The Wonk Room

Conservatives Rally Around McCain’s Plan For Permanent U.S. Presence In Iraq»

Speaking to the conservative Young America Foundation at George Washington University last Friday, Karl Rove adamantly defended John McCain’s remark that the U.S. should stay in Iraq for 100 years, claiming that McCain’s been taken out of context:

What Senator McCain was talking about was the projection of American power to maintain stability in a dangerous and difficult part of the world. And he was precise and detailed in his explanation.

Watch it:

The conservative establishment has rallied around a similar interpretation of McCain’s “100 years” remark. In the Washington Post last Friday, Charles Krauthammer called the claim that McCain wants to fight in Iraq for 100 years “a dirty lie.” Krauthammer wrote that Iraq would become, like neighboring Kuwait, a place from which the United States currently “projects power and provides stability for the entire Gulf and for the vulnerable U.S. allies that line its shores.”

In this morning’s New York Times, Bill Kristol praised McCain for choosing “to tell Americans the hard and unpopular truths that we’ll be there [in Iraq] for a while, and that there’s no sacrifice-free path to defeating our enemies and securing a lasting peace.”

National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez suggested that McCain’s remark was “sensible,” and that the attacks indicate that Democrats “don’t get the war we’re in.”

Of course, the opposite is true. It’s Karl Rove who doesn’t get that we weren’t mired in a German civil war five years after the end of World War II. It’s Charles Krauthammer who doesn’t get that Kuwait is not Iraq, and that if we’d spent years bombing their country and kicking down their doors in the middle of the night, the Kuwaitis would want us to leave, just as the Iraqis do. And it’s John McCain who doesn’t get that his neoconservative vision of using Iraq as a base from which to project U.S. power is a fantasy, because he doesn’t get that any Iraqi government that agrees to a hundred-year U.S. presence in Iraq will never be seen as legitimate by the Iraqi people, and thus will require the presence of U.S. forces to ensure its government. But we already know that “that’s fine” with John McCain.

McCain has tried to explain his 100 years remark by saying that “the war will be over soon“:

…Although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years. But it’ll be handled by the Iraqis not by us. And then we decide what kind of security arrangement we want to have with the Iraqis.

It’s unclear, exactly, how McCain differentiates between “the war” and “the insurgency,” or when he thinks the insurgency will end so that the hundred years of peace will begin.

Explaining The Sadr Surge»

With U.S. forces joining the fight against the Mahdi Army in Baghdad, the Bush administration’s current Iraq policy is to back the Iraqi political faction (led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim) most closely allied to Iran against the faction of Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr’s nationalist credentials have proved a difficult hurdle for former exiles Maliki and Hakim, and their parties haven’t been able to establish much political support in Iraq both because of the Iraqi government’s continuing corruption and failure to deliver basic services, and because they are seen as puppets either of Iran or the U.S., or both. The U.S. likes them, though, because they bless the U.S. presence in Iraq. And the U.S. dislikes Sadr because he has, since the 2003 invasion, consistently demanded a U.S. withdrawal.

As to why the Maliki government decided that now was the time to go against Sadr’s loyalists, it might have something to do with Dick Cheney’s visit to Iraq a few weeks ago. Here’s why:

On February 13, after a long, bitter debate, the Iraqi parliament passed a package of three laws dealing with the budget, amnesty for detainees, and a provincial powers law that “paved the way for elections in October.” The legislation was hailed in the U.S. media as a major political breakthrough.

On February 27, Iraq’s three-man presidency council then vetoed the provincial powers legislation, putting a serious crimp in the “political progress” narrative. The person who insisted on the veto was Shia Vice President Abdul Mehdi, a member of ISCI, because his party understood that they were/are not yet in a position to defeat the Sadrists (or Fadhila, a Sadrist offshoot powerful in and around Basra) in elections, and stood to lose big.

On March 17, Cheney made a surprise visit to Iraq, meeting with Maliki and Hakim and stressing political unity.

On March 21, the presidential council reversed its veto of the provincial powers law.

On March 25, Iraqi forces begin moving against Mahdi Army elements in Basra.

Given Maliki’s dependence on the U.S. for the survival of his government, I’m skeptical of claims by the Bush administration that “Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting” them. At the risk of offering a conspiracy theory, it’s very possible that, in exchange for withdrawing the veto and giving Bush something which he could present to Americans as “progress in Iraq,” Cheney gave a nod to Maliki and his ISCI allies to try to get by force what they knew they could not get by ballot: Victory against the Sadrists.

That’s not working out so well. The last four days of intense fighting have shown just how tenuous were the successes of the surge, and how dependent these successes were upon the willingness and ability of Muqtada al-Sadr to keep his movement in check.

A February report by the International Crisis Group correctly predicted this outcome:

The U.S. response [to Sadr’s cease-fire]– to continue attacking and arresting Sadrist militants, including some who are not militia members; arm a Shiite tribal counterforce in the south to roll back Sadrist territorial gains; and throw its lot in with Muqtada’s nemesis, ISCI – is understandable but short-sighted. The Sadrist movement, its present difficulties aside, remains a deeply entrenched, popular mass movement of young, poor and disenfranchised Shiites. It still controls key areas of the capital, as well as several southern cities; even now, its principal strongholds are virtually unassailable. Despite intensified U.S. military operations and stepped up Iraqi involvement, it is fanciful to expect the Mahdi Army’s defeat. Instead, heightened pressure is likely to trigger both fierce Sadrist resistance in Baghdad and an escalating intra-Shiite civil war in the south.

Despite Bush’s praise for Prime Minister Maliki’s “bold decision…to go after the illegal groups in Basra,” presenting this as “the Iraqi government against sectarian militias,” is wrong. This is another episode in an intra-sectarian conflict that has gone on since 2003, with different Shiite militias competing for the spoils on behalf their respective political machines.

As Eric Martin points out, despite Maliki’s claim that his goal is to rid Basra of militias, Iraqi security forces have focused on one militia: The Mahdi Army. ISCI’s militia, the Badr Organization, (which was founded in Iran and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) has largely incorporated itself into the Iraqi Security Forces, and has elements acting independently as well as under the aegis of the Iraqi state, both of which are fighting together in Basra against the Mahdi Army. This is clearly a(nother) misguided attempt to crush Sadr, and, it seems likely that, as in previous episodes, he will win simply by not losing.

UPDATE: Ilan Goldenberg is skeptical of the Cheney Theory, pointing to the Washington Post’s note that “Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials.” Ilan writes:

Still, the reason I don’t buy this theory is that the timing makes no sense whatsoever from a domestic political perspective. If there was a quid pro quo, the Bush Administration would have asked for a waiting period until after the Petraeus Crocker testimony. Why go with such a high risk operation a week before the progress report to Congress? Makes no sense. This Administration is pretty incompetent about a lot of things, but for the most part they seem to understand political timing.

Eric Martin is skeptical of Goldenberg’s skepticism and writes:

It is…entirely possible that the adminstration official quoted in the article was telling the truth…as she/he knew it. There has been a perculiar pattern of secrecy within the Bush administration (not just vis-a-vis outsiders) such that the Secretary of State might be pursuing some policy without telling the Secretary of Defense or Vice President, and vice versa (with the POTUS included on a need to know basis - which is rarer than it should be).

While Media Hails McCain’s Foreign Policy ‘Pivot’ From Bush, Lindsey Graham Says There’s No Difference»

Responding to John McCain’s foreign policy address yesterday, the country’s three biggest newspapers appear to have accepted at face value McCain’s newfound commitment to international cooperation.

New York Times:

McCain, in Foreign Policy Talk, Turns His Back on Unilateralism

The Washington Post:

McCain Outlines Foreign Policy: In Speech, He Vows Collaborative Approach

LA Times:

McCain stresses cooperation in L.A. speech on foreign policy

Last night, in an interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), CNN host Campbell Brown claimed McCain’s world view was “very different” from President Bush on a lot of issues.

But even Graham wouldn’t go so far as Brown. When asked how McCain’s worldview differs from Bush’s, Graham offered that there was no difference. “I don’t think I can describe it different than a person,” he said. Watch it:

Here are a few recent McCain quotes that didn’t fit the press’s narrative and therefore didn’t make it into the stories: “I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.” “Make it a hundred [years in Iraq]…We’ve been in South Korea …That would be fine with me.” “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”

Contrary to yesterday’s attempt to recast himself as a responsible multilateralist, John McCain has consistently defended the Bush Doctrine. He has surrounded himself with the same people who advocated that doctrine. His foreign policy approach has been called “more hawkish than Bush.” His record speaks for itself, and it’s a shame that America’s most popular newspapers would allow one speech to divert them from McCain’s career-long advocacy of militaristic foreign policy.

Third Bush Term Watch: McCain Advocates ‘Transforming The World’»

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) made his first major foreign policy address since clinching his party’s nomination. Claiming to be a “realistic idealist” McCain laid claim to many of the traditions of liberal internationalism, referencing Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy in pledging to “work very hard and very creatively to build new foundations for a stable and enduring peace“:

I believe it is possible in our time to make the world we live in another, better, more peaceful place, where our interests and those of our allies are more secure, and American ideals that are transforming the world, the principles of free people and free markets, advance even farther than they have. […]

America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model.

If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right. George W. Bush made many of these same noises about freedom and democracy, such as this from his 2003 State of the Union:

Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.

….right before he hauled off and invaded Iraq. There’s no reason to believe that McCain will behave any differently, especially since many of the neoconservative ideologues who advocated Bush’s disastrous Iraq misadventure are now advising McCain. We don’t have to imagine what a John McCain foreign policy might look like, we’ve seen it.

McCain: It’s ‘Immaterial’ Whether Al Qaeda Was In Iraq Before U.S. Invasion»

In his major foreign policy address today, McCain promised to listen to the “wisdom and knowledge” of others when making foreign policy decisions. To underscore his point, he quoted the Declaration of Independence’s statement of “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Watch it:

Interestingly, it seems that, at least as far as McCain was concerned, this “respect” did not extend to overwhelming worldwide opinion in 2003, which was strongly against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. (Nor does it apparently extend now to the opinions of McCain’s fellow Americans, a majority of whom oppose the Iraq war and believe it should never have been fought.)

During a press conference call today after the speech, McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann was asked about disconnect between the “respect to the opinions of mankind” and McCain’s heedless support for the invasion of Iraq. Scheunemann simply replied that McCain was “interested in looking forward, not backward.”

McCain expressed similar sentiment in the speech, in reference to the fact that Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before the U.S. invaded and occupied the country:

Whether they [Al Qaeda] were there [in Iraq] before is immaterial, al Qaeda is in Iraq now, as it is in the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, in Somalia, and in Indonesia. If we withdraw prematurely from Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq will survive, proclaim victory and continue to provoke sectarian tensions that, while they have been subdued by the success of the surge, still exist, as various factions of Sunni and Shi’a have yet to move beyond their ancient hatreds, and are ripe for provocation by al Qaeda. Civil war in Iraq could easily descend into genocide, and destabilize the entire region as neighboring powers come to the aid of their favored factions. I believe a reckless and premature withdrawal would be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values.

It’s understandable that this is a conversation that McCain does not want to have, but it is certainly not immaterial whether al Qaeda was in Iraq before the U.S. invaded. On the contrary, it is essential to understanding why the Iraq invasion was a bad foreign policy decision born of poor judgment and a lack of real knowledge and understanding of the region.

Almost all of the things that McCain predicts will result from a U.S. withdrawal have, in fact, occurred as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq: Al Qaeda survived in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and then entered Iraq to provoke sectarian tensions), and tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in a civil war in which Iraq’s neighbors have come to the aid of their favored factions.

The reckless and ill-considered invasion of Iraq has turned out to be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values, and much of the next president’s term will be concerned with trying to clean up that mess. John McCain doesn’t really seem to grasp how that mess was made, or that the mess even exists.

Escalation Architect Fred Kagan Doubles Down On His Claim That Sectarian Cleansing In Baghdad Is A ‘Myth’»

In a presentation yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute, escalation architect Frederick Kagan repeated his claim that sectarian cleansing has not affected the drop in violence in Iraq. Kagan called it a “myth”:

The bad news from this perspective is that the sectarian areas of Iraq is still mixed. The good news is that the sectarian areas of Iraq are still mixed. And there is a myth out there that the violence has fallen because all of the cleansing is done. That is absolutely not the case.

Watch it:

Kagan makes the same claim in his new report, “Iraq: The Way Ahead“:

One of the persistent myths about the reasons for the success of coalition efforts in 2007 is that the killing stopped because the sectarian cleansing was completed. This myth is absolutely false. Baghdad remains a mixed city. The traditionally Sunni neighborhoods of Adhamiya, Mansour, and Rashid remain predominantly Sunni, and Shiite enclaves in East Rashid remain Shiite. Shia have moved into some parts of the Sunni neighborhoods, and many sub-districts within neighborhoods that had been mixed are now much more homogeneous. But the key components of a mixed Baghdad remain.

Kagan’s claim is contested by major news organizations and the U.S. military’s own data. In December 2007, the Washington Post published the maps below, comparing the sectarian make-up of Baghdad’s neighborhoods in April 2006 and November 2007, and revealing the transformation of the city resulting from sectarian cleansing:

The Post’s distribution of sectarian enclaves corresponds closely with these graphs, provided by Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), that chart sectarian violence in Baghdad between July 2006 and July 2007, which is the period in which the U.S. military escalation, also known as the Baghdad Security Plan, took place.

The August 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq also rebuts Kagan’s mythmaking. One of the NIE’s judgements was that where some “conflict levels have diminished,” it was due to sectarian “separation.”

Kagan’s view is also challenged by Joe Christoff of the Government Accountability Office, who stated in congressional testimony in October 2007 that sectarian cleansing was “an important consideration in even assessing the overall security situation in Iraq”:

We look at the attack data going down, but it’s not taking into consideration that there might be fewer attacks because you have ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, particularly in the Baghdad area. […]

It’s produced 2.2. million refugees that have left, it’s produced two million internally displaced persons within the country as well.

In August 2007, the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization indicated that “the total number of internally displaced Iraqis [had] more than doubled, to 1.1 million from 499,000″ since the surge started in February. Center for American Progress Iraq analyst Brian Katulis estimated that Baghdad, which once used to be a 65 percent Sunni majority city, “is now 75 percent Shia.”

Kagan’s claim that Baghdad “remains a mixed city,” severely understates both the drastic transformation of the city’s sectarian make-up and the suffering that attended that transformation. It also casually ignores the fact that one of the most intense and violent periods of sectarian cleansing took place under the aegis of the military escalation Kagan now claims credit for.

China’s Chance To Impress World As A Great Power: Negotiate ‘True And Final Automony For Tibet’»

Our guest blogger is Nina Hachigian, a Senior Vice President at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Tibetans are all peaceloving Buddhist monks and the Chinese government instantly quashes all organized dissent. Even though the events of the past two weeks do not fit neatly into these mental slots, Beijing will not be able to convince the western world otherwise unless it changes its Tibet policy quickly and dramatically.

According to the LA Times, Tibetans randomly and savagely beat and killed Chinese “solely on the basis of their ethnicity.” Gangs of Tibetans burned and destroyed Han and Muslim owned shops. The Chinese authorities held back at first — making the situation much worse — and then they used lethal force to stop the violence, firing live ammunition into crowds of people and beating suspects, by some accounts. Eventually, China sent in enough police and equipment to take on Russia.

The resentment that triggered the riots is Beijing¹s doing, and Beijing ultimately has to ac