thedrifter
12-15-06, 08:00 AM
PENTAGON WONKS
By JOHN PODHORETZ
December 15, 2006 -- THE word from Washington is that everybody in and around the Bush administration agrees the new strategy for Iraq requires a surge of U.S. troops. Everybody, that is, except the military leadership at the Pentagon - which reportedly doesn't want more troops committed to Iraq.
Now, you'd think that would be the trump card of all trump cards. So what if the State Department wants more troops? What does State know about fighting a war? So what if National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is pushing for more troops? He's a policy wonk, not a general.
For the past 31/2 years, it has been the trump card when it comes to the war in Iraq. Properly fearful of repeating the calamitous micromanagement mistakes of Vietnam - when President Lyndon Johnson sat in the Oval Office picking targets in the North - President Bush ceded the war to the generals and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. What they've asked for, they've gotten. They have the troop levels they want. They have had the strategy they have preferred.
And they've failed.
Now, don't mistake me. Americans in uniform haven't failed. They've performed their assigned mission with all the glory of heroes throughout history. It's their leaders who have failed them.
Their leaders haven't sought victory - real victory - since April 2003, after they secured the initial military objective of toppling the Saddam regime. Following a staggering battlefield triumph in which a massive advancing army moved as quickly as a Kenyan doing the 400-yard dash, the civilians and the military honchos at the Pentagon seemed to have decided that what was happening inside Iraq wasn't exactly a war.
Time and again, they took the lead in subordinating the pursuit of victory to the goal of stabilizing and strengthening the internal politics of Iraq.
In contrast to the shameful pop-culture image of military commanders as hair-trigger psychos eager to hurl nukes at butterflies, America's military leaders are far more cerebral, intellectual and cognizant of history's lessons than all but a small handful of this country's leading policy wonks.
Their analysis of the situation inside Iraq was brilliant, thoughtful and sophisticated. It had to do with giving the Iraqis the space to forge a new political identity following decades of tyranny - and to keep a "light footprint" so that we wouldn't seem like imperialists or like a paternalistic welfare office. In addition, we had to ensure we didn't anger Shiite leaders even as we sought to bring Sunnis into the political process.
Pacifying Shiites meant not killing the monstrous Muqtada al-Sadr. And keeping Sunnis in the game meant not attacking Fallujah after four Americans were tortured to death there.
They knew what they were doing, and why they were doing it. But they just got it wrong, and they didn't know how to change direction to get it right. What's more, having committed to a certain approach, they can't just reverse field because to do so would be to admit that the past 31/2 years have been bungled.
What happened, exactly?
The war fighters became political scientists. They trusted their theories about Iraq and their sense of how best to build up a country, rather than narrowing their task to bringing the enemy to heel and securing the country.
Now, maybe, it's time to listen to the political scientists - who say we have to fight to win before we can help the Iraqis create a viable political future for themselves.
Can the United States win? Yes, a thousand times, of course we can win. But our military leaders have to be told by the commander in chief that what he requires from them is victory and nothing less. No more theories. Time to act.
jpodhoretz@nypost.com
Ellie
By JOHN PODHORETZ
December 15, 2006 -- THE word from Washington is that everybody in and around the Bush administration agrees the new strategy for Iraq requires a surge of U.S. troops. Everybody, that is, except the military leadership at the Pentagon - which reportedly doesn't want more troops committed to Iraq.
Now, you'd think that would be the trump card of all trump cards. So what if the State Department wants more troops? What does State know about fighting a war? So what if National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is pushing for more troops? He's a policy wonk, not a general.
For the past 31/2 years, it has been the trump card when it comes to the war in Iraq. Properly fearful of repeating the calamitous micromanagement mistakes of Vietnam - when President Lyndon Johnson sat in the Oval Office picking targets in the North - President Bush ceded the war to the generals and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. What they've asked for, they've gotten. They have the troop levels they want. They have had the strategy they have preferred.
And they've failed.
Now, don't mistake me. Americans in uniform haven't failed. They've performed their assigned mission with all the glory of heroes throughout history. It's their leaders who have failed them.
Their leaders haven't sought victory - real victory - since April 2003, after they secured the initial military objective of toppling the Saddam regime. Following a staggering battlefield triumph in which a massive advancing army moved as quickly as a Kenyan doing the 400-yard dash, the civilians and the military honchos at the Pentagon seemed to have decided that what was happening inside Iraq wasn't exactly a war.
Time and again, they took the lead in subordinating the pursuit of victory to the goal of stabilizing and strengthening the internal politics of Iraq.
In contrast to the shameful pop-culture image of military commanders as hair-trigger psychos eager to hurl nukes at butterflies, America's military leaders are far more cerebral, intellectual and cognizant of history's lessons than all but a small handful of this country's leading policy wonks.
Their analysis of the situation inside Iraq was brilliant, thoughtful and sophisticated. It had to do with giving the Iraqis the space to forge a new political identity following decades of tyranny - and to keep a "light footprint" so that we wouldn't seem like imperialists or like a paternalistic welfare office. In addition, we had to ensure we didn't anger Shiite leaders even as we sought to bring Sunnis into the political process.
Pacifying Shiites meant not killing the monstrous Muqtada al-Sadr. And keeping Sunnis in the game meant not attacking Fallujah after four Americans were tortured to death there.
They knew what they were doing, and why they were doing it. But they just got it wrong, and they didn't know how to change direction to get it right. What's more, having committed to a certain approach, they can't just reverse field because to do so would be to admit that the past 31/2 years have been bungled.
What happened, exactly?
The war fighters became political scientists. They trusted their theories about Iraq and their sense of how best to build up a country, rather than narrowing their task to bringing the enemy to heel and securing the country.
Now, maybe, it's time to listen to the political scientists - who say we have to fight to win before we can help the Iraqis create a viable political future for themselves.
Can the United States win? Yes, a thousand times, of course we can win. But our military leaders have to be told by the commander in chief that what he requires from them is victory and nothing less. No more theories. Time to act.
jpodhoretz@nypost.com
Ellie