David Kaiser: William Kristol on Iraq, 2003-7
[Mr. Kaiser is the Stanley Kaplan Professor of History and Leadership Studies at Williams College, and the author of American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (2000).]
... We liberal Democrats have been kidding ourselves for seven years if we really think we have anything to do with the debate over our foreign policy. We are nothing but whipping boys and girls, trotted out as defeatists eager to stab our troops in the back to rally the public behind a policy that has so far delivered nothing but failure. The real battle has been a family fight (literally) among Republicans, pitting the surviving GIs and Silents (Scowcroft, Baker, Colin Powell and the first President Bush), against the Boomers, including Cheney (temperamentally a Boomer although technically a Silent), Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol, and George W. Bush. A secondary player has been the entire bureaucracy, including most the military and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which always had doubts about the war in Iraq and has wanted to wind it up as quickly as possible for at least three years.
Kristol has understood all this from the beginning and has anticipated where the debate would go. He has been calling for more American troops in Iraq since 2004, again and again. He repeatedly criticized our military leadership for wanting to wind the war down. And in practice, though not, as we have seen, in theory, he never had any confidence in the Iraqis to protect our interests. On only one occasion did he seriously criticize President Bush. He attacked the slogan, “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down,” because he thought it showed false confidence in their ability to take over the job. He proposed an alternative: “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand with them.” For all his disgraceful rhetoric about how liberals threw away victory in South Vietnam, one suspects that he really understands that to have held South Vietnam, American forces would have had to stay there forever—exactly what he now must hope for in Iraq. He also complained that the size of our forces was being held down by the need to rotate them regularly.
What really impressed me, I must admit, was Kristol’s realization, which did not dawn on me until I read Bob Woodward’s new book early this year, that Donald Rumsfeld was on the other side of the fight. As early as November 2003, Kristol was criticizing Rumsfeld for pressing the Iraqis to take over responsibility for their own security. He later expressed contempt for the theory that the Iraqis had to know we were leaving in order to get serious about their own responsibilities, calling this foreign policy as welfare reform. And while he apparently had the sense not to crow about it, Rumsfeld’s resignation after last November’s election was a key event, as I have already written here, because it allowed the surge to go forward.
But of course, Kristol, like his hero the President, has not been willing to face up to the implications of his policy. Success in Iraq would indeed (if it were possible at all) require more troops—far more troops, probably three times as many. That would probably require doubling the size of our ground forces—and that would obviously require a draft. Kristol did advocate expanding the army early—but not that much. And he has never, so far as I know, advocated a return to conscription. Perhaps that will come when, and if, a Democrat takes over the White House. Kristol has won this dispute because the President is obviously on his side. (I am less sure, ironically, about the Vice President—but that is another story.) But I do not think that will be anything to be proud of ten or twenty years down the road.
Meanwhile, Kristol’s columns have never—literally never—seriously addressed the human costs of this war. He has never referred to the two million refugees that have left Iraq or the roughly equal number that have been internally displaced. He has not discussed the tactics of Shi’ite and Sunni militias very much, or even alluded to the basic fact—surely an indicator of something?—that no American has been able to go anywhere in Iraq without armed escort for years. And he has never said much about the Americans who are actually fighting the war. On September 23, 2003, in one of his first calls for more forces, Kristol made an interesting remark. “And contrary to what some say,” he and Robert Kagan wrote, “more troops don't mean more casualties. More troops mean fewer casualties--both American and Iraqi.” As my readers know, that did not initially turn out to be the case—American casualties rose sharply during the first six months of the surge, although they have declined during the last two months. On June 14, 2004, in the wake of the uprisings in Fallujah and southern Iraq, he wrote, “But there are grounds for hope. We are actually winning the war in Iraq, and the war on terror. We're not winning either as thoroughly or as comprehensively as we should be. Still, it is a fact that one year after the invasion of Iraq, Saddam and his regime are gone; a decent interim Iraqi government is taking over; we and the Iraqis have not suffered a devastating level of casualties; the security situation, though inexcusably bad, looks as if it may finally be improving; Moktada al-Sadr seems to have been marginalized, and the Shia center is holding; there is nothing approaching civil war.”
Those are the only two discussions of American casualties that I found in everything Kristol has said about the war—one arguing that they would not increase, one arguing that they were not that bad. (Kristol has quoted Australian David Kilcullen claiming—misleadingly, I believe—that casualties as a percentage of American troops had fallen during the first few months of this year, while rising absolutely). Neoconservatism, like Richard Nixon’s foreign policies, involves a real contempt for human life, which must freely be sacrificed to defend America and “spread democracy.” And of course, if things go wrong, one can always blame the reality-based community in the bureaucracy, the military, and the press. Kristol and I are both, in our own ways, trying to affect the course of American policy. I can’t claim to have had the influence he has, but I’m proud to say that I’ve done it on my own time, and for nothing. That’s the beauty of the net.
Read entire article at History Unfolding (Blog)
... We liberal Democrats have been kidding ourselves for seven years if we really think we have anything to do with the debate over our foreign policy. We are nothing but whipping boys and girls, trotted out as defeatists eager to stab our troops in the back to rally the public behind a policy that has so far delivered nothing but failure. The real battle has been a family fight (literally) among Republicans, pitting the surviving GIs and Silents (Scowcroft, Baker, Colin Powell and the first President Bush), against the Boomers, including Cheney (temperamentally a Boomer although technically a Silent), Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol, and George W. Bush. A secondary player has been the entire bureaucracy, including most the military and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which always had doubts about the war in Iraq and has wanted to wind it up as quickly as possible for at least three years.
Kristol has understood all this from the beginning and has anticipated where the debate would go. He has been calling for more American troops in Iraq since 2004, again and again. He repeatedly criticized our military leadership for wanting to wind the war down. And in practice, though not, as we have seen, in theory, he never had any confidence in the Iraqis to protect our interests. On only one occasion did he seriously criticize President Bush. He attacked the slogan, “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down,” because he thought it showed false confidence in their ability to take over the job. He proposed an alternative: “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand with them.” For all his disgraceful rhetoric about how liberals threw away victory in South Vietnam, one suspects that he really understands that to have held South Vietnam, American forces would have had to stay there forever—exactly what he now must hope for in Iraq. He also complained that the size of our forces was being held down by the need to rotate them regularly.
What really impressed me, I must admit, was Kristol’s realization, which did not dawn on me until I read Bob Woodward’s new book early this year, that Donald Rumsfeld was on the other side of the fight. As early as November 2003, Kristol was criticizing Rumsfeld for pressing the Iraqis to take over responsibility for their own security. He later expressed contempt for the theory that the Iraqis had to know we were leaving in order to get serious about their own responsibilities, calling this foreign policy as welfare reform. And while he apparently had the sense not to crow about it, Rumsfeld’s resignation after last November’s election was a key event, as I have already written here, because it allowed the surge to go forward.
But of course, Kristol, like his hero the President, has not been willing to face up to the implications of his policy. Success in Iraq would indeed (if it were possible at all) require more troops—far more troops, probably three times as many. That would probably require doubling the size of our ground forces—and that would obviously require a draft. Kristol did advocate expanding the army early—but not that much. And he has never, so far as I know, advocated a return to conscription. Perhaps that will come when, and if, a Democrat takes over the White House. Kristol has won this dispute because the President is obviously on his side. (I am less sure, ironically, about the Vice President—but that is another story.) But I do not think that will be anything to be proud of ten or twenty years down the road.
Meanwhile, Kristol’s columns have never—literally never—seriously addressed the human costs of this war. He has never referred to the two million refugees that have left Iraq or the roughly equal number that have been internally displaced. He has not discussed the tactics of Shi’ite and Sunni militias very much, or even alluded to the basic fact—surely an indicator of something?—that no American has been able to go anywhere in Iraq without armed escort for years. And he has never said much about the Americans who are actually fighting the war. On September 23, 2003, in one of his first calls for more forces, Kristol made an interesting remark. “And contrary to what some say,” he and Robert Kagan wrote, “more troops don't mean more casualties. More troops mean fewer casualties--both American and Iraqi.” As my readers know, that did not initially turn out to be the case—American casualties rose sharply during the first six months of the surge, although they have declined during the last two months. On June 14, 2004, in the wake of the uprisings in Fallujah and southern Iraq, he wrote, “But there are grounds for hope. We are actually winning the war in Iraq, and the war on terror. We're not winning either as thoroughly or as comprehensively as we should be. Still, it is a fact that one year after the invasion of Iraq, Saddam and his regime are gone; a decent interim Iraqi government is taking over; we and the Iraqis have not suffered a devastating level of casualties; the security situation, though inexcusably bad, looks as if it may finally be improving; Moktada al-Sadr seems to have been marginalized, and the Shia center is holding; there is nothing approaching civil war.”
Those are the only two discussions of American casualties that I found in everything Kristol has said about the war—one arguing that they would not increase, one arguing that they were not that bad. (Kristol has quoted Australian David Kilcullen claiming—misleadingly, I believe—that casualties as a percentage of American troops had fallen during the first few months of this year, while rising absolutely). Neoconservatism, like Richard Nixon’s foreign policies, involves a real contempt for human life, which must freely be sacrificed to defend America and “spread democracy.” And of course, if things go wrong, one can always blame the reality-based community in the bureaucracy, the military, and the press. Kristol and I are both, in our own ways, trying to affect the course of American policy. I can’t claim to have had the influence he has, but I’m proud to say that I’ve done it on my own time, and for nothing. That’s the beauty of the net.