Abandon Hope, Thoughtfully
Embrace the genocide. Former Globie Fred Kaplan at Slate, Petraeus plan doomed to fail. Why?
If the U.S. military had, say, 100,000 more troops to send and another 10 years to keep them there; if the Iraqi security forces (especially the Iraqi police) were as skilled and, more important, as loyal to the Iraqi nation (as opposed to their ethnic sects) as many had hoped they would be by now; if the Iraqi government were a governing entity, as opposed to a ramshackle assemblage that can barely form a quorum—then maybe, maybe, this plan might have a chance.
…One officer who’s familiar with Iraq planning put it this way to me: “No one who understands the situation is optimistic. I think the division among those who have thought deeply about the situation is mainly between those who are still fighting and trying to influence the outcome and those who have concluded that the principal objective must now become disengagement.”
… The problem—a familiar one—is that we don’t have enough troops to do this all at once. No one who has seriously analyzed the problem ever believed that a “surge” of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. combat troops would be sufficient. It was assumed from the outset that at least two or three times that many would have to come from the Iraqi army (whose soldiers, furthermore, would have to take the lead in many operations) and the Iraqi police (who would need to maintain order once the troops seized new territory).
All sounds fine for surrender enthusiasts. Except that he doesn’t back up a single point, including the “no one who has seriosuly analyzed the problem … ” remark. His points seem to be loosely based on a few opinions of people he is talking to, and on worst-case conjecture in defiance of a number of key best-case developments that are actually occurring.
Kaplan doesn’t draw a conclusion. He is intrigued, but skeptical, suggesting likelihoods and posing questions in a traditional journo dodge, a gentle, friendly undermining of serious business that will make others more comfortable with dismissing said business. So here’s a conclusion for you: Place Kaplan in the Genocide Preferred camp. Or maybe, because it’s all about nuance, in Genocide OK. Because this war thing is such a bloody nuisance, but it doesn’t have to be our bloody nuisance.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:09 am on Thursday, July 26, 2007
4 Responses to “Abandon Hope, Thoughtfully”
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July 26th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Darn it, I just can’t shake the notion that General Petraeus on the scene and with his military background is giving us a sharper picture than a former newspaperman from the ultra-liberal Boston Globe now writing for a left-wing online magazine. Where have I gone wrong.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
It doesn’t matter how many successes there are, the most vocal elements of the left will never accept it. They will keep spinning, and doctoring, and denying forever, because to do otherwise is to lose everything that keeps their rarified little world together. They would rather see Iraq and the whole Middle East go up in flames than admit they are wrong.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Kaplan has a big big problem here. Everything good he says won’t happen literally is, at an accelerated pace and everything bad he says will happen is not.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:54 am
“Place Kaplan in the Genocide Preferred camp. Or maybe, because it’s all about nuance, in Genocide OK.”
No, no, no. How many times do I have to explain this?
Genocide is the new (Acceptable) Collateral Damage.