President Bush's Plan for Iraq: The Opposite

When we stopped winning in Iraq, I must admit I was concerned. How did this happen all of a sudden just when things seemed to be going so well? Apparently, sometime between October 25 when the President said we were winning and December 20 of last year when he said we were not winning but not losing, something went terribly wrong.

When the Iraq Study Group came out with its report that basically conceded the War in Iraq was lost I nearly gave up hope. It was not until I saw President Bush's speech last night that I realized the purpose of the report: to outline the strategies that we should not take. "As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton," reported the Washington Post. The report did prove valuable to White House strategists but not for the reason most people thought. "A leader does take the counsel of grey hairs and the people's representatives, among many others," writes Jules Crittenden. And then, like George in the famous Seinfeld episode, he does the exact opposite.

But it was not just in soliciting the advice of others and doing the opposite that Bush showed himself to be a true leader. He also stepped up and took responsibility for mistakes, even though someone else must have made them, which was why he cleverly assigned blame to the passive voice. "Where mistakes have been made," he said, "the responsibility rests with me." Typically, the AP, which wants us to lose in Iraq, headlined its story "Bush Admits Mistakes, Adds Troops," giving the false impression that Bush was admitting his own mistakes when he was actually taking responsibility for mistakes made by others.

But mistakes, whoever made them, are bad, aren't they? According to Austin Bay, the opposite is true: Mistakes are actually a sign that we are winning. "Every war is a series of mistakes--bloody, expensive mistakes," writes Bay. "Ultimately winning a war demands perseverance and creative adaptation. War winners understand this real world paradox. It exists because the enemy always "has a vote"; the enemy also has a motive will and the ability to adapt. Winning generals minimize and correct their own mistakes while leveraging the opportunities created by the enemy's. The Great 21st Century War for Modernity is no different - and that really is the war America and its allies are fighting. So treat "gotcha" stories focusing on mistakes (like this one from the AP) as the historically uninformed sensationalism they are."

So Bay is saying that--paradoxically--every "bloody, expensive" mistake we make in Iraq just puts us closer to victory. Whenever the media reports on a mistake in Iraq, instead of seeing it as a failure, we should instead look at it instead as a success that hasn't happened yet.

President Bush is not only sending in more troops, which will surge the number of troops back up to the exact same number of troops we had in Iraq back when we were winning, he also outlined plans to start using the troops that are already there. Unfortunately, according to Michael Ledeen many of our troops have just been sitting around doing nothing. "We've got lots of soldiers sitting on megabases all over Iraq," writes Ledeen. "They should be out and about, some of them embedded, others just moving around, tracking the terrorists, hunting them down. I don't know how many guys and gals are sitting in air-conditioned quarters and drinking designer coffee, but it's a substantial number. Enough of that." From now on the troops will have to get their Starbucks to go.

By sending more troops into Iraq, the possibility that there will be even more "bloody, expensive" mistakes will increase. Unfortunately, more of our soldiers will probably die. But more casualties means that we are winning not losing. "Some of these soon-to-be-deployed soldiers will die ... and don't worry, you can rely on the AP to start a tally of the deaths of the newly deployed," writes Crittenden. "In war, death is a given. If and when it happens, it will mean that our soldiers have found and engaged the enemy, which I predict will die in much greater numbers." So more of our soldiers will die, but more of the enemy will, too (and probably a few innocent bystanders). "It won't be pretty," Crittenden says. "There will be bloody days ahead." I'm sure that increased casualties will be difficult for some warbloggers who may feel guilty about those who have lost their lives defending our right to cheer the war on from the safety of our own homes. But I know a lot of warbloggers are fans of science fiction so it might be easier to do what I do, which is to think of these brave soldiers as the actors who wear red shirts in a Star Trek episode, who know they are there to protect the blue shirts from dying. And they can take solace in the fact that the more of these red shirts that die, the better we are doing.

Undoubtedly, the AP, which hates America, will harp on mistakes that are made or on how many soldiers die, but we should think of these reports as signs that we are actually winning in Iraq. We should believe the opposite of what the media is saying because in Iraq down is actually up. Success will only seem like a series of bloody, expensive blunders. The more it looks like we are losing in Iraq, the closer we will be to victory.

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Jon Swift, Iraq, Iraq Study Group, Surge, War on Terror, Terrorism, Bush, AP, Journalism, Politics, Foreign Policy