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January 22, 2007

Weighing the Options

One of the more intriguing questions about human thought is whether we are capable of coming to reasoned decisions, or if we make decisions first and then rationalize them afterwards. While it is far more flattering to believe the former, sometimes it is hard not to wonder about the latter.

I am particularly curious about this because it is difficult not to wonder if my own personal situation may be affecting my assessment of Iraq. I am of the opinion that, because the President has not offered a solution to Iraq's problems that has a decent shot of success, we are better off ending our occupation of Iraq. But is this assessment a logical analysis of our chances in Iraq, or is it an emotional response to the fact I will be heading to Iraq myself soon and therefore will face much more personal consequences from the surge?

It should go without saying that I do not believe that to be the case, but a recent post from Citizen Smash has forced me to ask the question nonetheless. Smash received a petition from a friend asking Congress to cut off funding for Operation Iraqi Freedom, a proposal Smash views with disdain. He wrote back to his friend that our military isn't in the business of quitting, and closed with a harsh question:

America, you know that we will never turn our backs on you. So why are you so ready to turn your backs on us?

Am I turning my back on my brothers in arms by arguing that we should end our involvement in the war? I have been fortunate in this war. Although I have been serving on active duty since it began, the furthest I have been deployed from home is a day's drive when I have been called upon to train others to go into battle. I have seen tens of thousands of soldiers train up and deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan, and I have done my small part to try to prepare them for what they will see there. (An amusing variant on the old adage about those who can't do, until now.) By arguing that they should come home now, with the mission yet to be accomplished, it is clear that some of them believe that I am stabbing them in the back. I do not see it that way, but I can understand that position.

Service people do not sign up in order to fail. When we fail, not only are lives at stake, but our country may be put at risk. That is the case in Iraq, whether we like it or not. If we cannot leave Iraq a reasonably secure and stable government to carry on in our absence, our enemies will be able to use that to recruit others to strike back at the West and our supposed weakness. Iraq itself will become a base for terrorists to strike at the U.S. and our allies, to say nothing of the absolute hell the Iraqi people will endure for the foreseeable future. And there is also the question of the lives we have lost as well. I am as familiar with the concept of spent costs as anyone, but the fact remains that the average person is unlikely to be sanguine about writing off 3,000+ deaths as sunk costs regardless of the logic of that position. I am not of the opinion that the lives of the men and women we have lost in Iraq to date will have been wasted if we do not win in Iraq, but I suspect that is a minority opinion.

The bottom line for me remains the same: if we are going to fight to win, then I believe we should do so. But if we are just going to make gestures that have little to no realistic chance of improving the situation, then I fail to see the logic in sending more men and women to die. And that is how I view the surge, for reasons that Jonathan Rauch explains here. Beating an insurgency requires, above all, time. You've got to establish security and maintain it long enough for people to begin to have faith in their government. That isn't going to happen in six months, and it may not happen in six years. It certainly isn't going to happen with the number of troops we're putting into Baghdad. We may be able to clear and hold some areas, but unless the Iraqi troops make a quantum leap forward (which they may, under my tutelage, of course), there aren't enough troops on the ground to keep Baghdad secure. Which means that we will still see the steady drip-drip of atrocities by the insurgency, support for the war will continue to slide, and we will still end up leaving as losers. I don't like that fact, but we're not being asked to choose between a strategy with a realistic hope of winning and losing. We're choosing between losing now and losing in another year or two. Waiting does not seem the better option in this case.

Or do I just believe that because I may be one of the troops who dies over the next two years? Smash and those who disagree with me are not fools. Has my assessment come out this way because I'm right and they're wrong, or because this answer is to my advantage? Any way you cut it, that's a pretty tough question to answer and be certain you're right.