Dan, You are Better Than This
Dan Curry, a nice guy who I genuinely appreciate a good back and forth with, tries to argue that the decline in violence over the last 8 months is evidence of victory. Choosing the peak and then showing a decline is a misrepresentation of the data.
The violence is back to 2006 levels which is better than 2007 levels of violence, but hardly victory and certainly still a civil war. More importantly, the point of the surge was to reduce violence as a path to political reconciliation–that is not happening. Despite claims of progress on benchmarks, the Iraqis again failed to pass key legislation:
The legislation was vetoed because of the opposition of Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite vice president who sits on the three-member presidency council, which must approve all laws unanimously, according to his aides and other lawmakers. Abdul-Mahdi’s aides said he believed the law was unconstitutional and would put too much control in the hands of the central government instead of the provinces.
The passage of the law, which delineated the scope of provincial powers, was considered a crucial step not just because it fleshed out the constitution’s definition of Iraq as a federal state, but also because it would have required provincial elections to be held by Oct. 1. The last nationwide elections took place in 2005.
The entire language of the right on this issue guarantees failure. The point isn’t to militarily defeat anyone. The point is to create a stable democratic government in a country that is divided sharply on ethnic and religious grounds. The problem with this goal is that the different factions don’t appear to share that goal.
February 28th, 2008 at
Exactly, the war goes back to 2003 not 2006. If we listen to the victory claimers, we’ve won this war five times already.
Part of the problem with this whole argument is that the Bush administration has done a terrible job of defining what “victory” in Iraq really is. The administration has never really leveled with the American people as to what constitutes accomplishing our objectives. Unless we consider disarming Iraq and spreading democracy, both original explanations for war, and both have proven unaccomplished at this point. The former because it was a lie and the latter because we were not prepared for a five year war in Iraq as demonstrated by the mere fact we are having this conversation while the violence continues along with the simple observation that Iraq is no where near a democracy.
Part of Bush’s vagueness as to what defines victory could be intentional because it keeps the threat of war and a war presidency always over his opponents head– perpetual war theory. Another reason is just plain incompetence. Either way, and no matter how Republicans/conservatives/neocons spin this, not one thing Bush has or hasn’t told us about this war has checked out.
Violence is down, yes. For now at least. But mission was accomplished a long time ago.
February 28th, 2008 at
A square block only has four corners to turn so clearly Chris you’ve misoverestimated the number of times we’ve won in Iraq.
February 29th, 2008 at
But if you keep turning it eventually you can get to five or ten or fifteen.