Is the "surge" succeeding? If we stick with the "surge" will we "win?" If we leave Iraq will we lose? Implicit in each of these questions are more fundamental questions, like: who are we fighting and why? what are our goals and why? These are strategic questions that should dictate our policy and someone should give kudos to Obama for having the judgment to appreciate the need for a comprehensive strategic vision.
Focusing on the "surge" in Iraq is a misplaced focus on "a" tactic and not necessarily a meaningful measure of long term success in the wider war. The "surge" is simply one tactic we've employed in Iraq, but whether it is "succeeding" or not does not answer the bigger questions of whether we should be there at all, how long we should be there and what we are hoping to accomplish while there.
Obama's speech yesterday was the first to define a broad strategic vision for true security and a leadership role for this Country at the dawn of the New Global Age. The following is a discussion of guerilla tactics, Iraq and the implications of each with respect to our broader global objectives.
The big criticism from the right today is that Barrack is retreating from Iraq and ignoring the "success" of the surge strategy. But I would caution that touting the "success" of the surge is tantamount to counting your chickens before they hatch....again. I'm sure Bin Laden has read and understands Tsun Tzu's Art of War.
Bush should understand that any perceived success from the "surge" has many explanations and declaring "victory", again, might be premature, again. Basic guerilla tactics dictate that when the superior force advances, you retreat. When they stop, you attack. Has anyone stopped to consider that when we "surged," many Al Qaida operatives simply left and have been focusing their efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan? What would be stopping them from returning to set off a bomb here and there, frame a Sunni for blowing up a Shi'a mosque and vice versa. How quickly could they re-fan the passions that caused a near civil war?
Back to the strategic questions: who are we fighting and why? I think, after careful examination, the answer is simple: radical religious extremists who employ terrorism are our enemies. We fight them because if we do not, they use guerilla tactics to terrorize populations and, in the case of these particular religious extremists, seek the power to subjugate people and force them to conform to their twisted conservative view of Islam. The Taliban government in Afghanistan was the immediate face of that enemy, but the truth is, this type of terrorism knows no geographic boundaries. It does not "live" in any one place. It does not have an Army that can be engaged and decisively defeated in a single climactic battle.
Ultimately, terrorism is nothing more than the outlet for an extremist point of view. Terrorism is the tool employed by its believers to advance that point of view. A point of view is nothing more than an idea and an idea cannot be defeated with a gun. Democracy was an idea and the British tried to defeat it with conventional arms to no avail. An idea can only be defeated by a better idea.
So back to Iraq. No, I don't think we should have gone. I think Iraq will likely be remembered as the single biggest strategic and tactical blunder in our history and if our economy and Country survive this mistake, I hope we learn some lesson that might prevent our people in the future from being misled into an unnecessary action by a government preying on their passions and fears. Certainly, it is indisputable that Iraq and Al-Qaida were never linked except in the rhetoric of the Bush administration leading up to this war. Was it an oil play or a sincere belief that democracy would simply spring like a flower if only Saddam were taken out of the picture?
Regardless, it is difficult to overstate the profound setback that strategic blunder has cost us in our wider effort to combat religious extremism. So today we find that enemy is actually stronger than when we declared war on it seven years ago. This possibility was simply inconceivable to the Bush Administration and is, frankly, a testament to their strategic myopia and gross malfeasance.
Here is my concern and complaint. I think Obama is correct to turn the focus back to Afghanistan and Pakistan and the fight against religious radical extremism. But I think he's hoping for too much if he thinks he can do that while simultaneously pursuing the "wrap-up" in Iraq. What will happen when we redeploy combat brigades from Iraq to Afghanistan, but the AlQaida operatives redeploy themselves from Afghanistan to Iraq?
Does anyone think they will be less successful this time in pulling off random acts of terror and violence to destabilize that Country and push it back to the brink of civil war? Are the borders suddenly secure such that AlQaida operatives cannot come and go under our noses? What happens if they are successful and we find ourselves trying to leave amidst widespread carnage? What then?
My only point is that the decision has to be made to pull from Iraq now. To start meaningful and immediate withdrawal and redeployment now. To turn over the responsibility and control for combating terrorism within Iraq to the Iraqis, now. Unless we do that, we are simply setting ourselves up for more problems. So long as we remain in Iraq, we will be the most convenient target for suicide bombers, ambush and blame. Only when we are gone will it be clear that AlQaida is attacking Iraqi civilians and, in that context, I am confident the new Iraqi government and the people of that Country, tired from war and destruction, will eliminate that threat.
As important, with our forces redeployed and our focus on religious extremism, we can begin to combat that idea with better ideas and begin guiding the global debate on that issue and using our international military and economic influence to encourage progress on those issues. In other words, once we have the Iraq debacle behind us, we can regain the moral high ground, which is always a necessary advantage in any idea war. It's time to become a light and a beacon to the World and we simply cannot do that without acknowledging and correcting the mistake that cost us that position in the first place.
To Barrack Obama, I say thanks for taking the first steps.