May 17, 2004
SACRIFICE FOR SACRIFICE SAKE:
No Way to Run a War: The Democrats are guilty of ideological confusion and the Republicans of disdain for reflection. (MARK HELPRIN, May 17, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
Before the war's inception, and even after September 11, the Bush administration, having promised to correct its predecessor's depredations of the military, failed to do so. The president failed to go to Congress on September 12 to ask for a declaration of war, failed to ask Congress when he did go before it for the tools with which to fight, and has failed consistently to ask the American people for sacrifice. And yet their sons, mainly, are sacrificed in Iraq day by day.When soldiers are killed because they do not have equipment (in the words of a returning officer, "not enough vehicles, not enough munitions, not enough medical supplies, not enough water"), when reservists are retained for years, and rotations canceled, it is the consequence of a fiscal policy that seems more attuned to the electoral landscape of 2004 than to the national security of the United States. Were the U.S. to devote the same percentage of its GNP to defense as it did during the peacetime years of the last half-century, and the military budget return to this unremarkable level, we would be spending (apart from the purely operational costs of the war) almost twice what we are spending now.
But why would we? The threat we face is quite minimal and our force level and equipment more than adequate. Indeed, as Mr. Helprin writes later, we should have left Iraq by now: "Mistakenly focused on physical control of Iraq, we could not see that, were we to give it up, the resultant anarchy might find a quicker resolution than the indefinite prolonged agony through which our continuing presence has nursed it." What then would be the point of shoveling more money and men into a defense establishment that was so easily able to dispatch one of the few considerable enemy regimes still extant? Posted by Orrin Judd at May 17, 2004 4:52 PM
The problem with both you and Mr. Helprin's argument is that Hussein's army wasn't really beaten. It melted into the terrain to come back as a guerrilla resistance. Had we left soon after the invasion, as you suggest, Hussein's men would have parlayed Sunni unity into military power and retaken Iraq--or worse, given the Iranians an excuse to intervene and take over the area.
Of course, this is still a very real possibility, which is why we should have never bothered in the first place. Putting our forces onto the Asian landmass plays to our enemies' strengths and our weakness. We have no stomach for this kind of drawn-out warfare. We're not ancient Romans or British Victorians. Sadly, it's only now that this obvious fact is beginning to dawn on war-birds like Helprin.
Posted by: Derek Copold at May 17, 2004 5:35 PMSunni unity? The al Qaeda types there hate the Ba'athists and the Shi'ites hate both, plus have them outnumbered. Meanwhile, there's a Kurdistan. It's as good an outcome even now as we've gotten out of any war we've ever fought. It will get better fast.
Posted by: oj at May 17, 2004 7:24 PMIraq's army may not have been soundly beaten, but any disgruntled soldiers are now without heavy equipment or steady supply.
Facing machine guns, mortars, land mines, and RPGs isn't pleasant, but far better than facing artillery, heavy machine guns, and tanks.
Mr. Helprin compares Iraq to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and concludes that there aren't nearly enough US troops in Iraq.
However, if it truly WERE like the Palestinian intifada, US casualties would be far higher, and it would be plain to everyone that there weren't enough troops.
Thus, the comparison fails to convince.
Further, Mr. Helprin's laughable solution to avoiding quagmire in Iraq is to leave Iraq and INVADE AND OCCUPY SAUDI ARABIA !?!
Oh, yes, that will surely sooth Muslim and Arab sensibilities.
Other than that, a great opinion piece, soundly thrashing both sides of the debate.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 18, 2004 12:36 AMHelprin styles nice novels and great speeches.
But come on -- Helprin as strategic thinker is kind of silly. I wish he'd stop trying and go with his strengths.
Posted by: kevin whited at May 18, 2004 10:40 AM