The Marines as diplomats

There's a great comment on a post over at Tim Blair's that I have to put up in it's entirety. The topic is about those that supported the war in Iraq who are now doubting it for one reason or another. He has an interesting interpretation of what the Americans are doing that I haven't read elsewhere.

I'm not only still a hawk, in your terms, I'm one of the few who is gratified by the way the war is going, and the only thing I don't like is that people are abandoning Bush for doing it right.

The function of this battle -- and it's a battle, perhaps a campaign, not a war -- is not to provide the Marines and the Airborne with more battle ribbons, nor is it to make American troops look ferocious, nor is it to make America look good. The function of the battle in Iraq is to produce an Iraq that's a real, working country with a polity and an economy, instead of a rump-end of the Ottoman Empire arbitrarily whacked off by British surveyors and diplomats.

The Iraqis have to do that themselves. Not because we don't want to, but because we can't -- it's as close to a physical impossibility as sociology ever can be.

If we give the Iraqis the "security" they want and need, we're stuck. We become, in fact, the New Ba'ath, more indulgent and with nicer policies but still the ones who are running things, and having to keep it up forever. Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day -- and comes back tomorrow for another one.

Details differ, but if you look at Iraq the way I (and Wretchard the Cat) do, the policy is consistent: bash the uprisings and simultaneously recruit, form, and train Iraqi forces until the uprisings are little enough for the Iraqis to smash. Fallujah is an American triumph. So is Najaf -- not because American forces defeated the "insurgents" but because they did not: the Iraqis did. And the most important part of it is that there are Iraqis looking at one another with amazed expressions and saying, "By Allah the wise and merciful, we can do this!" The second most important thing is that the resulting solution, however tenuous, is an Iraqi solution in terms of Iraqi society, instead of being imposed by an outside force on its terms without any really deep understanding of the society it's nailed on top of. We don't want to be the ones who defeat the "insurgents." What we want to do is hold the Iraqis' coats while they defeat the insurgents.

Bush is OK, and he can handle his enemies, but God (Allah to Zeus, take your pick) help him get past his supposed supporters, especially the ones who think it would have been cool for the Marines or the 82nd Airborne to go through Fallujah like a Taco Supreme through Michael Moore, and that the Army should have flattened every mosque in Najaf and massacred the survivors -- and bitch that the Administration is being "soft on the Islamics" because that didn't happen.

Get a f*ing clue. The Marines say, "every Marine a rifleman." All that's happening is that they're adding a qualification: "...and diplomat," and by available evidence they're better at it than anybody in the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne concession down Foggy Bottom. Just because it doesn't mean they get to stack dead enemies like cordwood and post the photos on the net doesn't mean they didn't win. And abandoning Bush because his tactics don't always result in mondo explosions and blood running in the streets is f*ing contemptible. Among other things it says the Leftists are right about you. Bunch of murderous imperialists who get all huffy when Feerless Leeder isn't murderous or imperialist enough for you.

Regards,
Ric Locke

There's lots of other insightful comments (as well as a few dumbass ones) on the thread as well.

Posted by Bruce Gottfred at May 30, 2004 11:07 AM | TrackBack