Remember: We're Supposed To "Listen To The Generals"
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Featured Stories | War — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
And when the generals are really smart and brave people, they merit listening to.
So let's listen to General David Petraeus (read on):
The top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, warned Thursday that an American troop pullback this fall would lead to an escalation in sectarian killings and worsening violence.
"My sense is that there would be an increase in sectarian violence, a resumption of sectarian violence, were the presence of our forces and Iraqi forces at that time to be reduced," General Petraeus said at a Pentagon news conference.
[. . .]
Although General Petraeus did not address the political debate over a withdrawal deadline in his briefing or in a later interview, he said there would be risks to beginning a troop pullout before the end of the year.
In his comments on Thursday, as well as in private briefings to lawmakers a day earlier, according to one lawmaker who was involved, he talked about numerous obstacles to stabilizing the country, including evidence of new assistance going to Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia from outside Iraq and what he called "exceedingly unhelpful activities" by Iranian-backed Shiite militants.
American forces, he said, found evidence of this in a 22-page document on a computer seized during a raid last month that outlined details of a Jan. 20 attack on the provincial headquarters in Karbala in which five American soldiers were abducted and killed.
General Petraeus also said that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq lacked enough power to single-handedly push through measures sought by the United States that were aimed at easing tensions between Shiite and Sunni Arabs. In order to have any hope of results, the general said, pressure would be needed on factional leaders in the government and Parliament.
Though some Democrats in Congress have insisted in recent days that Iraq had grown so unstable that an American pullback would not greatly worsen the situation, General Petraeus disagreed.
"It can get much, much worse," he said. "Right now it's a good bit better, but again I am not trying in any way, shape or form to indicate that this is a satisfactory situation whatsoever."
Read it all. Of course, all of this blows away the argument that we need to start withdrawing and that our withdrawal will bring peace and stability to the situation. Not that you needed General Petraeus to tell you that; it should be blindingly obvious that a precipitous American withdrawal that leaves a yawning power chasm, eliminates any and all American influence in Iraq, comes before Iraq's elected representatives are ready to see us leave and does precisely nothing to resolve the longstanding disputes between the Sunnis and the Shi'a is . . . how to phrase this? . . . not a good thing.
But still, don't take any of that from me. Take it from General Petraeus. He knows the situation best, after all.
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Remember: We're Supposed To "Listen To The Generals" 6 Comments (0 topical, 6 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Gen. David H. Petraeus
Commanding General
Multi-National Force - Iraq
General David H. Petraeus assumed command of the Multi-National Force-Iraq on February 10th, 2007, following his assignment as the Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth. Prior to assuming command at Ft. Leavenworth, he was the first commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, which he led from June 2004 to September 2005, and the NATO Training Mission- Iraq, which he commanded from October 2004 to September 2005. That deployment to Iraq followed his command of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), during which he led the “Screaming Eagles” in combat throughout the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His command of the 101st followed a year deployed on Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia, where he was the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations of the NATO Stabilization Force and the Deputy Commander of the US Joint Interagency Counter-Terrorism Task Force-Bosnia. Prior to his tour in Bosnia, he spent two years at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, serving first as the Assistant Division Commander for Operations of the 82nd Airborne Division and then as the Chief of Staff of XVIII Airborne Corps.
General Petraeus was commissioned in the Infantry upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1974. He has held leadership positions in airborne, mechanized, and air assault infantry units in Europe and the United States, including command of a battalion in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and a brigade in the 82nd Airborne Division. In addition, he has held a number of staff assignments: Aide to the Chief of Staff of the Army; battalion, brigade, and division operations officer; Military Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander - Europe; Chief of Operations of the United Nations Force in Haiti; and Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
General Petraeus was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Class of 1983. He subsequently earned MPA and Ph.D. degrees in international relations from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and later served as an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the US Military Academy. He also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University.
Awards and decorations earned by General Petraeus include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, two awards of the Distinguished Service Medal, two awards of the Defense Superior Service Medal, four awards of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, the State Department Superior Honor Award, the NATO Meritorious Service Medal, and the Gold Award of the Iraqi Order of the Date Palm. He is a Master Parachutist and is Air Assault and Ranger qualified. He has also earned the Combat Action Badge and French, British, and German Jump Wings. In 2005 he was recognized by the U.S. News and World Report as one of America’s 25 Best Leaders.
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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
Those are traits that are an anathema, and are unwelcome, on the Left.
____
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
Cowards love similar company and refuse to acknowledge heros and greatness in others. For if they did, they would have to re-evaluate their own miserable lives.
It's frustrating and sad to see the partisan, bi-polar debate regarding our continued involvement in Iraq. Almost all agree, on both sides of the aisle, that the possibility of avoiding a catastrophe rests on the Iraqi government meeting benchmarks toward establishing their own effective security capability, fighting to reduce sectarian killings of Sunnis as well as Shiites, and achieving sectarian political reconciliation (an oil revenue-sharing deal, substantial reversal of de-Baathification, giving Sunnis an opportunity for greater participation in the government, some reasonable degree of amnesty for insurgents who have not attacked civilians, etc.). Yet the Iraqi government (which is to say Shiite leaders -- politicians, along with the veto-wielding religious leader Sistani) has made little progress toward such benchmarks.
Many/most Democrats' desired message to Iraqi leaders: We're leaving whether or not you meet key benchmarks. This sends the message to our "friends" there that they can't count on us, so they better focus on winning the civil war. Shiite leaders will align themselves more strongly with (and feel more dependent on) violently sectarian and anti-American Shiite militas like the Mahdi Army, and Sunni communities will be less inclined to reject the Sunni insurgents or even al Qaeda (since “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”). And this message sends the message to our enemies that they can wait us out, and encourages them to maximize deaths among American soldiers to drive politics in the U.S. toward this policy.
Many/most Republicans' desired message to Iraqi leaders: We're staying in full force whether or not you meet key benchmarks. This sends the message to Shiite leaders that they don't have to make any progress on anything (politically or militarily) and that they can continue using us to fight the Sunnis indefinitely.
My suggested message: We're staying as long as you start & continue meeting key benchmarks, but we're leaving (or at least substantially reducing our force and role) if you don't. In particular, we're not going to continue policing your sectarian fight in Baghdad if you refuse to try to get your act together. We won't even go after the Baathist insurgents in Anbar. We'll limit our mission to preventing or disrupting al Qaeda operations that could threaten the U.S. (and maybe patrolling the borders to limit infiltration of Iranians and al Qaeda recruits, if that's practical). If, on the other hand, the government starts and continues to meet these key benchmarks and therefore shows promise of producing a much better outcome than if we leave or substantially reduce our role, why would we still abandon them if our continued support is necessary to achieve that outcome, considering the stakes involved (potential genocide, regional war, instability of "moderate" arab states, increased Iranian power, bases for al Qaeda, much higher oil prices, loss of our credibility around the world, etc.)?
As a note, independent of the above points, I also favor moving toward greater regional autonomy ("soft partition" federalism as proposed by Joe Biden and Les Gelb), but if somehow they can meet key benchmarks without it, that may suffice to justify our continued full support. The Biden/Gelb soft partition idea (a weak central government, autonomous ethnic regions with their own security forces, and shared oil revenues), while it would not be easy to implement (particularly in ethincally-mixed Baghdad) and while ethnic separation conflicts with our ideals, makes intuitive sense to me, at least as a Plan B if reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis continues to look unlikely (and it already looks like the odds are against it being successfully negotiated, let alone implemented and maintained). Facilitating the separation of Sunnis and Shiites in a relatively orderly way and allowing Sunnis their own security forces to police and defend the Sunni population is better than letting the militants on each side escalate the slaughter of members of the other, including non-combatants who seem to be the majority of the victims of bombings and death squads.
than stated goals, or convenient ways to measure progress. They cannot be used as time-tables or pre-conditions that trigger or restrict tactical and/or strategic decisions.
And also of little importance: Biden is an idiot.
Note: This is what progress looks like.
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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
Show me how really smart and brave they are.