In his most recent post, Shame and Disgrace, Wretchard of Belmont Club uses the recent decision to award Tommy Franks, George Tenet and Paul Bremer the Presidential Medal of Freedom (or, more accurately, Andrew Sullivan’s criticism of same) as a springboard for evaluating the success of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I stopped reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog when it became all homogamy—all the time so I’m getting this at second hand. In particular Wretchard writes:
If Gerecht’s analysis is correct, OIF stands within an ace of not only achieving its operational goals, but is on the verge of winning its initial strategic goals.
Frankly, I’d feel a lot more comfortable with such a pronouncement if the Administration were to articulate what the actual goals of the Iraq War were. Back in March, 2003 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld described the objectives of the war in Iraq as:
- “to end the regime of Saddam Hussein by striking with force on a scope and scale that makes clear to Iraqis that he and his regime are finished.”
Clearly, this objective has been accomplished.
- “to identify, isolate and eventually eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, production capabilities, and distribution networks.”
This objective is either moot (if Iraq had no appreciable stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, production capabilities, or distribution networks), a failure (if what WMD, production capabilities, and distribution networks Iraq had have been transferred beyond its borders), or a qualified success (if production capabilities and distribution networks have been removed). We’ll probably never know.
- “to search for, capture, drive out terrorists who have found safe harbor in Iraq.”
Since this effort is ongoing the best we can rate this objective is as a qualified success (or a qualified failure). The apparently continuing influx of foreign fighters into Iraq suggests, at least to me, that this will be a primary challenge of any future Iraqi government. Or, said as pointedly as I can, if this isn’t a primary objective of any future Iraqi government, I would characterize the entire operation as a failure.
- “to collect such intelligence as we can find related to terrorist networks in Iraq and beyond.”
Once again we’ll probably never know whether this objective has failed or succeeded.
- “to collect such intelligence as we can find related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction activity.”
We’ll probably never know.
- “to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian relief, food and medicine to the displaced and to the many needy Iraqi citizens.”
This is a again ongoing and at best a qualified success. My own belief is that this effort (and many of the other objectives) could more easily have been deemed a success had we been willing to confront holdouts, terrorists, and other nogoodniks a year ago.
- “to secure Iraq’s oil fields and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people, and which they will need to develop their country after decades of neglect by the Iraqi regime.”
Since the oil fields and resources continue to be under sporadic attack and production has not risen to pre-war levels (let alone pre-1991 levels), the best we can rate this objective is as a qualified success.
- “to help the Iraqi people create the conditions for a rapid transition to a representative self-government that is not a threat to its neighbors and is committed to ensuring the territorial integrity of that country.”
Are elections on January sufficient to declare this objective a success?
This last objective is what troubles me the most. President Bush has repeatedly stated that any outcome that the Iraqi people produce democratically is acceptable to him. I, on the other hand, believe that we should have articulated some minimally acceptable set of outcomes for Iraqi self-government from the very outset. Can we accept anything less than:
- equal rights for women
- protection of rights for minorities
- freedom of religion
- a permanent end to strong-man government?
I don’t think so. That’s just defining victory down too far.
“That’s just defining victory down too far.” Perhaps. OTOH, maybe Gerecht is just being realistic. This whole thing has been way oversold, and expectations have been set too high. We’ll have to see what happens, but in general the center of gravity of the WoT is in Europe, not Iraq.
Since I was not in favor of invading Iraq, you don’t have to convince me. But as little as I’m a fan of the Iraq War I like wheel-spinning even less. I don’t think that either Saddam-lite or Iran II are acceptable alternatives.
We’ll have to see what happens, but in general the center of gravity of the WoT is in Europe, not Iraq.
Could you expand on that a little?
Here’s what I’m talking about.
I agree with you that that’s the hundred year plan, praktike. I hope enough people survive the next five or ten to profit by it.