Victor Davis Hanson has a provocative post at The Corner, on the patience of a government in a democracy at war:

...as is true in most long wars (cf. 1864 or 1918), armies seem not to be fully effective until they digest and learn from their horrific mistakes, and so enter a race to apply their wisdom before an exasperated public gives up.

In late summer 1864 the work of Sheridan and Sherman and the 1918 summer offensive uplifted public opinion enough to stick it out; in 1970-3 post-Tet, radical improvement in American tactics, weaponry, and know-how came too little too late to deflate the public sense of defeatism and doom.

And Michael Yon has thoughts on General Petraeus, and a letter from him to the troops, which may be viewed as crucial by historians.

Petraeus is a fine man, the right person for the job.

Robert

Sure, Victor Davis Hanson is holding out for more time. If only Bush et al had 50 years to fight the war in Iraq, then they might win. (But on any shorter time scale, it would be better to heed Odom: It is impossible to win a war that is not in your interests.) What is new about Hanson's post is that even he admits a parallel with Vietnam. Even war supporters see a turn for the worse, because they once denounced any mention of Vietnam in the context of the Iraq war.

Petreaus, on the other hand, does offer some real wisdom:

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk;” however, what the individual says may be of questionable value.

The complete failure of this regime's grandiose, messianic, and murderous vision has already occurred, but two questions remain: (1)Will the lingering burden of their crimes be addressed firmly, with a quick and unambiguous withdrawal, or through a grinding and lethal wind-down for political CYA purposes? And (2)will it be followed by serious attempts to seek justice, with internationally inclusive war crimes trials, or will the American people consent to bury and rationalize these events for the sake of momentary convenience?

Too late…implies you believe we have lost this war, and consequently the war against the harabis. Regardless of your opinion of the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ethiopia et al the inescapable fact is these people are not done with us. The sooner we learn to truly win the hearts and minds of those whose country we are in, the sooner the harabis will lose their power. Yon’s posts over the years make it clear. Those in the vicinity of these incidents can be as much a victim as our own solders. What chance of survival would you have if gangs here in America learned you and your family had been having discussion with the police about their activities in your neighborhood? Many are in the same situation, many are not. They may actively cheer in response to our suffering. That makes them wrong, not necessarily the enemy.

It is impossible to win a war that is not in your interests.

However, if this new Iraqi nation lasts and stays a democracy then there is another democracy, oil markets are stabilized, perhaps OPEC undermined a little, global terrorism reduced, and the US does the right thing, then it means the US can win this war. Or are you claiming none of these things are in the US's interest?

I really enjoy Michael Yon's posts. I do find the fact that we ignore obvious witnesses to IED planting (just how do you remove 1700 pounds of dirt and replace it with 1700 pounds of explosives without the neighbors seeing it?) disturbing. Sure...they'd be killed outright if they narc'ed...but no interrogation...no pointing out that Saddam would have had them disemboweled...nothing?

In Naval aviation, one "radical improvement of American tactics" was the founding of Fighter Weapons and Tactics School, better known as Top Gun. Previously the Pentagon believed that air-air missiles made dogfighting obsolete.

The problem is that the GOP is as a party starting to look for an exit in Iraq.

The leaders of the GOP can and do read polls just as well as anyone else does. Plus even if they believe in Bush (and less and less are doing that) the problem is that he (Bush) is, to use his words "quacking" like an Aflack commercial.

I think that the surge has a chance of working, I think that some initial signs are there that it is working. I am not so sure that in September or so General P comes back to the capital and has the news that the GOP desperatly wants to hear, which is "troops are coming home".

By April of next year the rotation scheme for the Army breaks completly. At that point the solution set is bi...start rotating units home lowering the footprint or announce 36 month deployments (that is the only way the rotation scheme picks back up).

If troops are not coming home by the end of the year, and the KIA is still at about the same level, the GOP leaders will start revolting. It wont matter however.

If those conditions are still in play in Nov of 08 the GOP is going to take its worst beating since Hoover. The odds right now favor that anyway.

Robert

Posted by Gunga at May 14, 2007 02:11 PM

Right. It is about like going to Alabama in the mid 50's explaining to the neighbors of folks in the Klan that lynchings are horrible and that they really should inform on who did it.

Percentage of success...low

Robert

However, if this new Iraqi nation lasts and stays a democracy then there is another democracy, oil markets are stabilized, perhaps OPEC undermined a little, global terrorism reduced, and the US does the right thing, then it means the US can win this war. Or are you claiming none of these things are in the US's interest?

It's really Odom's claim rather than mine, but Odom is basically correct and has me convinced. It should be obvious by now that there is more than one mode of democracy, and that some modes of democracy are pathological, or in this case against American interests. Depending on how a democracy is implemented and how it interacts with local factions, it can lead to either peace or war. For instance, democracy in the Gaza Strip works against peace with Israel. Democracy in the United States caused a civil war; and democracy was substantially suspended to cement the peace.

In this case, everything that you list is in America's interest, except for the mode of democracy that the US implemented in Iraq. The US-imposed democracy in Iraq is both counterfeit and poisonous, but it is the one thing that the US is fighting for above all. It encourages Kurdish secession; it encourages civil war between Shiites and Sunnis; it encourages anti-Western and anti-Christian terrorism; and it may well diminish the world oil supply more than any OPEC agreement would.

So yes, the other items on your list would serve American interests, but the first step to pursuing these logical objectives (peace, anti-terrorism, pro-Westernism, more oil) is to withdraw US forces from Iraq.

After all, Communism has now crumbled everywhere except in a few holdout countries, one of which is Vietnam. The Iraq war is not the first war in which the US fought against its own best interests. What has been confusing in both cases is that it is easier to state your own best interests than to actually fight for them. Lyndon Johnson and George Bush are like the doctor who correctly diagnoses hemophilia, but then fights it with a series of organ transplants. "At least he fights" does not excuse the plan or the planner.

peace, anti-terrorism, pro-Westernism, more oil

We pull out and they have peace, maybe, but terrorists attacking US interests continue, so no peace for us.

We pull out and support anti-terrorism, allowing terrorists to have a victory and embolden them to even larger destructive goals. Great plan.

We pull out to support pro-Westernism, by showing the world that we don't stand up for what's right in the world. Everybody loves the West then cause they're a bunch of pushovers that give in whenever we punch them.

More oil...Let's see, OPEC realizes that the US won't stop them, so they join forces with Chavez and strangle the market. They've already got enough money to stand through a financial siege, so that doesn't bother them. The US is forced to use there own supplies, but the tree-huggers won't let America utilize its own resources.

Wow, what an amazing plan.