Why Kondracke's Plan B Won't Work

If this plan B, which Allah links and comments on here, would work, I think you'd have more than one member of Congress floating it by now.

Winning dirty would involve taking sides in the civil war - backing the Shiite-dominated elected government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and ensuring that he and his allies prevail over both the Sunni insurgency and his Shiite adversary Muqtada al-Sadr, who's now Iran's candidate to rule Iraq.

It's a recipe for more chaos and American deaths than we are seeing now. Let's see, Maliki and al Sadr, okay, you guys go over there and kill / cleanse the Sunnis, we'll wait here. Oh, and Sadr, when that little bit of business is done, we're back in it and we're coming after you.

What in this plan is actually any different than what is going on now, other than perhaps turning more Shi'ites loose to kill Sunnis, with absolutely no practical way to tell which group and what number of them are going to simply keep on killing us? Why would Sadr not just allow Maliki to do the dirty work with all of his militias free to come after us while Maliki's troops pursued the Sunnis? I don't get it, I really don't.

And once we take this approach, I'd argue Sadr gets stronger immediately with a waiting Iran watching his back because the plan itself is a defeat for Maliki, not something leaders generally overcome very well in the Arab world. Maliki may well be dead long before that many Sunnis with this approach. And we'd be, not only the target of insurgent Sunnis, but many of the very forces we trained and armed.

Do we need a plan B? Oh yeah. But I think it starts with a P as in Partition and not a B as in more BS. That's my take anyway.

Comments

[Terry Gain]

I respectfully demur.

Every poll I've seen says the Iraqis don't want partition. An attempt to impose it against their wishes is a prescription for a civil war. The siuation in Anbar has turned around completely in the last six months and there is no reason to believe that the result in Diyala, which is al Qaeda's last sanctuary, will be any different. Sunni tribes are now cooperating with the coalition in the fight against al Qaeda.

Sectarian violence is down by 2/3 since the Surge. Al Qaeda suicide bombings have increased substantially during the same period leading most to believe that the situation is not improving. The supply of idiots prepared die for al Qaeda's insane ambitions is not unlimited. Once Baghdad is secure even the MSm willnot be able to ignore the continuingthe destruction of al Qaeda will become noticeable even to the MSm

The plan P that is needed is Patience.

[Dan Riehl]

"The plan P that is needed is Patience"

In principle I agree 100% and that's "my" position. But we are talking spineless pols on both sides of the aisle here.

[Terry Gain]

Penultimate sentence garbled. Computer has a mind of its own. No re-write necessary as intention is clear.

[Terry Gain]

Dan

Some Republicans are hedging their bets, believing that they need separation from the war if improvement is not noticeable in the next six months. It's a short sighted mugs game. If the war is lost the GOP will be wiped out in 08 regardless of what they do between now and then.

If the U.S does concede Iraq to al Qaeda -and this is precisely how withdrawal before victory will be (rightly) perceived - in the chaos that follows the Democrats will say: "well you can't blame us, even the Republicans thought it was hopeless".

And it will be chaos - not just civil war, but with Iran moving in to control the oil in the south and al Qaeda setting up a new base in the west, the current challenges will seem trivial. Democrats, like Reid, who want to fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan will get their wish. They're not there now, but after their triumph in Iraq they soon will be.

And this is just the immediate aftermath. Long term no country will trust America and al Qaeda's fortunes will be soaring. Anyone who thinks 9/11 was a one off will be in for an awakening.

Petraeus is America's foremost counterinsurgency expert. He said he needed six months. Given the consequences of failure anyone not pepared to give it to him is an idiot.

[Dan Riehl]

anyone not pepared to give it to him is an idiot.

or Liberal Dem, assuming they aren't the same thing. And even I blame Bush on this now. Plenty were screaming for this "surge" well over a year ago, including me. He allowed it to unravel too long. I forgave the inital mess, war is complex. His failure to react prudently but in time - not so much. He's in over his head and I hope Petraeus can bail him out.

[Terry Gain]

Again, with resepect I demur. The reason the Surge is working is because of the infusion of Iraqi forces -working alongside Americans. The Iraqis weren't equipped to do this a year ago, neither in terms of troop readiness nor political will. Their govenrment had only recently been elected and was in the process of being formed.

It doesn't make sense that Bush did this any later than he could have-and he didn't.

[Dan Riehl]

It doesn't make sense

Could be, Terry. Don't know, just want to win. I didn't think it made any sense to lose Rummy the day after the election, nominate Miers, or get caught up in comp. immigration reform, yet he did those things.

I want to win - that's far more important than Bsh at this point. History should judge him well overall IMO - he at least engaged our greatest challenge. But no one intelligent ever expected it to end on his watch. It's a long war, whether we like it, or not. Win in Iraq - or we will be back.

[Terry Gain]

I support Bush because I support the war, not the other way around. In fact I wish this war had been waged by Clinton (with Bush's resolve). It's not that Clinton would have made better decisions than Bush (the key decisions are in fact made by the Generals) but he would have had overwhelming media support.

Most of the critcisms of the conduct of the war are daft, including the claim that if we had gone in with 500,000 troops (that we didn't have) we would have had a better outcome. What would have happened in that case is the insurgency would have stood down; the Iraqis would have seen no need to build up their forces; we would have left and the insurgency would then have begun in earnest.

[Purple Avenger]

Poor Mort...comes to the twilight of an otherwise normal media career and he reveals himself as a genocide friendly amoral crank. I suspect he's been hanging out with that Bolshevik crank Cronkite too much.

[CKMacLeod]

I'm in agreement with Mr Gann above. It's clear at the same time, however, that the Bush Administration information campaign has been badly flawed, beginning with the "bureaucratic" mistake of focusing (or allowing a focus) on a WMD threat that didn't pan out as advertised. Overly optimistic statements about the situation in Iraq, coupled with a failure to contextualize the struggle, created further damage, and made it even harder to deal effectively with stories like Katrina or to take advantage of economic good news. Still, Bush had to play the cards he was dealt - period - and his freedom of movement has been circumscribed in ways too numerous and complex to list, so I won't condemn him, or even fault him too strongly for rhetorical deficiencies and diverse political missteps.

Like John McCain, I think and pray every night that the current strategy will achieve success. I also believe that the debate in the US is only beginning to get unthawed from premises frozen into place last year - I'd refer you to Fouad Ajami's and Nibras Kazimi's writings for a broader picture of Iraq, and I'd trust observers like them, as well as people like Petraeus, more than Kondracke (whose heart, I believe, probably is in the right place). I expect that Gen Petraeus will a) have much to report that fits a new, decidedly more positive narrative (sectarian violence way down, AQI seriously degraded, economic revitalization and nascent civil institutions taking hold), and b) be able to outline plans for a reduced combat presence, even something resembling a timetable for US withdrawal (imagine the political impact of Bush-Petraeus troop reductions).

Instead of spending so much energy hating the Democrats for their odious behavior, or wasting so much time on the disastrous results of Democrat policies that we can't and that Bush won't allow to be put into effect, I wonder if we shouldn't all be spending more time developing a larger narrative of real victory - helping our fellow citizens to see what we will gain by staying the course.

Of course, the enemy has a vote, but truly dramatic escalations emanating from Syria and Iran, or new crises in and around the region, would presumably alter the calculus in other ways, potentially even impose an entirely new logic on the situation - all the more reason not to waste too much time on unlikely and totally untenable scenarios like Kondracke's.

[CKMacLeod]

er, excuse me, that's "Mr Gain" - misread the gray font...

[ET]

Dan, Terry, CK, PA;

Thanks for the intelligent discourse on an important topic.

I continue to believe that going into Iraq in 2003 was the right move...that it was and is part of our post 9/11 resolve to meet the enemy at "a time and place of our choosing." In retrospect, that urge to regain control of our national destiny in the face of a new kind of enemy led us to act with a certain hubris. We took the initiative, and now we need to face the fact that we cannot control outcomes like we planned...the pieces have not fallen as we predicted. But that requires that we adapt, not give up.

Our strategic presence on two sides of Iran and around the corner from Pakistan will be to our advantage in the coming years. How do we arrange these forces and establish diplomatic ties with local powers to influence events in the region?

We aren't going anywhere. On the contrary, we need to dig in with a properly deployed military force. We need to establish backchannel communications and make it known that we will be a player, get used to us, work with us. It is time to make the natural progression from our emotional mindset in the wake of 9/11 to making strictly logical decisions about our future in the Middle East. We belong there, it was right to go in to preserve our safety. Now, how do we transition to a long term presence ala Europe, and coexist with the players?

There are a lot of important questions beyond, "stay the course or bring them home?" Thanks again for bringing some of them out.

[Mr. Johnsn]

I agree that Sadr and Iran are the winners short term. Maliki is done, and the iraqi parliaments 2 month vacation seems more like a dissolution of parliament. Like it or not, partitioning will happen to some extent. The Arab Sunni in Anbar and Diyala are beginning to hitch their wagon to America because they know that the only thing standing between them and slaughter at the hands of the Shia is America. We will enter into an uneasy alliance with the Sunni to counteract Iranian dominance of the Shia. At that point, we'll see more support from our "friends" in the middle east including the Saudis. With the help of the Sunni tribes, we will continue to hunt al-Qaeda and battle Iranian proxies. As long as we remain in Iraq, we can continue to build alliances with the Kurds, the Sunni tribes, and maybe a few Shia groups in preparation for a confrontation with Iran.

Either that or we sit back and watch all hell break lose as we give up any amount of control over the situation. I don't know if Mort's "winning dirty" would in the end be a win at all. It may give more power to those who we will end up fighting at a future date.

But what the hell, do I know. I'm just some uncultured retard civilian sitting safely behind a computer screen chuggin beers and eatin tatertots.

[James]

Mort's plan B is a good way to get the Syrians and Saudi's involved in a big way, directly. Jordan would have to come in too. This would finally go full blown Sunni-Shia war, not Iraqi civil war.

Shia can't count on Iran for help. Saudi's would use the oil weapon to force U.S. to step in if Iran did something too overt for the Iraqi Shia.

Kuwait would turn on Iraqi Southern Shia as well. Pakistan is Sunni with the Bomb and wouldn't let the Iraqi Sunni go down either if things got out of hand by the Shia. That's why Iran needs the Bomb, to counter Pakistan, not U.S.

Shia would lose this fight and everything they have gained because of the U.S. invasion.

Plan B would not work, but damn, it would be fun to watch. Unfortunately quite a lot of U.S. troops would be killed or wounded in the fight, but that's just part of war any how.

[djangone]

Good god, James. Do they let you out of the institution to get ice cream? 'Fun to watch,' eh? 'Just part of war any how (sic)'? Tell that to the families of the ones who lose their lives just so you can rip open the Cheetohs and watch it all on YouTube. Pull your head out of your ass and reread what you just wrote. Wingnuts, such morals.

[Terry Gain]

I think James may have been making a poor attempt at satire.

[Captain Joe]

Sounds like a Roman tactic to me, if employed. In order for there to be victory somebody's got to lose. It may as well be the Sunnis. They seem to be the chief troublemakers there. It's time their ox was gored. It's dirty but doable and in the end it will have to be done for us to get out of there. An enemy has to be identified and attacked ruthlessly, I vote for the Sunnis.

[Purple Avenger]

80% of the Islamic world is Sunni BTW.

[Phoenix]

"It is time to make the natural progression from our emotional mindset in the wake of 9/11 to making strictly logical decisions about our future in the Middle East. We belong there, it was right to go in to preserve our safety."

ET,

Good comment. (Good thread.) The neocons, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, et.al., were able to see this with futuristic sight and were able to convince Bush that we must have a presence in the ME. Iraq is the perfect spot. I think they were able to understand this without 'emotional mindsets'. Rumsfeld bringing the military into the 21st century - right on. I always felt the WMD issue was moot but needed to sell the Iraq invasion. Setting up a presence there is a necessity, and Bush and company have known this from day one. That they had to 'sell' that need to our fine, equable democracy is a bummer because they are right. The 'emotional mindset' you're talking about is our liberals not understanding anything but the parts of the past they can use against us and their inability to project into the future beyond their narrow, idle lifetimes.

It makes me mad that not only do we have to be 'players' over there in very hostile territory, but we have to 'players' here in equally hostile territory. How Bush has stood up to this immense, relentless pressure, I will never know.

[Fred Beloit]

The leadership of the Congress is talking about a soon-to-be date for withdrawal to be published widely. Sheer stupidity. We should be planning for and announcing a significant and relatively permanent military presence in Iraq on the order of our presence in Europe (from which we should now totally withdraw) and Korea. Iraq is strategically perfectly situated, as several have noted above, to defend ourselves from and prepare attacks against aggressive Islamists and their sponsoring nations. Our emphasis in Iraq should be on building permanent bases at distance from Iraqi population centers. (There is nothing like wide open spaces to deter guerrilla and terrorist style attacks.) We seem to be over concerned with how we got here and not concerned enough about what to do next. We should support any Iraq government that will work with us on this and oppose, or at least not assist, any government that will not.

[CKMacLeod]

--We aren't going anywhere. On the contrary, we need to dig in with a properly deployed military force. We need to establish backchannel communications and make it known that we will be a player, get used to us, work with us.--

I highlight this excerpt because to me it's typical of what almost can't be said in our rather ludicrous domestic political discussion. All but the most tinfoil-protected Democrat pseudo-alternatives to current strategy contemplate a reduced but still substantial American presence for an indefinite period (never mind that they would be confined by mass suicidal rules of engagement and other limitations on their tactical and strategic flexibility, and never mind that the conditions supposedly being addressed either never existed, no longer exist, or are in the process of being substantially re-configured).

Instead of addressing our interests and capacities concretely, the conversation gets reduced to simplistic nonsense - "Bring the troops home" vs. "Stay the course." In the real world "bring the troops home" can mean anything from "bring some combat elements back from theater without replacements beginning next January, then re-assess" to "bring them all home and not just from Iraq as fast as possible." It makes for a nice leftwing united front and the highest seemingly anti-Bush poll numbers (based on questions that translate as "Do you think war is wonderful?"), but it's based on and further enables effective ignorance about the meaning and implications of our actions.

Part of the problem may be that Bush and the military are so sensitive to charges of neocon imperialism that they can't talk up the benefits of having an unsinkable aircraft carrier (+intelligence center, +supply depot, +reserve army) on or around the Tigris and Euphrates, not hostage to Saudi agendas and instability. I think that's what "an Iraq that's an ally in the war on terror" really means, though I confess I'm not sure, partly because I don't know if there's a single trusted spokesperson for the Administration who is able and allowed to discuss U.S. geopolitical strategy in anything but platitudes. I don't need or expect to be told everything, but, if I find myself leaning toward McCain of late, it's because he seems to be the only public figure who's able to break through the fog of politics at all, however imperfectly he may do so.

At least we don't hear the "it can't get any worse" idiocies as much as we were, and at least a little bit of the old light at the end of the tunnel seems to be reflected in some recent opinion polls.

[Phoenix]

"Part of the problem may be that Bush and the military are so sensitive to charges of neocon imperialism that they can't talk up the benefits ..."

Right. Thank you, PC. I also agree that no one in the administration is 'allowed' to talk freely of plans. Who would when the minute they open their mouths, some talking head picks out talking points and spins them in a negative fashion. I also don't expect to know everything. To think otherwise is delusional. So the left makes things up from the little information they can glean and blows it all out of proportion. I remember the day of Bush's first inaugural, he was walking with his mother by a group of reporters and his mother pointed to them and said: "These are the people you don't trust. Stay away from them." It was meant to be sotto voce, but it came out loud and clear. What a premonition as they have become another front this president has had to deal with.

I lean towards Guiliani for a number of reasons, but I get the feeling, if he was a bit of a bastard as Mayor of NYC when he was cleaning it up and dealing with the mob, he's got the cojones to do it again. I just want someone who can tell the politicos and leaders of other countries that he is not to be trifled with ever.... That we ARE players. Get used to it.

[Fred Beloit]

Ms Warren, please moderate your penchant for hysteria. We are not in Iraq to buy oil. We are in Iraq, in part at least, so the Iraqi people, not just a mad palace-building thug, now alas deceased, can have some kind of a chance to participate in oil profits. The problem with people like you, who got drunk on hatred of George Bush, is that you cannot stand to look the Islamist threat in the face. That would mean Bush was right and you can't tolerate that idea. And please don't give me the nonsense that Afghanistan is the right war and Iraq is the wrong war. Bin-Laden is most probably in Pakistan and I know you don't want us to go after him there. And though you claim to speak for the American people, you do not, so get that idea out of your head. Also, your statement about Israel is absurd and merely betrays you as the typical anti-semitic Lefty that you indeed are.