Purge the Surge

In an interview Sunday night on 60 Minutes, our president worked hard to justify the "surge" in troop levels that will send another 21,500 soldiers into harm's way in Iraq. It was part of a PR blitz following his speech last Wednesday, in which he announced his decision. And maybe I was still in an indulgent holiday mood, because I really tried to give this latest plan a fair shake, to look at it from every angle and try to decide whether or not it represents any kind of possibility for success. I even had myself half-convinced. But now, no. Not anymore. I kept working it all over, and finally decided that it was just the latest in a long series of bad ideas.

On the face of it, it doesn't seem like an awful idea. At its heart it seemed to admit that things had been done wrong in Iraq and that, even more unusually, we were prepared to learn from our mistakes. The president said as much in his speech: "Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: there were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have." If you accept this premise, then Mr. Bush's plan does indeed seem to address these deficiencies: more troops, in order to hold areas that have been cleared of insurgents; and political restrictions removed so that troops can enter areas that had previously been declared out of bounds and clear out any insurgents who might be hiding there.

But there are major problems with all of this, and straight off the bat there is this: a third major factor in why the U.S. has heretofore failed in its nation-building effort in Iraq, namely, American incompetence and cronyism. As Rajiv Chandrasekaran has detailed in his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, Americans recruited for administrative/oversight jobs in Baghdad, the very people responsible for the reubilding efforts that were crucial for restoring a sense of normalcy to the country, were hired not because they had expertise in these tasks (in some cases no expertise in anything) but because they were Bush loyalists. Because they gave the right answer when asked who they had voted for in 2000 (an actual question to some job applicants).

As for the additional troops, there is a major, and obvious, objection that the President did not address: adding 21,500 troops brings us back up to a number we've already had in the country before. If it wasn't enough then, why would it be enough now? Because of the "restrictions" that will now supposedly be removed? Well then that brings up my third principal objection: does anyone believe that the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq will really allow U.S. troops to enter Shiite areas hunting for death squads? Will any squadron ever be allowed to pursue and capture Moqtada al-Sadr? Of course not; we all know that there will be cosmetic "restrictions" wiped clean, but nothing substantive will change. Meaning that these fresh troops simply restore us to levels we've already seen, with no effect; and the meaningful restrictions in place before will remain in place. Net effect: zero. But with a yet-unknown toll in American lives.

So, then, what is Bush's real purpose? It can only be this: A) force Democrats, now in control of Congress, to take a stand against the surge so that they can be painted as soft on terrorism in the next general election; and B) delay the inevitable failure of the Iraq mission till Bush is out of office, so that said failure can be blamed on the next guy. That is why 21,500 more American lives are being put at risk.

Then there's this howler: on 60 Minutes, President Bush said this, which deserves to be quoted in full:

We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.
PELLEY: Americans wonder whether . . .
BUSH: Yeah, they wonder whether or not the Iraqis are willing to do hard work necessary to get this democratic experience to survive. That's what they want.

That made me start hollering at the TV set. We bomb their country, ruin their society, kill tens of thousands (current estimates are of 34,000 Iraqi dead last year alone), and they're supposed to be grateful? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

No, he's not kidding. This, this is how he thinks. President Bush really truly believes that by getting rid of Saddam Hussein, he has liberated the Iraqi people and set them on the road to freedom and democracy--American-style freedom and democracy, which is the only kind that counts. It demonstrates a complete failure to understand a different culture, not to mention a truly breathtaking arrogance and paternalism that is, unfortunately, typical of imperialists throughout history. ("Take up the White Man's burden, / And reap his old reward-- / The blame of those ye better / The hate of those ye guard--" Kipling, "The White Man's Burden.")

Next time: a plan for victory that has nothing to do with a troop surge.