Moderately conservative Times columnist David Brooks has an interesting column today. He says, roughly, this. He says that while "Bush is a stubborn man," his stubbornness served him well two Decembers ago, when, despite the loud objections of most Democrats, the quieter objections of many Republicans, the the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the warnings of his own generals, and the opinion of Prime Minister Maliki, Bush pressed forward with "the surge."
The surge: the deployment of 20,000 or so additional troops to Iraq at the beginning of last year. Brooks believes that Bush's choice of the surge option was "a successful decision"; that opponents of the surge should cut the president some slack; and that soon, "the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right." Supporting his assertion that the surge has been a success, Brooks notes that Iraq, a "failed state" prior to the surge, is now merely a "fragile" one.
I see some flaws here. Brooks is correct when he says that violence in Iraq is down over the past eighteen months. The surge may be the cause of this, or it may not be. I can think of some other possible causes (e.g., newfound Democratic control of Congress a month before Bush undertook the surge being seen as a sign that Americans wanted out of Iraq may have led Iraqis to realize that "the clock was running out" and that sorting out their internal differences was essential). Who knows. I don't; Brooks seems to, but I don't.
But if we concede, for the sake of argument, that the decline in violence is the result of the surge, we're still left with this: eighteen months after the beginning of the surge, Iraq has moved from being a "failed state" to being a "fragile" one. That's a move in the right direction, but this war has been going on now for five-and-a-half years. It doesn't seem encouraging to me that after five-and-a-half years, Iraq is "fragile" as opposed to "failed." The U.S. and its dwindling coalition are still, after all, in Iraq, with no current plans to come home any time soon. And if the troop surge is the cause of the decline in violence, it's quite possible that the decline will "stick," but it's also quite possible that it won't. (Again, I don't know. Ask David Brooks; I'll be he knows.)
Still, for the sake of argument, let's concede that the decline in violence (which we've already conceded, for the sake of argument, was caused mostly or completely by the surge) represents the beginning of the end of this war, and the beginning of a stable Iraqi state. For the sake of Iraq, and for the sake of the U.S., I hope that this is the case (although it's still unclear to me where Bush wants to go from here). But I still don't see why Brooks would like for us to congratulate Bush for his stubbornness.
Why? Because "actually getting one right" after five or six years is not cause for congratulation. As I've said before, I very reluctant supported this war. (As I've also said, more on that topic at a later date.) But consider this: after the bungled lead-up to the war, in which we alienated most of our allies with our almost complete lack of literal and figurative diplomacy; after the rush to war, when allowing U.N. inspectors to do their jobs before jumping in with the shok-and-awe seemed like a very reasonable course of action; after "we will be greeted as liberators"; after not planning whatsoever for the civil unrest which followed the ousting of Saddam; after the disbanding of the Iraqi regular army; after the de-Baathification of the Iraqi government; after the WMDs never turned up; after "Mission Accomplished"; after months and months of denial of increasing violence and insurgency; after Abu Ghraib; after "the insurgency is in its last throes"; after... after... after...
After all that, we're supposed to be pleased that Bush may have "gotten one right"?
Brooks is right about something: sometimes people with whom you strongly disagree can do the right thing. Whether or not that's been the case with the surge, I can't say. And he's right about something else: Brooks describes Bush as "stubborn" and "outrageously self-confident" and as someone who "listens too much to Dick Cheney," and believes that these traits allowed Bush to opt for the surge when others wouldn't. That's probably true. But my guess (I could be wrong) is that these dangerous traits were the same ones that led to most of Bush's Iraq-related blunders. So, I'm wondering... I guess...
I guess I'm wondering, David Brooks, if perhaps a bit less stubbornness, and a bit less misplaced self-confidence, and a bit less listening to Dick Cheney might, on balance, have left us in a better place in Iraq than we are now.
I don't know whether it would have or not.
I think it would have, though.
But maybe I'm missing something.
Image of President Bush copyright HAAP Media Ltd. Used with permission.
