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| Senator Lugar ignores whatÂ’s happening in Iraq |
| 2007-06-28 |
| J .D. Johannes, National Review Is it possible to win a war on the ground, and lose it in Congress? Perhaps. In his Senate-floor speech Monday, Senator Richard Lugar announced, “In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond…The prospects that the current ‘surge’ strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the president are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic-policy debate.” The Indiana Republican endorses a downsizing and redeployment of the U.S. military mission in Iraq as an essential precondition to reasserting these vital national-security interests, which he defines thus: 1) To prevent any piece of Iraq from being a terrorist safe haven; 2) To prevent Iraqi sectarian violence from spilling over into any other parts of the region; 3) To prevent Iranian domination of the region; and 4) To prevent a loss of U.S. credibility in the region. All four of these goals are being advanced, some of them dramatically, by the surge strategy of Gen. David Petraeus — the very strategy that Sen. Lugar would scrap in favor of “downsizing and redeployment.” The principal accomplishment of the surge to date is solidifying the “Anbar Awakening,” the significance of which has been under-reported by the media and ill-understood by the public. If any piece of territory in Iraq qualified as a “terrorist safe haven,” it was bloody Anbar. This province of little over 1 million people — 4.5 percent of Iraq’s population — has accounted for 34.6 percent of U.S. casualties. (Insurgent activity in Baghdad, with five times the population, has accounted for fewer troop deaths both as a percent (29.5 percent) and in absolute numbers (1,052). The virtual extinction of the insurgency in the province — a victory that I was privileged to witness first-hand — represented not some momentary quirk of tribal alliances, but a diligent application of the revised tactics that coalition forces have implemented under skilled, battle-proven officers and Gen. Petraeus. These tactics include meticulous census-taking of persons and vehicles; skilled, persistent diplomacy with tribal leaders; incorporation of local intelligence; constant foot patrols in the residential areas from platoon and squad sized outposts; and persistent perimeter control of areas cleared and held. Even Lugar acknowledges the effectiveness of these tactics. He stated, “I do not doubt the assessments of military commanders that there has been some progress in security…We should attempt to preserve initiatives that have shown promise, such as engaging Sunni groups that are disaffected with the extreme tactics and agenda of al Qaeda in Iraq.” But it is hard to see how redeployment to Kuwait, or the Kurdish provinces, or hunkering down in large bases in the outlying desert will preserve this progress, let alone extend it. . . . Lugar bases his plea for downsizing and redeployment on three premises: the state of the Iraqi government, the stress of the war on our military, and the “constraints of our domestic political timetable.” The first two are canards. Dysfunction within the Iraqi government should take a back seat to the U.S. interest in stabilizing the regime. Yes, there are factions in the Iraqi parliament that want Iranian domination; yes, there are factions that will plunder the Iraqi treasury. But there are also factions that want stabilization and that look to us for protection and arbitration. We are ill-served when we let the former frame our public debate. Much was made in the American press, for instance, of the “anti-fence” law introduced by the Sadrists during the early phases of the surge. Lugar cites it. He is blissfully unaware that Baghdad residents build their own security walls in response to neighborhood violence. They do it because it works, rendering checkpoints effective in blocking terrorist infiltration. We do it too — only better. The Sadrists, whose militias would “cleanse” certain Baghdad neighborhoods of Sunnis, scored a major PR victory with American civil libertarians through a legislative act that most Baghdadis regarded as absurd. Lugar also advances a truism, that the engagement in Iraq stresses our military personnel. War opponents often raise this issue, so easily graphed in Power Point presentations. But I saw what no Power Point can demonstrate: The quality of combat power we bring to bear has improved from 2005 (my previous stint as an embed) to 2007. I was stunned by the number of infantrymen who are reenlisting, maintaining a core of corporate knowledge on how to fight this war. The young men coming into the infantry today know what they are getting into, and are eminently capable of meeting the challenge. This leaves Lugar’s third, and most potent objection to a continuation of the “surge”: “Some will argue,” he told the Senate, “that political timelines should always be subordinated to military necessity, but that is unrealistic in a democracy.” Lugar is saying, “Because we lack the will to win, let us make a decision not to win, and thus reassert our will.” This is particularly untimely now, when our military has accomplished one of the most stunning successes of this prolonged struggle. . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 My apologies. I meant pompous, posturing ass! of course. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-28 20:34 |
| #4 The honourable senator admitted on NPR that he deliberately scheduled his speech to be the last one of the night, at 8:30 p.m., to an empty chamber. This got him in the Congressional Record, but otherwise can't possibly have made any difference. Ass! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-28 20:33 |
| #3 I know Dick Lugar -- family friend. Very nice guy. But I never understood how he had such a reputation as this foreign affairs guru. There's nothing exceptional there intelligence-wise. He's just a nice mid-western boy with lot's of nice liberal friends who's been in Washington a very long time. |
| Posted by: Captain Lewis 2007-06-28 20:15 |
| #2 lugar bologna... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-06-28 19:33 |
| #1 Is it possible to win a war on the ground, and lose it in Congress? Ummmmmmmm...yeah? How old is this guy? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-06-28 15:22 |