A week ago, President George W. Bush announced his plans to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq. Mr. Bush’s plan bore a striking resemblance to a report titled “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,” which was recently published by resident scholar Frederick W. Kagan of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington. The Kagan report was endorsed by a panel of experts, one of whom was retired U.S. Army Vice-Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane and has been referred to as the Kagan/Keane plan since then.[1]
In shining bullet-points, the Kagan/Keane plan declares that “victory is possible” and endeavors to make a compelling case by arguing that “America contained ethno-religious conflict and civil war in Bosnia and Kosovo – we can do so in Iraq.” “American resources are great,” continues that report with “300 million people, $12 trillion in GDP compared to 25 million Iraqis, $100 billion Iraqi GDP in a country the size of California.” “Success requires effort and will,” confides the next entry and argues that “we need not choose to lose.”
As much as the neo-con agenda has been under intense scrutiny in the U.S. media and academia (they did, after all, get the United States into the current mess themselves), it must be said that neo-cons’ optimism is admirable. Political and media circles in the Middle East also criticize AEI and like-minded think-tanks for being too pro-Israel but it must be realized that this plan does not have much to do with being supportive of Israel. A stable Iraq is in everyone’s benefit – Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, the United States and almost every other country in the world.
But is a reliance on just increasing the size of the U.S. military presence in Iraq the best option? As Prof. Alon Ben-Meir of New York University put it last month, is there really no victory strategy in Iraq?[2] If there is, how many more American and Iraqi lives should we be ready to sacrifice?
Hence the moral dilemma that should be troubling the Bush administration: If the United States sends more GIs to Baghdad, that would only increase the proportion of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. Even though every field commander likes to have ever-greater number of troops, a common military maxim is that larger units sustain larger casualties.
On the other side of the equation, more American troops might simply mean more Iraqi deaths. With the tribal social structure of Iraq, the death of one Iraqi might produce more fresh souls for the insurgency, which would merely throw the current violence into a deeper spiral which is impossible to get out from.
Not just the Bush administration, but the whole world is at a critical juncture. More American troops can be sent there to their deaths (along with those of the Iraqis) or they can be sent there to stop further killings. Both results are perfectly likely and both say “damn if you do, damn if you don’t…”
The military and political aspects of Mr. Bush’s plan further complicate the moral implications of a prospective troop increase. Originally, the Kagan/Keane study envisioned sending 50,000 troops over 2007. If the Kagan/Keane figure seems hardly convincing from a military standpoint, Mr. Bush’s 20,000 is plain futile to quell the violence. Moreover, the administration’s plan is to send a brigade per month, bringing the projected 20,000 into Iraq by the end of April. Militarily speaking, a force that is sent in increments can hardly make any difference. The essence of a military operation, per the teachings of the Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz, is to engage in amassing force where the battle rages, and to engage in an economy of force in places of secondary importance. Sending 20,000 troops to Baghdad, especially if sent in small increments, will not accomplish the goals set forth by the Kagan/Keane report.
Another question is readiness. How ready are those men and women who are to be shipped to Iraq? Training is one of the most essential elements of a military unit. Which units the Bush administration is considering to send to Iraq I do not know (the Kagan/Keane report had outlined several of them), but I do not think those brigades and regiments are ready for the sort of trouble they will face in Iraq.
It should be said that a brigade (3,500-6,000 soldiers) is not the easiest thing to bring up to speed. It is also unknown what sort of equipment and logistics those GIs are going to have, but it would not be a surprise if they do not show up in tip-top shape. (This reminds me of the episode when former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on a tour in Iraq two years ago and was asked by a soldier why they had to go to junkyards looking for scrap metals to serve as additional armor for their vehicles.) American policy-makers should act more responsibly on that fact.
Finally, the reaction from the newly-elected Democratic Congress is not too promising for Mr. Bush. Last week, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D – Mass.) spoke out against Mr. Bush’s proposal, stating that there was no point in fueling the fire of the Iraqi civil war with the lives of additional American troops. Mr. Kennedy also maintained that the administration’s plan could only put the United States on a course of continuously increasing troop levels, ultimately leading to a debacle per the Vietnam War.
Congressional opposition will probably not be that strong. Members of Congress might even end up supporting Mr. Bush. The American people, whether they like the administration’s decision to stay in Iraq or not, are very supportive of their military. “Support our troops” is a motto you see dozens of times everywhere in the United States, even in the most anti-war circles. Solidarity with the folks serving in uniform is a lot higher than it was during Vietnam and any sense of betrayal by either the administration or Congress would mean a lot of political trouble. Neither party wants that before the 2008 elections.
So Mr. Bush is likely going to formulate his argument along “support-the-troops” line. He is going to ask Congress to beef up the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Since they already allowed him to send troops to Iraq in 2003, congressmen are more or less obliged to back the president. It’s not like they can refuse funding or do something of a similar sort.
Congress, however, will support Mr. Bush’s decision on a short-term basis. Should the plan seem not to work, legislators will order troops to be down-sized. That will roughly be the political compromise between the administration and Congress. If that course of action does not work, “support our troops, bring them home” will likely become the order of the day.
What should now be dubbed the Iraqi civil war is at a very vital moment, with dire moral consequences. There is a less-than-fifty percent chance that sending additional troops to Baghdad can make matters better. The big question is this: are those young people being sent to stop the killings in Iraq or are they being sent to their own deaths? Mr. Bush should think very carefully about what he wants because if he gets it and this plan does not work, his options will be closed, and that will not bode well for anyone.
+++
Barın Kayaoğlu is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia and a regular contributor to the Journal of Turkish Weekly.
E-mail: kayaoglu@virginia.edu
