Read Cordesman on the absurd surge
January 24, 2007, 3:42 pm
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
The best analysis I’ve seen of President Bush’s Iraq speech (not the State of Disarray speech) can be read here (pdf, 36 pp.):
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/070116_cordesman_bush_plan.pdf
Anthony Cordesman’s usual judicious thinking shows how off the mark the “surge” mentality and plan is. He helpfully cites recent defense dept. reports showing how off the mark the president’s analysis was and is.
A couple of points -
The first really gets to the nub of why some, like me, are a little suspicious of the real motives of many of the war’s critics. Today, when the president seems to be disagreeing with the experts in the Defense Department, they are cited as undisputed authority while just a few weeks ago, when he agreed with them, they were not. It is hard to discern if people’s real heartburn is with specific policy decisions, or just a general objection to Bush regardless of what he does. I respect someone like Margaret’s opinions because she has been consistent throughout, but a lot of critics seem to find something to object to regardless of their prior opinions so long as they are on the opposite side of Bush.
As to Mr Cordesman, he is a smart guy with a lot of experience, but over the last four decades he has been wrong at least as often as he has been right. In the waning days of the Reagan administration we was predicting the near certainty of a major military confrontation with Iran unless the US took certain multilateral actions. The US neither took the actions, nor was there a conflict.
Not saying he’s not worth reading – just saying he’s not always right.
Nobody is always right. Nor is the pope as many of his predecessors have gotten a lot of things wrong.
What you are talking about Sean are the usual partisan reactions to a sitting president. This goes way beyond that.
Yet the general disregard of the American people by this president is startling. That same disregard applies to the Geneva Convention, the use of torture, as well as the action of a preemptive war for conditions that were totally untrue.
Compound all this with the notion of being divinely commissioned at this point in history. After the last election he must certainly be wavering in his faith.
Eisenhower, Reagan and even Bush I are much more acceptable. Ironically, this adminstration’s lack of morals shames Republicans as well as Democrats.
Without getting into specifics, at least Bush has a consistent view of the nature of this conflict and has acted according to what he thinks is right. I even have respect for someone like Howard Dean who at least kept a consistent view, or even the few politicians who plain say they were wrong. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the political opposition who supported the war until it became difficult are now voting on non-binding resolutions condemning it while not taking any affirmative action to do anything about it like cutting off funding. Their goal is to make Bush look bad regardless of the cost and regardless of the signal it sends to our armed forces and our enemies. That is gutless and immoral.
I don’t have time to read Cordesmann right now so can’t comment on that specifically! But for once (!!!) I agree with Sean H. Alot of people are now simply trying to avoid the political consequences of being viewed as having been wrong about something really important. I would respect them a whole lot more if they came out and said they were wrong, but instead, they still seem to be challenged to address Iraq on a principled basis, rather than on the basis of political expediency, and that, really, is why we are in this sorry mess to begin with. The proof of this is that those senators who are up for reelection in 2008 seem to be talking the loudest along these lines. Chuck Hagel and John Warner are exceptions, in my mind, to this phenomenon.
Do we really need to ascend to meta-political analysis here? And why do posters here consistently talk about the motives behind the post and the comments. Why not talk about the subject?
Cordesman’s detailed analysis may have its blind spots and he may not be right about everything, but at least he has something to say about the “facts” on the ground in Iraq and in this country. Why not talk about those?
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