When luck runs out

[fpb]

Two years ago I commented on the extraordinary luck of George W.Bush until then. Of course, a man's character is tested when luck begins to run out. Bush had not proved much of a leader until then - he had managed to make a void around himself, not only by his own actions but by the gratuituous rudeness of some of the people around him, and he had placed America in a very risky situation because of his serious overestimate of American strength. (I had something to say once or twice about the ridiculous superstition of the "only remaining superpower".) But everything up to the Iraqi general election had gone well, in spite of the evidence of a troubling lack of foresight, and it was his opponents who had always ended up looking carping and negative.

Now we see him when luck has run out; and frankly it ain't a pretty sight. The announcement that there are going to be talks with Syria and Iran - countries that have fought a proxy war against the USA without even troubling to disguise it very carefully - is a disaster. Nobody seeks talks with one's war enemies unless they are practically admitting defeat; and to seek it in the middle of a long-announced "surge" that was meant to reduce the pressure not only on the US but on the civilian Iraqi population is to send the message that victory against the mass-murdering, child-killing terrorist enemies is no longer expected. Of course, a few days earlier Tony Blair had announced the beginning of British withdrawal, stabbing Bush in the back (and recognizing implicitly the disastrous effect of his own leadership on the British armed forces, now no longer able to maintain two operations in Iraq and Afghanistan both). That had already sent the same message.

I am not a pacifist, and I originally supported both the wars against the Taliban and that against Saddam Hussein. I hated both regimes with a passion, and I wanted to see them gone so badly that I had even hoped in an Iranian invasion: even the Iranian mullahocracy seemed to me preferable to the obscene tyrannies of Mullah Omar and Saddam. But everything but the actual fighting was mismanaged from the beginning. I well remember saying, shortly after the conquest of Iraq (and long before I started this blog) that the invasion will only succeed in the long run if the Americans and their allies leave Iraq as fast as possible, because if they stay they will simply become the biggest set of hostages in the world - pure targets for enemy action. Well, they stayed; and in order to justify their staying - which was largely due to the complete collapse of any authority in Iraq, which in turn was due to the failure of the Americans to plan for after the victory - they came up with the idea of bringing US-style democracy to Iraq. Well, guess what: there was no government in Iraq - and there was none for a long time after - but there was an enemy left, powerful, subtle and ruthless. And as someone who knew a thing or two about war once said, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

George W.Bush was lucky. He rode his luck for all it was worth. But in the end luck cannot make up for lack of judgment - everything from lowering taxes in wartime to honking off former friends with public insults. And when luck runs out, then we can measure the man.

Comments

Re: splitting Iraq

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

Doubt it.

The insanity and wickedness of Islam (not just radical islam, but even parts of supposedly "moderate" Islam) tends to produce cultures that are horrendously corrupt and full of individuals who are self-seeking, only want to advance themselves, and have no loyalty to the state or to any kind of positive ideals. That, in turn, tends to produce pretty pathetic military forces.

One need only look at a comparison of the military forces of the western democracies and the arab dictatorships. In the west: We have disciplined, ordered forces that utilize both advanced technology and also very rigourous, demanding training to create a force that dominates the battlefield both tactically and strategically. The ultimate example today of this is the Iraq War (the actual War, not the occupation) which only lasted three weeks. American and British forces were so well coordinated, trained, and deployed, that the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard was essentially given a choice between death at the hands of precision guided munitions and death at the hands of the US and Royal Marines.

On the other hand, the Iraqi army trained niether long nor hard, instead being mired in a culture of paranoia and ambition in which, at any time, anyone could be denounced as a traitor to the Baath party and then tortured and executed. There was no unit loyalty, no respect or strength of character in the officers (who were chosen because of thier political leanings, not thier competence) and no real warfare doctrine to speak of. Despite thier inferior equipment (Iraq was fielding Vietnam and Korean-war era gear) they could still have put up a terrific resistance against the Coalition forces had they simply been highly trained, good quality men, something which does not require advanced technology to create.

But they were not. As a result, the ground and air war was so lopsided that it was ridiculous. We lost more men and machines to weather conditions and friendly fire than to enemy action.

So, no, I don't think that, militarily, the Arab/Muslim world will ever be a threat to the Western world, not on anywhere near the scale that the Communist world was. To be a threat, they'd have to stop being the Arab world, and become something else.

Re: splitting Iraq

[dr-dgo.livejournal.com]

Do not make the mistake of confusing Islam with Arabs. Most, if not all, Arab armies are worthless. One of the greatest of the expansionist generals was Kurd - Saladeen I believe. Pakistan may or may not have a decent army, it certainly takes care of its weapons on its own, unlike the Saudis and a few other tribes.