The Obligatory “WTF Is Joe Klein Smoking?” Post
Glenn has pretty well covered the imbroglio-inducing statement, but here’s a less-examined claim that really shows how separated from reality Klein has become:
Obama, the poker player, has drawn to an inside straight: the Iraqis favor his plan over McCain’s long-term bases.
Only the most intellectually dishonest reading of the situation could justify that statement; the WaPo has devoted an entire op-ed to debunking the ridiculous notion that Iraqis would rather see al-Ameriki withdraw on a fixed timetable from Washington without regard to conditions on the ground:
But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki’s timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama’s. More significant, it would be “a timetable which Iraqis set” — not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki “wants some flexibility in terms of how that’s carried out.”
Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq’s rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown
Only slightly less bizarre is how Klein and the MSM have seamlessly transitioned from calling the war unwinnable to saying things like:
The reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Nouri al-Maliki nor most anybody else believes that the Iraq war can be “lost”‘ at this point.
And of course, the prescription for an un-lose-able war is exactly the same as for an unwinnable war: withdraw! One has to at least admire their constancy of purpose in the face of exactly opposite assumptions. One pictures a British Klein in June, 1940 saying:
…we shall go on withdrawing to the end, we shall withdraw in France, we shall withdraw on the seas and oceans, we shall withdraw with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall not defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall withdraw on the beaches, we shall withdraw on the landing grounds, we shall withdraw in the fields and in the streets, we shall withdraw in the hills; we shall never cease our surrender…
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12 comments
There really is a lot of burying our head in the sands and trying to deny what is clearly going on.
The war in Iraq at this point can not be won or lost by the US. Only the Iraqis themselves can win or lose this war. The point of a withdrawal timetable was to motivate the Iraqis to make political compromises and to take responsibility for security in Iraq rather than relying on US forces to do it for them. The original surge plan was to send 30,000 or so more US troops into Baghdad to improve security in the hopes that would motivate the Iraqi government to make political compromises and take more responsibility for security in Iraq.
Neither one of these plans was a plan to lose the war. They were different views of the best way to motivate the Iraqis to make political compromises and take responsibility for their security.
John McCain can claim that "the surge" was a better plan if he wants, and point to is success, but for John McCain to claim that Obama "wants to lose" in Iraq is plainly scurrilous and in simple words an outright lie.
The Fred Hiatt’s Washington Post editorial is one of the most incredible pieces of propaganda I have ever read. Hiatt is obviously trying desperately to spin facts to hide the Iraqi governments total rejection of the Bush/McCain Iraq plan calling for a 30 to 100 year occupation of Iraq and endorsement of a plan which is far closer to the Obama plan.
Hiatt is spinning so fast I think he is getting dizy. His editorials are making less and less sense.
Outright lie? Hardly. He stated openly that the surge had no change of working and that we’d already lost. That is defeatism no matter how you slice it and no matter how hard you try to spin away with it. He was preaching failure until it could no longer be denied that we were succeeding tremendously, and still has waffled and wavered and tried to wonk his way out of it.
That his booster club now try to claim he was for success all along and that our success only proves that he’s right says a lot about Obama-boosters, not much of it good. Apparently the Obamessiah can’t just admit to being wrong and, worst, can’t even say how glad he is at the success story that both Americans and Iraqis can and should be very proud of.
I’m now more confident than ever that he’ll be gladly taking credit for the victory in Iraq by the time he’s sworn in. Those of us who’ve been involved in this long and noble struggle, either over there or here on the home front, will know better.
It’s not just Republicans who are noting Obama’s defeatism. It’s people who voted for him in the primaries, as Dave’s link shows.
Obama (not to mention his supporters) would get a lot more respect from me if he’d just admit to having been wrong. I doubt he’s got that in him though; he’s much too much like George W. Bush for that.
Dean,
Before the surge we had 130,000 or so troops in Iraq. It was widely believed that we would need 400,000 to 600,000 troops in Iraq to "win" the war (ie, militarily defeat al Qaeda, other Sunni nationalist resistance groups, and the Shiite resistance groups). Sending an extra 30,000 to 40,000 troops was not going to get the job done. The US simply did not have the troops needed to win.
The whole original idea of the "surge" was to improve security around Bahgdad by a little, particularily near the greenzone, and that this would motivate the Iraqi government to make some political compromises and to take resonponsibilty for improving their own security. The Iraqis had 300,000 or 400,000 troops they were not using very effectively.
The "surge" was a very risky strategy. It used up all of the US reserve forces available to deal with any other major crises, and therefore put US national security at significant risk. As it turned out the timing of the surge was very good. In Feb 2006 Muqtada al-Sadr order his militia to stop death squad ethnic cleansing. In Aug 2006 Muqtada al-Sadr order his militia to start observing a cease fire. In Sept 2006 the Sunni Awakening started in Anbar. This allowed the US and Iraqi forces to get accurate intelligence on al Qaeda in Iraq and to effectively fight them. It was not until Nov or Dec 2006 that anyone started talking about the surge and the first surge troops did not arrive until March 2007. By the time the first surge troops arrive, al Qaeda was already on the run in Anbar.
There is no question that the surge troops helped accelerate the Awakening. Many of the surge troops that had originally been target to Bahgdad were deployed to other parts of Iraq to help spread the Awakening across the rest of the country.
It is a serious error to claim that the surge has done nothing to improve the situation in Iraq. It is an equally serious error to claim that the surge is responsible for all of the surity improvements in Iraq or that the surge has "won" the war in Iraq.
If the next president we elect seriously believes that the surge "won" the war in Iraq, he will be tempted to simply repeat the mistakes of the Iraq war again. Neglecting the contributions that Iraqis have made is a very serious error.
Dude, what are you talking about?
Dude, what are you talking about?
If McCain believes that the surge defeated terrorism in Iraq, then he is unqualified to be president. It was the Iraqis that stepped forward and provided the critical contribution to defeat the terrorists in Iraq. The surge helped, but it was the Iraqi change of heart that made the critical difference. That Iraqi change of heart started in mid 2006, long before any surge troops arrived or anyone had even heard of the surge.
It would be a disaster to elect another president that believes the failed policy of unilateral US military action is the best way to deal with terrorism.
If McCain believes that the surge defeated terrorism in Iraq, then he is unqualified to be president.
What a ridiculous statement. The Awakening would obviously have been slaughtered without our help. They came to us begging for that help. The surge provided it.
The Awakening was certainly critical, but the tactics later applioed in the surge created the Awakening in the first place by showing we would defend the populace and treat them well. It was the success of those tactics in a few towns in Anbar that led to their wide adoption in 2007. The surge recognized the success and applied them over the country, actively and deliberately expanding the Awakening a hundredfold.
It would be a disaster to elect another president that believes the failed policy of unilateral US military action
Even more absurd. Unliateral military action is nonexistent; we had help from dozens of countries, and the effort was hugely successful.
If Obama’s Iraq policy is a poker hand, it’s a busted flush. He flopped paint, but missed on the turn and river. McCain’s pair of sixes held up.
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If Obama’s Iraq policy is a poker hand, it’s a busted flush. He flopped paint, but missed on the turn and river. McCain’s pair of sixes held up.
You know what we call people who call raises with 64 off and then call down with a pair of sixes? We call them fish. They win pots often enough that they do not realize how badly they are playing. That is the beauty of poker. In the end though, the fish that play like that are lifetime losers.
mikeca:
re "The point of a withdrawal timetable was to motivate the Iraqis to make political compromises and to take responsibility for security in Iraq rather than relying on US forces to do it for them."
BS.
The theme showed specifically to attempt to refute the idea that withdrawal before Iraq forces are ready is a flat out loss for the US. The point of withdrawal from the standpoint of the people that supported the notion was (1) get the US out of an immoral war, (2) get the US out of a losing situation, and (3) stop getting US soldiers killed. No one in the withdrawal camp ever thought that the Iraq military is capable of holding a stable country in peaceful conditions within the timetables proposed, including the more recent ones proposed by Obama or Iraq (hence the major caveats and potential bailout built into the Iraq PR).
The surge helped, but it was the Iraqi change of heart that made the critical difference. That Iraqi change of heart started in mid 2006, long before any surge troops arrived or anyone had even heard of the surge.
So, it was the Bush admin’s "stay the course" policy that finally paid off?
You’re actually crediting the WP editorial with doing anything other than laughably trying to avoid the obvious? Their entire case hangs on the laughable idea that because 16 months is slightly shorter than 2010, that the Iraqis saying that they hope we’re out "by 2010" isn’t basically agreeing with Obama over McCain… when in fact Maliki has also said directly that Obama, by name, has a better handle on things.
And now McCain has declared that when he says "the surge" he means that the surge wasn’t actually the surge, but everything that came before the surge also, allowing the surge to cause events that happened before it.
It’s one thing to argue that the surge was the right call (though saying that it was "risky" basically concedes that it was a gamble, which somewhat deadens any rhetoric about critics being irresponsible in opposing it), which is a great point for McCain to hammer down Obama’s throat.
But it’s quite another to descend into sheer absurdity in defending incoherent gaffes that badly misunderstand the very policies you’re championing, and trying to spin the apparent perference of the Iraqi government as to how we should go forward.
And now we apparently have the McCain campaign saying that they can get us out of Iraq faster than Obama can, which is all kinds of "wtf?"
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What a ridiculous statement. The Awakening would obviously have been slaughtered without our help. They came to us begging for that help. The surge provided it.
You have the history of this all wrong. It is no wonder you are so confused about what is the best course forward when you have no idea what happened in the last few years.
When the awakening started the US started paying various Sunni tribal and nationalist groups that had previously been resisting the US to become a militia and restore order in their areas. The US provided arms, training and it payed salaries to the men. In addition to restoring order, they provided the US with intelligence on the location of al-Qaeda in Iraq groups. This allowed the US forces or joint US and Iraqi forces to hunt down and drive al-Qaeda from Anbar. Al-Qaeda was already mostly driven out of Anbar before the first surge troops arrived. There were two things that allowed the awakening to succeed in Anbar. First many of the nationalist resistence groups switched sides, isolating the al-Qaeda resistance cells. Second, the Iraqis knew exactly who the al-Qaeda resistence fighters were and gave the US and Iraqi forces the intelligence to find them. This is basic counterinsurancy strategy.
What the surge did do is provide some addtional troops in other regions of Iraq which allowed the Awakening to be duplicated more quickly in many other parts of the country.
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