Nine months later

Frederick W. Kagan takes an accounting of the progress made in Iraq.  Nine months ago al Qaeda had established safe-havens in Ramadi, Fallujah, and Karmah in Anbar, the number of Iraqis from all of Anbar who were willing to join the Iraqi Security Forces was only 1,000, and al Qaeda in Iraq was launching massive suicide car-bomb attacks inside Baghdad from villages they controlled south of Baghdad.  Things have changed since then.

American and Iraqi successes in pursuing our joint and individual vital interests over the past nine months have been nothing short of staggering. The attempts of war critics to focus the discussion entirely on the failures of the Iraqi central government are disingenuous, almost dishonest, when they ignore these incredible, and in many cases, unexpected achievements.

Of America's vital interests in Iraq today, none is more important than defeating al Qaeda in Iraq.

Read the whole thing.  Mr. Kagan lays out a point by point measure of the gains.

Comments

[FrankC]

The purpose of the surge, the president said, is to buy time and space for the Iraqi government to reach agreement on reconciliation.

Did it? No.

[Tom Bowler]

Did it? Yes. The surge bought time. We probably have another two years.

But then you must have meant, have the Iraqis reconciled? Well, with the surge finally in place in June, here we are three whole months down the road and those Iraqis haven't resolved their decades old Shia/Sunni conflict yet! What's wrong with those people!

Talk about your instant gratification generation!

[FrankC]

The point is Tom, that you cannot call the surge a success.

And sence the President said the point of the surge was to help reconciliation, Kagan has no cause to say focusing on reconsiliation is dishonest.

And two years? Reconwill take decades and will not be accomplished by our troops.

I am not for instant gratification. I am opposed to using our military incorrectly.

[FrankC]

Of course, reconciliation was never going to happen because of the surge. That is why Kagan wants to ignore it.

I give you the famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin:
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb." -- the lambs in this case being the Sunnis and Kurds.

I thought that Conservatives, of all people, realized that our constitutional democracy began with the development of private property rights and free markets, and that these institutions led to elections within a constitutional framework. Elections were not the beginning of, and did not cause, liberty.

In the 40 or 50 countries that have held elections without long-standing traditions of property rights, equality and free markets, the elections have led to unfavorable results in every case -- even if those countries brandish a piece of paper called a constitution.

But then it dawned on me. Your not a Conservative. Your quoting Kagan. That pretty much speaks for itself.

[Tom Bowler]

You're right Frank. I'm not a conservative. I come to the Republican party from the libertarian direction, and in reality it's the Republican party who finally came in my direction when Ronald Reagan made his run for the presidency.

And you're right again. Elections without property rights and free markets are meaningless, but you are wrong to assume that the administration hasn't thought of that.

And right again, I'm quoting Kagan. If that fact speaks to you about something other than what Kagan is actually saying, then you are descending into a pointless argument. Is he a neocon? Is that your point? And if it is, so what?

You should pick up a copy of the U.S Army & Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. You can get it on Amazon. You'll find we're nation building. Of course we were never supposed to be nation building. The Army and the Marines aren't supposed to be nation building, but General Petraeus has decided that in order to win, that's what they have to do. So they're doing it. That's the bottom line. You can whine and wring your hands that it wasn't supposed to work that way, but that's the way it is. And you know what? The Army and the Marines are going to succeed, and the Iraqis are going to step up to the plate. Sorry if you're distraught over it.

[FrankC]

You seemed to insinuate in your last sentence that I imply the marines "are not going to succeed?"

Come on.

The marines have accomplished all military goals given to them.

Forming free markets and property rights, a point you mentioned briefly and then ducked, should not be their assignment or their precondition for leaving.

I am sorry that you feel it is.

As a practical matter, here are the political consequnces. Conservatives like me will either write in a protest vote for President or leave that part of the ballot blank. The Congressional Republicans have until the beginning of November to act like true Conservatives on this matter, end their subservience to Bush or face the consequences.

As long as Republicans maintain 40 seats in the Senate, it does not paritcularly bother me to see the party punished until neocons are thrown out and Conservatives are running foreign policy again -- as they were under Ronald Reagan.

And if you think I represent a small percentage of Conservatives in the Republican Party, you are sadly mistaken.

[FrankC]

Excuse me, for the sake of brevity I used the term Marines only. But that is no excuse.

All armed forces including Navy, Army, Air Force Coast Guard Special forces.

You completed your mission and did everything expected of you. And I thank you!

[Tom Bowler]

Truth be told, Frank, I'd be flabbergasted to find you are representative of any conservative, be it in Republican party or any other one. You (and the alternate identities you assume when you comment here) are right on target with the liberal talking points. I think you're claiming to be a conservative thinking it will lend some credibility to your point. It doesn't. Pretending doesn't work.

[FrankC]

For neocons to claim that Conservatives are not Conservatives is pretty standard.

I've never hear of a Libertarian in favor of nation building. But then you are not a libertarian.

I did more work for Ronald Reagan and the Republicans in the 80s than you have probably done for the Republican party.

Casper Weinberber ran a foreign policy that Conservatives with Libertarian leanings could support.

There were neocons in the Reagan administration. But Casper Weinberger would never have let them get away with any of this.

Lawrence Korb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Ronald Reagan has written on this, and I would encourage you to read him.

He is NOT a liberal. And nothing I have written is any different than the things he has stated.

I can assure you that a high percentage of Conservatives are pretty fed up. But the neocons seem oblivious.

[Tom Bowler]

Oh, please.

[FrankC]

You seem like a decent chap. But your a little out there. I share a house with three other like-minded individuals and we have seen sites like this popping up increasing disbelief.

Check out antiwar.com. None of those people would agree with anything you say. And none of them are liberal.

I do not necessarily endorse everything on that site by the way.

[PJ Smith]

Damned straight Tom! You should rename this site from "The Libertarian" to something like "Libertarian Leanings" and admit you're just a republican who LEANS libertarian... Quit claiming you go to the extreme!

[FrankC]

I don't really get your post.

Are you claiming Lawrence Korb is a liberal? Are you claiming that I have written posts different from what Lawrence Korb would write?
Or do you have difficulty with the notion that I supported Ronald Reagan?

Whichever it is, let me just go on record as saying that I agree with just about everything Lawrence Korb has written on this subject.