The Fix Is In - We're Buggin' Out

...but you're right in that we're awfully close. The Commander in Chief is the one who orders a withdrawal; not James Baker or Nancy Pelosi or Jack Murtha. That's the thin reed my hopes hang on now. It's not much, but I still have a gut feeling that Bush won't roll on this.

Of course my doctor says I'm delusional because I dress up like Napoleon. But until the first troops bug out, they are still there fighting. And of course I'll join you in praying for our nation, and the Iraqis'.

may be a necessity should the Iraqis be unable to restrain their murderous tribal impulses. Reports from the British occupation of Iraq sound like they could have come from CENTCOM yesterday, only they were written in the 1920's. In that time, modernity has not taken hold in the country, and the Shiites are still just as intent on installing a theocracy as when the Brits complained about it so many years ago.
The shame isn't ours. It's theirs. We gave them a chance to join the modern world, and ppaid for that with OUR blood and OUR treasure. What have we seen? Execution style murders, death squads, militias answering to cabinet members and an extraordinary flight of educated people from the country. (1,000 people are leaving Iraq for Jordan and Syria every day, including professors, engineers and doctors. I can't blame them)
So what is to be done? I think the situation has grown beyond control, and we will be reacting to the evolving civil war rather than controlling or stopping it. The Iraqis will have their ethnic cleansing tinged with genocide, and we will see what is left to recover.

thanks for the comment. I am very worried on this one.

So good to see you here. I agree it's a mess. I think we've bitten off a very unpalatable position. But we've bitten it off, and now we have to chew it. The likely solution is to partition the country. Turkey will be outraged, but I don't think inconsolable. The Sunnis will be toast, and the Shiites will likely become a puppet of Iran, the real bad guys in this situation. There is something to be said for having an army right next door to Iran for the moment though, don't you think? And an abrupt withdrawal isn't the answer. My article is more a prediction of what will happen if we do than a proposed solution. I'm sure you have some suggestions in this regard. Do tell?

Think of some history:

The Brits in Malaysia. The Boer War. The Brits and the Trans-Jordan Protectorate post-ww2. The success of the Rhaj, in contrast.

My point in raising British colonial history is that it never works when half-measures are taken, as we've been doing in Iraq.

Am I advocating cutting and running? Not in a million years; read the earlier essays on my blog. On the contrary, I've always posited that we've never been aggressive enough, and the idea of some Western-style democracy in Iraq is simply dreaming.

Either s--- or get off the pot.

An aside, Congress doesn't dictate tactics or strategy to the President, and they already authorized the action, years ago. Execution is up to the Executive branch, which is the Prez.

What was the solution taken when an invaded country or city continued the fight?

The city was raized to the ground and all the inhabitants down to dogs and cats were either killed or sold into slavery.

I am not recommending that, but there must be some middle ground between what we are doing there now and this total destruction.

looks like the same generals who wanted Rumsfeld to resign are slamming the Dems plans on withdr, er, redeployment. See Donald Lambro's 11/17 column.

I'm with B and Jeff; no more half-measures.

Jeff, the way to avoid widespread destruction is to actually follow through on your threats/promises the first time around (and every time after that). As soon as you get to the "Stop that or I'll spank you. Really. I mean it. If you do that one more time, you're going to get it. Didn't I tell you not to do that. I'm only giving you one more chance. Etc.", you've already lost.

I'm on the same page. When the polls showed we are not happy with the way the war is going, the Dems misinterpreted the results. I'll wager there's a lot more of us that want to fight to win than want to withdraw.

This culture doesn't understand half measures. It's seen as weakness. Cyne's point rings true to me.

We should eliminate the militias like al-Sadr's. We should summarily execute anyone terrorizing the population in uniform. And we should kill them where we find them, even if it's in a mosque. I think if we started tightening up the screws on Iran, lord know we have enough reasons to, it would weaken their ability to interfere in Iraq. Iran imports half of its' gasoline, make them pay a price for meddling in Iraq.

I am most interested in historical perspectives on this. I'm not heavily into UK history, so maybe I need to do some research in this area. Feel free to post anything that seems pertinent. Shouldn't our leaders have done this before we went in?

Lawrence of Arabia said there was only two things an arab were good at. One was stabbing a man in the back. The other was phuking a young boy in the butt.
We have gone into Iraq, toppled one of the cruelest, most sadistic dictators of the 20th Century and given these people a chance to amalgamate into a democratic society. These people have, instead, degenerated into religious feuding. If they cared one whit about the Americans who died so they could live free, they would be honoring those fallen by working towards self-reliance. But they are not. They are taking care of old scores and feuding worse than the Hatfield and McCoys and be damned about any Western style government. We need to put another strongman in power who would be our puppet and let it go at that.

Leave them all alone. Do a 'Right Flank' move, go "liberate" the oil fields. Set up our perimeter around the oil fields and, as the distinguished senator from Mass said of another issue, "Open under new management." We can sell oil to our allies for 30 bucks a barrel. Hurry! While it lasts. I'll bet the frogs and the krauts would be the first in line.

I appreciate your need to vent. But your proposals are unlikely to work. We broke it, we own it; it's our problem now. The half measures the politicians allow aren't a recipe for success.

The consensus seems to be either fight it to win, or get out of town. Since I cringe at the results of getting out of town, I am looking for the way to most effectively win. I'm open to any proposals, but let's be realistic here.

Japan's loss? The only thing missing is the clearcut victory. The populations were both fanatical, both steeped in a long tradition of loyalty to a deist monarchy, and we heard they would never embrace democracy. Look at them fifty years later. It can be done, but we have to WIN first. We can't rebuild until we have control of the situation. Our cart is ahead of our horse here.

On one level the analogy with Japan makes sense. I think the cultural similarities are there, and certainly we need to win in Iraq before making a successful transition to a modern democracy. But of course with Japan we obliterated a large portion of the country's urban areas and completely wrecked its economy. And the atomic bombs essentially blasted them into the 20th century culturally. (S. Ambrose has a good essay on that point.) We then governed the country for over 5 years and wrote their pacifist constitution. I don't know if that type of victory is possible anymore. It certainly has not been for 60 years.

And I guess that's the real problem here. What constitutes a military victory? I'll be honest...I don't know.

Good points. I guess we need to fight wars like we used to if we want to succeed like we used to.

..."The Commander in Chief is the one who orders a withdrawal; not James Baker or Nancy Pelosi or Jack Murtha."

Yes, but funding for the "war" originates in the House which will soon be headed by Pelosi and her majority.

As sad as it is, celtic and Buck make strong points. If the situation resolves into a defeat, we were not the only contributors. For whatever reason, in Germany and Japan, the people were so crushed all they wanted was a chance to find something to eat and a dry place to sleep. The incredible resurgence of the economy of these countries was due to these survivors. The heirs of the survivors, not having the experience, have lapsed into socialistic complacency. In Iraq, the population was never crushed. We did the cruelist thing we could do, we let them know we did not want to hurt anybody. The goblins soon took advantage. Now (as usual) a few thousand armed fanatics are controlling and deciding the fate of a thousand times their number. The US is far from innocent, but God grants freedom only to those that love it and are always ready to defend it (Webster). The Iraqis were given a better chance than most. The brave idealistic woman with the purple finger, is not shooting Jihadis in the night as they pass her window to plant an IED. She is not ratting out the Jihadis coming across the border and living nearby. She values family, religion, not being involved more than freedom. So long as this is true she will have only the freedom others earn for her. We can't solve every problem.

And next time, for pity's sake guys, don't move out until the country is behind you and you are ready to WIN quick and dirty.

No reminder necessary...But any final decision regarding military forces in the field rests with the CinC. Depending on the circumstances, the CinC could challenge the constitutionality of a Congressional act involving military authority (e.g., cutting off funding). The bottom line is that Congress can do what it wants, but the CinC has to be willing to go along with it. And certainly that last clause is the source of the nervousness many people feel about this.