The Problem with McCain’s Plan

Unlike the Iraq Study Group, Senator John McCain has a real plan for Iraq. It doesn’t depend on the good will of our enemies in Iran and Syria; it doesn’t depend on the spontaneous eruption of democracy and good will in a murderously sectarian society; it does depend on OUR willingness to act as if we are really at war,

McCain proposes increasing American troop levels in Iraq.  He has more credibility on military matters than ex-National Guardsmen who never saw combat like the President and me.  It’s good logic that, if you are not succeeding at something, you either try harder or quit.  Which alternative you take depends on the value of victory (or cost of defeat) vs. the extra cost; sunk costs don’t matter.  When the costs are measured in lives, it’s all the more important that the right decision be made.

The trouble with this plan is that more troops are likely to be just a larger target without changing the rules of engagement.  And changing the rules of engagement means becoming more like the enemy we’re fighting.  This is a price we were willing to pay – which we had to pay – in the Second World War.  We did use atomic bombs in Japan.  We did firebomb Dresden.  We did not tolerate the nascent resistance in Germany after surrender – nor allow civil rights to civilians until the insurgency was well-crushed.  We didn’t take very long to try and to hang the Nazi leaders and war criminals.

Someone said that we started to lose the war in Iraq when we didn’t shoot to kill looters in the heady days after Saddam’s fall.  Maybe.  With hindsight, we should never have let Muqtada al-Sadr go free after his first rebellion against coalition forces.  In trying to win the hearts and minds of people, we lost their respect.  A terrorized people lost faith in our ability to protect them from terror; it was safer for them to depend for protection on the local militia of the moment.  It was safer to defy the Americans than the local Shiite or Sunni thugs who were, after all, willing to take violent measures against the thugs on the other side.

The insurgents practice what is called asymmetrical warfare: we have more weapons and trained troops; they shelter among and fire from within a civilian population.  If we are not willing to fire back under these circumstances, our weapons are negated.  It’s as brutally simple as that.

Israel faces the same situation.  Rockets are fired into Israel from civilian areas in Lebanon and Gaza.  Most of the world – and many Israelis – condemn return fire.  No reaction encourages more rockets.  A reaction kills civilians, draws worldwide criticism; and can’t stop all attacks.  Since using civilians as shields is effective, the technique’s been expanded.  Now hordes of women show up to protect Hamas leaders and missile-firers from Israeli arrest.

For the sake of those who like to draw moral equivalents, let’s do a thought experiment.  Suppose that there were hordes of Iraqi women around mosques: would this stop them from being blown up?  Maybe if Sunni women were at Shiite mosques and vice versa.  But Sunni woman around a Sunni mosque just make a better target for Shiite terrorists.  We know this is true because the mosques and markets are bombed at times calculated to cause the greatest casualties – just as attacks against Western targets are.

Unless reasonable Palestinians take control in Gaza (and Abbas does seem to be trying), at some point Israel will have to say that any neighborhood from which a rocket is fired will be destroyed.  That will be tragically tested – more than once.  BBC will rival Al Jazeera in reporting the carnage and blaming Israel.  If Israel perseveres, the woman of Gaza neighborhoods will turn out en masse to stop anyone trying to fire a rocket from their block.  There will be a chance for peace.  Both Israel and the Palestinians will have paid a terrible price.

If our survival depended on victory, whatever that is, in Iraq, then we would have no choice but to change the rules of engagement so that fire is instantly and massively returned, so that neighborhoods held hostage by terrorists know that is safer to resist than risk American response, so that it is neither safe nor politic to publicly abdicate killing Americans (this won’t look like creating a democracy in Iraq). And we would massively increase troop strength and fire power.  Even then, hard to know what our exit strategy would be.

We are fortunate in not (yet?) being in Israel’s situation.  The cost of leaving Iraq to tripartition is probably less than the cost to us and to them of adopting winning rules of engagement and increasing strength to where we can win.  If that’s true, John McCain is wrong; we should leave, not increase troop levels.  But he’s asked the right question and posed a real alternative,

Iraq: Plan B is about partitioning Iraq.

The Middle East Blame Game is about who’s to blame for the sectarian violence in Iraq.

The Iraq Study Group Report is about exactly that.