Let's Talk About Iraq

Extreme Left Wing columnist Thomas Friedman editorializes in the NYT Ever since Iraq's remarkable election, the country has been descending deeper and deeper into violence. But no one in Washington wants to talk about it. Conservatives don't want to talk about it because, with a few exceptions, they think their job is just to applaud whatever the Bush team does.

I think he is doing a very good job, so yes I applaud him.

Liberals don't want to talk about Iraq because, with a few exceptions, they thought the war was wrong and deep down don't want the Bush team to succeed.

Besides they have the MSM blocking good news from Iraq.

As a result, Iraq is drifting sideways and the whole burden is being carried by our military. The rest of the country has gone shopping, which seems to suit Karl Rove just fine. Well, we need to talk about Iraq. This is no time to give up - this is still winnable - but it is time to ask: What is our strategy?

What business is it of an NYT columnist what our strategy is? That is of interest to the President and the Secretary of Defense, and I am sure if they think they need Tom Friedman's help they will ask him.

This question is urgent because Iraq is inching toward a dangerous tipping point - the point where the key communities begin to invest more energy in preparing their own militias for a scramble for power - when everything falls apart, rather than investing their energies in making the hard compromises within and between their communities to build a unified, democratizing Iraq.

Actually they are making good progress but the MSM won't report it.

Our core problem in Iraq remains Donald Rumsfeld's disastrous decision - endorsed by President Bush - to invade Iraq on the cheap. From the day the looting started, it has been obvious that we did not have enough troops there. We have never fully controlled the terrain. Almost every problem we face in Iraq today - the rise of ethnic militias, the weakness of the economy, the shortages of gas and electricity, the kidnappings, the flight of middle-class professionals - flows from not having gone into Iraq with the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force.

Let me think. That is the doctrine from the first Iraq War, which left Saddam in control, and shooting at our airplanes enforcing the North and South No Fly Zones.

Yes, yes, I know we are training Iraqi soldiers by the battalions, but I don't think this is the key.

You are an idiot. Certainly it is the key.

Who is training the insurgent-fascists? Nobody.

Actually it does not take that much training to blow yourself up or plant an IED, but they certainly have financial support both from Iran and Syria.

And yet they are doing daily damage to U.S. and Iraqi forces. Training is overrated, in my book. Where you have motivated officers and soldiers, you have an army punching above its weight. Where you don't have motivated officers and soldiers, you have an army punching a clock. Where do you get motivated officers and soldiers? That can come only from an Iraqi leader and government that are seen as representing all the country's main factions. So far the Iraqi political class has been a disappointment. The Kurds have been great. But the Sunni leaders have been shortsighted at best and malicious at worst, fantasizing that they are going to make a comeback to power through terror. As for the Shiites, their spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been a positive force on the religious side, but he has no political analog. No Shiite Hamid Karzai has emerged. "We have no galvanizing figure right now," observed Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi historian who heads the Iraq Memory Foundation. "Sistani's counterpart on the democratic front has not emerged.

That is probably good. If a galvanizing Shiite figure arose, he would certainly be opposed by the Kurds and the Sunnis, but without one, they have to work together.

Certainly, the Americans made many mistakes, but at this stage less and less can be blamed on them. The burden is on Iraqis. And we still have not risen to the magnitude of the opportunity before us." I still don't know if a self-sustaining, united and democratizing Iraq is possible. I still believe it is a vital U.S. interest to find out. But the only way to find out is to create a secure environment. It is very hard for moderate, unifying, national leaders to emerge in a cauldron of violence. Maybe it is too late, but before we give up on Iraq, why not actually try to do it right? Double the American boots on the ground

That would be stupid. It would just give the impression we intended to occupy the country, rather than having a democratically elected government run the country.

and redouble the diplomatic effort to bring in those Sunnis who want to be part of the process and fight to the death those who don't. As Stanford's Larry Diamond, author of an important new book on the Iraq war, "Squandered Victory," puts it, we need "a bold mobilizing strategy" right now. That means the new Iraqi government, the U.S. and the U.N. teaming up to widen the political arena in Iraq, energizing the constitution-writing process and developing a communications-diplomatic strategy that puts our bloodthirsty enemies on the defensive rather than us. The Bush team has been weak in all these areas. For weeks now, we haven't even had ambassadors in Iraq, Afghanistan or Jordan. We've already paid a huge price for the Rumsfeld Doctrine - "Just enough troops to lose." Calling for more troops now, I know, is the last thing anyone wants to hear. But we are fooling ourselves to think that a decent, normal, forward-looking Iraqi politics or army is going to emerge from a totally insecure environment, where you can feel safe only with your own tribe.

James Joyner blogged Tom Friedman thinks the continued violence in Iraq is a result of the administration's early decision to rely on a relatively small force and thinks there's still time to reverse that decision. Motivation is primarily a function of training, though, combined with good leadership. The terrorists can get by with little training because they're not a military force. They're not fighting as a unit but rather using suicide bombers and IEDs against soft targets of opportunity. The Shiites and Kurds, representing eighty percent of the Iraqi population, have been responsible. It's only the minority Sunnis, ousted from their former predominance, who are operating outside the system. While an Iraqi Karzai may well be desirable, it's difficult to see how more American troops will create one. But American boots on the ground is a dual-edged sword. They both stand up against violence and inspire it. Getting Iraqi troops trained and making them responsible for their own security is simply essential. If it's motivation Friedman is after, there's nothing like having to sink or swim on your own to provide it.

Cori Dauber blogged What Part of Assymetric Are You Not Getting? I'm not sure why it's so hard to understand that a force that relies primarily on a tactic of blowing itself up, and a force we hope to have performing up to certain standards of professionalim -- including on such measures as human rights and civil-military relations -- have different burdens on them, most particularly in terms of training.