As reported by SusanG yesterday, former RNCC Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) wrote that the Bush Doctrine and the quagmire resulting from what Cole calls a "war of choice" in Iraq cost the GOP in 2006 and 2008. While I disagree with Cole's political analysis - I think the Bush administration's uncaring and incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina was the tipping point - calling out the Bush Doctrine of preemption raises an interesting question:
Is President Obama still saddled with the Bush Doctrine in Iraq?
More below the fold....
Is Obama Still Saddled with the Bush Doctrine?
Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) has renounced the Bush Doctrine, according to a report at NewsOK. In an article for a magazine published by his alma mater, Grinnel College, Cole writes:
It is clear that the decision of the Bush administration to go to war in Iraq cost Republicans their majority in Congress. ... Experience suggests that the Bush doctrine of "pre-emptive" war is ill-suited to America’s values, traditions and democratic institutions. It ought to be discarded.
In an interview, Cole revealed his objection was based less on "values, traditions, and democratic institutions" than on partisan politics:
The reality is that if you engage in a war of choice - and Iraq was a war of choice - it's going to become a partisan war. That's OK I suppose if you win quickly. But I think once a war lasts as long as (the Iraq war) has lasted - March of '03 to November of '06 and of course still on to today - that it had political consequences for the Republican Party nationally.
Plus the consequences for dead Americans and Iraqis, their families, the federal budget.... Ah well, I suppose we can't expect Cole to think of everything.
Past political analysis aside, with over 100,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq and a "residual force" scheduled to remain after our withdrawal, the present and future strategic policy question is whether and how President Obama is still saddled with the Bush Doctrine.
Preemption as U.S. military doctrine:
There was a debate in the comments to SusanG's article about whether the Iraq War was in fact preemptive in light of the fact that Iraq had neither WMDs nor ties to Al Qaeda, the supposed threats being preempted. But preemption is a term of art in U.S. Army operational doctrine, and given that President Bush unveiled his political doctrine in his 2002 commencement address at West Point his use of jargon may be important.
In The Art of Maneuver, combat doctrine specialist Robert Leonhard argued that the U.S. Army was still trapped in an attrition-based operational theory. Leonhard proposed that the Army should adopt maneuver theory, avoiding strength-on-strength battles and instead using mobility to strike at critical vulnerabilities. He offered three basic principles of maneuver theory: preemption, dislocation, and disruption.
The operational principle of preemption is that a commander should attack, with only a marginal balance of forces, in order to preempt a projected enemy advantage in the future. If the commander has a slight advantage or even a slight disadvantage now, but that balance will soon shift to the enemy, the commander should strike with the force at hand before the enemy advantage can harden.
Leonhard wrote on operational doctrine, assuming a war is already underway. As we'll see, President Bush transposed preemption into a political doctrine, whether to begin a war. That difference is crucial in terms of ethical and legal implications. But assuming President Bush was using military jargon for a military audience - a West Point commencement - and assuming his speech was written by someone who understood what that jargon meant....
What did the invasion of Iraq preempt?
The general argument, shaped by the public relations effort to sell the war to the American people, is that President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq to preempt terrorist attacks based in Iraq and/or an Iraqi strike using WMDs. As we now know Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al Qaeda and no WMD program, the argument continues, there was nothing to preempt. If we accept that the Bush administration knew or should have known Hussein had no Al Qaeda links or WMD programs, the Iraq War was thus simply an act of unprovoked aggression, rather than a preemptive strike.
The Iraq War was an act of unprovoked aggression, but it was also a preemptive strike. How can both be true?
The projected balance of power shift worrying U.S. leaders emanated not from Iraq, but from Saudi Arabia. While the U.S. had maintained military bases in Saudi Arabia since 1990 and Operation DESERT STORM, we had long since worn out our welcome. Regardless of any active ties to Al Qaeda - and there is evidence such links existed - the Saudi government clearly shared Al Qaeda's goal of wanting our bases out. Allowing those bases had become politically untenable, in light of Al Qaeda attacks on Saudi targets in the 1990s, and both Saudi and broader Arab nationalism. Given our dependence on Saudi oil, the Saudi government had the economic leverage to evict us, and evidence suggests they intended to do so.
Although the U.S. has other small bases in the Persian Gulf region, none of those countries has enough land for large-scale bases. The failed rescue mission in Iran in 1980 and Operation DESERT STORM in 1990 were hamstrung by the absence of such bases. The 1980 Iran mission required a too-complex plan, with long nighttime flights and a covert refueling base in Iran itself, where the mission came unglued. DESERT STORM required a six-month build up and a network of regional allies, secured in part on our commitment not to push on to Baghdad and topple the Hussein regime.
For proponents of a robust U.S. military capability in the Persian Gulf region, these were and remain serious concerns. To leave Saudi Arabia without alternative basing arrangements would severely limit U.S. ability to respond to events. The only other nations in the region with enough territory to accommodate large-scale bases were Iraq and Iran. Neither was willing to host such bases. Iraq was the easier unwilling host.
Simply, we invaded Iraq to preempt our eviction from Saudi Arabia and thus maintain large-scale military bases in the region. It wasn't that the Bush administration lacked an exit strategy. The objective was to acquire permanent bases. As an operational principle, preemption makes military sense. As a political principle, Bush's denials aside, it demanded a war of unprovoked aggression.
How that saddles President Obama:
There's been a lot of justified criticism over President Obama's statement that the U.S. will retain a "residual force" in Iraq, even after our "withdrawal." Candidate Obama said that during the campaign, as did Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and almost every other Democratic candidate in 2008. Given the widespread progressive calls to bring all the troops home from Iraq, immediately, why the disconnect?
I suggest the disconnect lies in why we invaded Iraq to begin with. Congressional Democrats who supported the war may have echoed the public relations spin about preempting Al Qaeda and WMDs, but I suggest their motivation - then and still - was grounded in the belief that the U.S. needs large-scale bases in order to preserve our strategic capability in the Persian Gulf. That capability would be severely limited by a complete withdrawal from Iraq, because we have no other large-scale basing options in the region.
If preserving a robust U.S. military presence in the region is a policy priority - and it still seems to be - President Obama is saddled with the residue of the Bush Doctrine: long-term, large-scale military bases in Iraq. Whether acquiring those bases cost them in 2006 and 2008 - as Cole claims - is a matter of Republican history. What to do with those bases now is a matter of Democratic policy.
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Happy Tuesday!