Beginning of the endgame in the Iraq War?

I'm not one to be starry-eyed optimistic about an early end to the Iraq War. Given the level of competence displayed by this administration in virtually everything they've done, especially foreign policy, I wouldn't expect Cheney and Bush to adopt any kind of serious withdrawal plan on their own unless the military commanders convinced them they were looking at a military collapse that would be compared to Britain's retreat at Dunkirk.

And as I indicated in a recent post, I also wouldn't put it past them to present a new plan for the Iraq War that consisted of attacking Iran. Although, as Neil pointed out in comments, in practice US military options with Iran are limited. And if they do make air strikes or some other overt acts of war, it could produce a "Dunkirk" scenario for American forces in Iraq.

It's in that context that I read this post from Andrew Ross, Iraq: "Coming to grips with losing" Ross Report blog 07/09/07. He points to several signs that something unusual may be up on Iraq policy. Like, "Defense Secretary Robert Gates suddenly postpones a long-planned trip to Latin American [sic], and will instead stay home to attend meetings on Iraq."

And he quotes David Kilcullen, currently Gen. Petraeus' chief counterinsurgency (COIN) advisor in Iraq saying, "We haven't turned the tide. We haven't turned the corner, there isn't light at the end of the tunnel." But he does go on to note that Kilcullen's overall assessment is more optimistic about the COIN effort in Iraq than that one-liner might suggest.

This goes along with the observations Jim Lobe makes in Neo-Cons Try to Rally, Bully Republicans Inter Press Service 07/09/07. He writes, for instance:

But the recent defection of several hitherto loyal, if privately critical, senior Republican senators has thrown the hawks - both inside and outside the administration - into something of a panic, if only because anti-war Democrats appear to be inching steadily toward the kind of majority that Bush can no longer simply ignore.

Indeed, the New York Times Monday reported that the administration is itself increasingly divided over what to do, with some officials, notably Defence Secretary Robert Gates, "quietly pressing" for beginning a gradual withdrawal of combat troops consistent with the recommendations last December of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), of which he was a member until his nomination last November.

For enough Republicans to agree on some mandatory implementation of the ISG to create a filibuster-proof majority, much less a veto-proof one, would be a big step forward.

But we also need to keep in mind that the ISG was a product of Bush family fixer Jim Baker, an Establishment proposal to give Bush and the Republicans a way to duck some of the worst political consequences of the war. Broadly, it was modeled on Nixon's "Vietnamization" program in the Vietnam War. But the ISG proposal and similar measures in Congress right now talk about leaving a residual force in Iraq for "training" and "fighting Al Qaida" and the like. The problem with that is illustrated by the fact that, in the administration's current line, everyone we're fighting in Iraq now is "Al Qaida".

Something may be up. But the only sensible, and probably the only practical, withdrawal scenario is a phased withdrawal over six months or so. Leaving "residual" forces in the middle of a raging Iraqi civil war with Turkey maybe coming into the war soon to fight against America's Kurdish allies seems far more risky in terms of force protection than a phased withdrawal of all forces.

The Turkish threat of invasion may be one of the things that's spooking the administration (if that's really what's going on with this super-secretive bunch).

Julian Borger reports on The cost of standing still for The Guardian 07/09/07:

The last good options in Iraq evaporated long ago, and getting out is likely to be more complicated and bloodier than going in.

Whether they go north or south, the 160,000 US troops now in Iraq would probably have to fight their way out against disparate enemies keen to claim the departure as a military victory.

That daunting prospect and the woeful political symbolism of the retreat (even worse possibly than the 1975 helicopter departure from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon) are in themselves powerful arguments for inertia. The attempt to move forward, the "surge", has so far borne few if any fruits, while any attempt to edge backwards is fraught with new dangers. (my emphasis)

I have often used this quote from George McGovern and Jim McGovern (no relation) in reference to the Iraq War, "Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern Withdraw from Iraq Boston Globe 06/06/05. The longer it takes to start the getting-out-of Iraq, the worse the results are going to be.

At moments like this, I really miss the late Steve Gilliard's presence in the blogosphere. This is the sort of thing on which he provided very perceptive commentary.

Tags: iraq war