Even with 20/20 hindsight binoculars on, Senator Obama would not support the strategy that has brought victory gains in Iraq

Obama is for a surge in Afghanistan because he can see one coming, and he can be pretty sure it will be successful. Like any opportunistic politician, he’s for whatever he has to be for, and he’ll try to take any credit and avoid any blame.

Here’s McCain’s view from a recent Townhall Meeting:

Maliki’s got Obama’s back here. What hasn’t been discussed very much is Maliki’s statement in Der Spiegel that supports Obama’s case.

Maliki being asked what reduced the violence, he says:

“There are many factors, but I see them in the following order. First, there is the political rapprochement we have managed to achieve in central Iraq. This has enabled us, above all, to pull the plug on al-Qaida. Second, there is the progress being made by our security forces. Third, there is the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias. Finally, of course, there is the economic recovery.”

No mention of the surge. And as I’ve followed this affair, I think he’s right. Obama can use this too.

The elements that combined together to create a ‘fragile but reversible’ stability for Iraq are multifaceted. Obama needs to be committed to finding a way to graft this complexity into the MSM talking points. It can educate the public as well as promote the complexity of the discussion beyond the mere and vague ‘the surge worked’ yarn.

There is little doubt the surge had the desired military effect. Doug rightly points out the other factors, cited by Maliki, that have led to increased security in Iraq. It remains to be seen whether, as was the goal of the surge, increased security will lead to substantial political process.

Here’s Biddle, advisor to Petreaus, explaining why the violence is down:

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[Questioner:] Well what do you attribute this whole change on the ground to? Is this due to what is called “the surge,” or good diplomacy by the U.S. military, or just luck?

[Biddle:] All of those things have some role but I would put “luck” as probably the biggest.

You mean the timing just happens to coincide with the Sunnis getting fed up with al-Qaeda?

Well, that’s a big part of it. I think there are about three or four major reasons for this. One of the principal factors is that the Sunnis lost the battle of Baghdad and understand that they lost it. Interestingly, most people look back at the Samara mosque bombing back in February 2006 and the subsequent sectarian violence as a great disaster. But one of the ironic features of that is that sectarian violence essentially resulted in the Sunnis getting kicked out of the capital city. They lost the fighting with the Jaish al Mahdi in the city of Baghdad and came to recognize that they were not going to win if this came to an all-out war with the United States gone from Iraq.

As a result, Sunnis have come to realize that if this violence goes all out, they lose, they don’t win. A second major factor is the way in which al-Qaeda in Iraq has screwed up—it’s nice to know we’re not the only people who screw things up in Iraq.

AQI brutalized its own prospective allies, especially Sunni tribes in Anbar, but also elsewhere in Iraq. In the course of all that, they made themselves look like a bigger threat to the Sunni population in Iraq than us, or even than the Shiite government.

A third major factor is an apparent change in Iraqis’ perception of how long we’re going to be there. I’ve heard a number of people in Iraq suggest that, partially as a result of General [David] Petraeus’ testimony before congressional committees last September, but also as a result of the changing tenor of the discussion in the United States, many Iraqi factions have gone from an expectation that we’re short timers and we’re leaving soon, and hence they need to prepare the battlefield for the big version of the civil war to come when we leave, to a view that the United States is apparently going to be sticking around for years.

That perception changes their ability to take risks. Previously, the last thing they were interested in doing was anything that might have strengthened their internal opponents, even slightly. Now, on the other hand, they seem to be willing to try it out. For example the Shiite national government is much more willing to tolerate the idea of its former semi-enemies being set up as local territorial police, because they’re more confident that the United States is going to be around to keep these people honest.

Last but not least is the effect of the “surge.” That works together with this change in Iraqi perception of how long we’re sticking around. It’s substantially safer for both the government and Sunni insurgents to experience some reconciliation if they think that there’s somebody around to provide a safety net. The “surge” provided a visible combat presence of an additional five U.S. brigades in Iraq, and a big change in mission when they came out of the forward operating bases (FOBs) and into the cities and were visibly available to stabilize the situation.

I think what a lot of press have been saying is that because the Sunnis have left Baghdad, there’s no reason for any sectarian violence anymore in Baghdad, so that’s why the casualties are down.

Let me say something about this question of sectarian cleansing as a cause of the violence decline. That is a very widespread view, and although it’s not impossible I think it is unlikely to be a very large contributor for a couple of reasons.

One is that the violence in Baghdad was always at the frontiers of the cleansing efforts and, as the cities have gotten progressively cleansed, frontiers have been moved. It doesn’t get smaller, it just moves to the next neighborhood. But the idea that if the city is 10 percent cleansed it will be more violent, if it is eighty percent cleansed it will be much less so, misunderstands the nature of cleansing. All it does is it moves the violence around. It doesn’t reduce it unless the entire city is entirely one group, and even then it wouldn’t end it in Iraq as a whole, because these people have cars. They can move, and they do move quite a bit, from village to village, locality to locality.

If all of Baghdad were rendered uniformly Shiite, the cleansing effort would just move to the Baghdad outskirts like Abu Ghraib. If they all got cleansed it would move to the next cities further out. Cleansing is unlikely to reduce the aggregate volume of killing and violence, it just changes its geographic distribution.

Technically, Baghdad is not in fact completely cleansed. Baghdad went from a Sunni majority to a small Sunni minority; Sunnis did lose the battle, but there is still a significant number of Sunni hold-out neighborhoods within the Baghdad community that are not yet cleansed, and which you could easily imagine being the focal points for a lot of violence if things were continuing as they were a year ago.
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http://www.cfr.org/publication/14805/biddle.html

Therefore, it is reasonable to understand that the ‘surge’ without these other factors, might not have worked. The surge worked in conjunction with the above factors and to our ‘luck’ it paid off, by a reduction in violence, for the present.

Biddle doesn’t mention there were other significant factors that also were involved: Walling up Baghdad in miles and miles of 12-14 foot high concrete barriers, trenching it up, wiring it up, sealing it off; it’s still that way today, Mosul the same. Sadr’s truce was another big help, so was employing and arming Anbar Sunni’s to fight AQ, pushing Maliki hard with the benchmarks, while he literally was handing out cash and jobs, and finally, various COIN strategies.

There are also others that reasonably differ with Biddle on his perspective on the Baghdad cleansing. Many think the Sunni Baghdad cleansing was complete by the time troops were filling up Baghdad.

One more point must be mentioned, there are experts in this area that argue that the foreign troop presence is another primary reason for the civil instability; that is, our troops could be stoking the unrest. Polls have shown there is truth to this. If we started to withdrawal– while implementing all the other points– instead of doing a troop surge –would violence have lessened? We won’t ever know. It is not reasonable to claim you do _know_. There simply are too many variables such a pregnant hypothetical question. If Biddle thinks the reduction in violence was a lucky break, why not extent it to a pull out?

When one registers all the above reasons the in light of the question, ‘did the surge work,’ one, therefore, could also ask in the same manner…

did the employment and arming of Sunni’s work;

did contractors walling-up Baghdad work;

did COIN work (troops living outside their bases);

did the Sadr cease fire work;

did the government giving out money work;

did increasing the speed of Iraqi security training work;

did Maliki’s political appeasements work;

did the troop surge work?

You can accent what you want, all of them were damn important.

Bigpapa #13

Agreed!

I just posted on a different thread that maybe his handlers are going to get him to select a VEEP they want, and then dispose of Obie. They wouldn’t have to kill him, just produce his COLB after the general election, or innauguration, or whatever legal time frame is neccessary for the VEEP to then toke over. Could work as a thriller in the hands of a good novelist.

“And oh yeah… he babbles…. LOL”

Yeah, but he do babble good, don’t he!

Give me some of these guys to vote for, and I will!

Okay… I’ll break it down for you, Doug

Sans the Obama opposed Surge…
…..IOW, without the Surge, which BHO opposed (but I guess you knew that, right?)

bringing needed security to Iraq
……the Surge w/add’l troops to implement a more thorough clear and hold strategy brought the security needed to Iraq

Maliki’s “political rapprochement”
….. the more cordial and workable political relations in the Assembly… at least as much as any Assembly or Congress *could* have when opinions differ

could never have happened.
….. with the security issue being improved and/or resolved in some areas, political reconciliation was impossible.

Scott… come on… you know the answer. A Messiah cannot MAKE a mistake. So of course he never has to admit one.

Reporters know this.

The Surge was so powerful that it warped time!

LINK

You did the predictable pounce, Doug. As was it was obvious you were trying to set up a timeline date gaffe with your original question and play some absurd gotcha game.

As a leftist on this (and probably most) issues you, no doubt, don’t hesitate to side with DNC claims that our presence prevented progress in Iraq… even in 2006 when violence instigated by jihadist violence against Muslims and mosques was at it’s height. Talk about conjecture. And when it comes to pure conjecture about what has not yet, or did happen in a parallel universe, you are the king as the official political palm reader here on FA. I have to laugh at your charge.

But there’s a vast difference between assessing the alternative paths with and without the Surge, and your usual political palm reading.

The political reconciliation was at a standstill for the violence, as all wanted to side with the “winners”. Without security in the state, political reconciliation was impossible. The Iraqis were not capable of providing that stability solo at that point. With our present force numbers, we also could not clear and hold… we could only clear and move on.

It was the joint manpower between the add’l surge troops and increasing efficiency of the Iraqis that stabilized Iraq and increased security. That you probably agree to. Yet here you argue that security did nothing to add to Iraq’s progress. Wha????

To provide no security, even with the awakening, the murders of tribal elders that happened prior to the surge would have continued. You think they just would have stopped? Of course not. It is a regular occurrence even today in Pakistan when tribal leaders rebel against the Taliban powers in the tribal regions. When the religious leaders get in the way, they are executed.

And while we’re on that… INRE Petraeus comment on the awakening councils safety… I heard that on one of the cable shows, didnt didn’t bother to find a print version since then.

But this isn’t new news. He’s said before, including in a Fox interview fall of last year with Brit Hume which, in a fast search (must run out for errands) I picked up the pertinent language off a blog/board with pieces of the transcript. Oddly enuf, this is a liberal blog, whining about the payments to the sheiks. So you’ll just love the source…

The point being with this excerpt is that the sheiks requested US protection and aid for their safety. They knew, as they have been targeted already, that their uprising against the jihad movement would endanger their lives, and they were not equipped to defend themselves solo.

PETRAEUS: The tribes and the sheiks decided to say no more to al-Qaeda. They were tired of the indiscriminate violence, tired of the Taliban-like ideology and other practices.

HUME: And they’re Sunnis, right?

PETRAEUS: They are Sunni Arabs rising up against a largely Sunni Arab al-Qaeda Iraq. And, again, you can see just a plummeting [in violence]. From the height back in October, somewhere in there is where one of the key sheiks [now dead] stood up and said, “Would it be OK with you, would you support us, in fact, if we, instead of pointing our weapons at you, pointed them at al-Qaeda?” And we obviously supported that.

But then I will tell you: We have not armed tribes.

Initially, the sheiks paid their men themselves. We eventually did help with that. But then we have tried to transition them to legitimate Iraqi security force institutions.

“Unrelated to the surge” my ass, guy. The sheiks themselves asked the US to watch their backs. Yet you believe the Surge had no bearing on the Sunni awakening success, in light that they are unarmed tribes, fighting well armed enemies?

Without the security in the state achieved with the surge, the reconciliation and progress we see would have been replaced with a continuation of chaos and deterioration. The awakening sheiks, based on the events prior to their security agreement with the US, would be dead.

Of course Obama’s going to say we don’t know if progress would have happened without the Surge. He’s vested in that surge being a waste, and nothing more. Yet go back to the conditions of 2006, and try to envision a free Iraq emerging out of that. If that’s your evidence, you’d better dig deeper…. because there’s far more evidence the surge and Iraq security was a mitigating factor, and not a disposal option, as Obama wants to portray.

You sure go the long mile to ignore the obvious – working overtime to try and demean the important part that the surge played in the entire process of Iraq progress. That pig don’t fly, Doug. And I’m sure there are a lot of Sunni sheiks, alive today, who would argue that point with you.

Scott typed:

‘I guess the Democratic Congress that got elected in November 2006 on the promise of ending the war…shouldn’t have authorized, and funded the sending of more troops to Iraq in January 2007?’

Bingo. A more spineless, craven bunch of politicians I’ve never encountered.

Wait. My bad.

Second to their colleagues across the aisle.

But you’re right about the utility of the surge. Overrated. We should give a little credit to the Iraqis at some point.

Scott Malensek typed:

Obama (like the Democratic Party) has used, abused, and misled on facts and claims and pledges about the war in Iraq far far more than the Republicans ever did, but people still believe em.

I’m having an image of you grinning as you typed that. Fun to make stuff up isn’t it Scott?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0713-01.htm

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/03/19/iraq_five/

Arthur…c’mon man, COMMONDREAMs is your source? A 2003 article?
2004, Iraq Survey Group concluded Iraq WAS a WMD threat, just not in the form of stockpiles (as fmr UNSCOM leader Richard Butler wrote in his 2000 book, The Greatest Threat, the REAL wmd threat from Iraq was in the form of rapid restart capability; the ISG called it a Breakout Capability), but aside from that, MOST of the pre-war WMD claims turned out to be true, and only a few were not.
2006 authenticated captured docs show that AQ groups were in Iraq before 2003, and were working with the IIS, and that the IIS was in fact supporting AQ leadership from the mid 1990’s onward

I could go on and on (and I might, the 20 lies was a great one to work with), but you ignored the core:

Obama is GWB when it comes to foreign policy, and very very little difference between them. He even admits it.

Next time…find a better source; maybe something less than 5yrs old.

Doug, thank you for disproving your own point with a handy/dandy quick at a glance graphic.

The surge’s first troops started moving into Iraq at the end of Jan 2007. Coincidently, that’s the same time BHO wanted to start his withdrawal…. I don’t believe the full troop level was reached until June 2007, right Scott? Can’t remember.

As you can see with the graph above, the violence in all arenas were on a steady rise. I assume Doug rejoices with a violence reduction Oct-Nov 07, but by Dec it was on the rise, and almost on par with Sept 06.

And, as Scott correctly pointed out, the violence peaked in Jun 07 when the last of our troops were arriving, and the steady freefall is plainly visible from there.

Nice catch, Doug… oops, no doubt you are saying.

The “past is closed” for speculation, eh? Funny, (I’ll bet..) you don’t believe that about AGW. Guess you have selective conjecture problems.

But I’d say you put to rest the notion that the surge was not instrumental in Iraq’s security. Now how are you planning to convince anyone that Iraq could have today’s progress if there was no security in the State?

UH, …DOUGY

Dum@$$

First on your sectarian stats… which are not shown on the graph I posted, but in a series of graphs below, you are reading them wrong. But first, look again at the attacks in the above graph. They had their highest peak to date in beginning of Sept… also, coincidently the beginning of Ramadan that year, and fell thru the Ramadan period. After Ramadan, they went up and down.

The first troops started coming in at the end of Jan… the 31st. Yet at the beginning of Jan, the attacks were up almost as high as the peak of Sept 06. We did not have all the troops in for months, and the militants/jihadists embraced the fight with serious activity, as the graph shows.

Now, to go to your sectarian deaths analysis

You’ll notice in the same period, that sectarian-ethnic deaths (bottom left graph) were on a steady rise since Aug 06. They did not start the decline until the Surge commenced in Jan 07…. with a peak in July 07, just after all our troops and equipment arrived. From there… steady decline.

So I’m confused where you’re coming up with your analysis?

As for McCain’s timeline stumble… already old news. I sure as heck am not going to defend JSM for his gaffes as both candidates stumble often. I believe JSM’s grasp of the Iraq strategy is on more solid ground than BHOs. And I certainly believe that JSM’s mistaken time frame of the Sunni sheiks (which as I pointed out above, started their push back but then requested the US watch their back for safety so they could continue), is easier to make because of their simultaneous happenings, and obvious benefits for the sheiks and their tribes.

On the other hand, BHOs statments that going into Iraq in 2003 “took our eyes off the ball” and enabled the escape of Bin Laden from Tora Bora in 2001-early 2002 is absurd since we weren’t Iraq at that time.

So you point out media outlets like LA Times and Huffpo coming up in Google searches that criticize JSM for his timeline. Uh… so what? Considering it’s something to seize on about JSM that’s negative, at least they’re giving him some coverage, so they say. Otherwise they are a non stop 24/7 campaign advertisement for BHO. I fail to see your point, other than you adeptly point out how biased the media is. But we all know that.

As I said, this is the first election I’ve ever seen where one candidate is an “also ran”….

Matt Yglesias makes an interesting point, as well as opening up a new can of worms:

Robert Wright and Jim Pinkerton raise an important issue — it’s very clear from the record that John McCain strongly supported the dispatch of additional troops to Iraq, but it’s not at all clear that he supported the suite of counterinsurgency tactics that he now wants us to believe is what the term “the surge” refers to. Indeed, the basic shape of the Anbar Awakening — talk to your enemies, make concessions to bad guys to get them out of the terrorism business, etc. — doesn’t sound at all like the kind of thing McCain supports philosophically.
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http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/

I know certainly there is a legitimate distinction to make between the surge and the Anbar COIN, yet myself, I can’t say where McCain has been on COIN in Anbar. I do know he was upset and skeptical with the ‘”old” Way Forward’ under Rumsfeld.

I’m almost positive this will now be the next background check on McCain’s statements about Anbar. –Stay tuned.