Informed Speculation

I’m going to withhold judgement until I hear the final plan, but I’m very concerned that the new strategy being laid out by the President will be half a loaf, and in this case, half will be worse than none.

I’m talking about the necessity of three crucial elements if we move forward on the surge:

1.  Can it be done? Many, many people are throwing cold water on the surge by saying we just don’t have the troops. 

2.  Will we go on the offensive? Most crucially, will we take off the gloves where Sadr’s militias are concerned?  RCP’s John McIntyre:

…[A] surge of troops without a significant change in tactics is simply a ratcheting up of a policy that is working strongly for Democrats.

The number of troops in Iraq is secondary as long as our military remains in a defensive posture. Given the current political environment and the evisceration of the Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party, the U.S. public does not have the tolerance or the patience for the continuation of a defensive military posture in Iraq.

If the President wants to regain the support of the American people for his policy in Iraq he has to let the U.S. military go on the offensive. And if regaining an offensive footing is impossible due to political correctness, a fear of the media, or simply the reality on the ground then the focus needs to turn to how we can best manage a tactical retreat in Iraq.

3.  Are we working with the Iraqis on the political issues? What is being done to shore up alternate support for Maliki, or any possible successors, so that they needn’t rely on Sadr to govern? What happened to the moderate coalition? Was Sistani’s opposition so unequivocal and powerful that it killed the idea? What might get him to change his mind, if so?

Many of these concerns are stated well by Slate’s Fred Kaplan:

Nothing will work, even under otherwise ideal circumstances, unless the Iraqi government supports the effort, orders Iraqi battalions to take part, and agrees to let the counterinsurgents go after all militias, including the Mahdi Army controlled by Muqtada Sadr, a key faction of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s power base. The Iraqi government would also have to devise some power-sharing arrangement—for instance, a formula to share oil revenues with Sunni regions—to deal with the causes of insurgency (or at least the causes of the insurgents’ popular support or tolerance). While an area is being secured, the U.S. and other governments would also have to pour in massive funding for reconstruction projects, well beyond the $1 billion that President Bush is expected to request for urban job creation. In other words, a surge—even if it proves successful on its own terms—will mean nothing, in the medium to long term, unless it is part of a broader political and economic strategy. Does Bush have such a strategy in mind? We’ll see on Wednesday. If he does, will the Iraqi government be willing or able to go along? We’ll see in the next few months.

But security is the prerequisite, and to achieve enduring security, the hard arithmetic indicates that Bush needs to send in a lot more troops than 20,000. The problem is, he doesn’t have them, and he won’t be able to get them for many years, under the best of circumstances.

None of this means I am prematurely labelling the plan a failure – it just means that even hardcore war supporters such as myself need to hear some real details in tomorrow’s speech, and not platitudes.  If Bush’s address is long on generalities, I will judge it a failure…