Good editorial from McCain and Lieberman today in the WSJ in which they write about how right Bush was one year ago today when he announced the surge, and how wrong those on the left are still today:
Instead, conditions in that country have been utterly transformed from those of a year ago, as a consequence of the surge. Whereas, a year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was entrenched in Anbar province and Baghdad, now the forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and most humiliating defeat since the loss of Afghanistan in 2001. Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs who once constituted the insurgency’s core of support in Iraq have been empowered to rise up against the suicide bombers and fanatics in their midst — prompting Osama bin Laden to call them “traitors.”
As al Qaeda has been beaten back, violence across the country has dropped dramatically. The number of car bombings, sectarian murders and suicide attacks has been slashed. American casualties have also fallen sharply, decreasing in each of the past four months.
These gains are thrilling but not yet permanent. Political progress has been slow. And although al Qaeda and the other extremists in Iraq have been dealt a critical blow, they will strike back at the Iraqi people and us if we give them the chance, as our generals on the ground continue to warn us.
The question we face, on the first anniversary of the surge, is no longer whether the president’s decision a year ago was the right one, or if the counterinsurgency strategy developed by Gen. Petraeus is working. It is.
The question now is where we go from here to sustain the progress we have achieved — and in particular, how soon can more of our troops come home, based on the success of the surge.
They write about the fact that five brigades will be gone by July, and there is a review pending to bring home even more. But we must take it slow. If we start to withdraw too fast and allow al-Qaeda back in then all the blood, sweat, and tears our heroes have undergone would have been for naught.
But instead of having the common sense to see this we have yahoo’s like Harry Reid saying this:
“No amount of White House spin can hide the fact that the escalation’s chief objective of political reconciliation remains unmet, Iraqis have not demonstrated any readiness to stand up and take responsibility for their own country, and 2007 was the most lethal year yet for American troops,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today. “Democrats know Americans cannot afford to continue to pay the heavy price of this war and will continue to fight for a change of course that makes our country more secure.”
~~~He urged Bush “to work with Congress to redeploy our troops and refocus the mission in Iraq so we can more effectively fight the war on terror.”
Redeploy and refocus.
Memo to Reid, we did redeploy troops INTO Iraq a year ago, and we did refocus. Guess what, it worked. Now get out of the way and allow our fighting men and women to continue to put Iraq on solid ground.
Redeploy and refocus, give me a break.
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Hey, my combat patch!!!
But seriously, this is only a scant reference to EVERYTHING we have been learning in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is a cool patch though and I am proud to wear it.
It’s not just the surge that is causing this. It’s really four elements that are causing this to happen.
1. The Iraqi forces have made it to the next level. They do not flee, but lead. Without this 350,000+ force I do not think the surge would have done much. Sure areas would have been temporarily cleared with the surge, but it’s the Iraqi forces that keep the enemy from coming back.
2. The Nantional Awakining Council has done wonders in the Sunni areas where the enemy once hid. Anbar was a serious problem just last year. Now it will be handed back to the Iraqi government in March. This is equal to a country driving out it’s own military. Now this enemy has very few ways to gain strength, rearm or hide.
3. The enemy has been its own worst enemy. Much of the hatred against our enemy and respect for the U.S. forces has been due to the joint enemy of Al Qaida. Al Qaida was so bad that Sunnis and Shiites stopped fighting each other to go after their common enemy which stopped being the coalition forces and started being Al Qaida.
4. I think the surge itself was helpful, but not just because of military might (which was mainly around the small providence of Baghdad where about 2/3 of the U.S. force) is but because more Iraqis could see the coalition forces were into Iraq to help and not to rule or destroy. Winning hearts and minds is historically rare for what would be historically known as an occupying force. The U.S. has brought in the concept of a “force of change” since WWII (although attempts were made during the First Barbary War and the American Indian Wars). This force of change is completely different from forces of empires. Forces of empires occupy lands taken from former friends and enemies in order to increase the size of their own land. Forces of change turn enemies into friends and then leave unless asked to stay. By handing land and power back to the Iraqis, the coalition forces have shown that their forces are there to help (by going out in the “field” instead of staying on base), rather than Al Qaida which was an attempt at creating an empire. When the majority of Iraqis saw the difference, that’s when things started to change.
Spot on analysis Greg. My first comment was short because I was entertaining my 6 mo old also.
Part of the issue in an occupation is to convince the inhabitants that we are (A) not an empire, (B) that life under the other side is an unbearable Hell on Earth, and (C) give them the power to choose against our enemy and defend that choice.
We do very well at (A). Empires do not rearm those they subjugate. We do. It shocked the Europeans after WWII with Germany and still sends shivers up in Asia. But we do not war against a population, just their government.
(B) was much more problematic. Neither the Western nor Arab Medias and intellectual “elites” were on our side and portrayed the Coalition occupation as repression filled with rape, torture and genocidal violence while idolizing the “minute men” of the islamofascists. Irrational as it is for “progressive” intellectuals to support islamofascists who would gleefully slay and enslave said progressive, they did it. For the “Arab Street”, their intellectuals are clerics and Imams.
The enemy, as stated above, though became its own worst enemy as is often the case cited in Islamic history. These totalitarian Islamists tend to alienate and embitter those they wish to rule and end up at the pointy end of the spear. It is they who showed, without a dout that islamofascism is a repression filled with rape, torture and genocidal violence. Unfortunately, the Iraqi population had to experience this first hand until the “awakening” and a real insurgency began. This true insurgency, however, was not against the US/Coalition and Iraqi government, but against AQIM and even the Iranian pawn Shia militias.
(C) is the most difficult. First we had to reform the disintegrated Iraqi Army and THEN transform it from the arm of an oppressive dictator to a professional armed force. This is complicated by the facets of Arab culture and class. Yet we did it and still accomplish this task with new units.
NCOs and fair treatment of enlisted men are not hallmarks of many armies, yet they are essential to our Armed Forces. The Iraqis saw this and saw how professional a near 100% of US Soldiers/Marines act. They also learned that officers are not a privileged class. In my opinion, this took longer to instill and is one point I hope improves vastly. Though this failing is common in the region. A seeming majority of officers from Middle Eastern countries (I have worked with Egyptians, Saudis, Kuwaitis, Jordanians, and Iraqis) are, to put it mildly, adverse to work and getting dirty like most people are adverse to the plague. It is a cultural thing and one the Iraqis are getting over slowly. However, here they seem to outperform their neighbors’ officer corps.
Once the new forces are trained and their leaders educated, THEN they can be equipped. One has to understand that the weapons Iraqis get from the US are serial number tracked and it is a deadly serious matter if a US weapon is used against us. The Iraqis know this and really do treat the arms with more respect. However, most of the equipment they use is still of Russian/Chinese origin (The Iraqis hate the Chi-com AKs which are built as poorly as Chinese toys). The newer vehicles are a US/EU/Russian mix. Most of these are simple pick-up trucks, transports, and other support vehicles often forgotten about in other countries. These form the bulk of the Iraqi forces now though with US Forces acting as the main heavy force to deter Iran and Syria. Iraqis do have tanks and IFVs but these and these also form the first line defenses against Iran. The next big thing is to instill a “maintenance of vehicles is good and needs to be done” culture, but that goes back to my point about Middle East Culture in general.
Lastly, it does not matter the US troop strength if one does not know the enemy, know where they are, know their plans and caches, know their supply routes, and know the enemy from the innocent/intimidated population. This is the longest and costliest part of the occupation and turnover efforts. It also seems to have paid off.