The liberal case for an Iraq "surge."

We broke it. It's our responsibility to fix it. But can we? And what's the cost of trying? More painful questioning below the fold.

An anonymous reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog sums it up well:

A reader writes:

Background on my attitude: I thought the war was unsupported from the outset. It was a mistake and one we have just piled on mistakes to make worse. We should never have gone in, if we did, we needed double the troops, a better plan for the postwar period, one that was flexible so that if X happens, we can adjust to point Y. In short, this is a cluster-f**k. It could be worse, but that's like Bill Parcells saying Sunday night "Hey, we could have missed that field goal". Clear enough about my attitude towards Iraq? Good.

However, I'm a firm believer in the Colin Powell thought process: we broke it and everything that's happened since, including things outside our control, is our responsibility (not necessarily  our fault). If we leave now, we create a humanitarian crisis of such epic proportion that if it were any other country, we would be begging our leaders to intervene. I believe in being responsible for your actions, right or wrong. With that in mind, I think it is our responsibility to throw everything we have at this to fix it. If it means doubling the Army by starting the draft again, let's do it. If it means paying every Iraqi $1000 to stop fighting, lets raise those taxes and start sending checks. If it means we have to fly the Iranian flag on the Fourth of July, we do it. Whatever it takes to fix the problem, we do, even if it causes much more pain than we've felt so far. Like a parent for their child, we protect them with our lives and if it takes the end of America to make Iraq whole, we owe it to them to go to that extreme.

I see any options short of solving the problem with the fewest Iraqi deaths to be passive-aggressive.

Let's assume, for the moment, Sullivan's reader is right -- we have a moral responsibility to fix what we broke. Can we? And what's the cost of trying?

We can't fix Iraq by expanding our armed forces, via either a draft or stepped-up recruitment. Even if we could magically induct another million Americans into the military this afternoon, by the time we could get them trained, equipped, and into Iraq, it would be too late. Any "surge" that's soon enough to matter will have to consist of existing members of the armed forces, the National Guard, and the reserves. This would mean more stop-loss orders, and more repeat tours for people who have already given more than their share. Is it fair to ask them to give still more? Knowing some of them won't come home, and some will come home maimed for life? Stupid question -- of course it's not fair. The better question is whether it's less unfair than abandoning the great majority of innocent Iraqis to similar risk of death, grievous injury, expulsion from home, etc.

Fair is no longer within our power.

Let's further assume that the least unfair option would be to sacrifice still more of our American servicepeople in a "surge." What are the odds it would even work? Figuring the odds depends on assessing a zillion factors that fall into two broad categories: (1) Factors in the Middle East. (2) Factors in Washington.

Making still more assumptions -- assume that analysis of the Middle Eastern factors would show there is the potential for Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Iranians, Syrians, Turks, Lebanese, Israelis, Palestinians, insurgents, militias, police, Iraqi army, etc.  all to be brought into some sort of reasonably peaceful, reasonably stable alignment, by some masterful combination of threats, cajolery, bribery, brute force, bluster, sleight-of-hand, and horse-trading. That still leaves the Washington factors. The Bush administration has done NOTHING right so far. Is there any reason to believe they will miraculously become competent -- no, competent won't suffice, it will require brilliant -- in time to handle the "surge?" Rumsfeld is out, Gates is in, which is progress -- but is it enough progress?

Making STILL ANOTHER assumption, let's say Gates is a miracle worker, and he could pull it off. There's one more question left: What is the opportunity cost?

"Opportunity cost" is an economist's term, so I suppose it's no surprise that this strand of my thinking was catalyzed by the New York Times's economics columnist, Paul Krugman, in his October 27, 2006 column, "The Arithmetic of Failure." It's subscriber-only "Times Select," dammit, but here's the gist:

Iraq is a lost cause. It's just a matter of arithmetic: given the violence of the environment, with ethnic groups and rival militias at each other's throats, American forces there are large enough to suffer terrible losses, but far too small to stabilize the country. . . .

Afghanistan, on the other hand, is a war we haven't yet lost, and it's just possible that a new commitment of forces there might turn things around.

For me, I think Krugman's analysis is on target, and I think it's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Assuming we can win Afghanistan AND Iraq simultaneously would be one more dubious assumption, and it's finally the one I'm just not willing to make. So here's my position on the "surge":

No.

But, sadly, I also don't think we should bring our troops home. We should send them to Afghanistan, and put everything we have into salvaging that country, and with it a shred of our own honor.

But let's not fool ourselves. Let's keep our eyes and consciences open to what will happen when we leave Iraq. Does anyone remember Riverbend? The Iraqi blogger, onetime member of the DailyKos community? Here is an excerpt from her most recent blog entry -- which, ominously, is seven weeks old:

It's very difficult at this point to connect to the internet and try to read the articles written by so-called specialists and analysts and politicians. They write about and discuss Iraq as I might write about the Ivory Coast or Cambodia- with a detachment and lack of sentiment that- I suppose- is meant to be impartial. Hearing American politicians is even worse. They fall between idiots like Bush- constantly and totally in denial, and opportunists who want to use the war and ensuing chaos to promote themselves.

The latest horror is the study published in the Lancet Journal concluding that over 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war. . . .

We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons – with so many different ways to die, is the number so far fetched?

There are Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since 2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around, some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.

Let's pretend the 600,000+ number is all wrong and that the minimum is the correct number: nearly 400,000. Is that better? Prior to the war, the Bush administration kept claiming that Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis over 24 years. After this latest report published in The Lancet, 300,000 is looking quite modest and tame. Congratulations Bush et al.

Is Riverbend still alive? If so, will our departure mean her death?

When we leave Iraq, thousands will die. Likely tens of thousands. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. I do not lightly say we should leave. But we should leave while we still have time to make leaving meaningful; and we can only do that by leaving, not for home, but for another suffering faraway land where, perhaps, we can find a measure of our own redemption.