Gettysburg
That’s what Frederick Kagan is calling the al-Asad summit, and everything it represents.
There are a lot of different ways to read a Gettysburg analogy, from 2oth Maine at Little Round Top to Pickett’s Charge, to turning back Lee’s Army and turning the tide in a war, to galvanizing a nation and generations to follow with a few words at the cemetery.
Bush’s visit alone isn’t any one of those Gettysburgs. It is a shrewd political act directed at the nation as much as it is directed at Congress, and with the Democratic line already beleaguered and breaking, it could have a significant effect on the latter even as it deliveres what the former has always wanted, a sense this is possible and worth it. None of which the Bush administration was ever much good at presenting nor the media and opposition interested in allowing. It makes it harder for them now to deny and obfuscate the facts Bush’s appearance there has underscored. So maybe it will go down as a banner event, something remembered for its effect. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll have to see if they find a plastic turkey to denigrate it with.
Kagan goes through some of the other ways the Bush visit represents Gettysburg, in calling attention to the remarkable and unpredictable shift in Anbar that has spread. Kagan goes into great detail about Anbar shift, how it has spread, and why he thinks it can endure. The opposition talks about lack of political progress. How can anyone look at what has happened this year in Iraq and not call the cooperation of the Sunni tribes political progress? Al-Maliki stalls, caters to other interests. Political progress is easier insisted upon than achieved, as the Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader have been telling the anti-war camp.
Kagan pays only brief attention to the domestic impact of Bush’s trip, which at this point is its most critical. That is not the military gain, what is accomplished on the ground, as Chamberlain’s 2oth Maine pivoted at Little Round Top, as Pickett’s men were wasted on a mile of open field. And you can’t call a quick conference and a photo op anything like the Gettysburg Address. Al-Asad will never be Gettysburg like that. But if, as a political event, it has only a small part of that effect, that’s enough.
A friend of mine who’s been to al-Asad described the sprawling airbase, tent and trailer camp as a barren waste of dust and sand, a blast furnace, like the surface of the moon. A lot of war has been staged out of there, though no great battle has been fought there. Someone else I know, a very young Marine, lost the use of his legs in a rocket attack there. His life hasn’t been easy since then. I would like to think that the place where that happened could have a name people would remember, a place where something important happened.
Here’s what Kagan wrote, worth reading if you still need to be convinced this is possible, and for some details you might not have seen before.
Topics: Bush, Iraq, history, pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:42 pm on Monday, September 3, 2007
One Response to “Gettysburg”
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September 4th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Jules,
A better analogy would be Vicksburg. Vicksburg surrendered on 4 July, 1863, and, more than anything else, was the real hammer blow from which the south would never recover.
With the Kississippi closed to southern trade, it also cut the Confederacy in two, and made not only supplying the country, but controlling the war much harder as to be nigh impossible. It basically turned the the civillwar into three seperate wars, and made the final defeat possible.
For the Islamo-Fascists, losing Anbar Province is the equivilant of losing Atlanta. It is a visible sign of who is making progress, that both our enemies AND our allies can see. It also places the word directly into the Iraqi ear: This thing can work!
Gettysburg was an important battle, and some few months later provided a memorial platform for Lincoln to address both sides as to the true convictions in the Federal Government.
However, the real, physical blow that started the end for the Confederacy came at Vicksburg.
Respects,