Iraq: political failure, not a military one

I wrote in an earlier post that George Will nailed the problem with Iraq. Our military has beaten back armed opposition in the manner that a military is supposed to do, but a military is designed to attack other armed forces - naval, land - in formations - fleets, regiments, forts - and is not really designed to deal with guerrilla tactics from a pissed off locals. However, some of that might be changing. See here and here. Then, again, probably not.

A military cannot provide the necessities of a civil society. Security not only of persons but of property; providing the necessities of clean water, electricity, safe roads, courts, and so on. For a primer on civil society go read John Locke.

Will suggests the need for a Marshall Plan. If we had made sure that there was clean water and steady electricity, maybe we would not look so incompetent in everything but how to blow things up. Maybe the locals would not be looking to their local militias to provide the things needed for life.

I think Will also hits the point that bothers everyone with an open ended commitment to provide troops to Iraq. Why should the Iraqis assume responsibility so long as we do not make them take responsibility?

Today, Gen. George Casey, U.S. commander in Baghdad, is in hot water with administration proponents of a "surge" because he believes what he recently told the New York Times: "The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq's security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias. And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all of Iraq's problems, which are at base their problems."

I cannot escape the feeling that we do bear a responsibility to Iraq but there are limits to any responsibility. I am not sure that more staunch advocates of withdrawal see that we have a responsibility to do what we can to fix the mess we created. See this editorial from The Nation. I think the Democrats need to see any argument that we are anti-military as irrelevant (which, I also, think is something that the majority of us Americans figured this out last year). The military did as good as it could within the situation of Iraq. Reading between the lines of this New York Times' article, I think the Democrats are beginning to see that a military solution is not enough.