything about the pre-war numbers by any expert not called Rumsfeld.
As for the US troops, yes, several additional brigades in Baghdad would enable more roadblocks, patrols, neighbourhood clearing operations and overnight presence. But how significant will this be? We’ve never had enough troops in Iraq – in Kosovo, we had 40,000 troops for a population of two million. For Iraq that ratio would call for at least 500,000 troops, so adding 20,000 seems too little, too late, even, for Baghdad
He re-iterates a problem with the training given to US forces that has long been apparent.
Further, in a “clear and hold” strategy, US troops have been shown to lack the language skills, cultural awareness and political legitimacy to ensure that areas can be “held”, or even that they are fully “cleared”.
Clark argues that the only effect of suddenly large number on the Iraqi streets will be a temporary dip in casualties while the insurgents regroup and reorder their tactics followed by an even higher rate of US casualties.
He also explains how the muted threats against Iran and Syrian, rather than cowering them in the belief they would be next, have encouraged them to interfer in Iraq. It seems they have been the ones to take on board Bush’s message of “fighting them over there instead of fighting them over here”. Clark argues however that now is the time to bring them in to a wider diplomatic effort. He ends with a warning of the results of not following this but trying to “stay the course”
America should take the lead with direct diplomacy to resolve the interrelated problems of Iran’s push for regional hegemony, Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Isolating adversaries hasn’t worked. The region must gain a new vision, and that must be led diplomatically by the most powerful force in the region, the United States.
Without such fundamental change in Washington’s approach, there is little hope that the troops surge, Iraqi promises and accompanying rhetoric will amount to anything other than “stay the course more”. That wastes lives and time, perpetuates the appeal of the terrorists, and simply brings us closer to the showdown with Iran. And that will be a tragedy for not just Iraq but our friends in the region as well.