Commentary on the Bush Surge in Iraq

A selection of editorial comment from leading US journals, on the Bush Surge Strategy in Iraq.....

....From The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:02 a.m. EST....

Mission Baghdad "Clear, hold and build" will take at least this many troops.

....the key will be deploying enough forces to accomplish the task.

... Mr. Bush seems finally to have decided that the way to defeat the insurgency is to protect the population, especially in Baghdad.

....Iraqi leadership will also be important to the new strategy.... Mr. Maliki will have to show that Shiite criminals will be dealt with just as Sunni terrorists are. ....the best way to help Mr. Maliki accomplish these goals is not overt American pressure but consistent and overt American support. He will need it, because some compromises will alienate portions of his political base.

....political compromise won't happen without better security, or as the Petraeus Counterinsurgency Manual puts it, "security is essential to setting the stage for overall progress."

There's also the outside meddling by Iraq's neighbors, particularly Iran and Syria. This remains primarily an indigenous Iraqi conflict. But showing those countries that they will pay a price for helping to kill Americans is also necessary for counterinsurgency success.

With the new strategy, new forces and new generals President Bush is putting in place, we have a fighting chance to create a virtuous circle whereby better security leads to more anti-insurgent cooperation from the public--which in turn leads to still better security. If Congressional Democrats have better suggestions, we'd love to hear them. But the one "strategy" that simply isn't credible is the idea that anybody's interests would be served by a hasty U.S. exit from Iraq.

...From The Washington Post, Thursday, January 11, 2007....

The president raises the number of troops -- and the level of risk -- in Iraq.

PRESIDENT BUSH is right to recognize that U.S strategy in Iraq is not working and to seek a different policy. He is right to insist that the United States cannot afford to abandon the mission and to reject calls for an early withdrawal. But the new plan for the war Mr. Bush outlined last night is very risky.

.... Mr. Bush has chosen to increase the number of Army troops and Marines and to broaden their mission. U.S. forces will be asked to pacify Baghdad in conjunction with Iraqi army and police units. Two attempts last year to stop sectarian war in the capital failed; the president says this effort will be different because more U.S. and Iraqi troops will be involved and because Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has promised to prevent "political and sectarian interference." If the plan proceeds, we hope U.S. forces succeed without heavy casualties. But even if they do, the victory will be temporary. U.S. forces cannot sustain the planned "surge" for long, and Baghdad will not be truly pacified until Iraqis can enforce the peace.

....Mr. Bush decided against the consensus strategy favored by the Iraq Study Group because he believed it would not prevent sectarian war from escalating. That may be right. But the president's policy poses a different danger: that Iraqi troops and Iraqi leaders won't deliver on the steps expected of them during what must be a relatively short time, even as American soldiers fight to secure Baghdad -- and, almost certainly, die in larger numbers than before. It also means launching a mission that -- until now, at least -- has not had the domestic support that should accompany the commitment of troops to battle.

If the United States is not to abandon Iraq to its enemies, the U.S. mission needs to be sustainable, in both military and political terms, over the years it may take Iraqis to stabilize their country. Mr. Bush is betting that a boost in U.S. troops and aid can accelerate that process. If he is wrong, a continued American presence in Iraq may become untenable. The president must do more to persuade the country that the sacrifice he is asking of American soldiers is necessary. And if Iraqis do not deliver on their own commitments in the coming weeks, he must reconsider his strategy -- and suspend the U.S. reinforcements.

....and from National Review Online, January 11, 2007 10:35 AM ...

Surge Ahead ... we applaud President Bush for committing the additional troops and resources to the war. At this late hour, the responsible options are almost down to supporting some version of the president’s surge or supporting withdrawal. Because we think the war is still winnable and share the president’s assessment of the dire strategic consequences of failure, we support the surge.

But we can’t be entirely confident it will work. Bush advanced two reasons for the failure of the prior Baghdad security plan: inadequate American and Iraqi force levels, and obstacles placed in the way of confronting Shia death squads by the Maliki government.The dearth of troops meant Baghdad neighborhoods were cleared of insurgents and terrorists, but not held afterwards, so the bad actors returned after we left.

... Bush said this time we will “have the force levels to hold the areas that have been cleared.” We hope that’s true. We also hope that Bush’s emphasis on having Iraqis take the lead is a diplomatic fiction, since the Iraqis obviously aren’t yet up to waging a challenging counterinsurgency campaign in the midst of a civil war.

As for Maliki, we wish we could be certain he will follow through on the commitments he has made to the administration. ..... His record thus far — as, basically, an ineffectual sectarian — doesn’t inspire much confidence.

It is a commonplace among opponents of the surge that there is not a solely military solution to the Iraq War. True. But unless the security situation is brought under control, Iraqi politics will continue to be radicalized. And President Bush cannot be accused of neglecting the non-military aspects of the war. His speech last night pledged not just more troops to the fight, but more embedded advisers, more training, more reconstruction aid, and more diplomacy in the region.

The last, thankfully, won’t be the kind of diplomacy pushed by the Iraq Study Group — talks with Syria and Iran. The fact is that our allies in the region are terrified that we will leave Iraq and that we will give away the store in negotiations with Iran, so they should be pleased with Bush’s speech. As for our enemies, Syria and Iran, they were put on notice. In an underappreciated passage at the speech, Bush vowed to “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

It is one thing to have a healthy skepticism of the effect the president’s latest push will have, and another to oppose it without either offering any plausible alternative or pushing all-out for a withdrawal. That is the position of many Democrats and the odd Republican... They all pretend that conditions in Iraq can be improved with the U.S. maintaining or even reducing its current level of effort. That is wishful thinking. The surge is the only realistic hope for checking Iraq’s downward slide.

More important than Bush’s speech or any policy specifics is the big picture: ..... In forthrightly acknowledging the failures of his prior Iraq policy and working to change them, Bush has done the right and courageous thing. Now it is a matter of following through. We wish him well, as should all patriotic Americans.