Stoopid Stuff

More Troops? You're Kidding, Right?

It appears the administration is going to embark on it's most desperate gamble yet in Iraq. In spite of the ISG's findings and the wisdom of military professionals and the entire American people, the president appears prepared to send some large number of additional American combat troops, 20-40,000 of them, to Baghdad. One wonders if he is aware that if this gambit fails, there will be nothing left in the quiver except a full retreat?

And yet, what exactly can these troops accomplish? Who will they fight? Will they go to Anbar in some kind of Falluja II? If they are spread too thin, the Sunni insurgents will kill many of them. If they are there in overwhelming power, the insurgents will fade away, leaving only IEDs behind them. They have arms and funds - they can wait the Americans out. Will they take the fight to Muqtada al-Sadr? The Mehdi army is more than just a militia - it is a nationalist urban social movement, and while you can bleed it, you cannot defeat it. And by fighting it you make it stronger. And will the Badr brigades watch gleefully as the Americans take arms against the Shi'a, or will they come to the defense of their fellow shiites? Might they even make a temporary alliance with the Sunnis against the Americans? It doesn't seem that the Americans have a lot of good military options in Baghdad.

The consensus of opinion is that there is no military solution in Iraq. In fact, there is a very large school of thought that believes the American Military presence is contributing to the violence, instead of reducing it. But if there cannot be a military solution, what can more troops do to contribute to a solution? Iraq has reached the point where every faction from the Americans to the Government to the insurgency to the criminal element are all contributing to the horrendous ongoing violence. The only way for the violence to end is for the parties to negotiate an end to it. You can't stop violence like this with violence.

But even more dangerous is the gamble itself. What if the Americans, with great fanfare as the "New Way Forward in Iraq" put 30,000 additional combat troops into the theater. And despite bloody fighting and increased casualties, in April the violence is worse, the conditions are worse, the government is on the verge of collapse and the country is in chaos. There's no place to go from there. The additional troops that "surged" in January cannot be sustained and will have to be pulled out, along with other exhausted and depleted units. The world swivels it collective head around to gaze upon Washington with an expectent "OK, you created this mess, what now?" And there will be no solution. No "Newer Way Forward". Because the only option remaining will be how many troops to withdraw, how fast to draw down and get out.

Colin Powell was right back in 2002 when he spoke of the "Pottery Barn Rule - You Break it, You Buy It". Well, we broke it alright - and we just didn't have the resources to buy it.

posted by mikey @ 2:10 PM