The Surge as Mythology

September 9th, 2007 Posted in Of Interest

That there is a serious discussion of whether or not the Surge in Iraq is a success is a victory for the Bush administration. Because discussing the nature of something requires you believe it to be real. In this case it requires treating as real a complete fiction, a bit of mythology by an administration too weary even to give it the trappings of plausibility. The Bush Administration went into Iraq without enough troops and systematically destroyed the country, its infrastructure, and hence any hope of achieving its own aims. Are we really supposed to believe that anyone else believes that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again? And not by all the king’s horses and men, but by just a few extra?

Of course not. Only naive Bush loyalists take this coin at face value, to wit: “but we must try, we must do our best, before we call it a day.” If the Surge constituted our best effort, including a plan for military victory in Iraq (with “military victory” defined realistically), it would be worth a try. But like the initial invasion, the Surge is not a plan for military victory but a desperate attempt to shore up the dwindling credibility of the Republican party and the power of a crumbling American regime. Here’s the plan for political victory, the real value of the coin:

1. Delay withdrawal of troops from Iraq for as long as possible and create the impression of a sincere desire to “win” the war
2. When the withdrawal of troops inevitably comes, blame Iraq as a whole on the defeatism of Democrats and war opposition

(2) can be accomplished whether it comes about as the result of a change in power (a Democratic win in ‘08) or some other circumstance that gets Bush off the hook. There is a waiting game that necessitates the Surge as a political strategy. How long must Bush wait before he seems sincere about Iraq, despite the beginnings of a troop withdrawal? Long enough that he looks defeated not by Iraq but by internal political opponents who have corrupted the American people. Otherwise he sacrifices the only persona that makes all this failure worthwhile: one that exudes single-minded toughness for as long as possible even in the face of the overwhelming defeatism of the majority. Bush wants out of Iraq; the question is how to save face.

This persistence is especially important in light of the fact that the stated aims of the initial invasion were obviously insincere. The administration’s real goal in going to war had nothing to do with WMDs, and everything to do with political power at home and the project of power abroad. Bush adopted the neo-conservative fantasy that the middle east could be conquered and democratized; that it would be easy to begin with a weak and historically precedented target like Iraq; that democratization would reduce the threat of the “Islamist” menace and hence increase our security indirectly. This neocon delusion was coupled to a Bush administration creed: act tough and it will all work out; punish enemies, and reward friends. The United States would project power abroad; the Republican party would project power at home. The former would enable the latter. The latter was obviously a dominant objective–more important, for instance, than such boring pursuits as seeking out bin Laden and al Qaeda operatives in unseen caves where the PR of shock and awe would never see the light of day, or the death of bin Laden benefit Republicans for more than a news cycle.

The tough-guy attitude at the core of this strategy was extended to the very execution of the war: after all, tough guys are cool. They don’t fret over practicalities. They just go in and kick ass with limitless American power–punch the jukebox, so to speak. The rest takes care of itself.

It’s been well-documented that the Bush administration had a good chance of achieving its aims in Iraq. The administration systematically thwarted its own aims and destroyed Iraq–by using too few troops, refusing to establish basic security in the country, terrorizing the population with heavy-handed tactics, and dismantling its political and administrative infrastructure (including the army and the Ba’ath party). The competent experts who tried to stop all of this were ignored or fired and replaced with inexperienced political beneficiaries. The competence of the experts reeked of disloyalty, because it requires pushing back against hair-brained, politically motivated, and top-down policies in light of realistic facts on the ground. But tough guys don’t tolerate disloyalty. The decider must be surrounded by naive followers.

It’s not that Bush wanted to fail in Iraq: it’s that he wanted to win on terms acceptable to the tough-guy mentality of his party. Again, his goals were not primarily military but political; not designed primarily to help Iraq or the United States, but to help establish the tough image of the Republican party. When you are conducting what is essentially a PR campaign by military means, you can’t be expected to pay that much attention to the details of the military means.

This is why the concept of a “Surge” is so insulting. The Bush Administration destroyed Iraq by failing to use enough troops; denied the need for more troops during the years in which they might have been relevant; and then decided that garnishing the ruins of Iraq with a little extra dollop of manpower would be just the right thing; here’s 20,000 more–how do things look now? And we’re supposed to take that seriously.

But as Glenn Greenwald notes, the punditry do take this seriously. And we have to wonder why, as Glenn does on a regular basis.

Let’s revisit our parallel case of charades being taken seriously: the case of WMDs. Years had passed and no one had worried about Iraq’s well-known chemical weapons–the ones Hussein couldn’t bring himself to use against the U.S. in the first war. It took very little from the government propaganda machine–just the incredible Cheney and Rice talking about “mushroom clouds”–and journalists were acting as if they had just learned of something new and terrifying. It was all taken at face value. One gets the impression that if the government made the claim that Judgement Day was nigh, it would become an object of serious discussion among pundits.

The Surge may be a mythological beast, but it is red meat to the commentariat: in so thoroughly chewing on (rather than in some cases ridiculing and dismissing) every idea that comes their way, they lend even fantastic ideas own kind of reality. People quickly forget that “Surge” is a dog and pony show, a desperate and unsophisticated bit of PR; that in context, even the shallowest minds would never take such an idea seriously. There being an argument about whether the Surge will “work” is like having an argument about whether Santa Claus will be able to deliver all his presents on time. There isn’t a Santa Claus, and so of course he can’t deliver his presents on time.

In the sense of a real military strategy meant to solve a military problem: there is no Surge. It doesn’t exist. So of course it can’t work. There are no criteria for it working, and shamefully the few contrived criteria for its effectiveness are being falsified. Serious discussion would require treating the Surge for what it is–a delaying tactic in a larger domestic political strategy.