This is hardly the first war that exhibits the common tendency to think that just a little more persistence will make the difference between a win and a loss. But this tendency is no more logical than a gambler on a losing streak doubling down on his bets. There is no reason to believe that the next year or two of war will be more productive than the previous year or two or three. As with other lights that have been seen at the end of other tunnels, this kind of incremental thinking is a prescription for winding up with far greater costs than would justify even something that could be described as a win. We are dealing in the realm not of logic but of psychology, especially with the common but mistaken human inclination to treat sunk costs as investments.
Given that we actually won in Iraq with a little more persistence that saw a more productive strategy, I don't know how this is a justification for being happy to say goodbye to Iraq.
He throws in a Vietnam reference, just to be sure. That we won in Vietnam only to see our Congress throw away the victory in partisan spite is apparently beside the point.
What we won in Vietnam is beside the point for Iraq. But we achieved a great deal in Iraq at an amazingly low cost, historically speaking. This editorial highlights that the war isn't ending--just our direct participation in it:
“THE LONG WAR in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year,” President Obama announced on Friday afternoon. That will be true only for American soldiers. Iraqi insurgents, including al-Qaeda, continue to wage war against the country’s fragile democratic government; Iran sponsors its own militias and has been accelerating its effort to dominate its neighbor. Thousands of private contractors will continue to guard U.S. diplomats and installations. And a tense standoff goes on between ethnic Kurdish and Iraqi government forces in northern Iraq — where Turkey has just launched its own armed incursion.
I don't celebrate leaving Iraq with missions yet to accomplish. I think we needed 25,000 (including three combat brigades and special forces) to defend all that we achieved. But you go to war with the army you have in Iraq and not the army you wish you had. I simply seek to figure out how we achieve those missions with the limits that our diplomacy put on us. I can wish our diplomacy was better. I can hope that it was a true failure of diplomacy rather than a decision by the White House not to push for a way to get to an Iraqi "yes." It would be better to think we tried to do the right thing but couldn't, rather than think we didn't know what the right thing is or didn't care.
But our departure from Iraq with a victory there that we to defend and more objectives to achieve if we exploit our battlefield victory is merely a more difficult opportunity rather than a retreat as these authors assert, quoting President Obama's speech on the subject:
“Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military effort in Iraq will end.” In other words, our efforts in Iraq end neither in victory nor defeat, success nor failure, but simply in retreat.
The authors seem to assume that our withdrawal from Iraq dooms our efforts to achieve our objectives rather than increasing the degree of difficulty. We have much to defend and much more to achieve, as they write. but we have to keep working the problem. Twenty-five thousand troops wouldn't have guaranteed success. And zero won't guarantee failure.
Of course, if the administration has decided to walk away from Iraq because of partisan spite, achieving victory will rest solely on the Iraqis and others in the region who will oppose Iran and resist the jihadis. If we want to win, I have confidence that we can find ways to win despite the added difficulties. But if the White House has decided that it doesn't care if we lose, we could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Winning is always better than losing. Is that so difficult to comprehend? Work the problem.
