Rewards of Wisdom
Rewards of Wisdom In January 2007, with Iraq in fl ames and Democrats set to take over Congress, President Bush had two options. He could side with Senator Barack Obama and begin a gradual drawdown...
...The Awakening, which began in Sunni-dominated Anbar province in the fall of 2006, has blossomed into a trans-sectarian, national, grassroots political movement...
...That wealth is increasing dramatically as security has allowed oil production to return to prewar levels (and as prices have soared...
...He continues to advocate a political timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and states that he still would have opposed the surge regardless of its clear success...
...Fortunately, none of this came to pass...
...It was a lifetime of service and involvement in national security issues that gave McCain the perspective and insight to urge a change in strategy as early as 2003...
...Shiite radical Moktada al-Sadr remains “studying” in Iran, while his militia has been cut to pieces by U.S...
...And only when the violence was brought under control through the application of deadly force could politics resume and Iraq make its fi rst real steps toward normality...
...This latter option was the one Bush eventually adopted, of course...
...After all, it was the “light footprint” strategy of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Generals John Abizaid and George Casey that allowed the turmoil in Iraq to spin out of control between 2003 and 2007...
...It was thought then, too, that the political gains would result in a more secure Iraq...
...Why on earth would we choose to reward him for it...
...The sectarian militias were denied a safe haven and separated from the Iraqi population through effective counterinsurgency policies...
...And Iraq is busy preparing for provincial and national elections that will further accelerate reconciliation by broadening and deepening the political participation of all the major groups...
...He could side with Senator Barack Obama and begin a gradual drawdown of American troops in Iraq, leaving the Iraqis to a grim fate and dealing a serious and consequential blow to American interests in the Middle East and beyond...
...Soft” power was useless...
...No one, of course, can say with absolute assurance how things would have turned out had the president opted to listen to Senator Obama rather than Senator McCain...
...The Iraqi government has met almost all of the “benchmarks” the U.S...
...Another lesson is that, in this era of “soft” or “smart” power, force is still an effective means of achieving strategic goals...
...Those who argued that violence in Iraq would not stop until political accords were reached ignored the lessons of the fi rst years of the war, when the Iraqis made great gains politically at a time of worsening violence...
...The surge is over...
...combat deaths in Iraq in July 2008 the lowest monthly total since the war began more than fi ve years ago...
...The Iraq those troops leave behind is an utterly transformed place...
...Bereft of U.S...
...footprint” in Iraq...
...And Obama has been infl exible in his error...
...and Iraqi troops...
...And for that, he deserves the thanks of Americans, of Iraqis, and indeed the world...
...Experience matters...
...Since their fi rst offensive operations began in July 2007, overall attacks have been cut by 80 percent...
...The sectarian bloodshed staining Iraq in 2006 and 2007 has almost entirely abated...
...We wonder what might have been averted— and what might have been accomplished—if Bush had adopted McCain’s strategy fi ve years ago...
...he lacks the capacity to admit he made a mistake and is therefore willing to risk everything the surge has achieved...
...Bush tried a new policy that is working...
...Policy matters...
...And Al Qaeda in Iraq would have continued its barbaric killing spree, using the departing American soldiers as a recruitment tool, evidence of American weakness and unreliability...
...When it came to Iraq it was the old man, McCain, not the young, fresh, and cool Obama, who was fl exible in judgment and willing to try a new approach...
...Barack Obama not only lacks experience and judgment...
...The previous policy in Iraq was failing...
...It would not be al Qaeda but the United States facing a “near strategic defeat” on Osama bin Laden’s chosen front...
...Bush sided with McCain, who had been calling for additional troops and a counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq since late summer 2003...
...Military might was required to staunch the bleeding...
...Matthew Continetti, for the Editors...
...As the advocates of the surge predicted, a population that feels secure is a population more willing and able to reach political compromise...
...Obama got it wrong when the stakes were greatest, and on the central issue of our time...
...The Iraqi army is progressing admirably...
...Sadr fl ed to Iran and declared numerous “cease-fi res” because Generals Petraeus and Odierno’s full-spectrum warfare caught him off-guard...
...An empowered and belligerent Iran would have moved to fi ll the vacuum America left behind, thus allowing the mullahs in Tehran to pursue unchecked their policy of “Lebanonization” in Iraq...
...security, Iraqis would have turned to the nearest sectarian militia for protection from the widening civil war...
...The last of the reinforcements sent to Iraq have returned home...
...The fact that America was continually looking for the exit during those years forced our allies in Iraq to hedge their bets and allowed our enemies to raise the pressure, eagerly anticipating the moment when they would have Iraq all to themselves...
...And a defeated America would have led to a more dangerous world...
...Those who attribute the gains in Iraq to other causes are deluding themselves...
...But, at the very least, it is foolish to suggest that any of the military or political progress we have made in the last year and a half could have been achieved with a reduced U.S...
...Contrary to conventional wisdom, experience cannot be separated from judgment...
...But a precipitous and premature withdrawal would undermine all the gains made in the last year and a half, and a timeline would breathe new life into the enemies of a stable and democratic Iraq...
...It is worth pausing to refl ect on what might have happened had Bush given in to popular opinion in January 2007 and abandoned Iraq...
...Not so...
...American casualties have fallen dramatically, with U.S...
...The major Sunni political bloc has rejoined the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki...
...The Anbar Awakening might not have survived a year had it not been for the surge’s demonstration of American commitment and resolve...
...Whatever might have been, it was Bush’s decision in 2007 that clearly put the United States and Iraq on the path to success...
...Al Qaeda in Iraq has been routed, and the global al Qaeda organization faces what CIA director Michael Hayden calls a “near-strategic defeat” in Iraq...
...more than two-thirds of Iraqi combat battalions now take the lead in operations in their areas...
...Had Bush listened to Obama and decided to retreat last year, not only would the progress we see today not have occurred, but it is quite likely that the situation in Iraq would be much worse than it was at the end of 2006...
...Congress set for it, and, although a national hydrocarbons law remains elusive, the country’s oil wealth is being divided among its 18 provinces...
...When violence careened out of control in 2006, the Iraqi government was powerless to stop it...
...Or he could side with Senator John McCain and change strategies, sending additional troops to Iraq in an effort to secure the population and assist the Iraqis in their fi ght against al Qaeda and the Iranian- backed Shiite militias—the so-called “surge” policy...
...One of the chief lessons of the surge is that we are not powerless...
Vol. 13 • August 2008 • No. 45
