[A] Cordesman doesn't actually sketch out, in the way McCain did, any specific scenario of dire consequences if the US should decide to withdraw from either Iraq or Afghanistan. He seems to simply assume that we all know that withdrawal would connote defeat.
The first part is easy, being only a division of labour: AC is not running for office to need to tell hobgoblin stories. He does indeed "simply assume" that being pushed out of the former Iraq would constitute a notable defeat for AEI and GOP and DOD. (As indeed it would; as hopefully it may at last!) To object that an invasion-friendly analyst does not perceive esoteric Gandhian merits in abandoning a project of domination is to have funny ideas of what goes on in our betters' heads.
Possibly HC was just trying to be helpful and tacitly recommend to AC the "Declare victory and leave!" scheme from McNamario-Kissingerian days of yore. Sen. Aiken of Vermont, wasn't it? But AC is not in the agitation and propaganda business, so advice on how to spin occupation policy should be sent to some other address. Probably no suitable address is available, however: what Republican Party extremist is likely to believe in the sincerity of free advice from this quarter? (Perhaps HC should address her own troops and make us promise to be polite and never mention the word "defeat" if the invasionites will only please consent to leave Mesopotamia and promise to kick their bad habit? No, that won't do: Field Marshal Cobban is no more in control of "her own" forces than the Rev. Gen. al- Sadr is of his. Oh, well....)
[B] His main argument, instead, is that with the right kinds of US policies both these wars are winnable. Having recently returned from visits to both countries, he starts his piece with this bold assertion: No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that can still be won. He does, however, immediately qualify that statement (and cover his own rear end) by adding, "They are also clearly wars that can still be lost."
He then provides the useful service of spelling out what it is that in his view constitutes victory: "Meaningful victory can come only if tactical military victories end in ideological and political victories and in successful governance and development. Dollars are as important as bullets, and so are political accommodation, effective government services and clear demonstrations that there is a future that does not need to be built on Islamist extremism." This is actually a pretty good definition . . . .
De gustibus non disputandum, of course, yet perhaps "victory" is not altogether a matter of taste, especially when it comes garlanded with notorious weasel words like "ideological" and "political." AC makes no effort to spell out exactly what must be imposed on Uncle Sam's neo-Iraqi subjects in order to achieve Meaningful Victory. Considering his background, he may have nothing very definite in mind himself. Victories used to be accounted sufficiently meaningful when one side could impose whatever it pleased. AC and his patrons in power do not have the free hand with the former Iraq that Douglas MacArthur once had at Tokyo, but it would not be surprising if AEI/GOP/DOD/CSIS conceptions of a perfectly meaningful victory still savour of unconditional surrender by the vanquished foe. But God knows best.
Dr. Cordesmann's personally recommended terms may not be too onerous. One can't be sure that he would hold out for much more than an inexorable Just-Say-No to "Islamist extremism." But like HC and MS, AC is not actually in command of the aggression faction's troops. He clearly does not wish to be seen as a political partisan, which means that salvaging the reputation of the extremist Republicans is unlikely to be part of Cordesmannian meaningfulness. The perps themselves are likely to take a different and more demandin’ view.
[C] ... though Cordesman and I might-- or might not-- differ on what constitutes "Islamist extremism." Where I differ from him, however, is in his view that it should be the US that "leads" (i.e. controls) the effort to bring good governance to the two countries. After six years of US dominance of the government and security system in Afghanistan and nearly five years of US occupation of Iraq, have we seen anything about either of these situations that encourages us to think that US is able to bring good governance to either country? No.
That is to sup with the Devil using too short a spoon, if one is to understand that aggressions and invasions and occupations are warrantable whenever they actually do result in good governance. Such a vaguely pragmatic rationale for rising above pacta sunt servanda and international law -- "All's far in love and war, assuming it works!" -- is not difficult to find elsewhere, but I doubt either HC or AC would care to set the dogmas of so-called Military Humanism out fair and square and then defend them.
Dr. Cordesmann probably, and his AEI/GOP/DOD customers certainly, will consider that HC misses the main point of their exercise, even though the two words "Islamist extremism" could be applied both to what they are actually up to and to the misapprehension of it. HC is not terrorized of "Islamist extremism" as the invasionite crew are, she merely seems to think that it probably would not tend to contribute much to creating the happiness of the former Iraq. Anybody who fails to take Ms. Chicken Little's view of Islamist extremism has no business discussing so grown-up a subject. As St. Rudyard Kipling didn't quite say, "If you can keep your head when all about are losing theirs, / Maybe you just don't understand the situation."
Here is the crux of the whole invade-and-occupy business, and I am sorry to say that it is brought out much more clearly over on the wrong side of the aisle. Dr. Cordesmann usually finds himself preaching to the Chicken Little Chapel choir, so he need not stress that what "Iraq" is really about is always the physical safety of one's own hide (plus one's jetliners and one's skyscrapers, naturally). Apologists for AEI/GOP/DOD who regularly talk to the Homeland populace direct, however, usually can't get to the end of their second paragraphette before the GloboTerror menace is alluded to one way or another. (It is comparatively rare for them to call their hobgoblins of choice "Islamist," although "extremists" are a dime for six dozen.)
[C] If you go to the CSIS website, you can see a PDF of a 48-piece slide presentation that Cordesman presented on Feb. 13, as a way of reporting on his most recent trip to Iraq. The slides look to have been prepared mainly by the US military themselves. I found slides #3, 35, and 41-46 to be the most informative. In slide 41, he states baldly that the US military needs a further "half decade" to be able to sort out all the many current challenges in Iraq, many of which are, as the following slides clearly demonstrate, very political challenges, within Iraq's political system. (And therefore, IMHO, no legitimate concern of any foreigners, anyway.)
Well, let's run through the CSIS (or DOD) dogs and ponies one by one, then, at least the more striking ones: [1] "Iraqracy" ?! [2] GloboTerror first and foremost! [3] (This is a summary broken down in what follows, I assume.) [7] So if there were no Arabophone Sunnis left, the aggression would be a total success? [11] Civilian casualty numbers are problematical. HUMINT must mean Sunnis dropping a dime on one another. [22] http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,4250/type,1/ [23] Bayonets can replace a municipal police department, but in ex-Iraq isn't that plan a dubious sort of mission creep? [27] Need time! [35] HC thinks it a list of failures, but look at all those radiant opportunites for improvement! [36-40] Very inadequate account of Bribe-a-Tribe scheme, perhaps because AC does High Strategy rather than humble area studies. [41] WHAT foreign threats, whether now or ten years from now? AC may be giving his patrons some free marketing advice, with NATO the model of an entangling alliance that can be sold to Yanks, whereas defence of a neorégime against its own subjects.... "Seeking some form of stability" sounds a bit desperate: GOP geniuses may have to settle for whatever they can get, but CSIS ought to do better. [42] Need to see exactly what he's spending their petrobucks on. AC no economist. [43] Martial law thru 2014-15? [44] Ah, "quality leaders"! If only they'd thunk 'a' that one earlier! Unclear what fancy toys like armour and aircraft and spookware to be given to local levies. [47-48] (illegible, but apparently repetition or summary)
[D] The various points of "positive achievement" listed in Cordesman's slides make a stark contrast with what we read yesterday in Nir Rosen's much more grounded reporting of what's been happening in Iraq during the surge. (Do you think Cordesman ever got out of the Green Zone? He gives no indication whatsoever that he did.)
The good folks who have PowerPoint® where their brains ought to be generally do not think highly of what they'll call "anecdotal evidence."
Yet naturally if Dr. Cordesmann did want that cheap and easy sort of thing to bolster the glorious Coalitional Cause, he'd have no trouble finding neo-Iraqi subjects to contradict Mr. Rosen all down the line. Trial attorneys can always find an expert to claim whatever suits: how much easier still with nonexpert testimony! Anybody can play at "grounded."
Happy days.
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