It Isn't Enough

Sometime in the next couple of days Congress will vote on a number of resolutions regarding the President's surge plan for Iraq. I would like to take a moment to talk about a plan they aren't voting on. I've been thinking about this for some time now. I believe it started to crystallize after I heard a commentary on NPR about how Iraq and Viet Nam are different.

The commentator was fairly off put by all the current discourse comparing our current situation in Iraq to our earlier experience in Viet Nam. The gist of what he had to say was that they are very different, and that the difference is that in many ways that did not apply then this war really does matter. I don't want to insult anyone that participated in the earlier conflict, but the reasoning does make sense to me. At one point in the story the speaker quoted John McCain as saying that "...with Viet Nam, they didn't follow us home." It does seem that we are currently engaged with an enemy who will bring the conflict to our shores if allowed to prosper in their own yard. George W. Bush's "we'll fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" may not have been entirely true when he said it, but because of the actions since then, in hind site it almost seems prophetic.

The point of the "this one matters" argument was that in this case the consequences for failure are much much higher. From oil, to regional stability, to Israel, to something as ephemeral as our world diplomatic "juice" the dominoes in this failure are much greater than the possible outcomes of the previous domino theory.

I accept this premise. "You break it, you bought it" doesn't really tell the story, although Colin Powell's early admonition does start to express the sentiment. You can always discard something you bought but turn out not to want or break by mistake. This is more akin to fixing one's own roof. Even if you screw up the job you have to live under it. But for that analogy to work the homeowner would also have to live alone on a desert island, because (if I am allowed to mix metaphors) our behavior leading up to this attempted home improvement drove off anyone else with a tool. And in this situation, there's also a storm brewing and we need the protection of our roof.

We need to let go of the disagreements about how we came to be in this situation. We can no longer care if anyone that voted for the authorization for aggressive action then would now, knowing what they know today, vote the other way. Perhaps that rhetoric has a place in the coming elections, but it is meaningless within the context of strategic decisions about how to proceed with the war effort. We cannot argue about the means the administration used to get people to vote the way they wanted. We can only look at the French, the Russians, and the Chinese and wish we had had the fortitude that they had at the time to say no.

We didn't.

Whether we supported it or not, our country started a war in Iraq. We have the responsibility to ourselves and our children to do whatever it takes to succeed.

And this, well I can't believe this, this puts me in the position of having to say that I agree with Vice President Cheney - that right now the greatest threat to our success in Iraq is that we as a country may not have the fortitude to do what is necessary.

Now don't get me wrong, there's still a right way and a wrong way to do things, and the guys at the controls now hit the wrong button more often than not. But lets not confuse strategy and tactics. Leaving the justification for action as a postulate, the biggest mistake s that have been made and the most disagreeable actions we've taken (or that have been taken in our name) have been tactical. There's no reason we can't change up tactics and still complete what we began without further dishonoring ourselves and our nation.

Much of what is left is very hard to say and grinds against everything I think I am. But I don't see another answer.

Where should we go from here? Stipulating that failure is not an option means we have to win. So beginning by coming up with what it means to win might be a good start. "We will stand down when the Iraqis stand up" is a nice sound bite, but it doesn't carry much information. The country has a free standing democratically elected government right now, so that can't be it either. Clarification of an end state might go a long way to helping us see our way - and to see the whole board.

We also just can't continue to go it alone. Somehow the rest of the nations of the world have to be brought into play (hopefully on our side). How would that be done? I don't know. After the arrogant way we chose to begin the initiative I don't know what it would take to bring our allies back into the conflict. But they need to be made to see that an international message of "we told you so" isn't productive and that a failure on our part hurts them more than it hurts us. I'm not certain the last bit is true, but it makes sense. The instances of radical Islamic problems are already higher in European countries than in the US, so it only seems to follow that a general amplification of the problem manifests more prominently there than here, at least for a time.

So what would possibly convince the other world powers that they need to come in and that we're not the strutting blowhards that we seem to be? Perhaps we should put someone in charge of the war they might be able to trust. They certainly don't trust the people running it now. Even in countries where the leadership has stayed with us, the popular sentiment is not with them, or us. Do you think Colin Powell could be coaxed out of retirement to clean up the mess he warned us about in the first place? A move like that would be read as a shocking admission of policy failure on the part of the Bush administration while having the twin advantages of not actually changing the policy (which we've now postulated is unavailable) and putting someone equipted to handle the gig in place.

Would Colin Powell be enough? Its a start, and more than just the man you get the Powell Doctrine: do not enter a battle without overwhelming superiority. That would stop the discussion of the surge.

The country is now in a snit over 21,000 troops. We should be talking about 1,000,000 troops. Enough troops to pacify Iraq, while simultaneously picking up the ground we've been losing in Afghanistan, and maintaining a reserve to deal with other flare ups or domestic emergencies. We shouldn't be talking about a "surge" we should be talking about a "WAR!"

Maybe an untainted commander and one million American Freedom Fighters would jar world opinion out of inaction.

Maybe loosing the American armed forces from people so tightly bound to industry and money would convince the extremists that their best chance is to work within the system, not to rail against it.

Does it get worse before it gets better? Absolutely, but at least an effort of this scope would put the momentum behind the push needed to change the direction. What we have now is just more good money after bad, more good people after other good people. None of them with a mission, support, or a mandate to be successful in any way. We're currently petering out an endgame where we lose. A 20,000 troop surge to this war is like honestly trying to lose weight by giving up french fries. It isn't enough. We have to commit everything we are to getting this done, or in the end it will be us who wind up done.

Draft? Yes. Convert industry? Yes. No more stories about not having the troops we need or the gear they need. Suspend normal day to day American life? Yes. Aside from the people who have family in the conflict and the companies profiteering off of the effort, very few people in this country have been touched by the war at all. How do you support your troops? Do you fly an American flag on your SUV? Maybe you should only drive your SUV on even numbered days to conserve fuel. What are we doing watching American Idol? The only American superstars right now ought to be people directly involved in the war effort. Whatever we're making in our factories right now, if it doesn't help end this conflict in our favor we need to put it aside and start making something that does.

Broad strokes changes, world changing events are not brought about by half measures or in the background. We broke it, we bought it, and failure is not an option. Regardless of how many people did or did not vote for the President, he is the President of the United States of America. Regardless of how many Congressmen voted for the war, what they thought they were voting for, or what they thought they knew when they were voting, the Congress of the United States of America and the President put our Army in harms way and our reputation on the line. We as a country need to step up and demand they do everything they possibly can, not everything the conveniently can, but using every resource at our disposal to put an end to and secure us a victory in this conflict.

Anything else would be patently un-American, and a half measure we will pay for though not just years, but generations.