A Time For Lines?

Reuters: 'Clear timeline' urged for U.S. troop withdrawal

The United States must provide a "very clear timeline" to withdraw its troops from Iraq as part of an agreement allowing them to stay beyond this year, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Sunday.

Based on this and other hopeful suppositions, the command’s planners projected what the American occupation of Iraq might look like. After the main fighting was over, there was to be a two- to three-month “stabilization” phase, then an 18- to 24-month “recovery” phase.

That was to be followed by a 12- to 18-month “transition” phase. At the end of this stage — 32 to 45 months after the invasion began — it was projected that the United States would have only 5,000 troops in Iraq.

Unfortunately for both sides in that political debate, neither wanted to acknowledge the scope of military progress achieved last year (we won the war.) After all, Democrats had invested heavily in defeat, and Republican timidity to call victory what it was can perhaps be excused by valid concerns that Democrats would ridicule them because:

1. All "reasonable" estimates indicated it would take 10 years to quell an insurgency.

2. Violence had not (and has not) vanished entirely from Iraq.

3. The knowledge that only the losers get to determine when a conflict has ended, and that al Qaeda will always have someone willing to be the last man to die for a mistake.

But consider this, from October last year:

It's likely that an increasing percentage of the "opposition" brought in (or buried) as we increase neighborhood patrols and operations will be the local trouble makers referenced in the linked report above. Barring our withdrawal, at some inevitable point they will get the majority of our combat focus in Iraq. <...> Alignment of groups and individuals throughout Iraq is ambiguous, shifting, and exceptionally difficult to determine by Iraqis, let alone US forces. So the possibility exists that that point at which local thugs with no larger alignment - ideological or otherwise - become the predominant "foe" in Iraq may pass without our immediate knowledge. But as al Qaeda crumbles, other local and regional Sunni and Shia groups join the "concerned citizens" effort, and the Sadr faction takes long overdue consideration of a political future the possibility of passing that point grows with each day.

So I'm inclined to forgive the timid for missing the win. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle the cries for withdrawal timelines have been consistent (and oddly enough, unrealistically consistent with that original 2003 plan...)

April, 2007:

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement yesterday on war-funding legislation that would begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq as early as July, setting a goal of ending U.S. combat operations by no later than March.
<...>
After combat forces are withdrawn, some troops could remain to protect U.S. facilities and diplomats, pursue terrorist organizations and train and equip Iraqi security forces.

Reid told FOX News last week that he would like to keep the Oct. 1, 2007, redeployment timeline in any new bill but that the votes are not likely there for passage.

Senator Barack Obama yesterday presented his most extensive plan yet for winding down the war in Iraq, proposing to withdraw all combat brigades by the end of next year while leaving behind an unspecified smaller force to strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests.

The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

In fact, one might argue that those who made them have been like a stopped clock. But here's the odd thing about stopped clocks - they're on the whole useless but right twice a day. And when that time comes the argument that they are still wrong is foolish. But Republicans are in danger of making that argument by allowing themselves to be backed into a position that a drawdown in Iraq must be opposed if for no other reason than because the Democrats favor it. Lets be clear on one thing: rushing out the door in victory is as wrong now as it would have been a year ago to flee in defeat. The war in Iraq can indeed still be "lost" - but in addition to exiting too quickly we can also lose by dragging our feet - and while they are two distinct and separate things we can't count on folks who didn't recognize victory to realize when it's time to leave.

And the "new" argument - that victory can't be defined and/or could never be worth the cost - should at least be acknowledged for what it is - another signal that the war is won. While that victory will never be acknowledged the verbiage of defeat will soon vanish altogether from the narrative, the media will eagerly forget motive, wrongly describe those who called for withdrawal as "prescient", but rightly declare those who oppose it when the time comes as wrong.

Timelines. Victory. Get used to saying them. (They're really just words...)