The war the times forgot

Whether you support or oppose the effort, whether you believe we've won or lost, one thing is certain about Iraq: it's a country with 130,000 U.S. troops who aren't in Afghanistan, and plans are for it to stay that way. "Why is that so," you may wonder, "with Afghanistan falling apart and only half that many troops there?"

A short answer yesterday: You'd think the battlefield with the greatest number of U.S. troops would get the most attention, but the one with the greatest need for troops has made everyone forget Iraq altogether. But not "everyone" has forgotten Iraq. Those who decide where troops go know exactly where they are.

And those of us who've been there find it harder to forget.

John Burns, on Iraq: "As for where the balance lies in all this -- whether it has in any sense been worth it -- that's an issue for history..." And that is certainly true. Somewhere in that history should be an acknowledgment of Burns' contribution to its documentation.

There are lessons to be learned from his experience. In the earliest days of the war he was involved in developing and propagating one of it's most enduring myths - the museum looting story. Even though his original story warned that "what officials told journalists today may have to be adjusted as a fuller picture comes to light" that didn't stop his paper from running an op/ed declaration within days: "The American and British forces are clearly to blame for the destruction and displacement of its cultural treasures." The fuller picture did "come to light" (mostly due to the efforts of one Army Colonel), but was deemed less newsworthy than the stunning original story, and for most Americans few adjustments have been made to the preliminary reports to this day.

But by late 2003:

The Times reporter, John Burns, says that he changed the more conservative figure after talking that evening to reporters in the hotel who had spent the day witnessing terrible scenes of chaos. "We were disposed to believe the worst," he recalls. "We were tremendously distraught, and passion got the better of us." Other reporters on the scene have sympathy with his decision. "A lot of us got swept up," says Glauber. "There was an emotional punch to it all because the looting [in Baghdad] was indiscriminate and indescribable." To Burns's credit, both versions of the story warned lower down that "a full accounting of what has been lost may take weeks or months."

In February 2007, Burns' earliest days of the surge commentary on Iraq was extraordinary for the times:

And his commentary today is (as ever) worthwhile.

As for where the balance lies in all this -- whether it has in any sense been worth it -- that's an issue for history, and for the peoples most deeply impacted by the war: Iraqis, first of all, and Americans, who will no doubt come to a more settled view over the longer term, once we have a clearer sense of Iraq's future trajectory. That, of course, remains profoundly uncertain. What does seem fair to say is that America, by deposing Saddam and opening the way for Iraq's fractious ethnic, sectarian and political groups to settle their differences not by the gun and the garrote but through the give-and-take of parliamentary democracy, has opened the door to a better future than was in prospect before 2003. Whether Iraqis will walk through that door is now a matter for them; American influence, though far from spent as long as 130,000 United States troops remain the guarantor of last resort against any near-term return to dictatorship, is waning by the day, and the government of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has shown, in numerous ways in recent weeks, that it feels ever more at liberty to ignore American advice and urgings on hot-button political and security issues.
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Earlier this month, in a speech to a blue-ribbon audience in London, General Petraeus repeated what he has told Congress repeatedly, that the stunning improvements in the security situation in Iraq in the past 24 months remain "fragile and reversible." Decoded, what that means is that there is still a real risk of backsliding in the security gains that began with the 2007 troop "surge," and of Iraq heading back toward the murderous sectarianism that General Petraeus faced when he took command in Baghdad in early 2007. What Mr. Obama would do if chaos set in as the American troop withdrawal gathers momentum next spring and summer could be one of the most testing moments in his presidency, all the more so for the evident fact that most Americans and most American legislators -- not to mention many in command ranks in the armed forces with lengthy on-the-ground-experience in Iraq, to judge from my e-mail correspondence -- seem to have decided that America has already borne the burdens of Iraq for too long and needs to shift its priorities to Afghanistan.

That's an excerpt, much more to consider in the full piece.

But a few points worth noting - "In any case, America's choice has effectively already been made -- to withdraw from Iraq on the Obama schedule, by the end of 2011, and refocus the American effort in Afghanistan." It may be the Obama schedule in the sense that he "owns" it now, but like the entirety of the Iraq war it is a legacy from his predecessor. From all indications, Obama is determined to stay the course.

So "130,000 United States troops remain the guarantor of last resort". This is not a figure established by the SOFA, which required only that combat troops leave the cities by June 30 and all troops depart the country by the end of 2011 - and leaves those sorts of specifics to be determined. As for what makes a "combat troop" a combat troop - well, that's got less to do with whether or not they engage in combat than most might think.

But given that gains are indeed fragile and reversible, it seems certain that should the U.S. reduce troop levels in Iraq prior to the January elections, then that action could be seen as questionable in light of any violence occurring with those elections. Conversely, it's unlikely that any lack of violence should be credited to the continued presence of 130,000 U.S. troops - But to whatever degree it might be, "credit" will not be the term used.

The reality will likely fall in the middle, and be reported as some violence in spite of US troops. But what if violence were extreme - that in spite of the efforts of US troops (who, it might be imagined, would be performing some sort of election-day "quick reaction" role in conjunction with Iraqi forces rather than a visible presence of Stryker vehicles ringing polling centers) violence reaches a point where the elections are discredited - or worst case voting in meaningful numbers becomes impossible? That seems unlikely, but what, exactly, would the US response be to "backsliding in the security gains that began with the 2007 troop "surge""? The argument that "we're here to prevent violence" becomes absurd if followed by "and if violence occurs we'll leave."

The reality is and always has been that resolution of the Iraq war - other than the initial invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein - has always been a combination of military and political. Counterinsurgency doctrine calls that an 80/20 ratio - with military on the low side - but that doesn't mean there aren't days when the military must contribute 100%. The 80/20 rule is a point Harry Reid famously misused to undermine support for the surge in its earliest days - but regardless of the ratio (which in those days was probably 90/10 with the military on the big side - if not 100%) by the Fall of 2007 the trajectory of the military part was clear. By the summer of 2008 that should have been obvious to anyone - but no one was paying attention.

Likewise no one is paying attention to Iraq now - as Afghanistan dominates the headlines. But with each Brigade Combat Team (actually, they're called "Advise and Assist Brigades" now) that deploys to Iraq this Fall and Winter a strong and clear message will also be sent about which battlefield matters most.

And that "central" doesn't mean "important" after all.

Postscript: Earlier this year you may have heard that President Obama had diverted brigades originally tapped for Iraq to deploy to Afghanistan instead. That's true, but what didn't make the news was that a few days later other brigades replaced them in the Iraq rotation. Amazing, the sorts of things that don't make the papers these days, isn't it?