We read that Bush’s new strategy for Iraq is now in place.
Earlier today Thinkprogress cited this wee gem:
“Pentagon’s planning for failure of the escalation plan.”
What’s going on? Well, they’ll tell ya… that’s a contingency – always, always our military men are required to work up a contingency plan.
“Pentagon “policy planners are conducting secret meetings to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario in Iraq about a year from today if and when President Bush’s escalation of more than 20,000 troops fails,” according to a participant in the discussions.
“None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will succeed.”
In Friday’s edition (tomorrow – on this side of the Atlantic – we get to read it tonight) The Independent, UK has published a series of related articles. On the one hand there’s an offer on the table..for peace. But on the other hand..Be still my heart. ..the last time talks with the Sunni insurgents went no where.
“One of Iraq’s principal insurgent groups has set out the terms of a ceasefire that would allow American and British forces to leave the country they invaded almost four years ago.
The present terms would be impossible for any US administration to meet – but the words of Abu Salih Al-Jeelani, one of the military leaders of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement show that the groups which have taken more than 3,000 American lives are actively discussing the opening of contacts with the occupation army.
[.]
but the likely
View from America: Bush won’t cut a deal that tears up his one success
“The offer of a ceasefire by one of the main Sunni insurgent groups will be received with interest in Washington. But there is scant chance it will be accepted by the Bush administration as a serious basis
for a negotiated exit from Iraq – or that such talks are even practical amid the current chaos in the country.Feelers between the two sides are not new. Over the past two years, as the depth and scope of the insurgency grew, reports surfaced of back-channel contacts between US military representatives and the insurgents – including the “1920 Revolution Brigade”, a wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement that is behind the latest offer.
Details of the talks, never officially confirmed by the US, were sketchy. But insurgent leaders were said to have been willing to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force, as the US forces pulled out. Then as now, however, Washington refused to accept anything resembling a fixed timetable for a pull-out.
[.]
The new offer has some points acceptable to the US, notably the involvement of the UN and the Arab League in any deal. But the US would be required to sit down publicly with “terrorists”. Implicitly, too, it would be siding against the Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki, to which the Bush administration is still committed.”
The demands for the current Baghdad government to be disbanded, and past elections to be nullified, would moreover repudiate the only concrete achievements the Bush White House can claim in its efforts to bring “democracy” to Iraq.
and what of the
View from Iraq: A dialogue with the Sunnis will not help the Shia difficulties
“The United States is stepping up the war in Iraq. For almost four years, it has been fighting the Iraqi Sunni community. Now it has started to confront the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric who leads the powerful Mehdi Army militia.
It is a very dangerous strategy for the US. It risks alienating the Shia without gaining the support of the Sunni. It brings it into conflict with the democratically elected Iraqi government in Baghdad, whose views and interests are ignored by Washington.
[.]
Bizarrely, US policy in Iraq is now very similar to that of the Baath party whom President Bush used to denounce so fervently. The US and the Baath both see the not-so-hidden hand of Iran as being behind the Shia militias and political parties. The Baath is by far the most anti-Iranian party in Iraq
US and Iraqi soldiers yesterday kicked in the door of the Iraqi deputy minister of health, Hakil al-Zamili, a Sadr supporter. He was led away in handcuffs, accused of being implicated in the deaths of several government officials in Diyala province, and siphoning off money to the Mehdi Army. Employees of the Health Ministry fled in panic as troops stormed their headquarters.
[.]
“It may be that, observing the increasingly anti-Shia and anti-Iranian trend in US policy, the insurgents are testing the water to see if there is common ground with Washington.”
(emphasis added)
All very interesting. Twisted. No, we are not likely to find success here. The Shia, knowing that they are in the majority, will bide their time and lie low.
No wonder the same guys we’re counting on to deliver success in Iraq are holding secret meetings planning for a sure-fire failure. One analysts called this new, new strategy of Bush, “A surge to Failure.”
Indeed it does bolster some points in Steven N. Simon’s report for the Council of Foreign Relations:
After the Surge: The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq”
Some key points: Link to full text of Simon’s Report in pdf.
“The United States has already achieved all that it is likely to achieve in Iraq: the removal of Saddam, the end of the Ba’athist regime, the elimination of the Iraqi regional threat, the snuffing out of Iraq’s unrequited aspiration to weapons of mass destruction, and the opening of a door, however narrow, to a constitutionally based electoral democracy.
Staying in Iraq can only drive up the price of these gains in blood, treasure, and strategic position. Any realistic reckoning for the future will have to acknowledge six grim realities:
- The United States cannot determine political outcomes or achieve its remaining political aims via military means. American military forces have not brought the violence to an end or under control and will not do so in the future. In the absence of the understanding and the intelligence needed to operate effectively in the complex and violent political situation in Iraq, this should not be surprising.
- Leaving U.S. forces in Iraq under today’s circumstances means the United States is culpable but not capable–that is, Washington bears substantial responsibility for developments within Iraq without the ability to shape those developments in a positive direction. In consequence, Iraqi support for the U.S. presence has collapsed. Polls indicate that most Iraqis want the United States to pull out. Moreover, the Iraq war has fueled the jihad and apparently been a godsend to jihadi recruiters–and the process of self-recruitment–as indicated by the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the global war on terror. More broadly, the Iraq war has had a very damaging effect on the U.S. reputation in the Arab and wider Islamic world. Authoritative opinion surveys show this as well. The continued presence of U.S. forces is thus a severe setback in the canonical war of ideas, which the Bush administration has correctly assessed as crucial to American interests.
- The ongoing war has empowered and advanced the interests of the chief U.S.rival in the region, Iran. At this stage, the best way to regulate Iran’s attempts to exploit its advantages is to negotiate with Tehran either bilaterally or in a multilateral framework while protecting Americans in Iraq against Iranian attack.
- By siphoning resources and political attention away from Afghanistan, a continuing military commitment to Iraq may lead to two U.S. losses in southwest Asia.
- The Iraq war constrains the U.S. military, making it very difficult if not impossible to handle another significant contingency involving ground forces. It also damages the U.S. military, making it difficult for Washington to credibly employ coercive policies against others in the near to medium term even once the United States has disengaged from Iraq. Furthermore, the military commitment in Iraq impedes the U.S. ability to address other important international contingencies, in part because of the limitations of the U.S. military but also because of the preoccupation with Iraq at the highest decision-making levels. In short, U.S. interests in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region can be more effectively advanced if the United States disengages from Iraq. Indeed, the sooner Washington grasps this nettle, the sooner it can begin to repair the damage that has been done to America’s international position. Staying longer means more damage and a later start on repair.
- The implosion of domestic support for the war will compel the disengagement of U.S. forces; it is now just a matter of time. Better to withdraw as a coherent and at least somewhat volitional act than withdraw later in hectic response to public opposition to the war in the United States or to a series of unexpectedly sharp reverses on the ground in Iraq.
The United States should therefore make clear now to the Iraqi government that, as the results of the anticipated surge become apparent, the two sides will begin to negotiate a U.S. military disengagement from Iraq. That would entail withdrawing the bulk of American forces from Iraq within twelve to eighteen months (that is to say, over the course of calendar year 2008); shifting the American focus to containment of the conflict and strengthening the U.S. military position elsewhere in the region; and engaging Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria, members of the UN Security Council, and potential donors in an Iraq stabilization plan.
Since the surge is a fait accompli, according to the vice president, and its results will be known very soon, in the view of General Petraeus, there is little point in proposing that negotiation of a drawdown begin immediately. The prospect of disengagement, however, should be a matter of discussion with the Iraqi government now….[.]
The proposed military disengagement would not be linked to benchmarks that the Iraqi government is probably incapbale of fulfilling. This analysis differs from the Bush administration’s new strategy in its repudiation of the idea that victory in Iraq, however defined, can be won militaryily…[.]
(H/T: Laura Rozen)
Six grim realties. Unfortunately reports from the real world are never, never well received by the BushCheney cabal. No one will be allowed to deprive this administration of a war they bought with lies.
