The Stab in the Back

Two out of two Matts agree: If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq or fails to bomb Iran, the "stab in the back" narrative is going to become the centerpiece of a revived post-Bush conservatism, and progressives need to steel themselves to combat it.

Myself, I think that liberals should be praying that the Right embraces the "stabbed in the back" theory of what went wrong in Iraq (and possibly Iran as well), because it will push conservatives toward political irrelevance. Yes, many conservatives have long nursed the belief that we could have won in Vietnam if liberals hadn't turned gutless and anti-American, but this belief hasn't won the Right any elections: Not in a country where large majorities consistently say that the Vietnam War wasn't worth fighting. The association of conservatism with foreign-policy strength and liberalism with foreign-policy weakness emerged from the Vietnam era, true, but it emerged because the trauma of Vietnam pushed liberalism to the left of the country on foreign policy and defense in general, not because the majority of Americans were mad at liberals for losing Indochina specifically. (They were more likely to be mad at liberals for getting us into the mess in the first place.) And the successful conservative foreign-policy rhetoric of the last forty years has traded on Democratic weakness in the face of the Soviet/Islamist threat, not on rehashing the battles of 1966-75. Ronald Reagan didn't go around giving speeches about the Tet Offensive and the Treason of Walter Cronkite - he talked about Iran or Afghanistan, Star Wars or defense spending, Central America or the Berlin Wall. So when Dinesh D'Souza tells conservative cruisegoers that "it's customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who's 'we'? ... The left won by demanding America's humiliation," he isn't broadening conservatism's base - he's shrinking it. Which is what a post-Bush conservatism that obsesses over how the liberal media undid the Iraq Occupation by failing to "report the good news" would do as well.

Comments

Waaah? I think you missed the high water mark due to your youth. My recollection is that there were a lot very popular revisionist fantasy movies about or inspired by Vietnam during Reagan's term. (Ex. First Blood, which (IIRC) included the line, "Do we get to win this time?") The stab in the back sensibility was broadly in the air. Saying "Reagan never mentioned Vietnam" is not so different from saying "The Administration never claimed there were links between Al Qaeda relevant to the 9/11 operation." Maybe it's true, but it is, at best, a disagreement about trivia for the purpose of (one assumes) avoiding the meat of the argument.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 26, 2007 6:30 PM

I think a lot of the symbols of the "stab in the back" narrative that succeeded in Vietnam will not be present.

First and foremost, there is no draft, so there is no need to provide amnesty to draft-dodgers.

Second, the protests have not been as large, nor have they drawn the same level of attention. We're all to busy watching Project Runway or Paris Hilton or the NFL draft or whatnot.

Third, antiwar Democrats have been shouting "we support the troops but oppose the war" since roughly the day after the invasion.

I suspect stab in the back will be confined to the talk radio right and dog-whistle politics. I suppose that if Iran acquires The Bomb or makes significant progress, and there is some sort of big showdown where President Democrat "loses", i.e. fails to convince Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, then you might see a Republican Presidential candidate say "we should have attacked Iran when we had the chance". But otherwise, no, I can't imagine the '12 GOP candidate saying "we should have stayed in Iraq".

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | June 26, 2007 6:43 PM

you're missing how corrosive the ideology is on the larger society.

Nobody likes losing, especially a war. So finding someone to blame is a natural result of defeat in war.

And while many people might find scapegoating distasteful, and abandon the party promoting it, being on the receiving end of accusations of treachery is (a) especially unpleasant and (b) unlikely to lead to productive bi-partisanship.

Posted by Francis | June 26, 2007 6:46 PM

Much depends on the Iraq-Vets-Turned-Politicians. Their testimonies will make or break the stabbed in the back narrative.

The fact is, most of our troops believe in the mission and hold Congress and the MSM in contempt (this has been repeatedly documented). Rightly or wrongly, these military men and women have internalized General Casey's testimony before Congress that it typically takes a decade of dedication to defeat an insurgency. They've observed the labyrinthine politics of Iraq, and experienced the denuded culture of post-Saddam Mesopotamia. They understand concepts like "learning curve" and "tipping point." And they've seen the quick reversals of loyalty in places like Mosul, Fallujah and Tal Afar -- all in our favor.

These Vets will soon join the next generation of leaders, and their views will warp our politics.

P.S. The approval ratings of Congress and the Media are at an all-time low, and those of the military are hovering in the 70's. A narrative which claims "an ignorant, incurious MSM -- which reported accurate data without increasing useful knowledge -- and a feeble, opportunistic Congress effectively stabbed the US in the back and lost us the war in Iraq" -- well, one would be hard pressed to deny that such a message would be marketable in this climate, should authentic spokesmen and women (read: Iraq-vets) step forward to sell it.

Posted by John Aristides | June 26, 2007 7:14 PM

Aristedes:

Your narrative will take hold.

Ross is a brilliant guy and a tremendous writer, but he is on lock-down in Arrogant Ivy League Blogger Land.

Did you know that he still likes reading the New Yorker?

Posted by Aaron | June 26, 2007 7:38 PM

The Democrats (and liberals in general) were uniquely vulnerable on Vietnam because they got us into the war in the first place, while the Republican Nixon extricted us from the mess. That's not true this time: Iraq is a production of the GOP and public anger will focus on the GOP. Also, I think that Iran Hostage business (combined with a wave of Soviet adventurism in the late 70s) was far more reponsible for the perception of liberal weakness than Vietnam was. People just wanted to forget Vietnam and even non-looney conservatives admitted it had been a giant mistake.

Posted by Jonf | June 26, 2007 7:52 PM

"Ronald Reagan didn't go around giving speeches about the Tet Offensive and the Treason of Walter Cronkite - he talked about Iran or Afghanistan,"

And to address those threats, he supported Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, respectively.

That's the fun thing about GOP foreign policy-- the enemy of your enemy is your friend, no matter how horrible he is. Then sometime down the line, you can declare war on your horrible ex-friend. It's like a make-work program for contractors and AEI foreign policy commentators.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 26, 2007 9:00 PM

A question:

Given the astronomical difference in returns between even a moderate success in Iraq and failure, why isn't the enterprise worth a decade of re-raises? We've still the turn and the river to go.

We already have a ton in the pot, and all I hear is "fold 'em." That's not wise poker, why is it wise here?

Posted by John Aristides | June 26, 2007 9:44 PM

A narrative which claims "an ignorant, incurious MSM -- which reported accurate data without increasing useful knowledge -- and a feeble, opportunistic Congress effectively stabbed the US in the back and lost us the war in Iraq" -- well, one would be hard pressed to deny that such a message would be marketable in this climate, should authentic spokesmen and women (read: Iraq-vets) step forward to sell it.

Uh huh... so... do you, Michael Ledeen, Podhoretz & Podhoretz, Mark Steyn, and the crew at Redstate.com prefer just to circle-jerk amongst yourselves, or do you invite Michelle Malkin and Anne Coulter over for the occasional gangbang?

Ross is a brilliant guy and a tremendous writer, but he is on lock-down in Arrogant Ivy League Blogger Land.

Did you know that he still likes reading the New Yorker?

Are you really as knee-jerk populist as this comment suggests? Because it's bordering on self-caricature, I have to tell you, like if I said I wiped my ass with the columns of Kevin McCullough.

Oh, wait. I do wipe my ass with his columns. Never mind.

Posted by Immoralist | June 26, 2007 9:51 PM

Hey "Immoralist,"

Objecting to the New Yorker doesn't make me a populist. It indicates that I'm under seventy and a gentile not residing above 59th st.

Objecting to arrogant Ivy League twits with neatly manicured beards is just common sense.

Using the name "Immoralist" and using expressions like "circle-jerk" and "gang bang" indicates either frustrated sexual desires or a painfully obvious immaturity. Are you having a hard time finding chicks, or are you really naive enough to think that being crass makes you an iconoclast?

Posted by Aaron | June 26, 2007 10:37 PM

John Aristides: Because even if there's a whole bunch in the pot, when the odds of winning are low enough, it's not worth throwing more money and effort after it.

You can't just look at one part of a bet and declare it a good deal. A $10 bet for a .0001% chance to win $1000000 is a very small bet with the chance to win a very large amount, but that doesn't make it a good bet, because your expected gain is negative. Similarly, a $100000 bet for a 1% chance to win $1000000 also has a negative expected gain, and is a bad bet.

In this case, of course, it's impossible for the two sides to agree on what the costs and consequences are. Nevertheless, you can't claim that "reraising" is automatically the right play since the possible payoff is so high. Try playing poker with that attitude and you'll quickly find yourself broke; if you always reraise, you're likely to run into more cases of negative expected value than positive, and soon enough you'll go bankrupt - no bankroll is limitless.

Posted by Teague | June 26, 2007 11:02 PM

Put me firmly in the "dolchstosslegende -- ja!" group.

Pretty much nobody remembers that the Dems got us into Vietnam, and pretty much nobody remembers that there was broad bipartisan support for getting out.

Doug M.

Posted by Doug M. | June 27, 2007 7:39 AM

Given the astronomical difference in returns between even a moderate success in Iraq and failure, why isn't the enterprise worth a decade of re-raises? We've still the turn and the river to go.

Because the difference is not astronomical. Or at least the cost to the US of "failure" is actually very low. If there is a "dolchstoss" narrative, it will be a large part a product of the Right continually raising the stakes in Iraq to the point where the US can never possibly win. Saddam's gone, there were no WMDs. Game over, we won, leave. Why is that so hard? We project more weakness by staying and failing to build a Western Democratic paradise then by simply withdrawing and letting the Iraqis succeed or fail alone. Basically the bet is go home now and lose $100 or bet another $10,000 with 100-1 odds you will lose that. The decision would seem pretty obvious.

Posted by vanya | June 27, 2007 8:13 AM

Aaron writes:

Objecting to the New Yorker doesn't make me a populist. It indicates that I'm under seventy and a gentile not residing above 59th st.

I'm a 34 year old "gentile" living in Ohio. I think the New Yorker's great. Nobody buys your sophomoric characterization of a fine magazine (other than members of the circle jerk, that is).

Objecting to arrogant Ivy League twits with neatly manicured beards is just common sense.

Neatly manicured beards? Could you be more of an idiot?

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 8:43 AM

Elvis, Carter actually backed Saddam vs Iran as well. and were there Dems opposed to arming the mujahaddin? I don't recall any.

Also, I think Vanya captures much of the current sentiment on the conservative side about the war. most of these folks favored war because they thought saddam was a threat and had WMDs - well, Saddam's dead and the WMDs weren't there. (they probably also figured that in the process we could leave something better than we found, but does anyone really think we would've gone to war solely for that aim?)

of course if we left Iraq and it became the taliban on steroids, then 'who lost iraq?' would be quite the argument. but if it simply evolves in something between jordan and algeria - a nasty place, but a nasty place that doesn't pose any real threat to us - I doubt most people, right or left, will much care. on balance, that's prob where it's headed

Posted by chris | June 27, 2007 9:55 AM

but if it simply evolves in something between jordan and algeria - a nasty place, but a nasty place that doesn't pose any real threat to us - I doubt most people, right or left, will much care. on balance, that's prob where it's headed

I think there's a little more cause for worry than that, because Iraq is a far more pivotal country than either Jordan or Algeria (two relative backwaters) on the regional/global scene. Many Middle Eastern countries are post-colonial hodgepodges, but Iraq is perhaps uniquely factitious (and its consituents uniquely fractious). Iraqis have a reputation among Middle Easterners for being particularly vindictive in their internal disputes, and for needing a brutal dictator to keep them under wraps. Factoring that in with the regional implications of a chaotic Iraq (Kurds in Turkey, Shiites in Iran, Wahabbists in Saudi Arabia) and I think the potential for a not-so-contained failed state starting a regional war is very real. That doesn't mean we shouldn't withdraw from Iraq, because I think America is a big part of the problem. But it certainly doesn't either mean that we can just withdraw and leave it to rot. Bush/Cheney have fucked things up enough to cause us a very major & longterm headache.

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 10:06 AM

RE: "Yes, many conservatives have long nursed the belief that we could have won in Vietnam if liberals hadn't turned gutless and anti-American, but this belief hasn't won the Right any elections":

Hello? November 2004? Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, versus Bush, a draft dodger w/ priveleges?

Posted by helmling | June 27, 2007 10:19 AM

but it emerged because the trauma of Vietnam pushed liberalism to the left of the country on foreign policy and defense in general, not because the majority of Americans were mad at liberals for losing Indochina specifically.

And the difference this time wround will be...?

The trauma of Iraq is moving liberals (sorry, "progressives") far to the left this time too. Heck, they're already talking about cutting and running from Afghanistan. The neo-isolationist left will be pushing the United States to back down from supporting any foreign intervention, no matter how limited (witness, for example, Yglesias's continual opposition even to our minor, indirect support for Ethiopia's destruction of the Islamist government in Somalia).

The essential truth of the stab-in-the-back narrative is merely reinforcing the progressives' already rapid movement to the extreme left.

Posted by Al | June 27, 2007 11:08 AM

The essential truth of the stab-in-the-back narrative is merely reinforcing the progressives' already rapid movement to the extreme left.

Ain't that rich.

What on earth, Al, could have turned some liberals into "neo-isolationists"? Thanks for reminding us that all "progressive" political moves are apparently carried out in a vaccuum. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN IN THE OVAL OFFICE, LADIES AND GENTS.

Take your "extreme left" and shove it up your ass, please. You don't get to define what's "extreme," especially when most of the country disagrees with you. People have had enough of centrism being redefined as extremism by stupid wingnuts.

Shorter Al: Thanks to Republican & neocon unbelievable obtuseness, incompetence, recklessness, criminal negligence, etc etc etc, nobody's gonna support our foreign interventions anymore. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 11:19 AM

Bill, your guess as to Iraq's fate is as good as mine. My main point is that unless Iraq becomes a launching pad a la the taliban, it could become lebanon without much affecting US politics.

Posted by chris | June 27, 2007 11:56 AM

Bill, your guess as to Iraq's fate is as good as mine. My main point is that unless Iraq becomes a launching pad a la the taliban, it could become lebanon without much affecting US politics.

Of course, Lebanon isn't sitting on a billion barrels of oil. I'm sure whatever regime ends up in power will have to sell their crude in the world market, but it's the oil that complicates who ends up having control. Iraq is a vastly richer country than Lebanon, and that by default will affect US politics much more than the latter. (What if Hezbollah, or the Syrian Baathists, held sway in Iraq instead of tiny Lebanon?) Anyway, this isn't about US politics, it's about US national security.

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 12:35 PM

why isn't the enterprise worth a decade of re-raises? We've still the turn and the river to go.

We already have a ton in the pot, and all I hear is "fold 'em." That's not wise poker, why is it wise here?

Aristedes, I really want to play poker with you sometime.

Probably not even worth explaining given Teague's post above, but it's often good poker to fold when you see that the flop puts you in a bad place, rather than chasing a draw with still more money. You might have heard the saying about "throwing good money after bad". Paying attention to how much you already have in the pot (as opposed to how much you're putting down on the current bet compares to the overall size of the pot) is also bad poker.

As Teague explains above, the only thing you should ever be looking at is the odds of making your hand vs. the monetary odds you are getting from your bet to win the pot.

I don't expect types like you to ever improve their foreign policy instincts, but this has been a public service announcement to help you improve your poker.

Posted by marcus | June 27, 2007 12:44 PM

Whether it wins elections or not, many of us believe it is precisely the identification of the Left with either our enemies or wish that America lose, that is the cause of many of our current troubles. Its nice to win but lying about our opponants or troubles is not a way to go about it. If it is not electorally useful I would not harp on it, but I do think the failure of Conservatives to point out, Democratic and Leftist retreat in the Cold War has injured us in teaching youth and shaping the political battlefield.

Also, Korea may be a more apt lesson than Vietnam or World War II. What political advantage or lesson did people draw from Korea after it ended? None. The only time you hear "another Korea" is Bush I's failure to warn Saddam going into Kuwait would cause an American response, just like Acheson's failure to mention Korea was seen as provacative.

Posted by jjv | June 27, 2007 12:50 PM

Whether it wins elections or not, many of us believe it is precisely the identification of the Left with either our enemies or wish that America lose, that is the cause of many of our current troubles. Its nice to win but lying about our opponants or troubles is not a way to go about it. If it is not electorally useful I would not harp on it, but I do think the failure of Conservatives to point out, Democratic and Leftist retreat in the Cold War has injured us in teaching youth and shaping the political battlefield.

Way to confuse the Cold War with the Iraq War. There is no equivalency. "Leftist" is an outdated term that used to suggest Marxist and communist. It no longer does. Attempts to portray today's American left as Al-Qaeda sympathizers is morally bankrupt and unfathomably idiotic. Accusing them of "hoping we lose" is infantile scapegoating for your own fucked up judgement. The left hopes the GOP loses the next election, not that Al Qaeda takes over Iraq. Are you confused on that point? And given the GOP's incompetence at managing the situation you're now pathetically blaming on "the liberals," the left, or should I say center, may be excused for considering that GOP losses are perhaps vital to salvaging what's left of America's efforts to influence foreign affairs in a manner that is actually beneficial to Americans.

But you just keep on living in your pathetic construct if it makes you feel better. Blow a hyooge wad of money, burn the house down, needlessly enable the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and then kick and scream and take your toys home. Ross is right: it may stoke the circle-jerkers but the rest of the country, which thankfully looks to be a healthy majority, ain't buying it. So knock yourself out!

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 1:16 PM

Ross needs to read Mark Moyar's Triumph Forsaken, The Vietnam War 1954-1965 (2006), which, drawing on a wealth of new evidence, including North Vietnamese, argues that the Vietnam War was war worth fighting, though badly botched in that period.

Moyar is part of a young generation of revisionist historians who question the orthodoxy that the war was wrongheaded and unjust; they see it rather as a noble but improperly executed enterprise. His academic background includes a summa from Harvard College and Ph.D in history from Cambridge.

The parallel of Vietnam and Iraq is for the most part obvious, including the Bush administration failure to understand the insurgency and perhaps a savage retribution in the long run against the spineless Democrats, similar to McGovern in 1972.

The party of Wilson, FDR, Truman, and JFK has become on matters of vital national security the feckless party of McGovern, E. Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid and Murtha.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | June 27, 2007 2:12 PM

Damn. Marcus beat me to it. Well played.

I tend to agree with Ross' assessment. The American Left has been out of favor on foreign policy matters for so long that they tend to instinctively operate from a defensive crouch. There's a knee-jerk assumption that the existence of a "blame the liberals" narrative on the Right means that vast swaths of the country will believe this narrative. This, I think, is silly.

The Vietnam dolchstoss narrative took root largely because of the culture wars that grew out of the Vietnam era. The war protests then were much, much larger and more radical, and connected to a counterculture that was much more provocative. A much broader cross-section of the country served in the military at the time. And, most importantly, contemporary Americans disdain the Vietnam-era antiwar Left for cultural reasons, not because they actually blame the Left for losing a winnable war in Vietnam. While the backstab myth is central to a certain fanatical faction of the Right, it doesn't really carry much weight among mainstream moderates and conservatives.

And, crucially, the Vietnam War was originally the Democrats' war. Anger about the handling of the war AND anger about the perceived betrayal of our troops were both subsequently aimed at different factions of the Democratic Party. When LBJ lied us into war and Daley's stormtroopers cracked Hippie skulls, the Republicans had no skin in the political game at all. Forty years later, no one really remembers that the Democrats got into Vietnam primarily because it doesn't serve the purposes of either party to remind us. That won't be the case this time around.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 27, 2007 2:24 PM

Peter Leavitt:

Does Moyar's thesis hinge at all on "we should've just killed more people"?

The party of Wilson, FDR, Truman, and JFK has become on matters of vital national security the feckless party of McGovern, E. Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid and Murtha.

So when did Iraq become a matter of "vital national security"? Was it before or after we couldn't find WMDs and had set their civil infrastructure back another 50 years? So we have feckless in the face of reckless. Keep pluggin for reckless, I guess. Better to have a spine than a brain, right?

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 2:37 PM

Anything that reminds the public that Iraq was the GOP's war is fine by me. If I were a Republican presidential candidate, Iraq would be the one four-letter word I'd hope I never got caught saying. Clearly, the GOP is still ignorant of the lesson of the 2006 elections. Long may they remain so.

I also chuckle at comparisons between the Cold War and the "War on Terror." Nobody outside the National Review cruise ship sees Islamism as a force that could potentially take over the free world. Nobody's worried that mullahs will be marching on Washington. And most of the country doesn't give a damn about "losing Iraq" - they just don't want to lose another young son, daughter, dad, mom, neighbor, or friend to this pointless war.

Posted by St. Louis Red | June 27, 2007 2:44 PM

The war protests then were much, much larger and more radical, and connected to a counterculture that was much more provocative.

Yup, exactly. You can't separate the Vietnam war stuff from the larger culture wars of the 60s. Anti-war equalled effeminate perverted lazy hippie. More important even than that, for Reagan Democrats it equalled "the same guys who wouldn't fight against high crime in the cities wouldn't fight against the Commies abroad". With associated racial symbolism, since in the code urban crime = black crime.

It's precisely the memories of that culture war that have let the Repubs marginalize the anti-war side for so long. But my sense is that bank of political capital is starting to get spent down. The anti-war coalition now is quite different, as is the social situation. No anti-war protestors are saying that they stand in solidarity with the brown masses of Al-Qaeda and the black masses of the U.S. against the white oppressor. It's hard to call Jim Webb a hippie.

Hey, La Follette Progressive, could you email me at the linked address above? Curious to ask you a question. Thanx.

Posted by marcus | June 27, 2007 3:44 PM

The left hopes the GOP loses the next election, not that Al Qaeda takes over Iraq.

The question is, which is more important to you? If you had to give up the presidency in '08 in return for Al Qaeda being crushed in Iraq, would you take the deal?

The Left also wants to withdraw troops from Iraq. But right now Al Qaeda is not in control of Iraq, and the Shiite death squads and Iranians are held at bay. If we withdraw, it's pretty clear that some combination of Iran, Al Qaeda, and the more extreme Shiite elements will gain control. Is that in our best interests? Is it the proper action to take with respect to innocent Iraqis? "We got rid of one brutal dictator who we saw as a security threat, but things got a little FUBAR, so sorry, we're going to have to give you back to a brutal dictator who's a security threat. Best of luck to you..." I don't follow the moral logic that says that thousands of people are being killed every year right now, so we should leave and let tens or hundreds of thousands get killed, with no hope for a stable and peaceful government. But that's what the Left wants - they want to withdraw troops, and don't care to think about the likely consequences. The idea that things will improve if we just get out of the way is pure fantasy.

Posted by Mike S. | June 27, 2007 4:21 PM

The Vietnam dolchstoss narrative took root largely because of the culture wars that grew out of the Vietnam era.

Well, it probably also had something to do with the way the Left treated the GIs when they came home.

Nobody outside the National Review cruise ship sees Islamism as a force that could potentially take over the free world. Nobody's worried that mullahs will be marching on Washington.

This is a key distinction between supporters and opponents of the war. The question is whether it takes the threat of imminent invasion to justify using military force or not. The Taliban wasn't going to march on Washington, D.C., either, but nonetheless they enabled the destruction of the WTC. Clearly there are tough decisions that have to be made: on the one hand, we can't send major military forces into any country that harbors al Qaeda, but on the other hand we don't want to just sit around and only attack after another 9/11.

So what will happen if Iran obtains nuclear weapons? What happens to the global economy if the entire Middle East goes to hell?

And most of the country doesn't give a damn about "losing Iraq" - they just don't want to lose another young son, daughter, dad, mom, neighbor, or friend to this pointless war.

Obviously, nobody wants to lose a loved one to war. The questions are a) whether this war is, in fact, pointless; b) whether we will end up losing more loved ones in the future if we stop now; c) whether the relatively small losses we are incurring now by historical standards are worth preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqis and others in the Middle East.

As for a), I've seen no evidence that the majority of people who've served in Iraq, or their families, are in favor of us leaving. On b), it seems likely that if we withdraw from Iraq right now, Al Qaeda will gain a major propaganda coup, as well as possibly gain control of at least a portion of Iraq. What are we going to do when they set up training camps there and come attack us from them? If we leave and then have to go back, the bloodshed will be much worse. As for c), we decided Vietnam was "pointless", but it wasn't pointless to the millions of South Vietnamese and Cambodians who died or were sent to labor camps as a result of our withdrawal.

Posted by Mike S. | June 27, 2007 4:40 PM

If you had to give up the presidency in '08 in return for Al Qaeda being crushed in Iraq, would you take the deal?

Gosh, I don't know. If you had to give up the Presidency in exchange for a pot of Leprechaun gold, would you take the deal?

This entire poisoned line of thinking is a complete waste of everyone's time. Nobody in American politics wants to withdraw our forces from Iraq, and simultaneously believes that the continued presence of our troops makes it feasible for "Al Qaeda" to be "crushed in Iraq." If I thought it would crush Al Qaeda for the US to fight an extended counterinsurgency in Iraq, I would have supported the war from day one.

It's understood by most observers that we could stay in Iraq for fifty years without crushing all of the various militias and insurgent groups. It's also understood that our efforts to "stand up the Iraqi Army" are providing weapons and training to the militias.

So I don't see the moral logic in your focus on the risks and costs associated with leaving Iraq while utterly refusing to weigh them against the risks and costs of continuing to follow our failed course of action.

A side note to Marcus - At least in my browser, this site doesn't display your linked e-mail address. You can reach me at a_lafollette (AT) yahoo dot com.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 27, 2007 5:45 PM

"Well, it probably also had something to do with the way the Left treated the GIs when they came home."

True, you don't hear "baby killers" today. However, a Vietnam vet-turned sociologist (which Susan Faludi mentioned in her book "Stiffed") found that the people who tended to spit on returning Vietnam vets in parades tended to veterans of WWII and Korea, which is primarily made up of old white men. We forget how older generations, who tended to be more conservative, saw Vietnam vets as pathetic coddled kids who couldn't win a war against the Viet Cong given more time than WWII.

The poker metaphors above fail to get the point that our enemies in Iraq, especially the Iraqi-born and raised fighters, are already all in. You cannot bluff them then and we cannot go all in as well because the whole of American national security does not hinge on Iraq. The insurgency will continue as long as the Sunni minority will feel threatened by the Shi'ite majority. They will only not feel threatened as long as Iraq's political leaders do not reach a political agreement that allows for Sunni safety and what they think is an acceptable share of oil revenues. You cannot kill your way towards this agreement. The Iraqi parliament decided to take off for the summer for vacation at the same time the surge was supposed to make it easier for such an agreement to come to pass. The Iraq War not only distracted us from al-Qaida, but is also distracting us from the rise of Asia in general. We have no real policy of how to manage the fact that China and India (and possibly also Indonesia and non-Asian countries like Brazil and Russia) are going to become more powerful than they already are. This is what will shape the future and American national security. Iraq is a sideshow.

"If we withdraw, it's pretty clear that some combination of Iran, Al Qaeda, and the more extreme Shiite elements will gain control."

This is kinda bullshit. Al Qaida in Iraq is not the same thing as bin Laden's AQ that attacked us. In fact, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri openly hated al-Zarqawi, calling him a young, reckless fool while demanding that financial supporters of terrorism fund them instead of him. In addition, the domestic Sunni insurgency has grown tired of the handful of foreign al-Qaida fighters (around 5% of the insurgency according to many estimates I've seen) and is starting to kill them off themselves. Second of all, the ruling political parties - you know, the elected Iraqi government - are already closely tied to Iran. We've enabled that. This is already happened. Al-Sistani, who used to live in Iran, is the most respected religious leader in Iraq. His support is useful for Shi'ite leaders to have to gain political power. If our withdrawal somehow leads to "Iran taking power in Iraq," it will be through the political parties our soldiers are there to prop up.

In addition, recent polls of our troops in Iraq have found our troops have started to sour on the Iraqis as a people, which is natural when you fight guerrillas in a foreign land with a different language and you do not know who to trust. The poll showed that over 40% and growing of our troops believe that Iraqis are not deserving of basic respect. When a people know that you do not respect them, they will not support you. If you are in their country, they might even join the fight to kick you out. At this point, the name for a venture of occupying a country that does not want to be occupied comes into play. More time in Iraq means more Iraqis tortured or killed, more time and opportunity for experimenting with different ways of attacking US troops (methods started in Iraq have been exported to Afghanistan), more Iraqi soldiers trained who will later turn their guns on Americans, more American time and money spent on a sideshow, more American prestige lost and thus more propaganda for al-Qaida and Islamists to use against the US. We should also ask ourself if political compromise between Iraqi parties of different groups is more or less likely with American troops there. So far, it looks like having our troops there means the Shi'ite-led government thinks it's vacation time.

Posted by Reality Man | June 27, 2007 5:53 PM

Typo correction:

"They will only not feel threatened as long as Iraq's political leaders do not reach a political agreement that allows for Sunni safety and what they think is an acceptable share of oil revenues. You cannot kill your way towards this agreement."

should be

"They will only not feel threatened as if Iraq's political leaders reach a political agreement that allows for Sunni safety and what they think is an acceptable share of oil revenues. We cannot kill our way towards this agreement."

Posted by Reality Man | June 27, 2007 6:02 PM

Mike S., you desperately need to be taken apart, so here goes.

The question is, which is more important to you? If you had to give up the presidency in '08 in return for Al Qaeda being crushed in Iraq, would you take the deal?

No, that is "the question", it's a pointless non sequitur.

The Left also wants to withdraw troops from Iraq. But right now Al Qaeda is not in control of Iraq, and the Shiite death squads and Iranians are held at bay. If we withdraw, it's pretty clear that some combination of Iran, Al Qaeda, and the more extreme Shiite elements will gain control. Is that in our best interests? Is it the proper action to take with respect to innocent Iraqis?

Ideal questions to have asked before we invaded.

"We got rid of one brutal dictator who we saw as a security threat, but things got a little FUBAR, so sorry, we're going to have to give you back to a brutal dictator who's a security threat. Best of luck to you..." I don't follow the moral logic that says that thousands of people are being killed every year right now, so we should leave and let tens or hundreds of thousands get killed, with no hope for a stable and peaceful government. But that's what the Left wants - they want to withdraw troops, and don't care to think about the likely consequences. The idea that things will improve if we just get out of the way is pure fantasy.

Precisely why this war was a terrible idea from day one. Nobody wanted to remember Vietnam, and how after we eventually left things would go to shit. Interesting that you're rediscovering moral logic now that your ass is against the wall, when the moral logic of not invading was plain to see. But to cut to the chase, in essence you're asking thousands more Americans to die a) to salvage a war that was waged by deceit (and I don't just mean going to war, I mean the whole aftermath as well) and b) to salvage the Iraqi people, whose internecine squabbles ought to have nothing to do with our national interest.

This is a key distinction between supporters and opponents of the war. The question is whether it takes the threat of imminent invasion to justify using military force or not. The Taliban wasn't going to march on Washington, D.C., either, but nonetheless they enabled the destruction of the WTC.

And we responded appropriately. That's how the world works, or should. Defend the homeland (Bush failed) and strike back when you are attacked (Bush overreached).

Clearly there are tough decisions that have to be made: on the one hand, we can't send major military forces into any country that harbors al Qaeda, but on the other hand we don't want to just sit around and only attack after another 9/11.

Hmm, maybe we should pay attention to intelligence briefings and, you know, protect our airplane pilots from hijackers.

So what will happen if Iran obtains nuclear weapons? What happens to the global economy if the entire Middle East goes to hell?

The entire Middle East goes to hell when the U.S. military occupies a factitious, oil-rich country in the center of it. Why didn't you ask "What happens if Pakistan gets a nuke?" Oh yeah, they're our allies.

Obviously, nobody wants to lose a loved one to war.

Spare us the politician pieties.

The questions are a) whether this war is, in fact, pointless; b) whether we will end up losing more loved ones in the future if we stop now; c) whether the relatively small losses we are incurring now by historical standards are worth preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqis and others in the Middle East.

It should be clear by now, whether or not this war is now "pointless" (is there such a thing?) that the doctrine of preemption is deeply flawed. First, learn that lesson.

As for a), I've seen no evidence that the majority of people who've served in Iraq, or their families, are in favor of us leaving.

The LAST people we should be asking. Of course they don't want to concede dying for a mistake.

On b), it seems likely that if we withdraw from Iraq right now, Al Qaeda will gain a major propaganda coup, as well as possibly gain control of at least a portion of Iraq.

No they won't. They could never hope to overcome the Shiites, who own Iraq's future.

What are we going to do when they set up training camps there and come attack us from them?

Bomb the training camps, stupid!

If we leave and then have to go back, the bloodshed will be much worse.

Best not go back, then. It's not our job to build the Middle East, it's theirs.

As for c), we decided Vietnam was "pointless", but it wasn't pointless to the millions of South Vietnamese and Cambodians who died or were sent to labor camps as a result of our withdrawal.

You mean because we backed the Khmer Rouge and stuff? Let's abandon the word "pointless." I prefer "unwinnable."

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 6:20 PM

Objecting to the New Yorker doesn't make me a populist. It indicates that I'm under seventy and a gentile not residing above 59th st.

Well, I'm 25 and residing below whatever the Dallas equivalent of 59th st. is (Beverly Dr., I guess, even though that's not technically in Dallas). And I like the New Yorker. I especially like the fact that a great deal of the magazine is available to read for free online.

Objecting to arrogant Ivy League twits with neatly manicured beards is just common sense.

I don't think "twits" generally land six-figure book deals at the tender age of--hey, Ross is my age! You may think Ross is some kind of arch blue blood, but at least he can point to some pretty major accomplishments at this point in his life. Beats anything I've done, unless you think writing legal briefs and arguing a few cases in a courtroom beat getting published. I don't, but then again, the cases weren't that exciting.

How about you? Have you been published?

Are you having a hard time finding chicks, or are you really naive enough to think that being crass makes you an iconoclast?

*grin* No, I actually just enjoy pissing you off, personally. Little weakness of mine.

Posted by Immoralist | June 27, 2007 7:00 PM

This fellow Bill, far from taking Steve apart, merely revealed that he has his noggin in the sand with little understanding of either the overall threat from the jihadis or the situation in Iraq, which is at present is the central alQuaeda front.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | June 27, 2007 7:02 PM

From a recent Gerson column in the Wash. Post:

In 1974, a weary Congress cut off funds for Cambodia and South Vietnam, leading to the swift fall of both allies. In his memoir, "Years of Renewal," Henry Kissinger tells the story of former Cambodian prime minister Sirik Matak, who refused to leave his country.

"I thank you very sincerely," Matak wrote in response, "for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we are all born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans]."

Eventually, between 1 million and 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge when "peace" came to Indochina. Matak, Kissinger recounts, was shot in the stomach and died three days later.

Posted by Veritas | June 27, 2007 7:30 PM

This fellow Bill, far from taking Steve apart, merely revealed that he has his noggin in the sand with little understanding of either the overall threat from the jihadis or the situation in Iraq, which is at present is the central alQuaeda front.

I'll overlook that you're too lazy to back that up and say what always needs to be said when today's right-winger and Fox News viewer uses his amazing grasp of The Big Picture to justify all of the reckless and stupid policy du jour: where The Central Front In The War On Terror is concerned, you continue to be your own worst enemy.

If you and those of your mindset had any "understanding of the overall threat" you wouldn't be defending the loser cause you're stuck with today. So the victim of his own folly insists everyone ELSE has their head in the sand. Well, what else could you do, really?

Posted by Bill | June 27, 2007 9:02 PM

Re: a) whether this war is, in fact, pointless;

Yes

b) whether we will end up losing more loved ones in the future if we stop now;

If you mean will we lose more people if we leave (and stay gone) than if we stay I think the answer is staringly obvious: No.

c) whether the relatively small losses we are incurring now by historical standards are worth preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqis and others in the Middle East.

At the risk of being thought callous, maybe what the Middle East needs is a huge, ghastly bloodletting to clear all the hatreds and poisons out of its system (with the rest of the world staying well out of it). Europe went through three vicious spams in modern times (the Thirty Years War, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and the two World Wars) and after each cataclysm the place settled down and behaved for a long, long time. Similar history can be seen in East Asia. The analogy here would be a forset fire: we need them every so often to burn off the underbrush and if we delay them too long the resulting conflagration is horrific.
So let's get to work on replacing oil as the fuel of note, and maybe the day will come we can just let the Middle East crazies kill each other off.

Posted by JonF | June 27, 2007 10:28 PM

Gerson repeats a common error in blaming Democrats in Congress for cutting off funding of South Vietnam. Nixon actually reduced But, I will endeavour to correct, no matter how Sisyphean it is to do so.

"No.

There were plenty of supplies delivered to South Vietnam up until the
fall of Saigon, with more in the pipeline. There _had_ been a cut in
military aid. But was Congress to blame?

Here is Doug Muir from the January 2005 thread _A Fish Called Wanda_:

On Blame
=======

"The Class of '74 had nothing to do with the fall of Vietnam. (Among
other things, the final, conventional offensive that destroyed the
South started before the 94th Congress was sworn in. Cripes, the 94th
didn't even cut aid.) But they were liberals, they were standing
nearby, so they must have been guilty. "

And again from the same thread:

"Final point: if any one person's fingerprints are on the knife, it's
R.M. Nixon. IMO the key moment came in 1973, when aid was cut between
FY 1973 and 1974. The _cut_ in aid was about $1.5 billion. South
Vietnam's entire GDP at that time was less than $10 billion. So it's
not surprising that this had fairly godawful effects on their ability
to defend themselves. But Nixon agreed to this with scarcely a
glance
backwards; he had other fish to fry, and he wanted Vietnam to be
behind
him.

"But note that the budget negotiations for FY 1974 took place in late
'72 and early '73. Watergate was barely a blip on the horizon then,
and Nixon had just won re-election in a landslide. (And gotten a
slightly more conservative and Republican Congress to work with, too.)
RMN threw the Vietnamese overboard more than a year before his
resignation, many months before Watergate had reached crisis level.
He
did it because he wanted to, not because he had to."

On the Quanta of US Aid
==================

"That is so wrong it's not even wrong.

"Correct figures for US aid to the South

"FY 1973 (July 1, 1972 - June 30, 1973) -- $2.5 billion
"FY 1974 (July 1, 1973 - June 30, 1974) -- $1.1 billion
"FY 1975 (July 1, 1974 - June 30, 1975) -- $900 million*

"*700 million appropriated, but went into cost overruns, so a bit more
than $900 million eventually spent

"Now, the 94th Congress -- the very liberal "Class of '74" -- was
elected in November '74 and took office in January '75. They didn't
cut the aid budget to Vietnam; they couldn't. That money had already
been appropriated by the 93rd, and would continue to flow for another
six months, until the end of June '75. By which point the South would
have ceased to exist."

-- But, no. That's simply not true; it's factually incorrect.
Blaming the 94th just doesn't work.

Those guys were elected in November '74 and took office in January
'75. The South was already in deep, deep trouble at that point. The
North had spent the late summer and autumn preparing for their next
attack. Then they opened up a major offensive in January that
captured Phuoc Lon (a major provincial capital and one of the South's
largest cities) and the surrounding province, which was one of the
South's biggest rice-producing areas. Phuoc Lon fell on January 6,
1975... about a week before the 94th Congress was sworn in. At that
point the handwriting was on the wall.

As to Congress "cutting off aid": no. This is a myth, and one that
shows a lack of understanding, probably willful, as to how government
spending works.

See, Congress appropriates money by passing spending bills every year.
The various executive branches then spend the money over the course
of the following fiscalyear. Once the money has been appropriated,
it's available to be spent; and Congress doesn't have anything to do
with it until the next fiscal year rolls around and it's budget time
once more.

Still with me? Okay, well, what the 94th Congress did was, they
announced that they were going to seriously consider cutting aid to
Vietnam, effective the next fiscal year. Which would begin on July 1,
1975.

Meanwhile, I regret to say, the money continued to flow through the
early months of '75. And the 94th Congress didn't do anything about
that. It couldn't. The money had already been appropriated; it was
in the federal budget, the law of the land. The 93rd Congress had
appropriated $700 million for Fiscal Year 1974. That was less than we
spent in FY 1973 ($1.1 billion) which in turn was less than we spent
in FY 1972 ($2.5 billion). But it was still pretty hefty -- those
were 1973-4 dollars, worth about three times as much as today's, and
Vietnam at the time had a per capita income of about $400 per head.

And in any event FY 1974 went into cost overruns, and we ended up
spending nearly a billion dollars on Vietnam between July 1 '74 and
April 1975. Much of it after the new Congress had been sworn in.

The North's final offensive, BTW, opened at the beginning of March
'75. It was spectacularly successful, capturing Quang Tri and Da Nang
almost at once, and Hue a couple of weeks later.

The 94th Congress had pretty much nothing to do with this. This isn't
to say that they were particularly sympathetic to South Vietnam, or
that they weren't going to cut aid just as soon as they could. They
would have.

But they didn't. They didn't have time to -- Saigon fell in April,
when FY 1975 still had two months to run, and the 93rd Congress'
appropriations were still being (over)spent accordingly.

The only thing the 94th did in terms of "cutting off aid" was, they
rejected Ford's proposal for an emergency appropriation of $722
million in April '75. That would have been emergency money above and
beyond the existing appropriation of $700 million for FY '75. This
was nothing but plain sense on Congress' part; by April '75, half of
South Vietnam was in Northern hands, and the NVA was advancing fast on
Saigon, which would fall before the end of the month. Absent a
commitment to send in US troops, no amount of money could have saved
the South at that point. Ford's appropriation proposal was nothing
but a face-saving gesture, as Kissinger candidly admitted in his
memoirs (he called it "preposterous", IMS).

If you want to blame "the liberals", go for it -- putting aside my own
views, there's a case to be made. But the 94th Congress? It's a post
facto myth, whipped up in the last 10 years or so; and it's just plain
wrong. There are reasons to dislike the 94th, but WRT Vietnam they
were pretty much a bystander.

-- I said at the beginning of this post that I used to be a
conservative activist. One of the reasons I quit, eventually, was
because the conservative movement of the time kept pushing these
bullshit historical myths. I found that, because of my political
views, I was expected to believe historical "facts" that were just not
true. And not only believe them, but actively argue that they /were/
true. This really bugged me, and eventually it drove me out of the
movement altogether.

But putting that aside: being a conservative (or anything else)
doesn't mean you have to swallow the dominant myths of your political
movement. Sure, it's easier. If you insist on getting the facts and
thinking for yourself, you'll inevitably find yourself disagreeing
with people you like and admire. But it is, in the long run, much
better (if much less comfortable) than simply going along with the
party line.

Posted by spockamok | June 27, 2007 10:28 PM

The only thing one should take away from this argument is how deeply pathetic it is, that the one (flawed, unworkable) justification remaining to the war hawks for staying in Iraq - humanitarianism - is the one reason they NEVER, EVER would have used to justify such a costly and chaotic adventure to the electorate in the first place. This is what their own failures (and lies) have driven them to.

So now that they find themselves to the left of where they wanted to be, rather than accept defeat and the error of their judgment they'd prefer to smear liberals with the hollow charge of hypocrisy, for not going along with their newfound humanitarian aims (and any other accusation they can think to throw at them). Their excuse is that Iraq is also a matter of urgent national security: "Look where we are NOW, we can't just LEAVE, the TERRORISTS will WIN." Even if one is persuaded by that paper-thin rationale, who in his right mind would continue to trust the already discredited to further prosecute this war?

Even one persuaded that leaving is not an option must admit that staying entails *permanently* staying. There is no scenario where we set all to rights and walk away. We ensured that a long time ago.

Posted by Bill | June 28, 2007 8:29 AM

"As for a), I've seen no evidence that the majority of people who've served in Iraq, or their families, are in favor of us leaving"

Well, I have. I have a cousin who went to Annapolis and became a Marine Infantry Lt. After one tour in Haditha he has decided the Marines aren't his career choice after all and he will get out when his tour is over.

I have a brother-in-law who has spent his entire adult life in the Navy and Naval Reserve. He was recently promoted to "chief"(which is the highest a NCO can go before being offered a commission). He served an active duty 4 years ago in support of Balkan peacekeeping. Two years ago he volunteered to transfer units to a Seebea unit with the foreknowledge that the Army was so desperate for soldiers that Naval Reserve units were being "press-ganged" into the Army for a tour in Iraq. Unsurprising, he was called up and spent his year away from horrible danger by serving as a liaison to the Brits in Basrah. After seeing how poorly things went in Basrah (a peaceful place, according to the righties), seeing the quality of "soldiers" called up for duty, and watching as the Iranians and anarchy filled the vacuum of the a "too-small" American presence, he is looking anew at his two young sons (aged 2 and 3) and deciding to retire so the his country won't steal more of his life for this pointless endeavors.

Did I mention the two-year, when disciplined and angry, says "Daddy, go back to Iraq." Yeah, the military loves this war with its 15 month tours and stop loss orders....

Posted by timb | June 28, 2007 10:41 AM

timb, you cannot refute a statistical argument (i.e. "a majority") with anecdotes. I didn't say that there were no military personnel or families who want to withdraw all the troops right now.

Posted by Mike S. | June 28, 2007 11:36 AM

RealityMan

Al Qaida in Iraq is not the same thing as bin Laden's AQ that attacked us.

You need to change your screen name to Alternative Reality Man.

In addition, recent polls of our troops in Iraq have found our troops have started to sour on the Iraqis as a people, which is natural when you fight guerrillas in a foreign land with a different language and you do not know who to trust.

If it were the case that most of the population of Iraq were turning against the U.S., and that the soldiers were losing any confidence that we could win, then I would support a withdrawal of some sort. I do not see any evidence that this is the case. What I see is that al Qaeda and Iran are creating mayhem and violence, the victims of which are ordinary Iraqis. The Iraqi government has clearly stated that we should not leave yet. I also see that the surge operation underway is having some beneficial results - al Anbar province is now quiet, after being the worst locale since 2003. This is clear evidence that the tactics being employed by Petraeus can work. Whether they will hold over the long term remains to be seen. But we ought to give them more time to fully implement the strategy.

Posted by Mike S. | June 28, 2007 11:44 AM

I'd have more respect for those who are arguing that the US remain in Iraq if they had signed up to fight for it and were posting from the mid-east.

Otherwise it's the Same Old Stuff: demanding other people carry the load for what you're unwilling to do yourself.

Posted by grumpy realist | June 28, 2007 11:45 AM

Mike S.: The question is, which is more important to you? If you had to give up the presidency in '08 in return for Al Qaeda being crushed in Iraq, would you take the deal?

Bill: No, that is "the question", it's a pointless non sequitur.

The major reason the Republicans are looking electorally weak right now is due to the perception that Iraq is going poorly. If it were to happen that we gained a major degree of stability and reduction of violence in and around Baghdad by next March or so, that dissatisfaction would drop considerably, and presumably the Republican presidential candidate would be in a much stronger position. There is also the possibility that Democrats would be viewed harshly for their efforts to pull us out of Iraq just when we were on the brink of a breakthrough. (It's probably more likely that people would just forget about these efforts, but that isn't a given.) The fact is the Democrats have a lot invested in the notion that the war is already lost, such that their electoral success, including the Presidency, may well hinge on things continuing to go poorly in Iraq. Which is why some of us suspect them of at least partly wishing for failure in Iraq.

The Left also wants to withdraw troops from Iraq. But right now Al Qaeda is not in control of Iraq, and the Shiite death squads and Iranians are held at bay. If we withdraw, it's pretty clear that some combination of Iran, Al Qaeda, and the more extreme Shiite elements will gain control. Is that in our best interests? Is it the proper action to take with respect to innocent Iraqis?

Ideal questions to have asked before we invaded.

Whether we should have invaded or not is irrelevant to what to do from this point on.

a) to salvage a war that was waged by deceit (and I don't just mean going to war, I mean the whole aftermath as well) and

I'm not going to argue about the decision to go to war. I think there is no evidence that anyone besides Saddam engaged in any deceit, but that argument is irrelevant as to what we should do now in Iraq. So for the sake of argument I'll just stipulate that "Bush lied us into war." What should we do now?

b) to salvage the Iraqi people, whose internecine squabbles ought to have nothing to do with our national interest.

Letting al Qaeda and/or Iran gain control of parts of Iraq would present a major problem for our national security. In addition, staying in Iraq doesn't present any obvious harm to our national security, and thus the moral question of protecting innocent Iraqis tips the balance in favor of staying. This is particularly true since we would share more responsibility for the subsequent deaths than we did for those that were occurring under Saddam.

Clearly there are tough decisions that have to be made: on the one hand, we can't send major military forces into any country that harbors al Qaeda, but on the other hand we don't want to just sit around and only attack after another 9/11.

Hmm, maybe we should pay attention to intelligence briefings and, you know, protect our airplane pilots from hijackers.

We have better intelligence about Iraq now than we did prior to the invasion. For one thing, we now know that Iraq is not a threat to give WMDs to terrorists. We didn't know that prior to invading. We've also learned a lot about how to fight an urban guerilla war, about Al Qaeda's activities, about Iran's activities, about Arab culture, etc. Furthermore, we've put major pressure on Al Qaeda's operations by killing or capturing thousands of jihadists. This has clearly degraded their operational capacities.

A sole emphasis on intelligence and treating terrorism as a criminal activity will never be sufficient, because in an open society we cannot protect ourselves from every possible avenue of attack.

So what will happen if Iran obtains nuclear weapons? What happens to the global economy if the entire Middle East goes to hell?

The entire Middle East goes to hell when the U.S. military occupies a factitious, oil-rich country in the center of it.

If you cannot imagine the ME being in a much worse situation than it is right now you aren't very imaginative.

Why didn't you ask "What happens if Pakistan gets a nuke?" Oh yeah, they're our allies.

Speaking of non sequiturs.

Obviously, nobody wants to lose a loved one to war.

Spare us the politician pieties.

I didn't bring it up, St. Louis Red said "And most of the country doesn't give a damn about "losing Iraq" - they just don't want to lose another young son, daughter, dad, mom, neighbor, or friend to this pointless war."

The questions are a) whether this war is, in fact, pointless; b) whether we will end up losing more loved ones in the future if we stop now; c) whether the relatively small losses we are incurring now by historical standards are worth preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqis and others in the Middle East.

It should be clear by now, whether or not this war is now "pointless" (is there such a thing?) that the doctrine of preemption is deeply flawed. First, learn that lesson.

Is the doctrine flawed, or was the execution flawed?

One can only reject the doctrine if one assumes that Iraq is "lost". Obviously, we differ on that key assumption.

As for a), I've seen no evidence that the majority of people who've served in Iraq, or their families, are in favor of us leaving.

The LAST people we should be asking. Of course they don't want to concede dying for a mistake.

OK, so you agree with me that St. Louis Red's comment was incorrect.

On b), it seems likely that if we withdraw from Iraq right now, Al Qaeda will gain a major propaganda coup, as well as possibly gain control of at least a portion of Iraq.

No they won't. They could never hope to overcome the Shiites, who own Iraq's future.

Oh, all right then - I feel so much better!

What are we going to do when they set up training camps there and come attack us from them?

Bomb the training camps, stupid!

I thought you just said the doctrine of preemption doesn't work. I also recall that bombing the training camps in Afghanistan was highly effective at deterring Al Qaeda.

If we leave and then have to go back, the bloodshed will be much worse.

Best not go back, then. It's not our job to build the Middle East, it's theirs.

The Middle East is not some isolated place that we can just distance ourselves from at will without suffering any negative repercussions.

As for c), we decided Vietnam was "pointless", but it wasn't pointless to the millions of South Vietnamese and Cambodians who died or were sent to labor camps as a result of our withdrawal.

You mean because we backed the Khmer Rouge and stuff? Let's abandon the word "pointless." I prefer "unwinnable."

I don't know what you mean by "we backed the Khmer Rouge and stuff(!)". I also fail to see the distinction between pointless and unwinnable.

Posted by Mike S. | June 28, 2007 12:25 PM

Being taken apart doesn't feel so bad - you guys should try it sometime!

Posted by Mike S. | June 28, 2007 12:26 PM

This theory will be put to the test about 2010 or so. The Looney Left will try to work MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction)with the Mad Dog Mullahs.
Two problems with that;
1) with enough states building nukes when that sport-fisherman with a 100 Kiloton device in the forward compartment creates a Pika-Dan in New York harbor, there will be no address for Assured Destruction to be delivered to. Do we nuke them all? Or just the ones that look funny?
2) There won't BE any Media left after New York becomes a glowing crater.
I'm good with that. I have been to New York 3 times and a 100 kiloton device will go a long ways toward making New York a peaceful, civilized place.

As far as the US in Iraq, two more facts;
1. Withdrawal from Iraq WILL NOT end the War, since Iraq is a battle (theater, or front for you socialist/communists) IN a War, NOT a separate War.
2. The Troops will stay in Iraq as long as PRESIDENT Bush wants them to. If Congress cuts off funds, the President can reallocate funds from elsewhere, as was established by the Supreme Court during the Lincoln Administration. If Congress tries to zero the entire Federal budget, it will also cut off the kickbacks they are getting. That will cost the average Congresscritter millions, which WILL NOT happen. Then there is the nasty little political fact that Congress has a lower approval rating then PRESIDENT Bush.

No, what will happen is the Left will piss and moan, but not get to loud about it, just loud enough to keep the moonbats( AKA Looney Left) from camping on their door. Then the next President will set a rational timeline for the nation building mission in Iraq. The Battle of Iraq is done and won. It's that Nation building that is getting the headlines and producing the body counts today.
Along about mid 2009, whoever is sitting in the white house will declare victory and take the credit. Everybody will be happy except the Mad Dog Mullahs, who will arrange for that little 100 kT love note in Turtle Bay, after framing the Norks for the job. Or Pakistan. Or France, Britian, China, S. Korea, or any of the other nations that will have nuclear weapons 3 years from now.
What will be interesting to witness will be if the Mad Dog Mullahs nuke New York on Monday, Boston on Tuesday, Philadelphis on Wed and offer to accept Americas surrender or do Baltimore on Thur, what will the president do? Nuke somebody? Who? Will that bring back New York or Boston? Will it stop 30 or 40 other American cities from vanishing in a Pika-Dan? Remember, as long as you play defense and don't take the war to your enemy, all you can do is lose. So that will mean invading Iraq all over again, only this time the Demonrats will be good with that, since Bush '43 will not be involved.
Losing the battle of Iraq, won't mean losing the War ( WW IV, NOT the War on Terror, which is a stooooooopid name and a big part of why we are losing), but it will make the war much longer and the use of nuclear weapons inevitable.

Posted by typos_R_us | June 28, 2007 12:49 PM

Mike S.:

The major reason the Republicans are looking electorally weak right now is due to the perception that Iraq is going poorly.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"Perception." Groovy.

If it were to happen that we gained a major degree of stability and reduction of violence in and around Baghdad by next March or so, that dissatisfaction would drop considerably, and presumably the Republican presidential candidate would be in a much stronger position.

Which is what you said in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. We're turnin' the corner!

There is also the possibility that Democrats would be viewed harshly for their efforts to pull us out of Iraq just when we were on the brink of a breakthrough.

That is too funny. Who defines this "brink"? Wait! Lemme guess! You.

(It's probably more likely that people would just forget about these efforts, but that isn't a given.) The fact is the Democrats have a lot invested in the notion that the war is already lost, such that their electoral success, including the Presidency, may well hinge on things continuing to go poorly in Iraq. Which is why some of us suspect them of at least partly wishing for failure in Iraq.

Sophism 101. If you can't see that the war is already unwinnable by now, you likely never, ever will. "We just gotta kill more of the right people! That's the ticket!"

Whether we should have invaded or not is irrelevant to what to do from this point on.

I strongly disagree. It's exactly the refusal to learn any lessons that keeps you beating the same dead horse.

I'm not going to argue about the decision to go to war. I think there is no evidence that anyone besides Saddam engaged in any deceit, but that argument is irrelevant as to what we should do now in Iraq.

My contempt for that kind of flippant slate-wiping is bottomless.

So for the sake of argument I'll just stipulate that "Bush lied us into war." What should we do now?

I dunno, stop listening to people like you?

Letting al Qaeda and/or Iran gain control of parts of Iraq would present a major problem for our national security. In addition, staying in Iraq doesn't present any obvious harm to our national security, and thus the moral question of protecting innocent Iraqis tips the balance in favor of staying. This is particularly true since we would share more responsibility for the subsequent deaths than we did for those that were occurring under Saddam.

Who's "we," bub? I'll hazard the responsibility you're sharing is..zip. If you had any inlking of a sense of "responsibility" for needless deaths you would exhibit what is known as "shame." But you have none. Don't tell people you care about "innocent Iraqis" this late in the day. Were you speaking out in '03 and '04? And don't tell me being mired in an intractable civil war "doesn't present any obvious harm to our national security." That's imbecility.

We have better intelligence about Iraq now than we did prior to the invasion. For one thing, we now know that Iraq is not a threat to give WMDs to terrorists. We didn't know that prior to invading.

Dear Lord. "We" -- the deciders -- showed no indication of CARING prior to invading.

We've also learned a lot about how to fight an urban guerilla war, about Al Qaeda's activities, about Iran's activities, about Arab culture, etc. Furthermore, we've put major pressure on Al Qaeda's operations by killing or capturing thousands of jihadists. This has clearly degraded their operational capacities.

Go tally up the number of Al Qaeda terrorist attacks worldwide since we invaded Iraq. I fail to see how invading a country, inspiring thousands of young men to join a terrorist insurgency, and then killing them in a big game of Whack-a-Mole, amounts to a brilliant war strategy.

A sole emphasis on intelligence and treating terrorism as a criminal activity will never be sufficient, because in an open society we cannot protect ourselves from every possible avenue of attack.

Right. We need to keep invading foreign lands and getting bogged down. Permanently!

If you cannot imagine the ME being in a much worse situation than it is right now you aren't very imaginative.

Kind of like how you imagined what it would look like once the U.S. invaded? So the failure of imagination is mine? That'd be funny if it wasn't totally sick.

Is the doctrine flawed, or was the execution flawed?

The execution was flawed BECAUSE the doctrine was flawed. The war was doomed from day one because no one showed the slightest concern about winning the aftermath of Saddam's fall. Instead they sent a pack of evangelical College Republicans to run the CPA. It didn't matter who was in charge, or whether we had anything approaching the number of troops needed to keep the peace, because "the Iraqis love freedom." That my friend is a flawed doctrine. And I seriously doubt someone like YOU was clamoring for a half-million strong, multinational invasion force back in the day.

One can only reject the doctrine if one assumes that Iraq is "lost". Obviously, we differ on that key assumption.

But you can have...absolutely no plan for winning it, short of wiping out large sections of the population. The U.S. electorate will not support what would be required for the hollowest of "victories." The term "victory" is a stupid GOP-talking-point red fucking herring. The Iraqis are 'all in' - we aren't, and that's not going to change no matter who wins the Presidency.

I thought you just said the doctrine of preemption doesn't work. I also recall that bombing the training camps in Afghanistan was highly effective at deterring Al Qaeda.

I forgot! War and occupation is the only answer. Not, say, thwarting a hijacking plot. We can just ignore those. When Al Qaeda is directly supported by the future government of Iraq we can revisit the issue. Clinton's bombing of Afghanistan was a failure because it was half-assed, and we missed our targets.

The Middle East is not some isolated place that we can just distance ourselves from at will without suffering any negative repercussions.

Right! War and occupation! When will I ever learn?

Look, Mike, no offense but your arguments bore me. I think your view is totally blinkered, has been consistently and repeatedly proven dead wrong, and I'm done with it. Keep honing your "stabbed in the back" routine - you're going to need it.

Posted by Bill | June 28, 2007 1:14 PM

Re: What will be interesting to witness will be if the Mad Dog Mullahs nuke New York on Monday, Boston on Tuesday, Philadelphis on Wed and offer to accept Americas surrender or do Baltimore on Thur, what will the president do? Nuke somebody?

Presumably if Iranian mullahs (or any other Mullahs) are threatening to nuke us we can threaten right back. It's not like we donlt have Teheran's coordinates. And put me down as very skeptical they will hand off nukes to Al Qaida or any other terror groups. Nukes are too valuable and too dangerous to be handed out like Halloween candy. Chairman Mao was about as megalomaniac and brutal a tyrant as the world has ever seen. Chairman Mao had nukes and supported some of the worst terrorists of the 20th century. I don't recall him handing his nukes over the Khmer Rouge, the Red Brigades or Sendero Luminoso.

Posted by JonF | July 1, 2007 9:12 AM

What will be interesting to witness will be if the Mad Dog Mullahs nuke New York on Monday, Boston on Tuesday, Philadelphis on Wed and offer to accept Americas surrender or do Baltimore on Thur, what will the president do?

The whole problem with America is that people who think stuff like this get to vote.

Letting al Qaeda and/or Iran gain control of parts of Iraq would present a major problem for our national security. In addition, staying in Iraq doesn't present any obvious harm to our national security,

This is more outwardly sane than the "Mad Dog Mullahs!", but is still such a stupid and illogical comment that one hardly knows where to begin.

Posted by sign | July 1, 2007 8:05 PM

Bill,

My apologies. I thought I could egg you on into having a semi-serious discussion about what to do in Iraq. I see now that that was not an option.

The Iraqis are 'all in' - we aren't, and that's not going to change no matter who wins the Presidency.

Yes, the Iraqis are all in, all right.

Posted by Mike S. | July 1, 2007 9:46 PM

Letting al Qaeda and/or Iran gain control of parts of Iraq would present a major problem for our national security. In addition, staying in Iraq doesn't present any obvious harm to our national security,

"This is more outwardly sane than the "Mad Dog Mullahs!", but is still such a stupid and illogical comment that one hardly knows where to begin."

Right. "Letting al Qaeda and Iran gain control parts of Iraq" IS PRECISELY WHAT THE INVASION THEY THOUGHT WAS SUCH A GREAT IDEA WAS BOUND TO ACCOMPLISH. Now they're making earnest appeals to the anti-war side about their own terrible judgment.

So that, Mike S., is what disqualifies you from having a "semi-serious" discussion about "what to do in Iraq." Why would anyone trust your future judgment, based on your past judgment? The chances of your having had any fucking idea about Iraq prior to cheerleading the invasion are near zero. But now, you're "serious" about it! Or semi-serious, anyway. Bravo.

The only serious thing to do is to leave. The damage is done, and the political future of Iraq is beyond our control. We're currently thrashing around, aiding one side and then the other, and getting ourselves killed in the process. You can't decide the fate of this country with 150,000 troops on extended furloughs. It's not going to happen. Every additional American death should be on the conscience of those who fail to come to terms with their own mistaken judgment. So there's semi-serious for you. I hope you know where you can put it.

Posted by Bill | July 2, 2007 7:53 AM

Er, I said furloughs, but was obviously thinking the opposite, that is, tours.

Posted by Bill | July 2, 2007 7:56 AM