59 American soldiers were killed in the first two-and-a-half weeks of August, including more members of the National Guard and Reserve than in any month since the war began. Iraqi leaders missed the first deadline for approving a Constitution.
And yet George Bush, on a five-week vacation at his ranch in Texas, insists that we are "making progress" in Iraq. Making progress? How so?
The Bush Administration's insistence on pursuing its current failing strategy and its inability to come clean about its own mistakes are largely responsible for our lack of real progress in Iraq.
Now that we're in Iraq, it is critically important that we succeed there; and to do so, we need a real strategy for success, not just George Bush's words about "resolve" and "will".
As I have written before, from the outset of the American post-invasion efforts, we needed a three-track strategy--diplomatic, political, and military. On the diplomatic side, we needed to engage Iraq's neighbors to persuade them that a stable, democratizing Iraq was not a threat to them, to isolate Iraq from outside supplies, leadership, or manpower, and to gain from them resources and support to alleviate the burdens on the US. Unfortunately, the Administration didn't see the need for a diplomatic track focused on Iraq. The effects of its scattershot diplomacy in the region have been the opposite of what was needed--threatening some of Iraq's neighbors with a variety of economic and diplomatic measures and allusions to further military action, expounding aims in the region that are perceived as grandiose and naïve; failing to reinforce the US efforts with more culturally and linguistically capable regional allies, and turning away other assistance which might have made US leadership less obtrusive. The diplomatic failure magnifies the difficulties facing the political and military elements of US strategy by contributing to increasing infiltration of jihadists, the surprising resilient support of the insurgency, and the underlying political difficulties of bringing together representative Iraqi elements.
Then during my presidential campaign, we unveiled a comprehensive success strategy for Iraq that focuses on the diplomatic, political, and military aspects of the mission. A Real Plan for Success in Iraq is still relevant today, over 18 months later. Political stability and strong diplomatic ties are vital to the establishment of democracy. Sadly, the situation in Iraq has so far severely lacked both of these elements, due to the Bush Administration's overwhelming focus on only the military aspect of the war.
Even within the military sphere, however, planning and management by the Bush Administration has been inadequate. Terrorist activity continues unabated, and the Army, Army Reserve and National Guard are all behind on their recruiting goals. Similarly, the Iraqi security forces that we have been hearing about for more than two years have still not materialized.
Although the American military won the war, the Bush Administration has clearly been unable to keep the peace. And that is the key to our long-term success in Iraq. It is time, in fact it is more than time, for the Bush Administration to produce a transparent, comprehensive strategy for success, with measurable goals and milestones to gauge our progress. Anything less is unequal to the challenges we face.
General Clark,
While I agree with most of what you say, I think you've missed one big reason for our failure to be taken as anything but imperiallists by many Iraqis, and why we've failed to gain any international help in building Iraq: the body of law (Transitional Authority Law - I think it's called) put in place by Paul Bremer, that is designed to make sure that American companies get and keep a monopoly on the business of rebuilding Iraq and running the oil industry. These laws include forbidding the Iraqi government from giving preference for rebuilding contracts to Iraqi firms, ensuring the right of foreign (i.e. US) firms to wholly own and take all their profits out of Iraq, limiting corporate tax to 15%, among other things.
This, together with the DOD having retained the power to award rebuilding contracts, which authority they used to punish nations that wouldn't agree with the invasion, have contributed to our isolation in this endeavor. If we had used the rebuilding money to build strong Iraqi companies, with the support of various international contractors, we could have contributed to stability in Iraq, and given other wealthy nations an incentive to help.
I think this is a key point in understanding our failure so far.
Sincerely,
Alex Murray