A Surge of Told-You-Sos
I can’t get all excited about debates about the “surge” – mostly because Matt Yglesias is right: before the surge, things looked bleak, and all options looked like they risked real disaster; now that the surge has worked tactically, all options look better. Tactical success has opened up more strategic possibility. The real debate to be having, though, is about strategy.
Ross Douthat, meanwhile, is highly skeptical of Democrats who supported a surge of troops in 2003-2004, but opposed the surge in 2006. But, apart from a general distrust of Democrats, why should he be? After all, objectively the Dean/Kerry argument was correct. More troops in 2003-2004 might well have avoided the ascending spiral of chaos of 2005-2006, and the odds of success appeared much better in 2003-2004 than they appeared in 2006-2007. The success of the surge vindicates their view: after all, I haven’t heard anyone argue that the surge was more likely to succeed now than it would have been four years earlier. Assuming all domestic participants in the debate are acting in good faith (or that all are acting in bad faith), the worst one could say is: Kerry and Dean were right years before Bush, and by the time Bush came around to their view they had (in retrospect, prematurely) given up hope. That’s not a very damning indictment, is it?
But, returning to the real question: how does the success of the surge impact our evaluation of the strategic question before us, or of the candidates who are vying for our support to pursue their chosen strategy over the next four years?
On the strategy itself, very little. A short-term reduction in violence is a very poor predictor of the viability of a long-term large-scale military presence (McCain’s goal), and says nothing about whether such a goal is to be desired. By the same token, it sheds no light whatsoever on the viability of a “grand bargain” with Iran. Since that is the big strategic question to be answered – do we want a big military ground presence in the region to contain and deter Iran, and to keep the Gulf states from hedging their bets and shifting away from a reliance on American protection, with all the military and diplomatic risks such a strategy entails; or can we accommodate a rising Iran to a certain degree and deter really reckless behavior from offshore – debate about the surge and who was right about the surge is somewhat secondary in importance – tertiary, in fact, since a debate over the wisdom of the war in the first place should probably be secondary.
On the two candidates, not too much more. Both candidates are vulnerable to the charge of being stopped clocks who were right at a critical moment. Barack Obama opposed the Iraq War, and opposed it from the beginning. John McCain supported the surge and, unlike his President, supported it years before it was implemented – supported it back when it was a Democratic talking point against the Bush Adminsitration. How much light does this shed on which candidate is more capable of guiding our foreign policy going forward? Not much. If they are both truly stopped clocks, then neither is going to be a particularly good steward of foreign policy. What both candidates need to convince us is that they are not stopped clocks. Senator Obama at least seems to realize this, though I don’t think he’s done an especially good job of convincing so far. McCain, on the other hand, seems to be relying on personal qualities to get Americans to trust him, and to leave it at that.
Good post Noah, but I think you’re too trusting that Kerry/Dean thought through the “facts on the ground” to make their decisions. I think they opposed Bush and the war for the sake of doing so, and their responses in that sense were more knee-jerk than they were measured. Not that opposing the war (or Bush) hasn’t been vindicated on several levels, but I do think Kerry et al. have missed the point on the current surge.
I returned from Iraq in March 2003 due to injury, and I remember hearing the word “quagmire” on the television in the following months. Even if much of that negativity was later vindicated, it wasn’t rooted in principle at the time. Much of what stinks about this war, is true of most if not all wars.
— Ferrell · Jun 25, 05:12 PM · #
Being harder on Kerry/Dean then I mean to here, but the point about their wanting the surge first, is hogwash. What they wanted to do was punch at a SecDef who was an easy (and worthwhile target and people like Shinseki gave them a means. If you want to tell me those men actually wanted a “surge” like the one we have in Iraq, you’d have to reconcile it with the fact that (1) they also wanted to reduce tour lengths and use of the reservists, which would’ve precluded the surge, and (2) they both wanted to increase the military commitment in Afghanistan, which, likewise. Now, I’m not in great disagreement with either of those goals — but you can’t support them, and the troop “surge,” and Klein is foolish to think otherwise.
— Sanjay · Jun 26, 01:02 AM · #
The success of the surge vindicates their view: after all, I haven’t heard anyone argue that the surge was more likely to succeed now than it would have been four years earlier.
I can’t imagine anyone would have guessed this at the time, but in retrospect maybe that is in fact true. A lot of things fell into place in ’07 that might not have happened in ’03. Sunni and Shia had moved to separate neighborhoods. Sunni had grown deeply irritated with AQI. We had commanders who were quick-thinking and bold (and desperate?) enough to grasp a changing situation and risk giving money and arms to former enemies to turn them into enemies-of-our-enemies.
Weirdly enough, things might actually have been worse if the surge were done earlier—maybe there was just no way to avoid the ’06/‘07 wave of violence once we decided to invade. Or maybe it could have worked. That counter-factual world, much like the counter-factual Iraq Study Group Baker/Hamilton world, is forever unknown to us.
The real lesson here is that any strategy that depends on being able to predict future Middle East events is an inherently dangerous one, because nobody seems able to do that consistently.
— Consumatopia · Jun 26, 03:11 AM · #
Consumatopia: I heartily agree with your last sentence. And the rest of your post is well-taken as well.
Ferrell/Sanjay: I wasn’t really trying to seriously contend with the question of the sincerity of Democratic talking points. I only wanted to highlight that Ross’s post rested on the presumption that one side in the debate (the Democratic) argued in bad faith, while the other side (the Republican) argued in good faith. I don’t see much evidence for that distinction; rather, there’s evidence of good and bad faith on both sides. Assuming good faith on both sides, the Democrats were right. Assuming bad faith on both sides, the Democrats didn’t mean what they were saying – but were still right. And Bush ignored their advice without evaluating the merits because he wouldn’t deign to consider the possible merits of Democratic criticism of his conduct of the war. Either way, I don’t see how you spin this to the GOP’s advantage. The only way to do so is to presume good faith on the GOP’s part, and bad faith on the part of its critics. And if you tilt the playing field that much, it’s not hard to spin anything to your side’s advantage.
— Noah Millman · Jun 26, 01:12 PM · #