Surge

The English version of Al Jazeera started broadcasting about a month ago, and I’m at a loss to figure out why its gotten such a bad rap in the western media. My experience has been, I think, the opposite of what most people unacquainted with the organization might expect:
As many of you know, I tend to be a bit of a political junky, especially when it comes to international issues, and most especially, involving this region. As might be expected, I’ve been following the war in Iraq rather closely. For the record, I was in favor of the 2003 invasion, probably for the worst of all possible reasons. I thought that anything was better than the sanctions regime, and all of its inherent corruption (this turned out to be more true than I could have imagined) and burden on innocent Iraqi citizens. I was also incredibly naïve in thinking that democracy, if it took root in Iraq, would have a good chance of positively affecting the other countries in the region. I felt that the administration had done a pretty good job in Afghanistan, and might reasonably be expected to handle Iraq well. I also believed Colin Powell when he said that the WMDs in Iraq posed a significant threat. I further thought that the income Iraq derived (or could derive) from oil coupled with such a strong anti-American regime were intolerable in a region of such importance. I also seriously doubted the liberal nostrum of developing a grand coalition, because I felt that the major European countries would never join.

Since then, incidents like Abu Ghraib, and the widespread arrests and detentions with a total disregard of habeus corpus, the revelation of a total lack of a WMD program, and the near pathological denial on the part of the administration that anything is wrong at all in Iraq have made me regret my position. I remain hopeful that something positive can still happen Iraq, duly noting that it is often just when everything is about to resolve itself that things can seem to be completely disastrous (of course, things also seem completely disastrous just before they get a whole lot worse).

So with all of this background, I was paying very close attention to the debate this weekend over President Bush’s proposal to send in an additional “surge” of troops. My regular daily read, Andrew Sullivan, claimed that it was a half measure, predetermined to fail and an implementation of the “cut and blame” strategy. My daily newspaper, the Herald Tribune, had about ten different stories each day about how everybody in the world thought it was a bad idea. Then, on Sunday night and Monday morning, I watched the pundits roll out on the three Sunday morning talk shows (This Week, Face the Nation, and Meet the Press). Of course, bowing to convention, they had advocates from both sides of the aisle, one of them actually had Republicans for and against the surge as well as Democrats for and against.

It was sad, really. While those opposing the surge had really nothing substantive to offer (the most common phrase was “strong diplomacy”, as if another suit making suggestions were all that it would take, those supporting the surge had nothing better to offer than. “the consequences of failure are catastrophic”. Well, duh! No mention if 20k more troops would actually help things.

And then, dear reader, I turned on Al Jazeera. I usually use it as background noise as I’m reading the paper and uploading my morning caffeine dose, just to see if there’s any late breaking news I should know about. There was an hour long show called, “Indepth Iraq (or something like that) featuring a number of US critics both domestic and abroad (Michael Isikoff was particularly loathsome, in my opinion). There was a “Military Expert” from Cairo, other pundits from around the region, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, and, most remarkably, a plain speaking, level headed, experienced military strategist from Florida. He was a retired general who was still getting briefings from the pentagon and probably was still consulted on military strategy. He was getting challenges from all over the place. The host of the show started, but other pundits would cut in, challenge the general, and ask snide questions (particularly this Isikoff fellow). They brought up every possible concern or criticism of the new surge plan and this general, not bending words, not answering as a politician, just stating his own (well informed) opinion equanimous.

He convinced me. Here’s my current opinion:

1. 5 brigades and an extra regiment are enough to supplement the Iraqi units in the parts of Baghdad where sectarian violence is an issue.
2. Its also probably all we can muster right now and all that the Iraqi government would put up with.
3. Sadr city, as well as other militia operation centers will be dealt with later, once overall security is in place.
4. If this doesn’t work, it was still a good idea to beef up security for a phased withdrawal (could happen as soon as six months if progress isn’t made).
   
   And to think, I saw it on Al Jazeera!!