Center for a New American Security

Okay, enough navel-gazing. It's one thing for U.S. television news bureaus to ignore the Iraq War, but when we here at a blog "dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies" start ignoring Iraq when major policy shifts are announced, that's pretty sad.

Yesterday, Barack Obama announced a plan to cease combat operations in Iraq within 19 months and was, as expected, roundly assaulted from the Republican Party. No, wait.

During the presidential campaign, John McCain argued that imposing a deadline to remove combat troops from Iraq was tantamount to accepting defeat in Iraq.

It is a measure of how much has changed over the past six months that Mr McCain is now one of the chief cheerleaders for Barack Obama's plan to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by August 2010.

First off, good for John McCain. Second, good for the Republican Party. And third, good for Barack Obama. During the 2008 presidential campaign, there was a lot of disagreement both within and between the two parties as far as Iraq was concerned. On the right, a group (often led by a member of the Kagan family) continued to insist that all the major decisions made in Iraq remained made by Americans and not Iraqis. In my view, this school was oblivious to the fact that by 1 January 2009, the U.S. had to either renew our mandate with the United Nations -- which would have meant Christmas for the Chinese and Russians, assuming they would have played ball -- or negotiate a SOFA agreement with Iraq. The latter meant an irreversible shift of power in Iraq from American to Iraqi policy-makers. Just negotiating a SOFA put power in the hands of the Iraqis.

On the left, meanwhile, a sizable portion of the Democratic Party continued to insist upon a more or less immediate withdrawal from Iraq. The most intelligent case for such a withdrawal was made by the Center for American Progress (CAP) in a series of policy papers. The problem with this school of thought, I have argued, is that it ignored the very real security gains made in 2007 and 2008. So what might have been a pretty good argument in 2006 was anachronistic by 2008.

In the middle, meanwhile, was a more cautious approach advocated by former-friend-of-the-blog-before-he-became-important Colin Kahl and his friends at my new home, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). This debate was often moderated by Marc Lynch on his blog Abu Aardvark, with Marc himself tending to agree more with Brian Katulis and CAP than with Kahl and CNAS.

One of the nastiest -- and most correct -- criticisms a supporter of the CAP plan could have leveled at Colin during this time was to ask, "So how does your plan differ in any way from George Bush's?"

The answer to that question was, "Well..."

Because as Tom Ricks and others have noted, the Bush Administration faced up to reality in Iraq following the 2006 midterms, appointing a new team in Baghdad, authorizing the surge, and replacing some of the old crew at the NSC with a new team led by LTG Douglas Lute. So by 2008, a kind of middle-of-the-road consensus had developed in Iraq between centrists on either side of the U.S. political divide. Democrats like Colin suddenly had a lot in common ideologically with both commanders on the ground and policy-makers in the White House.

Yesterday's speech by that Kenyan feller with the funny name who apparently now runs things around here was evidence of the triumph of the center on Iraq. Harry Reid is not going to be happy. Nancy Pelosi is not going to be happy. And some on the right will continue to be frustrated, not understanding that it is now Iraqis -- not Americans -- who hold the keys to that country's future.

But as the Financial Times -- my favorite newspaper -- argued today, it is indeed Iraqis who control the future of that country. Perhaps one of the reasons we counter-insurgents have shifted focus away from Iraq and toward Afghanistan is because we understand that even the best counter-insurgency strategy can only set the conditions for political reconciliation in third-party interventions such as Iraq and Afghanistan. What the Iraqis do from here on out matters more than anything said or done in Washington. And that, in the end, is how it damn well should be.

More:
1. Obama's speech yesterday, unedited.
2. Obama's interview yesterday with Jim Lehrer (former Marine), unedited.
3. A frankly hilarious account of dancing paratroopers in Baghdadi nightclubs. (This may be what "victory" looks like.)

One of the advantages of being more or less "tits up" for the past 48 hours is that my illness has allowed me to finish The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.

As a service to my readers, here are the winners and losers who emerge from the narrative:

Winners:

Odierno: The big winner. Much more a winner in The Gamble than he was a loser in Fiasco. I'm not sure why his name isn't on the cover of the book instead of Petraeus, actually. (Answer: marketing?) As many of you may know by now, there are several competing narratives that explain the surge. Team Odierno, Team Petraeus, and Team First Cav all have their different takes on what happened and who was responsible. There is also a narrative -- promulgated in Bob Woodward's books and elsewhere -- that the surge was basically conceived in the White House. The Gamble whole-heartedly embraces the Team O narrative, giving Odierno not only credit for conceiving of the surge but also for its execution. When Fiasco came out, some folks complained that Ricks was too harsh on Odierno. But those of us who served in Iraq in 2003 knew that Ricks didn't invent the reputation Odierno's 4th ID had at the time. In the same way, people will claim that Ricks is rehabilitating Odierno in exchange for access. That's equally not true. If anything, The Gamble puts a final stamp of approval on a rehabilitation process that's been going on for quite some time. General Odierno will likely be remembered as one of the great American field commanders. And if you served in Iraq in 2003 -- as I did -- that is a very pleasant shock.

The West Point Social Science and History Departments: Honestly, who says that service in the 75th Ranger Regiment is the best way to advance one's career in the U.S. Army? Let's take a quick roll call of the men and women who emerge as key figures in Ricks' narrative who taught as West Point: David Petraeus, Joel Rayburn, Charlie Miller, H.R. McMaster, John Nagl, Doug Ollivant, Paul Yingling, Gian Gentile, Suzanne Nielsen, Mike Meese and Jen Koch Easterly. I am sure I have missed a few names. Time and time again, the key figures cited by Ricks have some connection to USMA -- even if they didn't go there themselves. Lesson to junior officers: forget the Rangers -- go to graduate school.

President Bush: The guy responsible for getting us into this mess actually comes across as a leader and statesman after the electoral defeats of 2006. Against all advice, he gambles on the surge and Generals Petraeus and Odierno in early 2007. Plus, advisers to Petraeus claim Bush was curious, intelligent, and hands-on during their weekly teleconferences in 2007. What a difference between the Bush they saw and the Bush the rest of the country saw.

AEI and Jack Keane: Speaking of people who got us into this stupid war, Fred Kagan and the folks at AEI deserve a lot of the credit for conceiving of and then selling the surge of 2007. None of it would have happened, though, were it not for Big Jack Keane and his infernal meddling. But again, it is just incredible how much of this massive strategic decision and military operation was driven by a freaking think tank.

The U.S. Army: Tom Ricks hates the U.S. Army? Really? If this book is anything to go by, Tom Ricks has a lot of admiration for the U.S. Army and the officers who lead it.

The Foreigners: Emma Sky (UK) and Dave Kilcullen (AUS) earn a tremendous amount of praise throughout the narrative. Their bosses -- Odierno and Petraeus, respectively -- earn credit for listening to them. So too does Sadi Othman (PAL). We Americans have been clever enough to extend rights of citizenship to Kilcullen and Othman. When are we going to convince Lady Sky to come be a permanent member of our team?

Losers:

The General Officer Corps: My goodness, where do we start? Very few general officers come out of this looking good. What does it say about the upper echelons of the U.S. military that the surge strategy was conceived of by a retired general, some analysts at a think tank, and the number two commander in Iraq over the vigorous objections of the joint chiefs, the head of CENTCOM, and the commander in Iraq? General Casey comes out of this narrative looking terrible. So too does Admiral Fallon. And General Pace. Paul Yingling's essay on generalship is cited approvingly and often. Oddly, General Chiarrelli -- widely admired and respected among COINdinistas -- also comes off not looking so good, largely because Ricks asks why he wasn't able to change strategy in Iraq in 2006 when he was the Number Two while General Odierno was able to do so in 2007. Anyway, overall, the general officers corps emerges from this narrative quite bloodied.

Gian Gentile: I know Gian is upset by the way he comes off in the book. Ricks basically gives supporting fire to something that has been said for quite some time in whispers -- that the performance of Gian's battalion in Baghdad in 2006 was actually quite poor. Again, this is something that I have heard from a lot of officers, so there's no sense in blaming Tom Ricks for promulgating this. (Especially since Tom cites Gian respectfully several times in the book.) But this has to hurt. It also undermines much of what Gian has argued about the surge -- specifically, that we were doing all the right things in 2006. Major General Hammond: "Gentile had a different stance. It was night and day. He was FOB-centric. We are JSS-centric."

Anyone British Not Named Emma Sky: Well, really, just the British Army. Who come off as humiliated by the way in which the Americans reverse their losses in Iraq while the British lose the plot in southern Iraq -- and after being quite sure of their superiority in all things COIN from 2003-2006.

Curious Omissions:

Brigade Commanders: The surge was mainly executed by brigade and battalion commanders, so where are they in this narrative? Two of the most highly-praised brigade commanders in 2007 were old battalion commanders of mine, Steve Townsend and Mike Kershaw. Townsend is mentioned only once, and Kershaw isn't mentioned at all. The book cites the testimony of tactical leaders occasionally, but for the most part, the focus is at the general officer level. This means there is another good book on the surge waiting to be written, focusing on the role played by brigade and battalion commanders. (Ricks does focus on what Sean MacFarland was able to do in Ramadi, but that was pre-surge.)

The National Security Council: Just to give one example, Meghan O'Sullivan's name was not mentioned once -- a little odd considering the oversized role she has played in the Iraq war. And the adult supervision General Lute has restored to the Iraq team on the NSC was also not mentioned.

The New Media: Ricks cited a discussion on Small Wars Journal once and also cited some things on PlatoonLeader.org but never considered the way in which the new media has revolutionized the lessons learned process in the U.S. military. (Forget Abu Muqawama, though, because this lowly blog started around the same time as the surge.) Instead of just feeding information to the Center for Army Lessons Learned and waiting for lessons to be disseminated, junior officers are now debating what works and what doesn't on closed internet fora -- such as PlatoonLeader and CompanyCommand -- and open fora, such as the discussion threads on Small Wars Journal. The effect of the new media on the junior officers fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was left curiously unexplored by Ricks, now a famous blogger himself.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book. I would recommend you buy it, but if you're reading this blog, you probably already have.

Update: Gian and I have written back and forth over the past 24 hours about this post and The Gamble. I think Dave Dilegge says all that needs to be said here, though. I am glad Gian stuck his neck out by getting into this debate in the first place.

Dear Tom,

Stop saying the surge worked militarily but failed politically. If it failed politically, it failed militarily. A better way of expressing what I think you are trying to say is that the surge succeeded tactically and operationally (and maybe strategically) but failed politically.

Carl von Clausewitz appeared to me in a vision, Obi Wan Kenobi-style, and told me to correct you on this.

Signed,

Your Sensei

Update: Ricks responds. This might explain why the "sensei" has about 44.5 million fewer readers than the "student". I've got fnord, though.

Yeah, I know what you mean. The trouble was, when I said "it succeeeded tactically but failed strategically," I could just see people fail to compute. The average person (and the average Washington journalist) doesn't know the difference between the two. That's why I started using the less fashionable, less Clauswitizan formulation.

Yesterday, I went to see Waltz with Bashir. It was, as expected, pretty amazing. The entire audience stayed in their seats at the end to watch the credits. I myself had trouble, in church later, not thinking about the film. It was that haunting. (The film, that is.)

Lebanese and Palestinian viewers (and others), however, might be disappointed by how "Israeli-centric" the film's portrayal of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre was. The Israeli film-maker had every right to tell the story from personal and Israeli perspectives. But at the very end, when the Palestinian woman is screaming "wayn al-'arab?!" (a pretty damning lament -- where are the Arabs?) they didn't even bother to include subtitles, so I have no idea how many in the audience knew what she was screaming or knew it had nothing to do with the Israelis.

The reason I mention this is that if you happen to have seen and enjoyed the film and are looking for a companion piece, check out the Lebanese-German film Massaker, which is a series of interviews with some of the Phalangist gunmen who actually carried out the killings. It is powerful stuff. I saw it several years ago, in 2005, in Beirut.

For the rest of you, check out the second installment of Tom Ricks' The Gamble in today's Washington Post. Also note the online discussion that will take place today, at noon, between Tom and Steve Biddle.

David Kilcullen, Petraeus's counterinsurgency adviser, concluded that just as the Iraqis had stared at the possibility of full-blown civil war that year but ultimately turned away, so, too, had the American public considered a leap into the unknown -- and stopped short.

"America," he said, "has taken a deep breath, looked into the abyss of pulling out and decided, 'Let's not do it yet.'"

Carlos wanted to share a couple of moments from his Florida touch-and-go trip/talk. He shared the day with a journalist (a sort of internet/media day). It coincided with one hell of a Super Bowl. Carlos spent a year in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon (a brief flirtation with chemistry; it didn't work out), but had to cheer for the Cards (one year does not fandom make. The five points I got didn't hurt either). But kudos to both teams.

The talk went well, but with a majority of developing countries, there is frequently the talk over "who runs/controls the internet" and how to shut it down. One attendee asked if Bill Gates ran the internet (he wishes).

The journo followed, and if there's one thing that Carlos has noted in his time in PME, it's that no matter what national disagreements one has, one thing military folks from around the world agree on is that they all hate the media. This audience was no different, with everything from "you lie" to "bias" -- you all know the drill.

Which brings me to the quote in the subject line. That's from AMB Jeanne Kirkpatrick in the late 1980's. She was on a debate on Firing Line (her and Buckley on one side, Paul Nitze and I-don't-remember on the other). The subject was US foreign policy and it was a whole "realism vs. idealism" debate for you polisci types. Near the end of the talk, Nitze began with a series of facts, and AMB Kirkpatrick cut in with that line. I've never forgotten that quote, obviously.

So when are facts not facts? When they're not, apparently. Carlos said that these international audiences bond on their belief that the media lies/is biased. Then they disagree on what the bias or lie is (those facts are not facts). The case in point was the discussion over Pakistan (two Pakistan officers in the crowd). On the question over "what to do about Pakistan", the journo opined that some sort of Islamabad control needed to be extended to the FATA. She's interrupted by one of the officers with the spiel of "you have to understand, these are old cultures, yada, yada." She responded with "Well, is it Pakistan or not?" "Yes, it is, but we don't control it." (Well, that would be the definition of NOT a state or part of one (lack of monopoly of legitimate violence over a given territory).

So, okay, moving on...the audience is still on the "media bias" kick, and the US Army CPT in the class pops up with the "you know, the biggest problem with what went on in Iraq was the media lying about the lack of connection between Iraq and 9/11."

Yeah...um, WTF?? We still have folks going after that chestnut?

Carlos stresses to his students that despite the fact that we talk about Strategic Communications and how to do it well, the most vital point of the equation is the one we do not control--how the message is received. And if the audience thinks the speaker is not credible, then how it is said (even in the language of the listener) is not going to help. (Though it is the philosophical conundrum. You know, the one where the speaker says "Everything I say is a Lie." Is that a lie?)

Finally, Carlos had what he has to call a "Gian Gentile" moment (and he hopes the good Colonel will take that as a compliment): In the middle of his lecture, Carlos called FM 3-24 the "Counterinsurgency Novel." :)

Okay, Carlos is going back to slacking off. He's gone until the end of February. He's going to Hawaii and has no plans to find connectivity. Aloha 'til March, all.

Tom Ricks, on Meet the Press, today:

As a friend of mine said, it's tough to win a war in Afghanistan when the enemy wants to fight it in the next country over, Pakistan.

Abu Muqawama, on Tuesday:

It's tough to fight a war in Afghanistan when the opposing team decides to fight the war in Pakistan.

So close! The day someone -- anyone -- says "Abu Muqawama" on a serious news program is the day I die happily. Which is so sad, really. You know you have reached true Washington loserdom when you yearn for such things.

Anyway, there is lots of good stuff on the Washington Post website associated with Tom's new book,including this great video detailing a young officer's negotiations with insurgents.

The tendency in the U.S. Army is to want to solve problems immediately. And in an insurgency that's just not possible.

Tom Ricks is on Meet the Press right now, but I don't have a TeeVee and am going to have to podcast it. I have, though, read his article in the Washington Post this morning and am very much looking forward to reading his book. A few things jumped out at me in the article. One was this section:

In a recent interview, Odierno expressed surprise that a book by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, published just as Odierno took command in Iraq, credited White House aides and others in Washington with developing the surge. From Odierno's perspective -- and that of many other senior officers in Iraq -- the new strategy had been more or less conceived and executed by himself in Baghdad, with some crucial coaching from Keane in Washington.

"We thought we needed it, and we asked for it and we got it," he said, referring to the strategy. "You know, General Petraeus and I think . . . I did it here, [and] he picked it up. That's how we see it. And so it's very interesting when people back there see it very differently."

Now if you happen to know a lot of the people who were responsible for implementing the surge, you also happen to know there are several different narratives for who was responsible for making the surge happen. Team O, Team P, and Team First Cav all have their own versions of what happened, and those are just the guys and girls in Baghdad. I can only imagine how many people in the 202 area code also take credit for the drop in violence that took place over 2007.

What narrative do I privilege? Whose story do I trust the most? Well, I take a very unconventional view of surge history. In my mind, it was all one big romantic comedy, filled with sexual tension and hi-jinks.

On the long flight home to Washington in a C-17 military cargo jet, Gates, who declined to be interviewed for this article, disappeared into his mobile home in the plane's belly with Pace and a bottle of California cabernet sauvignon. A few days later, Odierno got the word: Gates wants you to have all five brigades.

Now if that isn't the funniest thing you'll read all weekend, I don't know what is. This is how we plan our wars, world. Why you lot haven't succeeded in beating us in more of them I have no idea. I mean, this too was an actual news article in the Washington Post today:

"If not a need, there's certainly a demand," said Maj. Amanda Emmens-Rossi, a frequent customer at the beauty salon. "You come here on the weekend, and there's always Joes lined up to get manis and pedis. Just because you're deployed doesn't mean you have to look like a ragbag."

How many pedicures do you think the boys in the Korengal Valley are getting? No wonder the Taliban think they can beat us. And they wear eye-liner!

Well, that was quick. Following this post, the American analysts I trust the most on Iraq called to say how over-the-moon with joy they were about the elections.

The Winners: Maliki (huge), Allawi and the secularists

Won Enough Votes to Stay in the Game (which is good, in the case of the former): Sons of Iraq, the Sadrists

The Losers: Iran & ISCI, the Kurds

I forgot to include the Kurds when I first posted this. The Kurds were always going to end up losing when the first contested elections were held in Ninewa Province.

Key Questions:

1. Will ISCI accept their reverses?
2. Will there be some kind of backlash against Maliki?

What are the odds the Roman Martinez named as one of the new clerks for Chief Justice Roberts is the same Roman Martinez who served as one of Paul Bremmer's principle aides in the CPA (aka "The Dream Team") in 2003 and later went on to serve on the Iraq desk at the National Security Council prior to adult supervision being restored in 2007?