Totten: The War in Iraq is "All But Over"

Jawa Report ^ | July 16, 2008 06:26 PM | Dr. Rusty Shackleford

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More on the we've won front from Michael Totten:

I’m reluctant to say “the war has ended,” as he did, but everything else he wrote is undoubtedly true. The war in Iraq is all but over right now, and it will be officially over if the current trends in violence continue their downward slide. That is a mathematical fact.

Over the past few days al Qaeda has detonated several car bombs in Diyala. So, how is the war "over"?

Totten goes on to say that the violence may never actually peter off to nothing in Iraq, but reminds us that violence and terrorism are endemic to the entire Middle East.

It's not over in the sense that we can now come home. It's over in the sense that we've crossed a line where our victory is all but assured if we stay the course. Like U.S troops crossing the Rhine in 1945--there are still a few battles left in the failed Islamist insurgency, but there is little doubt what the ultimate outcome will be.

It may even be too late for Barack Obama to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Of course, that wouldn't be true had his "let's end the surge before it ever begins" strategy been adopted. But if (God forbid) he wins, he'll take office in January of 2009. Given current trends we should be in full peace keeping mode by then.

From the beginning the many reasons for my support of ongoing efforts in Iraq can be reduced to a single premise: America must win its wars.

Victory enhances national security, failure reduces it. The ten years following our surrendering Vietnam to the communists were a foreign policy nightmare. That single act emboldened and reinvigorated not only communists across the world, but also Islamist revolutionaries such as Ayatollah Khomeini who, rightly, saw that the U.S. would no longer keep its security commitments.

Ditto that in our initial response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And the killing of our Marines in Lebanon. And in Somalia.

Losing emboldens our enemies, winning frightens them.

I'll end with these two quotes which have haunted me for years now:

When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.

---Osama bin Laden, December 2001

We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

---Osama bin Laden, October 2001

Liberals would do well to pay attention to them.

[Billthedrill]

Look for a very careful triangulation. Bambi's handlers are already trying to couch the whole Iraq thing as a sideshow to the "real" war in Afghanistan. That has the disadvantage of mortally insulting the people responsible for the Iraq victory but most of them don't vote Democrat anyway.

The new storyline appears to be that the Dems would have been leading cavalry charges across the Afghanistan plains were it not for the "distraction" that Bush created in Iraq. That won't fool anyone who knows even the bare basics about either the war or the Democrats but then it isn't intended to. The hope is that it will fool enough of the ignorant to get their boy into office.

That's really the key to it. Although Bambi's going to make it sound like it, he isn't forming a foreign policy here, he's forming a campaign platform. Once he's in the whole thing is renegotiable.

[LS]

I think that we actually won Iraq in Fallujah in 2004; that until the "surge," it was still possible for a "Battle of the Bulge" or a "Cold Harbor" type victory by the enemy or devastating loss of life on our side to LOSE the war, but al-Qaeda could not win after we killed 2000 of their top guys in Fallujah.

What the surge did, besides ending all talk of a "civil war," was to get some of the western tribes and the Anbar region to come down clearly on our side. No small feat that. But there are many paths to victory. I could have envisioned a more backboned congress sticking to the original Bush plan, and while it would have cost us more troops, in the long run it also would have sucked in far more jihadists from all over the region---guys we will still have to kill. But no telling. Perhaps now we will kill them under better circumstances. It's also possible that a lot of the flare-up in Afghanistan is the result of post-surge terrorists giving up on Iraq and going back to the original front.

[LS]

Yep. We agree, taking somewhat different approaches. After Fallujah, they could not destabilize the military situation any more. They could still destabilize the government.

[piytar]

Oh, libs know those quotes. They know losing in Iraq would hurt the US. THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT, A HURT WEAK US. Why? Because a strong US is a barrier to their socialist dreams.

[Skooz]

bump

[LS]

The story of the LONG TERM victory, which won't be written for some time, is going to raise Bush right back up to the top ranks of presidents. For ex., consider that 500 tons of yellowcake. Ok, old stuff, right? So why did we keep it secret? Because we didn't want the terrorists to know where to get it till we had completely removed it.

Now, consider WMDs. Were they really "not there?" Or did we find them all along and have been quietly moving them and destroying them? I even wonder if the "anthrax" killer wasn't found, and had leads to other people that we are keeping quiet so we can get them. This country has been so damn safe given what we faced in 2001, the actual story has to be beyond our imagination.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Somebody is gonna write a tell all Book...sometime!

[freema]

FWIW, I believe we won Iraq in Haditha and Hamdania.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I've heard that the biggest problem our troops now face in Iraq is boredom. Many want to head to Afghanistan.

[Yardstick]

The new storyline appears to be that the Dems would have been leading cavalry charges across the Afghanistan plains were it not for the "distraction" that Bush created in Iraq.

Absolutely. And of course this is 180 degrees from the truth given that the left has virtually no natural enthusiasm for going after the terrorists. In fact, it's fun to imagine how glum they'd be if Bush actually got bin Laden.

[Vigilanteman]

This country has been so damn safe given what we faced in 2001, the actual story has to be beyond our imagination.

While the facts you post are both correct and relevant, the general consensus among the enemedia, their Democrat allies and the brain-damaged sheeple is that it is just a happy coincidence that this country hasn't suffered a major terrorist attack since September 11, 2001.

[Tolik]

Lots of very good comments on the thread!

Dr. Rusty Shackleford :

... From the beginning the many reasons for my support of ongoing efforts in Iraq can be reduced to a single premise: America must win its wars.

Victory enhances national security, failure reduces it. The ten years following our surrendering Vietnam to the communists were a foreign policy nightmare. That single act emboldened and reinvigorated not only communists across the world, but also Islamist revolutionaries such as Ayatollah Khomeini who, rightly, saw that the U.S. would no longer keep its security commitments.

Ditto that in our initial response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And the killing of our Marines in Lebanon. And in Somalia.

Losing emboldens our enemies, winning frightens them.

I'll end with these two quotes which have haunted me for years now:

When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.

            ---Osama bin Laden, December 2001

We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

            ---Osama bin Laden, October 2001

Liberals would do well to pay attention to them.

Nailed It!
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[Tolik]

“...it also would have sucked in far more jihadists from all over the region-—guys we will still have to kill.”

Some bad guys just need to be killed.

In the discussion of which hindsight is actually 20/20, there are some arguments that I find compelling. For example: the attack vector from North would result in plenty of Sunni fighters killed. Because Turkey blocked it, they lived to fight another day. Also, the surge coincided with Sunni getting fed up with atrocities committed by Al-Qaida. Its possible that without this disillusionment, there would be no awakening. Another one: we allowed mosques to be used as safe haven for our enemies. In the balance of strong horse/winning the hearts equation, would our no nonsense approach of killing the enemy wherever it is, mosque or not - would it tilt the balance to our favor sooner?

In regards of Afghanistan: it looks like a neighboring country support is weaker now in Iraq, where Iraqi Shiites are less trusting of Persian coreligionists, while there is no border restrictions exist for Taliban and their supporters in Pakistan.

[andy58-in-nh]

Great cartoon.

Now that the Democrats are no longer able to plausibly deny the progress we have made in Iraq, they have moved the goalposts. The talking point du jour is that Iraq was "never" the central front in the war against al-Qaeda, and was just an unnecessary "distraction" from the "real" war.... in Afghanistan.

Never mind that al-Qaeda has regrouped in the latter country only after having been thoroughly routed in Iraq, and after suffering losses numbering in the tens of thousands. Democrats (and their media mouthpieces) never publish those facts. But the same Military Geniuses who predicted that the "surge" would never work now insist that we send thousands of troops and equipment into rugged terrain at altitudes above 8000 feet to fight both terrorists and the Taliban - without a coherent strategy but as an open-ended commitment (sound familiar?).

It seems that the Democrats, having failed to get Another Vietnam in Iraq, now demand the right to try again in Afghanistan. They'll get the US to lose a war if it kills them - or a few thousand more Americans, no matter to them.

[LS]

I think the respecting of the mosques was the correct call. It would have alienated ALL Iraqis, and screwed us. Yes, in WW II we bombed Monte Cassino-—but only after trying everything else. We never bombed Rome, and one reason was that we did not want to destroy a symbol of Christianity.

[LS]

I agree, but in the long run that’s irrelevant. In the short term, it’s highly relevant.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest, for both pings.

[snip] It’s not over in the sense that we can now come home. It’s over in the sense that we’ve crossed a line where our victory is all but assured if we stay the course. Like U.S troops crossing the Rhine in 1945—there are still a few battles left in the failed Islamist insurgency, but there is little doubt what the ultimate outcome will be. [end]

Iraq’s security ‘remarkably better’ ( Joint Chiefs chairman hints at drawdown )
Washington Times | Thursday, July 17, 2008 | Rowan Scarborough (Contact)
Posted on 07/17/2008 1:22:10 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047108/posts

[Marine_Uncle]

Let us hope our forces can somehow find and capture UBL and show videos of him being frog marched to some compound with shackles on his ankles. It will have a lasting effect on the goons of war's attitude, and a sobering effect on all the war critics on this continent as well as in Europe, Canada etc..
As for Zawahiri, it would be icing on the cake.
And of course Izzat Ibriham al Douri in a similar frog march would then add the whip cream.
Iran's Amahdinajad? The crowning cherry on the top.

[H.Akston]

Your post reminds me of something.

http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/#quotes

Just as the Iraqi Information Minister insisted that “there are no Americans in Bagdad”,
The pabaracksee media (pronounced like “paparazzi”) will today insist that “there is no American victory in Baghdad”.

Such traitors they are.