The Troop Surge is Making History

Given the evident success of the troop surge in Iraq, it is interesting to go back and consider the president's reasoning back in the fall of 2006 (before the surge actually began). This is when violence was out of control in Iraq, and we were about to have an election in which the party that advocated immediate withdrawal (and effective surrender to al Qaeda) was clearly going to pick up seats. Fred Barnes has a piece on on Bush's pre-surge thinking in the Weekly Standard. I have only a few quibbles about this otherwise excellent article, which you should read in its entirely (instead of reading this post!). My main quibble is with this brief review of a critical time in Iraq's history (an issue that matters a lot to me even though it is tangential to the main points being made in the article):

On February 22, 2006, the golden dome of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest Shia mosques in Iraq, was bombed. That single act of violence would change everything. For several weeks, Iraqi Shia and their militias didn't react, and Bush and his advisers thought they'd dodged a bullet.

Then in April, violence exploded with a fury unseen in Iraq in the nearly three years since American troops had deposed Saddam Hussein. Shia militias hadn't responded to earlier al Qaeda and Sunni provocations. But now they erupted in a killing spree. Shia death squads slaughtered thousands of Sunnis. Baghdad became a free fire zone. Iraq was on the verge of an all-out civil war.

All true, but even a brief review should always emphasize the fact that the bombing of the Golden Mosque came on the heels of a 2-year suicide bombing campaign against Shiite civilians by al Qaeda terrorists that was deliberately intended to provoke the Shiite militias into killing Sunnis in Baghdad (which is exactly what they did after the final straw in Samarra). If it were explained like that, readers would understand that "this single act of violence" (a) occurred in a context of a larger offensive by al Qaeda and (b) was not part of a spontaneous civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that was based on "raw hatred." Yes, al Qaeda is made up of Sunnis, but, no, they were not killing Shiites on behalf of Sunnis fighting a civil war. Instead, al Qaeda was trying to create a civil war that was not happening on its own. The Sunnis of Iraq were, somewhat self-destructively, making it possible for al Qaeda to carry out their atrocities. Why they initially chose to do that is hard to know, but part of the explanation may be that al Qaeda was also an effective fighting force against American troops. Moreover, so long as the Shiite militias stayed on the sidelines, al Qaeda's suicide bombing campaign against Shiite civilians probably seemed acceptable to the Sunnis because it served to destabilize the new Shiite government they opposed. And another big plus was that it also fueled helpful anti-war sentiment in America. Eventually, though, the Sunnis of Iraq got far more than they bargained for.

In response to al Qaeda's provocations, Barnes is right to say that "Shia death squads slaughtered thousands of Sunnis," but it is important to emphasize that their goal in slaughtering Sunnis was to end al Qaeda's suicide bombing campaign against them. You can call that a civil war if you like, but it certainly wasn't the kind of civil war you thought you saw (i.e., one that was based on "blind sectarian hatred"), and that's my point. It was al Qaeda killing Shiite civilians to start a civil war, and Shiite militias putting a stop to it by killing every Sunni male they could get their hands on in Baghdad. When that happened, al Qaeda had largely achieved one of its major objectives (as clearly outlined in a letter written by Zarqawi in 2003), but the Sunnis of Iraq began to rethink matters. Suddenly, their self-defeating deal with the devil was losing its appeal. The Sunnis were also getting a bit tired of al Qaeda enforcing Sharia Law on them, as noted in this article from back in April:

But their indiscriminate killing of civilians and a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam have alienated traditionally minded tribal leaders and escalated a power struggle in Sunni ranks.

This article in Time Magazine made the same point:

Last week, an influential nationalist group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, asked Osama bin Laden to rein in al-Qaeda in Iraq's more extreme tactics, such as targeting Iraqi civilians and brutally enforcing Sharia Law.

This is what happened in Iraq, and al Qaeda was a decisive factor. That's why I am reluctant to use the phrase "civil war." That phrase calls to mind the superficial analysis of Iraq that you find everywhere on the left according to which the removal of Saddam Hussein led to an explosion of sectarian violence merely because of raw hatred between Shiite and Sunnis. Many, many people mistakenly think along those lines, including, I would say, most Americans. They have some vague understanding that al Qaeda was in the mix as well, but your average American has no idea what al Qaeda was trying to accomplish and what an incredibly powerful force they really were. They don't know, for example, that al Qaeda's foreign suicide bombers killed nearly 4000 Iraqi civilians in 2007 alone. As such, they don't yet know what a crushing defeat al Qaeda has suffered in Iraq.

You can define "victory" to mean political reconciliation in Baghdad, as everyone on the left does, but I don't (even though I hope it happens and expect it will). I define victory as the crushing defeat of the terrorist organization that attacked America on 9/11 and then came to Iraq to defeat American forces there. And that victory would appear to be at hand.

Despite my very slight quibbles with some of what Barnes had to say, I certainly agree with how he concludes:

The 20-minute speech on January 10, 2007 [note: the speech in which he outlined the purpose of the troop surge], was not Bush's most eloquent. And it wasn't greeted with applause. Democrats condemned the surge and Republicans were mostly silent. Polls showing strong public opposition to the war in Iraq were unaffected.

But the president, as best I could tell, wasn't looking for affirmation. He was focused solely on victory in Iraq. The surge may achieve that. And if it does, Bush's decision to spurn public opinion and the pressure of politics and intensify the war in Iraq will surely be regarded as the greatest of his presidency.

It may, in fact, be regarded as one of the greatest presidential decisions in recent history.