Month: January 2007

Another ominous sign for the president’s war-policy.

George Will adds a little ice to the cold water:

Under a "Laird-Abrams" approach, winning would be the "direct goal" of Iraqi units. There is, however, this sobering arithmetic: Based on experience in the Balkans, an assumption among experts is that to maintain order in a context of sectarian strife requires one competent soldier or police officer for every 50 people. For the Baghdad metropolitan area (population: 6.5 million), that means 130,000 security personnel.

There are 120,000 now, but 66,000 of them are Iraqi police, many – perhaps most – of whom are worse than incompetent. Because their allegiances are to sectarian factions, they are not responsive to legitimate central authority. They are part of the problem. Therefore even a surge of, say, 30,000 U.S. forces would leave Baghdad that many short, and could be a recipe for protracting failure.

Wayne White – for 26 years with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, now with the Middle East Institute – calls Baghdad "a Shiite-Sunni Stalingrad." Imagine a third nation’s army operating between (and against) both German and Russian forces in Stalingrad. That might be akin to the mission of troops sent in any surge.

The main argument against getting further enmeshed in Iraq’s civil war is that we will find ourselves allying with one part of it. No American should die defending the sectarian claims of Sunnis or Shia. And certainly not to give any failed politician political cover.

Garden City, Kansas, 2 pm.

More realism, in the sense of common sense, from another sorta-neo-con, David Brooks (Times Delete). His idea of giving up Baghdad and focusing on protecting those few pools of order left in Iraq is, at least, a credible policy for withdrawal that has some chance of political success within Iraq. Money quote:

Perhaps it’s time to merge the military Plan B ‚Äî the surge ‚Äî with a political Plan B ‚Äî flexible decentralization. That would mean using adequate force levels (finally!) to help those who are returning to sectarian homelands. It would mean erecting buffers between populations where possible and establishing order in areas that remain mixed. It would mean finding decentralized governing structures that reflect the social and psychological facts on the ground.

The record shows that in sufficient numbers and with sufficient staying power, U.S. troops can suppress violence. Perhaps more U.S. troops can create a climate in which decentralized arrangements can evolve.

Practically speaking, it would probably mean withdrawing primarily to the Kurdish areas. The worst that can be said of David’s proposal is that it’s far more realistic than the leaked plans of the president. If the "surge" we are contemplating is indeed a mere 20,000 troops and if it is dependent on the pesh merga, and if it is accompanied by a puny $1 billion for reconstruction, then we know one thing: this is not a serious military proposal. It is a serious political proposal – to tread water in Iraq until Bush can hand it over to his successor.

Nixon on the Jack Paar show – playing the piano. As weirdly human as Nixon always is.

It was beautiful in Washington today, and I took a bike ride down to the Mall to be a tourist for a change. (Aaron got me a new camera for Christmas – so I used it.) The flags are still at half-mast for president Ford. These surround the Washington monument. The sun was going down and it was around 70 degrees.

(Note: A few readers have emailed to point out that the term "half-mast" should really refer solely to flying flags at sea. The more correct term for flags on land is "half-staff," although both terms tend to be used interchangeably these days.)

A reader sends in the photograph above with the following explanation:

I thought you’d get a kick out of this piece of art I stumbled across at the Mountain Gate Family Restaurant in Thurmont, MD, home of the John Birch Society and competing creches. It’s on sale for $199.99.

A bargain.

Sandpoint, Idaho, 9.55 am.

Jack Shafer re-asks the question.

The execution of Saddam is turning into a much bigger deal. For all the painstaking attempt to conduct a trial that represented justice, the execution made it all look like a sectarian lynching. Actually, strike that. In the end, it was a sectarian lynching. And the lynchers were the people we are now supporting in government in Baghdad. Don’t get me wrong. I loathe Saddam with every ounce of my being, and am relieved he is now gone. But my hatred of him makes me even more angry that we have enabled him to secure a final victory. The manner of his death means a deepening of the sectarian vortex into which the president is about to send more young Americans. It has rendered a regional Shia-Sunni war much more likely. It has destabilized many other Sunni governments; and given new life to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. It has made the very idea of a functioning national Iraqi government almost unthinkable. In its way, it captures the entire effort that is and was the Iraq war: well-meant, catastrophically run, and ultimately overtaken by the pathologies that make the Arab world what it is.

(Photo: Salah Malkawi/Getty.)