<p>Joe Lieberman isn’t the only Democrat who hasn’t lost his sanity. Too bad Bob Kerrey has left politics:
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<p><a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010107[/url]”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010107</a></p>
<p>I like Bob Kerrey a lot, and I like that he’s speaking out on this.</p>
<p>But, reluctantly, I disagree with him.</p>
<p>I am sure the demand for self-government is strong in Iraq. There are two problems, though. First, as long as the definition of “self-government” is American military and American contractors, any attempt at self-government will be met with the kind of response Kerrey describes. It is a horrible dilemma – our departure will make life difficult for Iraqi moderates, but our presence renders them completely ineffective and ultimately dooms them. By being there, we continually re-legitimize al-Qaeda. Second, different pluralities in Iraq clearly define “self-government” in different ways. A majority of the Shiites – maybe a majority of the people, but certainly more than enough to dominate any democratically elected legislature – want a strong one-person, one-vote central government (i.e., Shiite dominated, Iran-allied, Islamist). The Sunnis seem split between nostalgia for Saddam (i.e., strong Sunni-dominated central governments), Lebanese-style power-sharing, regional autonomy with guaranteed oil revenues, and becoming the seed pearl for al-Qaeda’s new caliphate. The Kurds want functional independence, but are willing to stab each other in the back over who gets to run what at the drop of a hat. And the people who want a functioning multi-ethnic, federal, secular democracy are stuck in corners here and there, effectively silenced by the unpopularity of their sponsor (us). We don’t have enough bullets to help them win in the marketplace of ideas, and as long as we are there there is no marketplace of ideas.</p>
<p>Also, Kerrey is doubtless right that Iraq is our main battleground with al-Qaeda, and that our withdrawal will (note verb tense – not would) give them a “substantial psychological victory”. But that insight is completely at odds with the first part of his quote. We are doing no one in Iraq any favors by picking their homeland as the place for our war against al-Qaeda, which still has little or nothing to do with Iraqis except for being the enemy of their enemy. We can’t establish self-government and carry on a geostrategic war in the same place. And our lack of success in either project to date hands al-Qaeda a substantial psychological victory every single day.</p>
<p>Radical Islamism has a spectacularly unsuccessful record of maintaining popular support as an ideology of government, as opposed to opposition to unpopular governments. In the summer of 1991, the radical Islamists were out of power everywhere but Afghanistan (which, really, was nowhere), and they were out of power because the people had thrown them out. Private terrorism like al-Qaeda’s is a substantial problem, and I don’t want to minimize it, but our heavy-handed War on Radical Islamism has given it a life it had lost on the street. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that anything is going to change until we change our tactics.</p>
<p>Kerry’s argues the same logic as a compulsive gambler nearing the end in Vegas. Having lost the everything, including the mortgage, the gambler rationalizes, “I have to double-down one more time to get my money back.”</p>
<p>The simple fact of the matter is that the Bush administration’s policy has made a disaster of Iraq. Right now, the continued presence of the US forces is making the disaster worse by serving as a lightning rod for violence and by the mutually-exclusive consequences of propping up a sectarian Shia-government while maintaining a charade of calling for Sunni participation and imposing benchmarks that don’t make any sense in the context of the current political situation. The Iraqis will never move towards a stable political situation while the American occupation is in place.</p>
<p>JHS,
Based on your perspective, if we had only fought against radical Islam in Afghanistan (which is the acceptable/preferable war for most dems - except the Move-on crowd which didn’t even want involvement there), and if al Qaeda made Afghanistan into the central war as they have in Iraq, we would be doing the same thing that you claim that we are doing in Iraq - providing a psychological victory for al Qaeda every day. So, following that logic, we must never confront al Qaeda for fear of them using it as a means to enhance their recruitment. </p>
<p>No, I think Bob Kerrey has it pretty much right.</p>
<p>fundingfather:</p>
<p>You are missing a key point. “Fighting terrorism” requires three elements:</p>
<p>a) Relentless pursuit of terrorist leadership</p>
<p>b) Comprehensive, world-wide, coordinated pressure on the financial and communications terrorist infrastructure.</p>
<p>c) A wide-ranging diplomatic component to address the underlying issues that drive recruiting – issues of disenfranchisement and hopelessness that would lead young people to become “dead enders” and strap bombs to themselves.</p>
<p>The fatal flaw in our Iraq strategy is that we have handed the terrorists a recruiting “cause” on a silver platter. The “cause” is so effective that Al Qaeda is now using Iraq to generate revenues that are funding the reinvigoration of training bases in the badlands along the Pakistani/Afghan border. On top of that, we have given the Sunni Baathists (a very secular crowd) and islamic terrorists a reason to become partners of convenience, despite the fact that radical islam has not historically enjoyed any traction among the Iraqi people. The only shared goal of the Baathists and Al Qaeda is the destabilization of the US occupation and its Shia “government”. No Iraqi wants a medieval fundamentalist version of Islam. It’s a very secular place and has been for generations.</p>
<p>Our actions are fueling terrorism at a rate faster than we can “fight” it. It is an unthinkably catastrophic foreign policy. We screwed the pooch. There are no good answers. However, the one thing we do know: our current occupation of Iraq is accomplishing the exact opposite of our goals. It is increasing the strength of islamic terrorism and strengthening the role of Iran in the region.</p>
<p>What is so frustrating is that we had Al Qaeda on the ropes in 2002-2003. By taking our eye off the ball, we’ve let them back in the game.</p>
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<p>We certainly don’t want to play them on their home turf by their rules. If we learned anything from the Russians in Afghanistan, it’s that there is no winning an assymetrical battles against a dead-ender insurgency. By allowing ourselves to get bogged down in that kind of quagmire, we play away from our strengths and allow the terrorists to do what they do best: strap bombs to themselves and blow things up.</p>
<p>
Objective a) has been significantly accomplished; the next task will be to keep them in prison despite the best efforts of the ACLU, etc. </p>
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Objective b) has also been done despite efforts of the left to curtail that effort as well.</p>
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Oh please!!! This is what typifies why the left can’t be left in charge of this effort - they think that no one is responsible for their own actions … that there is always some external force “causing” them to do what they do. Look at the 9/11 assassins - they were hardly “disenfranchised” and “hopeless”. Had they chosen to they could have used their education to lead perfectly normal middle class lives. Instead they chose to murder innocent people whose only “crime” was to live in a country that does not subscribe to their radical religious ideology. Even US citizens have fallen prey to this twisted ideology.</p>
<p>“The demand for self-government was and remains strong in Iraq despite all our mistakes.”</p>
<p>It sure does: that’s why an overwhelming majority of non-Al Qaeda Iraqis - Sunnis and Shiites united, agree that it is a good thing to kill Americans. From teenagers to old grandmothers, breastfeeding mothers to illiterate farmers, university professors to village priests, despite all their other differences, this is one thing they all agree on. </p>
<p>The demand for self-government was and remains strong.</p>
<p>Fundingfather:</p>
<p>I think if we had gone into Afghanistan and (a) gotten bin Laden, and (b) kept enough troops there to finish the job before we got distracted, we would have won a clear victory, and al-Qaeda wouldn’t have a presence there. We probably would have had to make a deal with the Taliban remnants at some point, though, to decouple them from al-Qaeda (whom most of the Talibs seem to have hated, too).</p>
<p>We have screwed up in Afghanistan almost as badly as in Iraq, though. In some ways, maybe worse, since we have essentially destabilized Pakistan, something that has just awful long-term implications.</p>
<p>None of this stuff was easy, and I don’t pretend it was. We needed to do something in response to 9/11, but it has been very, very costly not to do that something right.</p>
<p>You’re right and wrong about al-Qaeda, by the way. You’re right that al-Qaeda itself isn’t a function of disenfranchisement and hopelessness. It’s a privileged-class radical movement, like the Weathermen, or Baader-Meinhof. And, like them, it’s pretty tiny. But the recruiting issue – the 600-pound gorilla in the room, the third rail, etc., etc. – is Palestine. Fighting a war in Iraq without making any progress towards peace there is like trying to stick a finger in a very leaky dike.</p>
<p>I have to laugh at “the left can’t be left in charge of this effort”. Never in 1,000 years would I have dreamed that “the right” could possibly do as bad a job as it has here – historically, monumentally, tragically, criminally bad, the worst job any team has done in at least a century, and maybe in the history of this nation. I think the right is basically disqualified to do anything on this front for awhile.</p>
<p>Trying to clean up the awful mess the AEI thinktankers have made of Iraq would indeed be a worthwhile endeavor…if someone else other than the AEI thinktankers were making the decisions.</p>
<p>When the Army Chief of Staff warned that it would a couple of hundred thousand troops occupying Iraq to ensure stability after a regime change, the thinktankers decided they knew better. “Hard to believe” it would take more to stabilize than to depose, testified Wolfowitz to the Republican Senate majority, and they seem to have believed him, even though a quick check of the history books would have vindicated the Chief of Staff.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, as long as Republicans hold the White House, the AEI will be dictating strategy and policy, making the situation worse and worse.</p>
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<p>And another key question is how did Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, come to be such a “primary battleground?” The answer is “because George Bush made it so.” Because he and his underlings misplanned and mishandled an unnecessary war from the outset, al-Queda now has an excellent base of operations Iraq. And it is growing stronger every day, thanks to the war, by radicalizing thousands of young Muslim recruits who are now eager to fight against the western invaders.</p>
<p>And all of this misjudgement and ineptitude is why George and his like-minded followers can no longer be trusted with the reigns of government and need to be turned out of office at the earliest opportunity that the Constitution allows. So in that sense I guess this mess is indeed good news for Democrats. They will likely benefit politically from George’s foolishness.</p>
<p>“So, following that logic, we must never confront al Qaeda for fear of them using it as a means to enhance their recruitment.”</p>
<p>With one BIG difference: when the U.S. sends its “suicide death squads” into Iraq (to paraphrase Dick Morris), we recruit no one. When Al-Qaeda sends its (much smaller) suicide death squads, they enhance their recruitment.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with this picture? </p>
<p>To quote a great American, “wasted lives”.</p>
<p>"The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically “yes.” </p>
<p>Lieberman missed it totally. If the goal was to wipe out Al-Qaeda in Iraq, turning the entire government over to Sistani three years ago, and providing him the means to do so, would have accomplished that handily. It wouldn’t even have been difficult to do. Note there is NO Al-Qaeda in Iran. But the Saudis, to whom we are but a client state, wouldn’t have been all that happy.</p>
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<p>Yah, its a good thing they put that 15-yr old boy in Gitmo for the last 5 years - I feel so much safer.</p>
<p>Isn’t it amazing how different the actual facts are from the knee-jerk talking point. The feds no longer believe that many, perhaps most, of those at Gitmo are guilty of anything!</p>
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<p>Of the 400+ still there, it plans to try only about 60-80. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601339.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601339.html</a></p>
<p>A large percentage of those at Gitmo would be free today if there were any place for them to go. The US government doesn’t want them here, and after they spent years vilifying them as “the worst of the worst”, other countries won’t take them, much to the administration’s dismay, who places most of the blame for their continued captivity on the other countries who won’t accept them.</p>
<p>What’s worse, is that many of those who have been freed, had been religious and political moderates when arrested and are now radical fundamentalists, thanks to their treatment at Gitmo. Saudi Arabia actually has a formal program to try to bring their returned detainee citizens back toward moderation.</p>
<p>ETA: I don’t know how anyone objective could call the post 2003 hunt for bin Ladin a “relentless pursuit.” The president himself has said he’s not all that concerned about bringing him to justice. And I hear tell, we’ve been paying Pakistan billions to hunt him for us, without requiring much of anything for documentation of where the money goes. I wonder if we’d be more or less likely to capture bin Ladin if instead we put those billions in bushel baskets and sent them to them to the Moon.</p>
<p>JHS said:
The part about “if we had gotten bin Laden” is a bit like saying, “if we had contained the first few cases of bubonic plague, we could have avoided the epidemic” - much easier said than done. Trying to find a single person in a remote hostile environment is not something that you just “do”. Just ask General Pershing how successful he was in tracking down Poncho Villa (my grandfather was one one of Pershing’s men on the wild goose chase.)</p>
<p>As far as the “kept enough troops” part, we actually were adding troops to the Afghan campaign during the Iraq war build-up. Despite the popular talking point, we did not “take our eye off” bin Laden or Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Finally, with respect to destabilizing Pakistan, that is quite a twist of history. Prior to the Afghan campaign Pakistan was firmly aligned with the Taliban. One of Bush/Powell’s major foreign policy victories was turning them to be our allies to allow the over flights necessary to conduct the Afghan campaign. Without that bit of diplomacy there would not have been an Afghan campaign and al Qaeda would still be using the region as an uninhibited training ground.</p>
<p>
This is just another corollary to the “impoverished” youth theory for the growth of radical Islam. If it had any merit you would see that all of the targets for terrorism were linked to the Palestinian issue - they are not. There have been terrorist attacks against Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, etc. - all Muslim countries and all countries that are sympathetic to the Palestinian issue. The same evidence of attacks against these and other countries should also belie the fiction that the Iraq war is what has given rise to the increase in terrorism. That is not the case - these countries and many more that have been attacked since we went into Iraq had nothing to do with the Iraq war - other than criticise it. I wonder how long it will take for the world to wake up and realize that this is an insidious movement meant to indiscriminantly kill those who don’t ascribe to their radical beliefs and to try to assign rational motives to the movement is just a damaging folly.</p>
<p>I think those supporting the current occupation of Iraq because they think it’s a noble cause are conflating objectives, planning, and execution.</p>
<p>My objective might be to lose weight.
My plan might be to eat a T-bone steak and a gallon of ice cream at every meal.
My execution might be flawless. I might achieve just the appropriate level of gusto, use all the right table manners, and adhere strictly to my schedule.</p>
<p>An American looks at the above and says, “Hey wait a minute, the longer you keep going, the further you’ll be from your objective.”</p>
<p>A neoconservative tells the American: “What’s the matter with you, don’t you WANT me to lose weight?”</p>