Questions on Iraq

Orrin Kerr over at The Volokh Conspiracy has an open invitation for bloggers to respond to three questions about Iraq, so here is my stab at it.

First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?

Yes, I was in favor of it at the time, and wrote a rather extensive piece (originally posted on a now-defunct version of this site but now graciously rehosted by Linda Moore) explaining why. The writing of this multi-part piece overlapped the actual start of the war (which didn't surprise me any at the time).

I'm not sure that saying it was a "good idea" is the right words to use. I don't think I'd ever want to call a war a good idea, even the noble World War II. War just isn't good, even though it's sometimes necessary. I think, rather, that the war in Iraq was the lesser of several evils and was/is an absolutely necessary strategic component of the war on terror.

There are only three ways that the war on terror can end. We could surrender to the radicals and let them have their ultimate goal of a worldwide totalitarian Islamic state (which, if you read their statements, is exactly what they want). I find this to be completely unacceptable, and would rather die fighting against it. Alternatively, we could nuke the Middle East back into the primordeal ooze. Frighteningly, we actually have the capability to do this, but any sane reader of this post should be joining me in hoping and praying that it never, ever happens.

There is only one other solution, and that is to "drain the swamps", as the Bush administration likes to put it, and transform the Middle East. This is a war of civilizations (not religions, but cultures). The Islamic extremists want to transform ours (option one, surrender). The only way we can win is by transforming theirs instead, or by wiping them out entirely. For many strategic and political reasons, Iraq is our best chance of beginning that process.

I do not believe that America will ever allow our culture to be transformed to mirror their culture - nor do I believe that we should. In fact, I personally never will surrender to that. If it becomes necessary, I will give up my own life to prevent that from happening. I am not currently a soldier in our armed forces, but I do work as a civilian contractor for the DOD developing software that is used by our armed forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other places. Right now I believe that I'm serving the war effort better where I am. But yes, I am willing to sacrifice my own life if the need arises for this, because I will not live in an Islamic theocracy.

I believe that most Americans, if pressed into a situation that required it, would come to the same conclusion. That is why I believe that the second option available to us is total annhilation of the Middle East. If we do not win this war, if we cannot achieve a decisive victory, then it is only a matter of time before the ever escalating wave of terror attacks forces us to respond with devastating force. How many nuclear attacks will we tolerate before we strike back? How many biological or chemical attacks? Their assymetric warfare is absolutely dependent upon our own system of ethics. We could have put down the insurrection in Iraq handily if we'd been willing to wipe out a few cities to do it. Witness the history of the Soviet Union and you'll see what I mean. They dealt with insurrections in their "client" states brutally, and never had to deal with them again.

But how long will we hold back? A long time, surely. American resolve is very strong, and contrary to international opinion we are a moral people. But we will have our breaking point, the point where we say, "NO MORE!" If we let things go on that long.

The alternative is to transform the Middle East through other ways, to win the war by changing our enemies instead of by destroying them. This is what we're attempting to do in Iraq. Iraq is our best hope of accomplishing this lofty goal. It may well be impossible, but we have to try, because the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate.

Notice that I do not list annihilation of the US as a possible outcome. That is because a simple look at the lopsided distribution of power demonstrates exactly how silly this option is. We can nuke them into the primordeal ooze. They can't do the same thing to us.

Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?

I have a very mixed reaction. On the one hand, this is more or less exactly how I expected the first year or two to go. I don't buy the political argument that those of us who were for the war miscalculated how easy it would be. I think most of us who were for the war knew exactly how hard it would be, and decided that it was worth the price. I think the majority of miscalculation has come from the war's opponents who on the one hand lambast our military as incompetent buffoons and then expect them to work miracles by pacifying Iraq overnight.

On the other hand, it's extremely hard to actually get a clear picture of what's going on in Iraq. I trust much of the factual reporting in the mainstream media, but I also know that there's a lot that's not getting reported. And I completely don't trust any strategic analysis they do. Why? Because they've always been wrong in the past, they won't admit that they were wrong, and they don't understand why they were wrong.

Case in point is the actual invasion of Iraq. A week and a half into the three week invasion (which actually was miraculously short and bloodless, if it's not acknowledged as so by many) the news media was declaring the invasion a hopeless quagmire. Why? Probably because they had the same expectation that I did: that the war would be over in three days instead of three weeks. But any strategic analysis of the invasion very quickly showed why this wasn't the case. The battle plan didn't call for victory in three days. Our commanders executed an entirely different plan than I would have done. A far more methodical, far slower, far less risky plan. Hey, it worked. I think mine would've been a good plan, too, although there's no way of ever knowing.

The next week, when we were wrapping up the invasion, the news media was suddenly reporting our incredible turnaround and how now we were winning. But nothing had changed. We were just following the plan, and the reality was that their own strategic analysis had been bloody stupid. We hadn't been losing the week before, we'd been setting up the Iraqis for the final kill.

My absolute favorite specific example was when the Republican Guard stupidly decided to leave Baghdad to march south to meet our own army. I call it stupid, I called it stupid at the time, and all the fancy pants generals the news media hired to comment on the war (who by and large offered brilliant commentary that the anchors were too stupid to understand and promptly ignored) called it stupid.

The news anchors panicked. "Oh my god, they're coming out to get us!" Sheesh. You'd think they'd forgotten Desert Storm. I was in total awe of how stupid they were - the Republican Guard and the news anchors. Coming out to meet us in the desert? They'd just given up the only "weapon" they had: the ability to hide behind civilians. I knew we were going to steamroll over them in the open desert, and guess what? That's exactly what we did. Did the news media report that their "analysis" was stupid? No, they reported it as a "turnaround" and a "hard fought victory."

So simply put, I don't trust them at all. Almost to a man newsanchors in this country don't understand strategy at all. Hell, half of them couldn't even call our fighter jets by the right designators (I forget which show I was watching that had that gaffe, but I think it was on MSNBC).

I've tried very hard to get a clear picture of the strategic situation in Iraq, and the best I can come up with is that we've got a lot of work to do, but it's actually looking doable. Not easy, by any means, but doable. And I think our armed forces are doing about as well as could possibly be expected of them.

Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?

Now that I've rambled on and on, I have a simple answer to this one. The invasion was a complete and total success when (not if) we can walk out of there with our heads high and turn the stable, strong, and flourishing country back over to the Iraqis for them to run wisely in a semi-democratic manner. All of those terms are relative. I don't expect Iraq's GDP to suddenly be approaching ours or for their military to be ready to take on the world. I do expect that when we leave they will no longer have any serious insurrection (I don't think it'll die down completely until we leave), their armed forces will be strong enough that they won't have to worry about their neighbors invading them, and their economy will be back on its feet.

When will this happen? Could be a while. Could be a while. But it will happen.