Obviously, we already know that some of his remarks to other audiences have had a somewhat different tone, but when Ezra Klein asked John Edwards about Iran, the former senator gave a good answer. Edwards also recommended this recent Thomas Friedman column which I have to agree is pretty good.
White House Disputes CBO Report, Says Combat Troops Don’t Need More Support
A new study by the Congressional Budget Office shows that the real troop increase associated with President Bush’s escalation policy could be as high as 48,000, more than double the 21,500 soldiers that Bush has claimed.
Last night on MSNBC, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman reported that White House counsellor Dan Bartlett had written him in an email, “[W]e don’t agree with the CBO estimate and analysis. We think that there are already enough support troops on the ground there that very few will be required.” Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/02/fineman.320.240.flv]
In fact, the CBO report considers Bartlett’s claim and rejected it. “Army and DoD officials have indicated that it will be both possible and desirable to deploy fewer additional support units than historical practice would indicate,” the report states. “CBO expects that, even if the additional brigades required fewer support units than historical practice suggests, those units would still represent a significant additional number of military personnel.”
Fineman added that if the administration is going to “flat-out deny” the CBO report, “then the question’s going to be, ok, if it’s not 15,000, how many is it? And where are your plans for actually knowing how many people you are putting in there? It undermines the whole notion that they know precisely what they are doing at this moment.”
Transcript: Read more
Lessons Unlearned
Ezra makes very good points here, though I think one should be a little more careful with language. I don’t want Democratic leaders to just become generically “anti-war” (whatever that might mean) any more than I want them to merely draw a narrow lesson like “don’t invade countries whose names include a “q” on odd numbered years.” One needs to really think about what the right way to deal with the world is. A couple of days ago, Francis Fukuyama had a quick statement of a few key morals of the story:
American military doctrine has emphasised the use of overwhelming force, applied suddenly and decisively, to defeat the enemy. But in a world where insurgents and militias deploy invisibly among civilian populations, overwhelming force is almost always counterproductive: it alienates precisely those people who have to make a break with the hardcore fighters and deny them the ability to operate freely. The kind of counterinsurgency campaign needed to defeat transnational militias and terrorists puts political goals ahead of military ones, and emphasises hearts and minds over shock and awe.
A second lesson that should have been drawn from the past five years is that preventive war cannot be the basis of a long-term US nonproliferation strategy. The Bush doctrine sought to use preventive war against Iraq as a means of raising the perceived cost to would-be proliferators of approaching the nuclear threshold. Unfortunately, the cost to the US itself was so high that it taught exactly the opposite lesson: the deterrent effect of American conventional power is low, and the likelihood of preventive war actually decreases if a country manages to cross that threshold.
I’m not sure why it should be so hard for political leaders to articulate a couple of points along these lines with regard to the Iran issue.
NIE Undermines Administration Claim That Iran Is ‘Igniting’ Violence In Iraq
The Bush administration has repeatedly claimed that Iran is responsible for the surging violence in Iraq. But on multiple occasions, the Bush administration has “ordered a delay in publication of evidence” to support its claim. U.S. allies who have seen the evidence said that it “still falls short of an airtight case.”
In an inteview with CNN yesterday, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said that Iran is “stoking” and “igniting” sectarian violence in Iraq. But he was unable to actually offer any such evidence. Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/02/burnsiran.320.240.flv]
Today’s new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) explains why Iran is not a driving force behind Iraq’s violence:
Iraq’s neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq’s internal sectarian dynamics. Nonetheless, Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq.
The NIE acknowledges that Iran is trying to cause trouble. But it also notes that sectarian violence — not Iranian support — is the most immediate threat. Moreover, as the New York Times wrote yesterday, “more threats and posturing are unlikely to get Iran to back down. If Mr. Bush isn’t careful, he could end up talking himself into another disastrous war, and if Congress is not clear in opposing him this time, he could drag the country along.”
Transcript: Read more
BREAKING: Iraq National Intelligence Estimate Released
The key judgments of the long-delayed Iraq National Intelligence Estimate have been released. Read them HERE. Below, some important findings:
The term “civil war” “accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict,” though it “does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict”:
The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.
Iran is “not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability”:
Iraq’s neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq’s internal sectarian dynamics. Nonetheless, Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq.
The overall security situation “will continue to deteriorate” in next 12-18 months Read more
You Don’t Say
“Iraq at Risk of Further Strife, Intelligence Report Warns”.
That’s a bang-up job by the intelligence community and the Washington Post alike. The declassified version of the report should be available to us peons here very soon.
