Hokey Pokey In Iraq

We put some more troops in, we get all the troops out...

Mixed messages from Iraq over the past 24-48 hours. On the one hand, the Prime Minister has agreed to hold a referendum on the American troop presence in Iraq, which would remove the US forces a year earlier than currently scheduled.

If Iraqi lawmakers sign off on Maliki's initiative to hold a referendum in January on the withdrawal timeline, a majority of voters could annul a standing U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, forcing the military to pull out completely by January 2011 under the terms of a previous law.

It is unclear whether parliament, which is in recess until next month, would approve the referendum. Lawmakers have yet to pass a measure laying the basic ground rules for the Jan. 16 national election, their top legislative priority for the remainder of 2009.

At the same time, the US military wants to break one facet of the status of forces agreement by putting troops back into major cities in the north.

In an effort to defuse mounting Arab-Kurdish tensions, the U.S. military is proposing to deploy troops for the first time in a strip of disputed territory in northern Iraq, the top American general in Iraq said Monday.

....Though the plan is still not finalized, Odierno said that he had discussed it recently with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and with Massoud Barzani, the president of the regional government, and that both had been receptive to the idea.

The New York Times calls this a done deal. So on the one hand, Maliki wants US troops in the north so Al Qaeda in Iraq cannot exploit tensions between Arabs and Kurds, but on the other hand, he favors a referendum that could accelerate the full US withdrawal.

Juan Cole has some thoughts about this. But it sounds to me like the classic tension between policy and politics. It's good politically for Maliki to call for an referendum on withdrawal - the US presence is broadly unpopular. Having open warfare break out in the North, however, wouldn't meet Maliki's goals either, so as long as the US military remains, there's a lot to be gained out of placing them there. It may look incongruous on the outside, but Maliki is speaking different language to different groups.

Meanwhile, a major bombing in Baghdad shows that violence is still a fact of life in the war-torn country. I don't believe that the US military can change that reality after six years in country, so if the referendum passed and the troops had to leave by January 2011 instead of December, I would not necessarily be upset.

Torture vs. A Rapper: Not Equivalent

A "Sista Souljah" moment, which has fascinated the DC chattering class for decades but hasn't really even happened since 1992, equals rhetorically distancing from a divisive figure to earn moderate love. It does not equal defying a court order and using warped logic to argue against transparency in the most authoritarian way possible. Obama doesn't need to use "optics" at this point. He already has all the support he needs. His generals came and whined to him that releasing detainee abuse photos would hurt the troops, and he agreed.

Meanwhile, this is the second time Ray Odierno has basically rolled Barack Obama. In the end, I'll bet this decision has more to do with the military throwing their weight around than anything. And as Tom Ricks said, ultimately there's only one commander in chief.

...you know what Ray Odierno could worry himself about a little more? Making sure his soldiers get enough water so they don't have to steal it. I know it doesn't rise to the level of photographs, but it seems important, at least to me.

Listening To The Generals

If you haven't been following it, Christopher Hill, a career diplomat who negotiated some of the better deals with North Korea under the Bush Administration, has been nominated for the post of US Ambassador to Iraq, and conservatives are flipping out because, well, that's what they do. Despite his credentials and history in the foreign service, they claim he has no experience in the region; really they are displeased with his actual negotiation with North Korea, which circumvented Dick Cheney and the neocons. Now the top US commanders in Iraq are voicing their displeasure with the GOP holdup of Hill's nomination:

There's one as yet unremarked constituency increasingly disturbed by some Republican senators' efforts to block the confirmation of former North Korea envoy Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the U.S. military.

Sources tell The Cable that Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq, and support Hill's confirmation proceeding swiftly [...]

"I would not at all be surprised if military commanders in Iraq are frustrated that they don't have a new ambassador in position," added Gen. William Nash (ret.), the former top U.S. commander in Bosnia, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The issues are far more political and economic than they are military and U.S. efforts need to move forward on those fronts. That's particularly critical in the execution of the withdrawal plan."

Asked if Republican objections to Hill that he is not a Middle East expert are legitimate, Nash said the opposition is "being difficult to be difficult. I have known Chris Hill for 14 years. He is a wonderful diplomat and exactly the kind of guy we need in Iraq."

Today is the sixth, that's right the sixth anniversary of our misadventure in Iraq, and the fiends who got us in this mess in the first place refuse to cease making life harder on this country. They cannot conceive of a world where economic development and diplomacy supersede the task of the military, so they want a subservient ambassador. Of course, the fact that the generals prefer Hill shows the hypocrisy of the neocons on this. They only listen to the advice of the commanders on the ground when it agrees with their aims. And they never take into account the hopes and desires of the people in the countries over which they mean to project power. The neglect of reconstruction and economic development in the war effort leads to outcomes like the water being undrinkable in Baghdad six years after the beginning of the war.

These are contemptible people.

Too Close To The Subject

If Tom Ricks' The Gamble and his subsequent publicity tour for the same have a major thrust, it's this: the war in Iraq isn't over, and it may have just begun. The book is apparently a riveting account of the surge strategy and its incompleteness, because it failed to bring the needed political reconciliation. And from there, Ricks reasons that the US will stay because the result of leaving would be chaos. In order to come to this conclusion, Ricks has relied heavily on commanders like Ray Odierno and others on the ground in Iraq, and he has taken their views as superseding the views of the policymakers. In particular, his dismissal of the status of forces agreement, as something made to be broken, as "a way to get us out of Iraq in 2009," not a long-term agreement for total withdrawal, is very noticeable. I really hope the Iraqis aren't paying much attention to it. Because Ricks certainly isn't paying any attention to them.

The most important barometer of Iraqi opinion toward the war to date is the Status of Forces Agreement. In November 2007, following on the initial security gains of the surge, the Bush administration pressed the Iraqis into signing a broad security agreement mandating a US troop presence for years to come. But during the course of those negotiations, the US found itself under sustained pressure to include a timetable for withdrawing US forces from the country, along with a hard deadline for departure – precisely the opposite of what the Bush administration had intended. By the summer, with the US having boxed itself into completing the so-called Status of Forces Agreement, Bush had no choice but to capitulate to a firm deadline for ending the war, an outcome he had said for years would yield catastrophe.

None of this is covered in The Gamble, and it’s a significant oversight. Should we view the SOFA as an indication of political progress in the wake of the surge, however ironic? After all, Iraqi factions throughout the al Maliki government and the parliament did come together for a common purpose – never mind that it was to kick the US out. Or should we view the SOFA as an indication that no matter how much the surge might have contributed to reducing the level of violence in Iraq, Iraqis have not forgotten that the violence was the result of an unnecessary US occupation? One of Petraeus’ strategists, Lt Col Suzanne Nielsen, tells Ricks that she still considers it “kind of unforgivable” how the war was undertaken in 2003. The narrative might have benefited from a greater sense of whether the Iraqis – whom Petraeus’s strategy recognised were the lynchpin to any prospect of stabilisation – agree.

It’s possible that Ricks’s blindness to the SOFA reflects that of his sources. During the month when the SOFA was signed, Odierno tells him, “I would like to see a... force probably around 30,000 or so, 35,000” in 2014 or 2015 – years after the SOFA mandates the US must leave. A discomfort with the prospect of US forces leaving Iraq permeates the quotes from Odierno’s deputies. “The American military is trying to persuade the American people that this is going to take a long time,” Odierno aide Maj James Powell says. Emma Sky, a British liberal who improbably serves as Odierno’s political adviser – and who took the job, she says, to see if the US could “exit with some dignity” – tells Ricks: “We have to buy time in the US to complete the mission.” There is no recognition evident in their quotes that it is the Iraqis, not the Americans, who ultimately decide when the mission is completed.

Last week, though, President Obama recognised precisely that. His speech at Camp Lejeune spelling out how he intends to end the war explicitly promised to honour the SOFA’s restrictions, a point backed up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a conference call with reporters. He devoted four paragraphs of the speech to speaking “directly to the people of Iraq”, assuring them that he has “no claim on your territory or your resources”.

It’s understandable for those who have given so much to the Iraq war to want its conclusion to be steady and gradual. But it also risks violating a principle of counterinsurgency: you can’t want something more than the host nation does. The Gamble is masterful when it comes to explaining the US military in Iraq. In three elegant pages, Ricks explains how the concept of “rapid decisive operations”, a piece of Rumsfeld-era Pentagon bigthink, effectively forced commanders to misunderstand the war. But when it comes to the Iraq that the Iraqis themselves recognise, Ricks – and possibly his sources, who will remain in military command for some time – appears not to have learned some of the surge’s lessons.

To his credit, Ricks has posted a rebuttal to his views on the SOFA at his own website, from Michael Hanna of the Century Foundation. The fact that Ricks, who is reflecting the view of ground commanders, puts no stock in a signed bilateral agreement is extremely troubling and reflects a certain blindness that Spencer Ackerman describes above. The Iraqis pushed the issue and now expect us to leave, and a failure to do so will unite the country in opposition to a military occupation, with that smaller force essentially targets. There's a downward trajectory to our involvement in Iraq that we cannot blithely dismiss.

We all know that Iraq is still dangerous and large-scale bombings still threaten security. But on a political lever, the war is over - and Ricks and his charges sound like the Japanese infantrymen who hid out in mountain redoubts on Pacific islands through the 1960s, unaware that an armistice to WWII had been signed. I believe he has a sincere belief that a total withdrawal will result in genocide. But breaking the agreement at this point would ALSO result in chaos and instability in the region. Furthermore, we cannot talk confidently about breaking promises and have any credibility in our foreign agreements. Ricks should probably use his inside voice on this one.

Bipartisan Military Spenders

Here's yet more examples why Obama's fight to end wasteful military spending and corrupt federal contracts is going to be so difficult, because in a very real sense it means taking on the heart of the Washington establishment itself.

When President Obama promised Wednesday to attack defense spending that he considers wasteful and inefficient, he opened a fight with key lawmakers from his own party.

It was Democrats who stuffed an estimated $524 million in defense earmarks that the Pentagon did not request into the 2008 appropriations bill, about $220 million more than Republicans did, according to an independent estimate. Of the 44 senators who implored Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in January to build more F-22 Raptors -- a fighter conceived during the Cold War that senior Pentagon officials say is not suited to probable 21st-century conflicts -- most were Democrats.

And last July, when the Navy's top brass decided to end production of their newest class of destroyers -- in response to 15 classified intelligence reports highlighting their vulnerability to a range of foreign missiles -- seven Democratic senators quickly joined four Republicans to demand a reversal. They threatened to cut all funding for surface combat ships in 2009.

Within a month, Gates and the Navy reversed course and endorsed production of a third DDG-1000 destroyer, at a cost of $2.7 billion.

I think the whole earmark "problem" is completely overblown, distorting because many of the earmarks are worthwhile projects, and overall they represent a tiny fraction of the overall budget. But it's undeniable that Democrats and Republicans are heavily invested in the military-industrial complex, just as much as defense contractors are invested in them. That's just a fact.

Democrats may talk about it differently, not as much about the need for a "strong national defense" but about the jobs these projects bring to their districts or their states. Either way, it's a symbol of the same corruption. Weapons producers give lots of money to politicians, politicians make sure they get lots of business from the government. And because large weapons systems like the F-22 Raptor are spread out among 44 states, there is enough support to basically maintain the status quo. There's also a sunk cost problem, when billions have already been spent on a lot of these useless programs. Some of them aren't even requested by the Defense Department.

Still, there is hope. When Raymond Odierno cancels contracts on bases in Iraq, you get the sense that the military is coming around to the need to keep down costs. Now we have to get Congress to think the same way.

A Man Called Petraeus Storms The White House

Well, we expected this, didn't we? From an excellent piece by Gareth Porter:

CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn't convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

One thing we can say about Obama is that, for good or for ill, he has generally kept to his bigger campaign promises. In this case, he knows that his foreign policy success is in large part predicated on getting us out of Iraq, and he refuses to bend to both the foreign policy establishment and institutional military pushback. Not only that, but reneging on a signed agreement with the Iraqis would endanger American troops and ensure chaos in Iraq and abroad. Sure, the warmongers will get a war (Obama is likely to hold to his promise in Afghanistan), but not Iraq.

According to Porter, the Gates-Petraeus plan was to reclassify combat troops as "support troops" to get around that little status of forces agreement mandating set withdrawals of US forces. Apparently Obama wasn't willing to risk American credibility in that shell game.

Of course, Petraeus is trying to circumvent his commander-in-chief, which I believe they call insubordination:

Obama's decision to override Petraeus's recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama's decision.

Petraeus was visibly unhappy when he left the Oval Office, according to one of the sources. A White House staffer present at the meeting was quoted by the source as saying, "Petraeus made the mistake of thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack Obama."

Looks like Petraeus is using those handy Pentagon embeds to implement this strategy, too:

The opening argument by the Petraeus-Odierno faction against Obama's withdrawal policy was revealed the evening of the Jan. 21 meeting when retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, one of the authors of the Bush troop surge policy and a close political ally and mentor of Gen. Petraeus, appeared on the Lehrer News Hour to comment on Obama's pledge on Iraq combat troop withdrawal.

Keane, who had certainly been briefed by Petraeus on the outcome of the Oval Office meeting, argued that implementing such a withdrawal of combat troops would "increase the risk rather dramatically over the 16 months". He asserted that it would jeopardise the "stable political situation in Iraq" and called that risk "not acceptable".

The assertion that Obama's withdrawal policy threatens the gains allegedly won by the Bush surge and Petraeus's strategy in Iraq will apparently be the theme of the campaign that military opponents are now planning.

Here we go again. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would even want the Presidency, beset as it is by palace intrigue on all sides. Then again, nobody told Obama to hang on to Bob Gates. By the way, this epic whine about Obama actually following through on his promise is all about properly assigning blame:

The source says the network (of military officials), which includes senior active duty officers in the Pentagon, will begin making the argument to journalists covering the Pentagon that Obama's withdrawal policy risks an eventual collapse in Iraq. That would raise the political cost to Obama of sticking to his withdrawal policy.

If Obama does not change the policy, according to the source, they hope to have planted the seeds of a future political narrative blaming his withdrawal policy for the "collapse" they expect in an Iraq without U.S. troops.

I heard Bill Kristol parrot this strategy on Fox News Sunday, answering a question about why Obama hasn't officially announced drawdowns in Iraq by saying "Because he's a responsible man, and he won't withdraw if it isn't safe to do so." Kristol, who has never met a disaster he wasn't responsible for, has his own neocon fantasy agenda of keeping troops in the region to teach Arabs a lesson and enable them to fight in the 8 or 9 other wars he keeps in a list on his Blackberry. And the people who have been wrong about every foreign policy situation for decades upon decades are certainly not the people to listen to about "collapse."

As for Petraeus, it was clear that he was nothing more than a political animal for a while. He figured that his public stature was such that the President of the United States would have to take orders from him. And now he wants to use the media, which is enamored of him, to exact a price on Obama for disobeying him. Maybe he should just declare for 2012 now.

You could see this clash between the military and the young President coming. They don't like taking orders from lowly Democrats and they don't mind undermining their superior officer to make their point.

...By the way, defense spending will increase by 8% in the 2010 FY budget and unnamed sources at the Pentagon are pissed because it's 10% less than what they asked for, portraying this increase as a spending cut. It never stops.

...Shorter PowerTools - You can't cross David Petraeus because he got a lot of applause at the Super Bowl.

Actually that's almost verbatim.

Odierno's Revolt

In many ways, I feel for Barack Obama. His instincts obviously are to seek consensus, but he has an extremist Republican Party that wants no part of it. And he has multitudes of other enemies, like the Blue Dogs always whispering in his ear about fiscal responsibility in a time of economic meltdown, and several elements of the military, who will fight his plans and try to undermine his goals, particularly in Iraq:

Since taking office last week, Mr. Obama has recommitted to ending the war in Iraq but not to his specific campaign pledge to pull out roughly one combat brigade a month for the first 16 months of his presidency. His top commander in Iraq has proposed a slower start to the withdrawal, warning of the dangers of drawing down too quickly [...]

Among those consulted by the president was Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, who has developed a plan that would move slower than Mr. Obama’s campaign timetable, by pulling out two brigades over the next six months. In an interview in Iraq on Wednesday, General Odierno suggested that it might take the rest of the year to determine exactly when United States forces could be drawn down significantly.

“I believe that if we can get through the next year peacefully, with incidents about what they are today or better, I think we’re getting close to enduring stability, which enables us to really reduce,” General Odierno said as he inspected a polling center south of Baghdad in advance of provincial elections on Saturday.

General Odierno said the period between this weekend’s elections and the national elections to be held about a year from now would be critical to determining the future of Iraq. While some American forces could be withdrawn before then, he suggested that the bulk of any pullout would probably come after that.

“We are going to reduce forces this year,” the general said. “It’s the right time to reduce our forces here. I believe that Iraqis are making progress. It’s time for us in some places to step back and give them more control.” He added, “What we want to do is to slowly shift our mission from one that’s focused on counterinsurgency to one that’s more focused on stability operations.”

Odierno is thinking from the perspective of a commander responsible just for Iraq, and employing a Freidman Unit strategy ensures that he isn't blamed for losing the war if things go awry. Ryan Crocker basically said the same thing the other day, warning against a "precipitous" withdrawal, but Odierno puts some numbers to it. And while there's probably less conflict that there appears to be, owing for press bias toward internal squabbling, Odierno's is a very shortsighted strategy. Marc Lynch explains this well.

The politics of this aside, I think that Odierno's intention of keeping troops in Iraq through the national elections is dangerously wrong. The CFR/Brookings/Odierno "go slow" approach ignores the reality of the new Status of Forces Agreement and the impending referendum this summer -- which may well fail if there is no sign of departing American troops. It sends the wrong messages to Iraqi politicians and the Iraqi population. It would badly hurt Obama's credibility in the region and with Iraqis, who will see his most important public commitment fall by the wayside. And it would lose the unique window of opportunity offered by the transition to signal real change.

This strategy is also a recipe for endless delay. Given the very catalog of Iraqi political fissures and emerging conflicts that Odierno cites as reason to stay, there is little reason to think that conditions will be so much more stable at the end of this proposed year of caution. At that point the exact same conversation will ensue about why drawdowns are imprudent at this time -- and does anybody believe that the people currently calling for prudence and high troop levels will suddenly reverse themselves a year from now when conditions look much the same as they do now? [...]

A "down payment" of a public, significant drawdown in the early spring would send the correct signals to all relevant actors, while allowing plenty of time for commanders in the field to assess the impact and adjust accordingly. I hope that Obama is able to head off a battle with the military -- and the military, a battle with Obama -- by working together on such a strategy. Remember: Obama won the election.

It doesn't surprise me that a commander in the field would ask for more troops, or want to postpone drawing down troops. Why would a commander in the field want less to work with? But the job of a president, as Obama well knows, is to balance competing commitments and to make these choices.

Look, at some point the fighting between internal forces in Iraq jockeying for power will bubble to the surface. Our presence or absence isn't going to change that. So while we have a honeymoon period with a new President, we need to honor our agreements and let the Iraqis invest in their own future again, rather than waiting around for us to get out before doing so. Failing to meet our responsibilities outlined in the SOFA will anger Iraqis and also the world.

In a broader context, I think it’s just difficult to overstate the importance of ending the war and occupation in Iraq to advancing America’s broader international agenda. There were a lot of things wrong with the Bush administration’s policy, but in concrete terms the world is looking for a new approach to detention and torture, a new approach to Israel and Palestine, and a new approach to Iraq. Obama has acted decisively on the first item, has shown a lot of promise on the second, and needs to follow through on the third. Diplomacy with Iran, a renewed focus on the Afghanistan/Pakistan situation, a rapprochement with Europe, a partnership with China and our allies in Asia on the global economic situation, etc. all require us to get out of an Iraq-focused foreign policy. And the complexities of Iraq are such that the best way to do that is to get out of Iraq.

Absolutely. Odierno is doing his job asking for more resources but Obama needs to guide this with an eye toward the overall foreign policy picture. Furthermore, his ability to control the military as commander-in-chief will be severely limited if he gives in on troop withdrawals. His attendant policy pronouncements will ring hollow. Obama has to hold to his campaign promise and a signed agreement with the Iraqis. It's time to leave Iraq.

The Revolt Of The Generals

Wes Clark thinks that Democrats and the military can get along. It's a curious construction - the idea that the military has to be cajoled and persuaded into standard compliance with the chain of command and the plan fact of a Democrat at the top of it. Most of the op-ed talks about how Democrats have to understand the culture of the military better, although there's a smaller bit about the reverse:

But the military will have to show some understanding as well. We don't have a monopoly on knowing what the nation's best interests are. National security now involves such spheres as law enforcement, the economy, the nation's industrial and scientific base and even such matters as health care and civil liberties. The military is just one voice among many.

Nor are our military plans and proposals beyond questioning. There's a lot of judgment involved in strategy and operations, and not a lot of certainty. The military is a cautious institution, and plans and options sometimes reflect just the opinion of the most senior person in the room. Even hard military "requirements" should stand up to public scrutiny. So when new members of Congress, Hill staffers and political appointees question tactics, techniques, troop levels and programs, we have to continue to treat these questions seriously and answer them with respect and diligence.

I wonder how Gen. Clark would react to this news. It really doesn't sound to be like the military is treating a signature campaign promise of the incoming President-elect with respect or diligence.

U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.

The New York Times picks this up by discussing the semantic games being played at the Pentagon to keep a substantial presence in Iraq.

Even though the agreement with the Iraqi government calls for all American combat troops to be out of the cities by the end of June, military planners are now quietly acknowledging that many will stay behind as renamed “trainers” and “advisers” in what are effectively combat roles. In other words, they will still be engaged in combat, just called something else.

“Trainers sometimes do get shot at, and they do sometimes have to shoot back,” said John A. Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who is one of the authors of the Army’s new counterinsurgency field manual [...]

For his part, General Odierno made clear that the Iraqis still needed help — and that the United States would hardly disappear. “What I would say is, we’ll still maintain our very close partnership with the Iraqi security forces throughout Iraq, even after the summer,” he told reporters.

Military officials say they can accomplish that by “repurposing” whatever combat troops remain. Officially, a combat soldier is anyone trained in what are called combat-coded military occupation specialties — among them infantry, artillery and Special Forces — to engage the enemy. But combat troops can be given different missions. From the military’s point of view, a combat soldier is not so much what he is called but what he does.

You can argue that this is no different from what Obama promised during the campaign - he acknowledged that there would be residual forces after the removal of all combat troops within 16 months, and he did not commit to having all troops out by 2013. But that was before the SOFA signed by the President and the Iraqi government that set down a series of mandates, with troops out of major US cities by the summer, and completely gone by the end of 2011. While Obama has agreed with this in principle, either he or (I would argue) the military is jumping through hoops to try and technically keep to the agreement while in practice voiding it altogether. In fact, Gen. Odierno is adding responsibilities by replacing British troops in southern Iraq with US forces early next year.

Siun at FDL summarizes the state of things here.

So what’s the story? We know the Iraqis want us out - and they have just refused to approve any extension for troops from the UK and other countries. Any fair referendum in Iraq is most likely to do the same - and any extension of the occupation will draw intensified attacks from Iraqi nationalist forces. It's not like Gates and crew won't have a war to fight - in fact, the latest reports are that they are speeding up the deployment of US forces to Afghanistan. So why would US generals be so insistent on a longer occupation?

And more importantly, what is Obama going to do about it - and what are we going to do to make certain Obama knows we expect a full withdrawal – preferably starting yesterday.

I would add that these creative loopholes being applied to the SOFA just increases the anger at the US presence and the determination on the part of Iraqis to remove it. They have every reason not to believe that the US will live up to their obligations in the agreement, and at some point they will fight against it, whether at the ballot box if they get a chance to nullify the SOFA and expel US troops immediately, or more dangerously through the application of force and the resumption of hostilities.

I assume that the calculation on the part of the military is simply that they don't want to be blamed for losing a war. There are issues of pride and honor at stake. If Obama rejects their planning and actually withdraws, they are well-positioned to blame him should things fall apart in Iraq. And by the way, things probably WILL fall apart - there isn't much goodwill between the various parties, and while Maliki has been accumulating power, it was notable that his attempted purge of the Interior Ministry fell flat, with the Interior Minister freeing everyone captured and condemning his own government for the raid. And of course the shoe thrower has peeled back the discontent with the occupation from the surface. He is not in complete control, and since no effort has been made at political reconciliation, just for propping up a puppet and helping him become a strongman, there's no way he will be in our absence.

That is not a compelling reason to stay. We have a signed agreement to leave in an orderly fashion, and failure to do so would be catastrophic for both the troops that are staying there in the face of betrayal, and for our image in dealing fairly with the Muslim world in a new Administration. If this is Obama directing this little two-step, then as Siun says, he needs to hear from us. If it's the generals, then it's the opening salvo in a predictable bit of brinksmanship, where the military tests the young leader to see how much they can bend him to their will. There are very large majorities who want us out of Iraq. Obama wouldn't need to tap any political capital to keep his word. We'll see if he's as good as it.

(He Oughta Do It) His Way

Top generals have submitted a timeline to remove troops from Iraq that is far more deliberate than what Obama advocated for during the campaign.

The plan was proposed by the top American commanders responsible for Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, and it represents their first recommendation on troop withdrawals under an Obama presidency. While Mr. Obama has said he will seek advice from his commanders, their resistance to a faster drawdown could present the new president with a tough political choice between overruling his generals or backing away from his goal.

The plan, completed last week, envisions withdrawing two more brigades, or some 7,000 to 8,000 troops, from Iraq in the first six months of 2009, the military officials said. But that would leave 12 combat brigades in Iraq by June 2009, and while declining to be more specific, the officials made clear that the withdrawal of all combat forces under the generals’ recommendations would not come until some time after May 2010, Mr. Obama’s target.

The good news here is that in the end, this document does meet with the SOFA agreement to remove all American troops by the end of 2011.

Here's the thing. If Obama was stepping into a bitterly divided debate, demanding his solution when there was still plenty of support for staying in Iraq longer. But that's not the case. Americans are pretty united in wanting troops to leave. 70% want him to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months. Obama really doesn't need to worry about the fallout for rejecting the advice of the generals and going with his original timeline. He does need to be concerned about his generals undermining him. Ultimately there may be some sort of compromise, but the President-elect ought to realize that he has a lot of political capital to spend here.

The good news is that, on other issues, it looks like the military is bending to the will of Obama's campaign promises. Bob Gates is drafting plans for the closure of Guantanamo, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is talking up defense spending cuts.

The top U.S. military officer says the Pentagon cannot afford continued cost overruns and is hinting that some weapons systems may be cut or scaled back under President-elect Barack Obama.

"I'm obviously discouraged by the lack of cost control that we've got in so many ... of our programs," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday.

"We are going to have to get a grip on that or we will not be able to buy them," Mullen said, "or we won't be able to buy them in the quantity we need."

Very encouraging. So hopefully Obama will get his way on this one as well.

Eat My Shoe

Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq today, the surprise nature of it being proof that Iraq is perfectly stable and not at all violent. He didn't get the rousing reception he wanted.

Bush was reminded of the intense opposition to his policies when a man threw two shoes at him — one after another — during a news conference with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Bush ducked both throws, and neither man was hit.

"All I can report is a size 10," Bush joked.

I'll remind you that using your shoe is the highest form of insult in Iraq:

Feet and shoes were imbued with considerable significance in the Middle East and shoe banging holds two meanings depending on whether you are in Jewish or Islamic sectors. Traditionally, the Jewish custom, of shoe banging was used to seal a deal like a gable at an auction. In Islamic tradition, culture determines feet occupy the lowest rung in the bodily hierarchy and shoes are considered unclean. Hence it is commonplace to remove shoes before entering a place of worship; the gesture is to maintain the purity of the place of worship. The same custom is extended to entering a private home because the sole of the shoe is considered the most contaminated. To point a shoe at someone or hit them (or their image) demonstrates a deep insult and means to direct impurity and pollution in their direction.

Thanks for making us the bottom of the shoe of the rest of the world, George.

Meanwhile, the commanding general in Iraq is hinting that he won't respect the status of forces agreement, which ought to be kind of a huge story and one that Barack Obama should be facing question after question over, considering that it has the potential to really harm American lives, as Iraqis lose faith in the pact and take it out on the troops. This could energize the insurgency at all levels. Why isn't this a big story?

This Blackmail Isn't Really Blackmail

Potential peace talks with Afghanistan? Strategic arms reduction deals with Russia? Is the Bush Administration going all soft on me at the end of their reign? Can't they do something like blackmail a foreign government?

Oh, right.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq's economy, educational sector and other areas _ "everything" _ said Tariq al Hashimi, the country's Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn't know the Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

Hashimi said that Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, listed "tens" of areas of potential cutoffs in a three-page letter, and he said the implied threat caught Iraqi leaders by surprise.

"It was really shocking for us," he said. "Many people are looking to this attitude as a matter of blackmailing."

For a second there, I thought Bush had been replaced by Eisenhower!

This is kind of a horrible thing to do, but isn't this what the Iraqi people are ASKING for? They want national sovereignty and an end to the occupation. The fact that the political leadership is calling this blackmail is a tell that they don't want the Americans to actually leave, or at least that they want continued help in reconstruction and social services. I don't think such a free lunch is possible anymore. The leadership needs to keep listening to their people. They want the Americans out and this is the consequence.

As for the Afghan talks, one former Taliban commander throws cold water on a possible Al Qaeda-Taliban split, but Spencer Ackerman is hopeful:

But Waheed Muzhda, a senior Taliban official when the movement was in power who is now a researcher in Kabul, said Westerners would be disappointed if they sought to drive a wedge between the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

“You cannot separate the two,” he said. “The Taliban didn’t give up Osama bin Laden, under the greatest possible pressure. Why would they break from Al Qaeda now?”

One answer could be because the Afghan insurgency can be cleaved apart through methodical applications of peaceful inducement, population security and military pressure — leaving at least some Taliban factions to calculate that it’s better to enjoy the blessings of power in Kabul than to be hunted from Kandahar to Quetta.

But the point is a rather salient one: if the Taliban won’t break with Al Qaeda, then there’s not really anything to negotiate. It would be irresponsible to broker the return to power of an Al Qaeda-aligned political movement.

You don't need the WHOLE Taliban to sign off, just enough to broadcast the schism.

Petraeus and Odierno Off Message In The Senate

A Man Called Petraeus is back in Washington today, for his Senate confirmation hearings to be the head of Centcom. Gen. Odierno is there as well, looking to be confirmed as Petraeus' successor in Iraq. And they've both had some interesting things to say.

First, Petraeus got the same question Ryan Crocker got from Joe Biden in April about the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. And he had the same answer.

Jack Reed finally brings up the gorilla in the room. He asks Petraeus if he agrees with the intelligence community and Chairman Mullen's assessment that the next terrorist attack on the United States would most likely come from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

Petraeus says YES.

And Reed naturally asks, then why does the campaign plan focus on Iraq not Afghanistan and Pakistan? Reed also asks how Petraeus would plan to actually bring more troops into that area, since they're all in Iraq.

Petraeus, nominated to Centcom, cannot hide behind his "I'm just a simple country general focused on Iraq" shtick, but really the policymakers at the White House should be the ones answering this question. Especially since the new Pakistani government is doing nothing to stop cross-border raids in Afghanistan, and has signed another peace deal with Taliban elements in the Swat Valley. This makes sense for the Pakistanis in a self-interested sense, but if you do believe that Afghanistan is waning and a safe haven for terrorist plotters is a bad thing, it's something we should probably devote some attention to.

Later, Jim Webb backed Raymond Odierno into a corner:

Webb tells Odierno that a key part of strategizing is to "be able to articulate clearly what the endpoint of that strategy is." So: What's the endgame, "in military terms"?

Odierno: "A self-reliant government that is stable, a government that will contribute inside of the regional context and the international context. Obviously, that means they need a professional security force... Obviously, a place that will not allow a safe haven for terrorists or extremists that threaten region... or the United States. ... An economic engine that [provides for] the continued improvement of the Iraqi people. ... From a military perspective, the ability to secure themselves, and do it in such a way that allows the government to continue to grow. ... and we will continue to do less and less." [...]

But what's the endpoint? Say U.S. meets all these conditions. Should there be a continued U.S. presence there? "That's a discussion... for policy." Webb won't let it go! What do you think, Gen. Odierno? Will there be a need for the U.S. military in Iraq if those conditions are met? "I do not." Finally.

Now that's how an adult asks a question.

Indeed, and it's really the entire point about Iraq. We can continue to put the country on lockdown and rule under the methods of an occupation, but it doesn't get us to that desired end-state. And if we pull back, and let the Iraqis handle things, we have no reason for being there. Webb finally got Odierno to admit that.

But the most interesting bit from the Petraeus hearings happened before them, when in written answers to the Senate Armed Services Committee he showed himself to be an un-American appeaser of the Chamberlain school:

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush's nominee to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, supports continued U.S. engagement with international and regional partners to find the right mix of diplomatic, economic and military leverage to address the challenges posed by Iran.

In written answers to questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he will testify today, Petraeus said the possibility of military action against Iran should be retained as a "last resort." But he said the United States "should make every effort to engage by use of the whole of government, developing further leverage rather than simply targeting discrete threats."

Petraeus's views echoed those expressed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who this month said that talks with Iran could be useful if the right combination of incentives and pressures could be developed.

There's every reason to believe that Tehran wants talks like this, too.

This is so obvious that you can't help but go off the Bush-McCain reservation. Diplomacy is not just a tool in the shed along with bombers and tanks, it's the most powerful tool. In the Muslim world, the growing trend is that as terrorist attacks increase, terrorism grows less popular. And the flip side is also true; as American military attacks increase, that decrease in support for terrorism shoots back up as it can be recast as resistance. Without public support for terrorism it can be choked off, therefore public diplomacy becomes a much greater way to reach the desired result than bombings which inflame the population. Give terrorists the rope to hang themselves, in other words, by building a broad coalition against them. And Iran can be a player on that stage.

He's Going For It

Looks like Bombs Away John McCain is going to go ahead and try to lie his way to the White House.

But while the McCain campaign is backing away from the specific claims about Iranian training of Al Qaeda, it is asserting that Iran collaborates with Osama bin Laden's organization.

Mr. McCain's national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, told The New York Sun, "There is ample documentation that Iran has provided many different forms of support to Sunni extremists, including Al Qaeda as well as Shi'ia extremists in Iraq. It would require a willing suspension of disbelief to deny Iran supports Al Qaeda in Iraq."

Responding to Mr. Scheunemann's remarks, a senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama, Susan Rice, yesterday told the Sun, "It's very bizarre." She noted that Mr. McCain had "made the same statement three times in as many days. Surely he must know, as Senator Lieberman reminded him, that Iran is not engaged with Al Qaeda in Iraq. I don't know if he is confused, or is he cynically trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iran as Cheney and Bush did Al Qaeda and Iraq in 2002 and 2003?"

The far-right New York Sun has skin in this game, because their article about AQI/Iran ties is being used by the wingnutosphere, sometimes multiple times with the statement "multiple sources have confirmed" attached, to "prove" the claim. However, the fact that both Raymond Odierno and David Petraeus disagree with any mention of a Shiite Iran/Sunni Al Qaeda link isn't enough for Bombs Away John.

This is no different than Preznit Gimme 'Nother War blustering on about Iran being a continued "nuclear threat" 4 years after they curtailed their nuclear program, and explicitly claiming they want to "destroy another nation" based on a badly translated quote by the Iranian President, who has no power over military affairs. The idea is to knowingly deceive as a pretext for war.

Cue The Fred Sanford-Style Heart Attack

I'm just so shocked that the Bush Administration and military officials would try to change the target date for assessing the situation in Iraq! It's a "surge" to my aortic valve! I'm coming to ya, Elizabeth!

The Bush administration and U.S. military officials predicted Thursday that a key September report would show progress in Iraq, but that it would be November before they could judge the success of the troop buildup.

The comments — coming a day after congressional Democrats failed to force a change in the U.S. war strategy — were a new indication that the White House planned to seek still more time for its troop "surge" to stabilize the situation in Iraq.

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of day-to-day operations in Iraq, said via teleconference from Baghdad that the military would produce the report on time as required by Congress. But, he said, September would be too early to determine whether security improvements would last and whether the buildup had worked.

"In order to do a good assessment, I need at least until November," Odierno said. "If I have 45 more days of looking at those trends, I'll be able to make a bit more accurate assessment — if it's something that we think is going to continue or something that was just a blip."

Here's how this is going to work, by the way. In November they'll say "how about January," and then they'll ask to wait until the spring, and then May, and then September, and then November, and then Bush is out of office and "crew you guys, I'm goin' home."

And it wouldn't be a Bush Administration tactic if it didn't exploit the words of an unnamed soldier for political gain!

Underscoring his view that an extension of the surge is needed, Odierno described a conversation between Command Sgt. Major Neil Ciotola, his top enlisted advisor, and an unnamed Marine lance corporal in Ramadi.

"He looked at my sergeant major and asked, 'We're not going to be given enough time to finish this, are we?' " Odierno said. "I hope that that young Marine warrior is wrong."

Yes, you wouldn't want to break poor Jimmy's heart, would you? Don't you want to hit him a home run and win the big game? He has leukemia!

I like the part, also, where the US Ambassador determines that nothing that happens in Iraq is a measure of progress:

Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday not to place the most significance on the benchmarks.

"In many cases, these benchmarks do not serve as reliable measures of everything that is important," Crocker said, adding that there may be better ways to show progress on, for example, national reconciliation.

How dare you try to assess what's happening in Iraq by making... assessments!

This is all a game to these fucking people. Well, I'm with that nearly 1/3 of House Democrats: not one nickel, not one dime, not one penny, not this time. No more money for failure.

Hey, wait a minute... September's not in the spring!

Who are they trying to kid with this one?

The U.S. may be able to reduce combat forces in Iraq by next spring if Iraq's own security forces continue to grow and improve, a senior American commander said Friday. He denied reports the U.S. is arming Sunni insurgent groups to help in the fight against al-Qaida.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top day-to-day commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, did not predict any reductions in U.S. forces but said such redeployments may be feasible by spring. There are currently 156,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

That sounds great! We only have to wait 9 months!

'Course, we heard the exact same thing in 2006:

On the eve of President Bush’s summit on Iraq, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad predicted Sunday that coalition troops will gradually move out of the country in the coming months.

Gen. George Casey said he thinks it will be possible to withdraw some of the 130,000 U.S. forces in the months ahead as long as Iraq’s government and security forces make progress.

And April 2006:

As the top U.S. commander in Iraq suggested today that the United States would soon reduce the number of troops in Iraq, Pentagon planners said to ABC News that they hoped to pull more than 30,000 troops out by the end of the year, and possibly by as early as November.

The reductions depend on political and security progress in Iraq.

And July 2005:

The top U.S. military leader in Iraq said Wednesday there could be substantial withdrawals of some of the 135,000 U.S. troops in the country as early as next spring.

Gen. George W. Casey said that despite continued lethal attacks by insurgents, the security situation in Iraq had improved. He reiterated a position he had taken earlier this year on the possible decrease in the U.S. military presence during a one-day visit by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for meetings with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari [...]

"If the political process continues to go positively, and if the development of the security forces continues to go as it is going, I do believe we'll still be able to take some fairly substantial reductions after these elections in the spring and summer," Casey said before meeting with Jafari.

And September of Frickin' 2004:

The United States Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, has suggested US troop reductions in Iraq will be possible once Iraqi security forces were trained to take over their job.

Mr Rumsfeld made the comments following a meeting with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi at the Pentagon.

For close to three years, Administration officials have been saying that they might be able to reduce the forces if things go well. And they NEVER DO. So shouldn't news organizations simply refuse to print this boilerplate story anymore until there's actually something real behind it instead of "if a magical pony comes down and reconciles the Shia and Sunni, then sure, we can leave by spring!"

Also, of course, this pushes off the "decidering" from September to 6 months later, at which point another Friedman Unit will be needed, &c.

The Intelligence Is Still Being Fixed Around The Policy

Watch the military leaders upon which the entire future of the Iraq mission is predicated admit that "wait 'til September" is all a big con:

U.S. officials told ABC News that the troop levels in Iraq cannot be maintained at the present level, either politically or practically, with the military stretched so thin.

But that does not imply an immediate drawdown. Officials told ABC's Martha Raddatz that the senior commanders in Iraq -- Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. David Petraeus -- want the surge to continue until at least December and expect to report enough progress by September to justify the extension.

The drawdown would begin in February 2008, although each of the two generals supports a slightly different plan.

Plan one, which officials say Odierno is pushing, would start with a draw down of one brigade (5,000 troops) every month starting in February, with a reduction in troops from roughly 150,000 today to 100,000 by December 2008.

Petraeus champions a slightly different approach that would cut the troops down to roughly 130,000 by the end of 2008, with further reductions the following year.

They're going to cook up as much evidence as they can ("Those schools are more freshly painted than EVER!!") to make sure they can keep the Iraqi adventure going. It'll be thin gruel to anyone paying attention, but just enough so the supposed "concerned Republicans" can be mollified, and head back to their districts saying "It's almost done, just give us a few more months!"

This war is more and more feeling like "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks. The contractors keep saying "two weeks" to finish the house.

And look at this new tactic:

The U.S. military is working more aggressively to forge cease-fires with Iraqi militants and quell the violence around Baghdad, judging that 80 percent of enemy combatants are "reconcilable," a top U.S. commander said Thursday.

However, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno also warned that he may not be able to make a full assessment of the situation in Iraq by September, as demanded by lawmakers.

Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters by video conference that he is pressing his military officers to reach out to the tribes, to some small insurgent groups and to religious and political leaders to push them to stop the violence.

"We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces," Odierno said from Camp Victory in Baghdad. "We believe a large majority of groups within Iraq are reconcilable and are now interested in engaging with us. But more importantly, they want to engage and become a part of the government of Iraq."

The only cease-fires will come when the occupiers leave. Face facts. Sadr's already doing this without US help. Yes, Odierno has finally admitted that Sadr's grassroots movement is real, and yes, Sunni Arabs in Baghdad sought US help in Baghdad against Al Qaeda in Iraq, but the biggest enemy in the country remains the US military. There may be a mechanism for Sunnis and Shiites to work together, if they're weary enough of fighting each other, to toss out Al Qaeda, who is hated. But that doesn't involve the US at all. In fact, it will only have a chance of succeeding if we leave.

Just Give Me 50 More Years

Does anyone still believe this "wait until September" claptrap?

The U.S. ground forces commander in Iraq says he might need more time to assess the impact of the new security plan, beyond the September assessment President Bush and the Congress are expecting. Lieutenant General Ray Odierno made the statement Thursday during a news conference via satellite with reporters at the Pentagon. He also spoke about increased efforts to reach out to insurgent groups and a new threat some of his forces are facing as they move into new areas in and around Baghdad.

This is no different than a junkie asking for a few more lines of coke to satisfy his drug fix until he "goes clean for sure." In truth the junkie has no intention of going straight, and neither does the Bush Administration. They're war junkies, and they'll be damned if someone will tell them to get out of the land they worked not hard enough to conquer.

Tell you what, I have no problem giving these guys a few more months, as long as with each extension, we get to send somebody like Paul Wolfowitz over to be the mayor of Baghdad. Maybe after that Sen. Jim DeMint can fill in. After all, the Democrats are such "wimps" by talking about defeat, maybe he can go be the mayor of Baghdad and set an example!

After all, it's easy to be a war junkie, when you're not the one fighting the war.