Politics and war

Sorry for the dirth of posts lately. I've been on vacation and being unchained from a desk means also being untethered from the blog.

I have nevertheless been reading, in particular, James M. McPherson's Tried by War, Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. It's helped put into perspective the numerous fronts in the war, and explains, as you'd expect from the title, how Lincoln became the young country's first true commander in chief in wartime. War strategy became his full time responsibility, ultimately taking decision making away from the "professionals."

The professionals usually didn't like that, but the dithering of McClellan and others -- many of them Democrats with sympathies towards the South and holding hopes that if they merely besieged southern cities that a compromise could be reached. Lincoln understood early on that compromise wasn't possible and only the total destruction of the Confederate Army could win the war.

What amazes me most is the open hostility so many commanders had towards "Washington," especially Lincoln's Sec'y of War, Edwin Stanton, and Lincoln himself. Not only was the officer corps littered with southerners, but many of them simply ignored Lincoln's orders and were not afraid to insult him openly. Lincoln, to the amazement of his cabinet and others around him, sloughed off the insults and focused on winning the war.

The other thing that amazed me, after so many years of hearing that "political decisions" dilutes war fighting, is how integral politics were to fighting the Civil War. Lincoln recognized that war was an extension of politics, but at the same time, every decision he made about the war had to be made with eye towards the politics of it. He knew he could lose control of Congress to northern Democrats and he was also fearful of inciting the border states, many of which were slave states, to join the rebellion. It was quite a balancing act.

The president's next venture in preparing public opinion for the [Emancipation Proclamation] was more successful. On August 19 the New York Tribune published an open letter to Lincoln by editor Horace Greeley titled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions." Greeley chastised the president for "a mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery" and urged him to heed the prayers of twenty million loyal Northerners for the abolition of slavery. In an unusual public response, the commander in chief carefully explained: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps slave the Union." In closing Lincoln said that these statements represented "my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."

This presidential letter was a stroke of genius. To conservatives who insisted that preservation of the Union must be the sole purpose of the war, Lincoln said that such was his purpose. To radicals who wanted him to proclaim emancipation in order to save the Union, he hinted that he might do so. To everyone he made it clear that partial or even total emancipation might become necessary (as of course he thought it had) to accomplish the purpose on which they all agreed.

Indeed, when he did finally issue the proclamation, it did not end the war but it did send the message to North and South alike, that the war was then all about the total destruction of the very institution on which the South -- economically, politically, and socially -- was based.

But it's worth pointing out that he waited to issue it until after the mid-term elections of 1862.

"Staring into the abyss"

Hilzoy has written a clear-eyed and heart-rending essay on the consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. It must be read.

Obviously, both Crocker and the Iraqi foreign minister have an interest in making the consequences of a US withdrawal from Iraq sound as bad as possible. But that doesn't mean that they aren't right. More below the fold.

There is an understandable temptation for people who advocate withdrawal to say that if we withdraw, things won't be so bad. Since I do not have the gift of second sight, I cannot say that they are wrong. But I think they are, and I think it's important for those of us who advocate withdrawal to be clear about that, and to base our arguments not on the thought that withdrawal will make things better, but on some basis that's more likely to stand the test of time.

I think it's almost inevitable that a full-blown civil war will break out once we leave, and that it will be very, very, very bad. I think it's pretty likely that the Iraqi army will splinter, or at least be seriously weakened by defections, and that the training we have been providing will be put at the service of the militias. I'm not nearly as clear that al Qaeda in Iraq will take over Anbar -- the Sunnis seem to have decided that they don't care much for AQI, and will presumably resist their influence. Iran will certainly continue to interfere, although it may have a greater interest in promoting stability once we leave, since promoting instability will no longer be a way of keeping us tied down. Turkey could invade the Kurdish region; they are furious that the Iraqi Kurds are allowing the PKK to operate from the Kurdish areas, and that we have not forced them to kick the PKK out. Turkey is already amassing forces on the border, and may not wait for us to leave before invading. I hope the countries in the region are thinking now about how to avoid a regional war; I suspect the greatest danger is that they will try some limited interventions that will spiral into a regional war even though no party wants it to. Wars are not manageable or predictable, and any supposedly "limited" intervention by Iraq's neighbors seems to me to run a serious risk of starting a general conflagration.

In short, I think that once we leave, all hell will break loose, and that a lot of the most horrifying predictions about what will happen in the event of a withdrawal stand a decent chance of coming true.

And yet I still think we should withdraw. The easiest way to explain this would be to note, first, that we don't have much choice, since we are on the verge of breaking our army as it is; and second, that our presence doesn't seem to have helped much so far. But the real reason is that I think that our presence only delays the inevitable.

I agree with most, if not all, of her conclusions (as well as many of the excellent commenters). But the larger point is that those of us who see nothing good coming out of our on-going presence in Iraq must also be conscious of and honest about the fact that nothing good is likely to come of our leaving, either, at least in the near term.

We must be aware of and honest about the consequences of what we're advocating. Exactly as the advocates of invading Iraq never were and still aren't now. And we should be planning for it -- again, something the war advocates refused to do -- such as funding for the massive refugee problem that is alaready causing disruptions in Syria and Lebanon and are sure to only get worse.

The sham continues

Thomas Ricks and Karen de Young write today in the Post that the administration is "shaving the yardsticks" to show progress in Iraq. Not surprising, since we're playing referee in the Civil War. But the story concludes,

Facing increased public disapproval and eroding Republican support, Bush has stepped up his warnings that a sudden U.S. withdrawal would allow al-Qaeda or Iran -- or both -- to take over Iraq. What is more likely, several officials said, is a deeper split between competing Shiite groups supported in varying degrees by Iran, and greater involvement by neighboring Arab states in Sunni areas battling al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Kurdish region, officials said, would become further estranged from the rest of Iraq, and its tensions with Turkey would increase.

"I can't say that al-Qaeda is going to take over, or that Iran is going to take over," an official said. "I don't think either are true. But I do think that a lot of very, very bad things would happen." If the administration decided to have troops retreat to bases inside Iraq and not intervene in sectarian warfare, he said, the U.S. military could find itself in a position that "would make the Dutch at Srebrenica look like heroes."

For its part, the military has calculated that a veto-proof congressional majority is unlikely to demand a full, immediate withdrawal. But however long the troops remain, and in whatever number, the military intelligence official said, they see a clear mission ahead. "We're going to get it as stable as we can, with the troops we have, and in the time available. And then, we'll back out as carefully as we can," the official said.

So, our president -- "the heart of darkness," as one of his officials describes him -- is devoid of clues but the mission looks pretty clear to military intelligience: we're leaving, we just don't know when. Meanwhile, the sham will continue until, as the New York Times editorial board describes it today, Bush can "dump the mess on his successor."

And while anonymous officials debate the horrors that could happen after U.S. troops begin departing, the horrors continue.

BAGHDAD, July 7 — A suicide truck bomber killed at least 105 people in a single blast north of Baghdad on Saturday, police officials said, leading to further fears that insurgents who fled intense military operations in Baghdad and Diyala are turning to targets away from the American troop buildup.

The explosives-laden truck demolished dozens of fragile clay-built houses and shops in Amerli, a village of poor Shiite Turkmen about 70 miles north of Baquba, the largest city in Diyala. The Iraqi police said that in addition to the dead, at least 240 people were wounded. It was one of the deadliest single attacks of the war.

Zain al-Abadeen Abdul Hussein, a shop owner burned on his right arm and left leg, said the blast sent debris soaring into the air and set people on fire. “I saw children from my neighborhood burning,” he said.

The American military also reported Saturday the deaths of nine soldiers and marines on Thursday and Friday, eight killed during combat or from roadside bombs. The fatalities brought the military’s death toll to 23 for the first week of July, nearly five months since the beginning of the troop increase.

All to maintain the delusions of a handful of men in Washington, in the White House and in the "Think Tanks" where those delusions are formulated and polished to a hard shine.

UPDATE: And in Georgia they plant more trees.