The surge is working

John McCain and Joe Lieberman:

The Bush administration clung for too long to a flawed strategy in this war, despite growing evidence of its failure. Now advocates of withdrawal risk making the exact same mistake, by refusing to re-examine their own conviction that Gen. Petraeus's strategy cannot succeed and that the war is "lost," despite rising evidence to the contrary.

The Bush administration finally had the courage to change course in Iraq earlier this year. After hearing from Gen. Petraeus today, we hope congressional opponents of the war will do the same.

Some of that "rising evidence to the contrary" can be found in Michael Totten's absolutely fascinating first-hand account from Ramadi, a city once written off by the Marines as irretrievably lost, but now reclaimed thanks to the surge. It's the most convincing account I've read of the success we're (finally) having in Iraq, and frankly, I don't understand why the hell it's being left to individual conservative bloggers to write accounts like this. Where is the media? Where is the Bush Administration's vaunted propaganda machine? Seriously, why aren't we hearing more about this sort of thing? If we were, I think it would go a long way toward convincing Americans that there actually is a purpose to remaining in Iraq, that there are real, attainable goals we can achieve by continuing the fight -- that we can still win, and that "victory" actually means something real and tangible.

Anyway, whatever you think of the war, Petraeus, or the "surge," Totten's article is excellent and I highly recommend it. (Double hat tip: InstaPundit.)

CORRECTION: In comments, Totten himself writes, "for the record, I am neither a liberal nor a conservative." Well, I for one certainly know what that's like. :) I stand corrected, and I apologize for the error.

Comments

[Brendan Loy]

Minus 5 karma points to the first idiot who responds to this post by saying, "Well, why don't you go enlist?"

[Angrier and Angrier]

Where is the mainstream media? Katie Couric and CBS Evening News just spent a whole week reporting on the positive impact of the surge.

If you want to see what will happen when the surge ends, look at Basra now that the British have left.

The fact is a large enough U.S. presence will quell the violence. The problem is, what happens when we aren't there? (Be it five months from now or five years from now?).

The country is run by a bunch of families. They are like warring factions of the Mafia. Somebody will inevitably feel left out. The minute we leave, it will be civil war. And, I don't think Americans want us to have 150,000 troops permanently stationed in Iraq.

[Joe Mama]

Well, why don't you go enlist? ;-)

[megapotamus]

Is Totten a "conservative" blogger? Ceratianly, along with Michael Yon, his accounts are about the most reliable according to the norms of journalism formally defined but, at least from his incidental commentary, it seems to me he is liberal or at least center-left leaning otherwise. Just being fair or supportive of the war may well be the defining attribute of a Conservative these days but it's not indicative of political philosophy. Look at Baird.

[Ars Sine Artificio]

And, I don't think Americans want us to have 150,000 troops permanently stationed in Iraq.

Because they're certainly howling mad about us still being stuck in Truman's Quagmires in Germany and South Korea...

[dcl]

Hmm, I'm not sure I buy the South Korea thing, which is just an armistice signed by IKE. And something that requires the world's largest mine field to keep it from becoming a hot war is not exactly a settled situation. However, since US troops are not dying on a daily basis in South Korea I a) don't see the parallel and b) Americans have largely totally forgotten the issue.

Sticking around in Germany is largely a waste of money at this point now that the cold war is over, which is the real reason we were there. But again a) not getting killed and b) largely forgotten so c) lacks a logical parallel.

As to Brendan's fist comment. I'm not necessarily certain I see how it follows that those saying the surge should be maintained should not be questioned on their own personal commitment to the war given that, at present troupe levels and reserve levels the surge is unsustainable and would probably need to go on longer than it is sustainable to actually make some political headway in the country--which, correct me if I'm wrong, is the goal of this thing in the first place. At this point A&A is correct, the US has succeeded in building a house of cards and if the political structures of the country can't firm up those cards it doesn't matter if we leave now or six months from now or sixteen years from now those cards will collapse. If we left Germany it would not collapse. If we left South Korea they might be invaded. On the other hand if we are making political headway towards a long term settlement of the issue, that is a horse of a different color. Also there is no real need to keep the South Korean's from attacking us. We are there to help them defend themselves from an aggressive outside attack in the middle of a stalemate. So since Joe already brought it up...

[Angrier and Angrier]

I think the Administration and the Military would do itself a favor by honing up to the fact that the U.S. will need to be there another 10 years to succeed. Start a draft. Build up the military, etc.

Otherwise, this six months here, six months there will inevitably result in a Vietnam-type pullout.

[Sandy Underpants]

Well it's good to see that we're winning again. It was looking pretty hairy there the last few years. I feel much better now about spending a billion tax dollars a week on this project. Even Joe Biden got me giddy when he said spending one billion dollars on a cougar (armed vehicle) to protect 10 Marines inside from dying is money well spent.

If the government granted me one billion dollars to work with, I could make this world a better place than continuing this idiotic Iraq-project ever will.

Ron Paul has it right-- We shouldn't be taking the advise of the idiots that got us into this mess in the first place. If it takes electing Howdy Doody president to end this disaster, then that's what ought to be done.

[Michael J. Totten]

Thanks for the links and compliments.

And for the record, I am neither a liberal nor a conservative.

[David K.]

Before we start declaring the surge a success we should ask some important questions:

1) Has the use of troops to pacify some areas caused other areas to backslide?

2) Is the effort sustainable at our current troop levels? If not how many more troops will we need, and where will they come from?

3) Is it creating a permanent solution, or will these areas backslide into violence if/when our troops leave?

4) Is the Iraqi government making appreciable progress so that they can take over this effort? If so, how much longer until they do?

5) Is it worth the economic toll that this war is taking on our country? Could the money being spent in Iraq be better used to improve security at home?

6) Is it actually creating a safer Iraq and a safer world, or are we creating pockets of saftey while providng, as some have argued a recruiting tool for the terrorists to use against us?

[Marty West]

For once I agree with David K. Those are all very valid questions that the g-ment refuses to answer.

[Angrier and Angrier]

"1) Has the use of troops to pacify some areas caused other areas to backslide?"

Yes. It's called Tal Afar, a place that Bush touted as a success a year ago when Petreaus was practicing his anti-insurgency methods there...

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/nation/article/0,1299,DRMN_16_5694487,00.html

...Since we have reduced our troops there, Tal Afar has once again become a war zone. Petreaus saying that the U.S. will be able to pull troops out of Iraq in six months is a pure fabrication.

[Brian H]

dcl;
TROOP, not TROUPE. Unless you're REALLY a believer in song-and-dance. And "strawman" is the most appropriate TROPE for your analysis, not "house of cards".

Dirty Lingeré;
Aside from the "value" of human lives, any idea what it costs to recruit, train, equip, and transport 1 Marine to a combat zone? Giddiness is the least of your mental disabilities. And your incomprehension of the scale of causes and effects involved is even more evident in your billion-bucks assertion.

Go back to sleep.

[John]

If you despise the lies that pervade every crevice of the MSM, support Michael by signing up with BlogPatron and sending him a coupla bucks a month on your credit card.

Support facts-based journalism. Put your money where your mouth is and send him a small donation every month. The truth is worth every penny.

Gee, John sounds like a balanced individual...

[Condor]

I'm not going to tell anyone to enlist, but success in Ramadi is not a demonstration that the surge is working. To demonstrate that the surge is working, one has to show both that there is success in Ramadi, and also that other places are not getting worse. In other words, one has to show that whack-a-mole (to use a technical term) is not in effect.
Furthermore, the goal of the surge is not merely a military goal, it's to enable political progress. The surge is failing in this respect, though this failure is not necessarily the fault of the military. After all, suppose that the surge increasingly diminished violence for the next ten years, but there was no political progress. It could hardly be called a success.

[Anonymous Hoosier]

Brendan: In addition to Katie Couric (mentioned by A&A above), Michael Gordon has been filing regular reports in the NYT documenting the successes - as well as the failures - of the last few months. (It's admittedly unclear that anyone who writes for the editorial page is reading those stories, but that's another issue). And in the last week or so, Gordon has been doing double-duty as a talking head. It's not the same level of in-depth feature reporting that Michael Totten (and Michael Yon) have been doing such a good job at, but the MSM doesn't seem to have found a way to build that into their current business model.

Also, maybe a live comment from Michael Totten isn't quite as cool as a link from Glenn, but it's pretty damn cool! I bet you have a lot of other readers who have made contributions to Michael over the last year.

[Joe Mama]

Petraeus's slides are pretty interesting.

[Condor]

Apparently George Will has been reading my posts.
By Bush's Own Standard, Surge Has Failed:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/by_bushs_own_standard_surge_ha.html

No he hasn't.

[Condor]

I'm afraid so, actually.

[Tom Perkins]

Ang.&Ang. wrote:

Petreaus saying that the U.S. will be able to pull troops out of Iraq in six months is a pure fabrication.

And this shows he has no idea what Petraeus said, which was that withdrawals of some units can be made from some areas in the near future.

And that is almost certainly true.

Tom,

You must be new here. No one pays attention to Angrier and Angrier because he never knows what he is talking about.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Funny. I "never know what I am talking about" yet in the time I have been on this blog (since late 2005), most of the American public and many of the users of this site have gone from being supportive of Bush to seeing things my way when it comes to Iraq. Maybe it is you who "never knows what he is talking about."

[Angrier and Angrier]

Just in from CNN...

"President Bush will announce this week plans to cut U.S. troop numbers in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer"

...Another example, Tom, of how I "never know what I am talking about."

[Joe Mama]

Exactly right, because "by next summer" is not "in six months," which is what A&A said.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Petreaus had been saying six months. Now Bush is saying "next summer." The schedule is already slipping.

The fact is Bush has no intention of doing anything. His "exit strategy" is to maintain the status quo, leave office in 2009, hand this mess over to his successor to clean up and hope to hell that history sees him as Harry Truman and not LBJ.

[Angrier and Angrier]

That is an interesting slide, Joe Mama. Even by Petreaus's accounts, violence in Iraq is worse now than it was 18 months ago. Nice going pointing that out pal.

PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL

[Angrier and Angrier]

"PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL"

And here I thought you were devoid of wit. Guess you showed me.

[Joe Mama]

Sorry, but sometimes I can't help myself.

That is an interesting slide, Joe Mama. Even by Petreaus's accounts, violence in Iraq is worse now than it was 18 months ago. Nice going pointing that out pal.

And Petreaus's very same accounts show a decline in attacks since then that is even sharper than the increase from the beginning of 2006 to mid-2007, which also just so happens to coincide with the shift in tactics and troop surge. Your refusal to acknowledge this good news, as well as the fact that the situation in Iraq is far from static -- is simply laughable.

Now I will stop feeding the troll.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Actually, the trend in Petreaus's chart is that violent attacks are up from 18 months ago. The trend line goes up during that period. Not once does it dip below the level of violence from 18-months-ago.

[Joe Mama]

That comment only makes sense if you have no idea what a trend is.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

You can parse a trend anyway you want. All these graphics show is a snapshot from Petreaus for a period of time that helps support his argument. I would like to see this same chart for the entire length of the war in Iraq. I imagine Petreaus doesn't show it because it wouldn't be too favorable to his argument.

All these graphics show is a snapshot from Petreaus for a period of time that helps support his argument.

That "snapshot" being now, not "18 months ago."

[Joe Mama]

I would like to see this same chart for the entire length of the war in Iraq. I imagine Petreaus doesn't show it because it wouldn't be too favorable to his argument.

I imagine Petreaus doesn't show such a chart because it would be irrelevant. The chart in question already goes from October 1, 2004 to September 7, 2007. What happened in the first year-and-a-half of the war that "wouldn't be too favorable to his argument"?

[Angrier and Angrier]

Petreaus is making the argument that his surge is reducing violent attacks in Iraq. I would venture to guess that there have been similar surges and drops in violence since the start of the war that have nothing to do with his approach and everthing to do with the levels of U.S. troops.

We already know that when the U.S. puts a lot of troops into the country the level of attacks go down. This happened during the "purple revolution" vote Bush used to promote. We also know that when we pull troops out, the Iraqi forces don't stand up on their own.

The idea that somehow we can start reducing troop levels in the next year and the violence won't escalate is pure bullshit. This is all a waiting game for Bush to get out of office, He is just trying to buy time so that he can maintain the status quo until he leaves office.

[Joe Mama]

I would venture to guess that there have been similar surges and drops in violence since the start of the war that have nothing to do with his approach and everthing to do with the levels of U.S. troops.

There has NOT been a "similar surge" and change in tactics prior to the one implemented this year.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Joe Mama-

From December 2005...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-12-16-troop-levels_x.htm

Troop levels at 153,000

U.S. Troops have tamped down violence...

Sunnis are fighting Al Qaeda...

Iraqi forces should be ready to take over by 2007..

IT'S the SAME fucking talking points we are hearing now!

[Joe Mama]

We already know that when the U.S. puts a lot of troops into the country the level of attacks go down. This happened during the "purple revolution" vote Bush used to promote.

I don't know about that, but I do know that the "purple revolution" took place in 2005, and is thus encompassed by the chart spanning 10/1/04-9/7/07 that you are trying so hard to disparage. By your own assertions, then, Petreaus is not refusing to show a chart for the entire length of the war "because it wouldn't be too favorable to his argument."

[Joe Mama]

In other words, the chart which you say doesn't cover the necessary time period DOES IN FACT cover the time period in which you erroneously claim that a "similar surge" took place.

[Angrier and Angrier]

Actually, using Petreaus's chart you can see that this surge...with 160,000+ troops, is less effective than the 2005 surge, with 150,000+ troops.

[Angrier and Angrier]

"In other words, the chart which you say doesn't cover the necessary time period DOES IN FACT cover the time period in which you erroneously claim that a "similar surge" took place."

Okay. I'll give you that.

So then you admit that the trend shows that violence is up in Iraq, even with this surge.

[Angrier and Angrier]

In other words, more U.S. troops in, less violence. Less U.S. troops in, more violence.

WE KNOW THAT!

The fact is, we CANNOT LEAVE without a civil war. It doesn't matter what Petreaus is doing with the surge. It is all about TROOP LEVELS! It has always been about TROOP LEVELS!

If the U.S. were to bring troop levels back down to pre-surge levels, violence will tick up again in Iraq. The Iraqis have done NOTHING to secure there own country.

The surge is a tactic. Not a strategy.

[Joe Mama]

Oh, a breakthrough! In the spirit of comity, I will grant you that the level of violence in Iraq may be higher than it was 18 months ago, but this simply is not a trend. The trend in violence from Petreaus's slides is clearly going downward, and going downward more sharply since the surge than it was going up from 2006 to mid-2007. I'm not saying there is necessarily a light at the end of this tunnel yet, but the slopes on the chars are what they are.

[Joe Mama]

In other words, more U.S. troops in, less violence. Less U.S. troops in, more violence.

Too simplistic. The ROE have also changed during and since the surge, which your analysis fails to acknowledge.

[Sandy Underpants]

When I told idiotic republicans in 2003 that America was going to destroy a country and be stuck in it, they told me that we would win the war in 8 days and the Iraqi people would turn over their WMD because they want freedom. A few months after the war started I said this would cost Bush the 2004 election and my republican friends said this wouldn't even be an issue the next year. We're at the end of 2007 and there's no end to this disaster in sight. If we put more troops in violence decreases, if we take them out it increases. If there's one thing that is starkly obvious it's that republicans are idiots and I wouldn't ask them to give me directions much less run a war or a government. I'm sorry if that's too simplistic, but it is painfully obvious.

If there is one thing that is starkly obvious it is that you are a jackass.