Semantic Wars

President Bush has said that he won't negotiate with Iran until the Iranians agree to give up their nuclear ambitions. That is, he has set a precondition. The Iraq Study Group is about to suggest that we should follow a different path and negotiate with Iran without setting any preconditions (at least I think they will). Anyone who favors that approach should ask themselves this question: although we cannot set any preconditions, can they? I make this suggestion in light of a column by David Ignatius in today's Washington Post (via RealClearPolitics):

On the eve of the Baker-Hamilton commission's report, a top Iranian official set a tough condition for his country's help in stabilizing Iraq, saying that Tehran isn't interested in such cooperation unless the Bush administration sets a timetable for withdrawing its troops.

The Iranians are so clever, and I'm somewhat impressed by their ability to exploit the idea that we should set no preconditions in our negotiations with them. Once we decide that there should be no preconditions, the Iranians are suddenly empowered to set them. And it looks like they will.

With regard to the Iraq Study group's apparent suggestion that we should begin withdrawing troops and complete that withdrawal in 2008 if conditions permit, I have to say that I'm quite pleased. Boiled down to its essence, the opposing positions are these:

1. withdraw troops on a timetable regardless of the conditions on the ground in Iraq (e.g., "it's all a big civil war now, we can't do anything about it, let's get out before any more Americans get hurt")

2. maintain troops in Iraq until the Iraqi security forces can sustain the democratically elected government of Iraq, a government that will be an ally in the war against al Qaeda

There are a lot of semantic variants of option #2. You can say, "keep the troops in Iraq until we achieve victory." Or you can say, "maintain the troops until the Iraqis can handle security," which is essentially how I phrased it above. Or you can say, "withdraw the troops by 2008, assuming the Iraqis can maintain security by then." The last variant has superficial similarities to the John Murtha get-out-now strategy (i.e., it kind of looks like a timetable), but it's actually an endorsement of option 2, not option 1. If that is what comes out in the final report, I'm perfectly OK with it. Throwing a bone to the left with a semantic rephrasing of the victory option is a shrewd move.

Speaking of semantics, a lot of civilians are dying in Iraq right now. That's the reality. Is it a civil war? That's the semantic question. As I said before, if your definition of civil war is as simple as "a bunch of Iraqis killing a bunch of other Iraqis," then what is happening in Iraq is definitely a civil war. But, according to other reasonable definitions of that phrase, it is not a civil war. Moreover, to suggest that it isn't (i.e., to take the Bush position on that question) is not to be in a "state of denial." To see why, read this column (also via RealClearPolitics) by Army Major General William Caldwell (chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq). Here are some extended excerpts:

I don't see a civil war in Iraq. I don't see a constituency for civil war. The vast majority of the people want hope for their families, not to massacre their neighbors or divide their country. A poll conducted in June by the International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan group that promotes democracy, found 89 percent of Iraqis supporting a unity government representing all sects and ethnic communities. No wonder no "rebel army" steps forward to claim credit for vicious car bombs and cowardly executions of civilians.
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The Council of Representatives meets here in Baghdad as the sole legitimate sovereign representative of the people, 12 million of whom braved bombs and threats last December to vote. No party has seceded or claimed independent territory.
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I see a representative government exercising control over the sole legitimate armed authority in Iraq, the Iraqi Security Force.
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I don't see terrorist and criminal elements mounting campaigns for territory. Al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't use roadside bombs, suicidal mass murderers and rocket barrages to gain and hold ground. Extremist Shiite death squads don't shoot people in the back of the head to further their control of the government. I do see random executions seeking to instill fear and insecurity. I don't see a struggle between armies and aligned political parties competing to rule.
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I studied civil wars at West Point and at the Army Command and Staff College. I respect the credentials and opinions of those who want to hang that label here. But I respectfully -- and strongly -- disagree. I see the Iraqi people suffering from overlapping terrorist campaigns by extremist groups combined with the mass criminality that too often accompanies the sudden toppling of a dictatorship. This poses a different military challenge than does a civil war.

As the Iraqi people labor to build a country based on human rights and respect for all citizens, they are moving from the law of the gun to the rule of law. Violence will increase before life gets better. Those who know that freedom and democracy offer more hope than anarchy will not give up.

It's just a semantic issue, but semantics matter because many people do not pay close attention to what is going on. Applying the label "civil war" is something that most people will hear, and it makes it sound much more dire than it really is. Of course, if you want America to accept defeat in Iraq, then it helps your cause to make the situation seem more dire and more hopeless than it really is. Thta's the main reason why those on the left want to characterize what is happening in Iraq as a civil war. Calwell's column seems well reasoned to me, and being able to reasonably assert that Iraq has not fallen into a state of civil war helps our cause in support of a new democracy and against al Qaeda in Iraq. Thus, on the question of whether or not Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, I'll adopt his definition and conclude that it isn't.