Attackerman

Chris Hill Keeps It Real on Iraq

Now that the Iraq war is moving into its twilight phase -- security contractors protecting a massive U.S. diplomatic presence -- it would appear that Americans who should know better are expecting a new era of Sweets And Flowers to greet the military's departure. "I believe that Iraq should reimburse the United States fully for the amount of money that we have spent to liberate these people," contends Michele Bachmann, reflecting the widespread belief that These People owe us for the tens of thousands of their countrymen the U.S. "liberated" from their lives. Even journalists for major national newsweeklies think the Iraqis owe U.S. troops some kind of medal.

Against that bullshit is Chris Hill, recently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Hill, an able diplomat, was generally considered a failure as ambassador, apparently due to his reportedly poor working relationship with then-commander Ray Odierno. But Hill has an understanding of the fundamentals of the U.S.-Iraq relationship that's rare amongst officialdom. For instance:

Mr. Hill, the former ambassador, expressed similar misgivings about whether any amount of continued intervention could create the strong ally the United States hoped would be the legacy of a war that took so many American and Iraqi lives and strained America’s coffers.

“We can say it is an ally,” Mr. Hill said, “but an invasion is never a very good basis for forming an alliance.”

Ice cold. Hill speaks to the central question looming over one of the most disastrous and stupid wars in American history: in the final analysis, what did we get? The Washington foreign-policy perma-bureaucracy never tires of telling itself that it can get Iraq to some semblance of an alliance -- in professional bullshit peddler Michael Gerson's hacknied Bush-era phrase, an Iraq "that remains an ally in the war on terrorism." And while that perma-bureaucracy is having a good laugh at the cretinous Bachmann, that attitude has the same intellectual foundation: that post-Saddam Iraq owes the U.S. something, and believes it should be pursuing America's interests, rather than its own.

"I guess very thoughtful people believe there should be some residual presence in Iraq," Hill sighs to the New York Times, knowing better. "But there are many Americans who don't want to hear the word 'Iraq' and are not really behind a continued presence." They, also, know better.

So, Yeah, Except For Those 5,000 Contractors, The Iraq War Is Over

Lara Jakes reports that the U.S. military is giving up on the dream of staying in Iraq after the full withdrawal scheduled for December 31 under the Status of Forces Agreement. Iraq wouldn't guarantee a residual force immunity from prosecution under local laws for any infraction. Maybe this is a power play to get immunity; maybe this is really the end of the U.S. military's involvement in the war.

It will mean a lot to the U.S. military, and especially the Army, that the Iraq war is over. For the country, it's a different story. The State Department will substitute a hired force the size of a heavy combat brigade to protect thousands of diplomatic personnel at the largest U.S. embassy on earth. It has no experience -- none -- devising a military chain of command. What could go wrong? 

When something does, does anyone really expect an Iraqi government that wouldn't give legal immunity to U.S. troops to extend it to U.S. contractors? Especially when tensions run hot? When Iraqis still feel like they never had justice for Nisour Square? These are questions the State Department continues to dodge and Congress doesn't exactly press. 

Finally, maybe the Iraqi government will change its mind in 2012. It's pretty easy to send a complement of troops back. What's more difficult is making sure they still have a place to go. Will Iraq decide it can tear down or repurpose Camp Victory, on the presumption that the airport in its capitol city maybe shouldn't be enveloped by a megabase? 

Update: George Little, Pentagon press secretary to the stars, is pushing back against the AP story.

Beyond The North Waves

Current favorite metal song: Immortal's epic "Beyond The North Waves." How I hope this ends up in Game of Thrones season 2.

 

I just got off a conference call with the U.S. military's logistics chief in Iraq. He's got to basically vacate 22 bases -- down from a 2008 high of 505 -- in a bit under 90 days. The big FOBs at Balad and Baghdad remain. But some of the other large ones, Warhorse in Baquba and Marez in Mosul, are now under Iraqi control. I spent some time at Marez (a shithole, even for a FOB) in March 2007, and had a couple intense experiences with people there (also at least one weird one). Warhorse? Now it belongs to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, who might make it into a sports camp. That is how a bizarre war ends.

Marwan Barghouti for Gilad Shalit?

I'm seeing people on the Twitter rumor-mongering that Marwan Barghouti will be freed from eight-ish years of prison as part of an Israel/Hamas deal to free captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Ha'aretz hasn't confirmed it yet.

But if it's true, wow. Just -- wow. Barghouti is a credible peacemaker: a no-shit terrorist under Arafat during the Second Intifada, he's part of the Fatah reformist wing and a two-state-solution-nik. Accordingly, I don't get why it's in Hamas' interest to include him in the deal. Some of my Twitter folk suggest that a) he'll be exiled, b) he's grown tight with some Hamas people in prison, and/or c) kneecapping Mahmoud Abbas is more important to Hamas.

Maybe. But Barghouti is pretty damn popular. At the very least, he's a wild card for Hamas to contend with. And if we're talking beyond the very least, he's as much a threat to Hamas as to Abbas, even if he stays in exile, which doesn't seem likely to last if true. 

One other thing. If Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately included Barghouti in a peace deal -- frankly, even if he acquiesced to freedom for Barghouti in a Hamas proposal -- then that's a Big Fucking Deal. That would indicate, on its face, perhaps the boldest step Netanyahu has ever taken in his political career toward ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unless there's something I'm missing, freeing Barghouti would upend Palestinian politics in a way that favors the moderates but has credibility with the extremists. And it's on the strength of leaders like that that peace gets made. 

Please let this be true...

Update, 7:19 p.m.: Shit.

Elderly Children

Somehow, in Donald Rumsfeld's mind, he's the victim here.

Andrew and others are picking up on this interview to point to Rumsfeld's churlishness. And fair enough -- he's certainly churlish. But beneath the theatrics, there really is an excellent question here: does Rumsfeld seriously believe a) the Iraq war was sufficiently resourced under his tenure, and b) that he can dismiss the question by pointing to the docility of his service chiefs? 

It's like watching a child who needs a nap and has never been disciplined. Only no child is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. 

The Wogs Are Always So Ungrateful

Mark Thompson of Time should say this in an Iraqi hospital:

We noted on Monday that there seem to be no plans for the Iraqi government to award U.S. troops a medal for ridding its nation of Saddam Hussein (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia did so following the 1991 Gulf War). Now comes word that Baghdad has decided not to give U.S. troops stationed in Iraq after this year the traditional immunity from local prosecution that foreign troops usually get from host governments (U.S. soldiers who get in trouble overseas generally are dealt with under the U.S. military's Uniform Code of Military Justice instead of in local courts, where fair trials often are deemed unlikely).

While this decision may not hold, it's a clear indication that post-war Iraq is less-than-grateful for the 4,477 U.S. lives lost, and $1 trillion spent by U.S. taxpayers, in the effort. But look at the bright side: instead of a dictator unilaterally granting U.S. troops immunity, a fledgling democracy has had its say.

The United States owes the veterans of the Iraq war a massive debt. That debt deserves to be paid in public memorials, opportunities for access to higher education, and generous, attentive benefits packages for veterans.

But that's what Americans owe our veterans. Iraqis owe them no such thing -- and certainly not gratitude for a devastating war they never asked for. I can't tell if Thompson actually buys into the cynical jingoism that the Iraq war was fought in any way "for" the Iraqi people or if he's merely not even minimally reflective of what he writes. If it's the former, I can't help him. If it's the latter, maybe ought to consider why Iraqis aren't so keen on greeting their American liberators with medals and promises of diplomatic immunity.

 

Iraq Is Not Ours To 'Give Away'

The noxious and ignorant view that it is comes from, unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal. As always with these arguments, there's no accounting for the fact that the Bush administration signed an agreement with the Iraqi government in 2008 stipulating a full withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2011. What actually happened in the lead-up to that accord was that the Bushies wanted the anticipated Status of Forces Agreement to provide the U.S. with permanent bases in Iraq, but the Iraqi government played hardball with lead negotiator Brett McGurk, and Team Bush ended up taking the best SOFA it could get -- the one with the "time horizon" of a 2011 withdrawal. 

Sometimes the right cites the SOFA as proof that Bush actually ended the war he began, in order to look responsible and wash away the original sin of launching a counterproductive war. Now, it wants to rectify the Iraqis' 2008 hustle and keep the occupation going forever and ever. The idea that Nouri Maliki secretly wants the U.S. to stay is the thin reed they and the Obama Pentagon grasps onto.

Never mind that the reason why Maliki has to express such a thing in secret -- if he really does; we just have the self-interested assurances of U.S. officials as evidence that he does -- is because there is no significant political constituency in Iraq outside of Kurdistan for a prolongued U.S. presence. None of this matters to the Journal, because Iraqis don't matter to the Journal. "Managing relations with a domestic host—whether Iraq, South Korea, Japan or anywhere U.S. troops are stationed—is always difficult," it wearily yawns. Silly wogs! Just give us our bases and be done with it!

 

Stay In Iraq For The Oil!

It's one of several arguments that Meghan O'Sullivan makes for why the U.S. can never ever withdraw troops from Iraq.

Finally, and most compelling, there is the role that Iraq may play in averting a major global energy crisis in the coming years. The world economic recession eased pressure on global oil supplies and provided relief from the climbing energy prices of 2007 and 2008. But a quiet trend of 2010 was that growth in global oil consumption grew at the second-fastest rate ever, 2.8 percent, while growth in global crude oil production lagged behind at 2.5 percent. If demand continues to outgrow supply, it will be only a few short years before global spare capacity of oil — one of the indicators most closely tied to prices — gets dangerously low, and jittery markets push prices up and up. Assuming the world escapes another dip in economic growth, this outcome would probably materialize even without any additional geopolitical hiccups, such as political unrest in Saudi Arabia or a military confrontation with Iran.

I wonder if she stopped to think how this argument reads in Arabic. The U.S. can't get out of Iraq because it needs the oil? Did Dave Chappelle write this? 

 

Seriously, what the hell, Meghan? You're supposed to be the reasonable Iraq Bushie. Also, how come you never once in your op-ed address the fact that there's massive political opposition in Iraq to an extended U.S. presence? The closest that you come is this unintentionally hilarious gem: "[T]roop numbers should come out of negotiations with the Iraqis over the necessary missions -- not as a fiat from Washington based on domestic politics."

Op-eds, however, should just presume the existence of Magic Iraqis who can't wait to throw sweets and flowers at a post-2011 residual force.

In Iraq, a 9/11 Per Month For Three Years

Over at Danger Room, I report on a New America study that speculates the Islamic State of Iraq might have little reputational choice but to attack western and U.S. targets. Personally, I'm proudest of that Trotsky paraphrase in the lede, but that's what happens when I edit the blog. 

Something from the study a bit too far afield to make it into the post is a startling statistic about what's happened in Iraq to civilians ever since the U.S. "won" the war. Author Brian Fishman:

[M]onthly terrorist attacks in Iraq fell from nearly 700 at their peak to around 200 per month in mid-2008. It has remained relatively constaint since. The 300 or so deaths they caused per month is far fewer than the deaths from terrorism during the peak of violence in 2007, but the casulaty rate is still extremely high for a country of only 24 million people. If the 2010 per capita rate of terrorism deaths in Iraq occurred in a U.S.-sized population, more than 3100 people would be killed every month, more than were killed on 9/11.

That's the equivalent a 9/11 per month, every month, for three years. Anyone who laments Iraqi political "dysfunction" should stop and grapple with that thought. Then add another: three years' worth of monthly 9/11s is relative normalcy after three preceding years of even worse horror. How could that not leave a people traumatized beyond recognition?