David Ignatius’ four alarm fire analogy for Iraq provides a good framework for thinking about Iraq.
Maybe we should think like firefighters. They try to save every life they can, but they don’t take crazy risks. When a fire is really roaring, they don’t stand in the middle of the inferno. The potential loss of life is too great, and the likelihood they can stop the fire too small. So they make strategic choices: They try to contain the blaze, letting it burn out in the red-hot center while they hose down nearby buildings and construct firebreaks that can check the fire’s spread.
What’s unimaginable is that a firefighter confronting a dangerous blaze would simply roll up the hoses, jump in the engine and drive away, consequences be damned. He might be furious at the people who caused the fire and frustrated with the first engine company that let it get worse. But those aren’t reasons for abandoning the scene.
Most American politicians are unable to say it out loud, but the ‘people who caused the fire’ are the neoconservatives and a cowardly Congress. In a sense, Ignatius is asking an arsonist to put out the fire he set. But, nonetheless, the analogy is worth considering because it does provide a useful context.
A “firehouse strategy” would make triage decisions. It would deploy U.S. forces so that they aren’t caught in the middle of collapsing walls and blazing timbers. It would emphasize the training of Iraqi forces to fight the blaze. It would build firebreaks so the disaster doesn’t spread to other rooms in the Iraqi house. Most of all, a firehouse strategy would try to keep this sectarian blaze from jumping national boundaries.
The most important thing we can do is to arrest the arsonists. Or at least we should remove them positions of command. Only then will we be able to consider firebreaks and other ways of containing the fire they set. Whether we should have some residual forces in Iraq is debatable. Perhaps they could be useful along the Turkish border. Perhaps they might have other limited uses as firebreaks. But what is not debatable is that we can’t fight this blaze under the leadership of the people that illegally ignited it.
probably the biggest conceit of those cheerleading the “surge”, whatever their particular reasons, is the illusion that getting one more bite of the apple means that the occupation will be finally getting it right this time, whatever that ultimately means. the surge, they insist, will work as long as [ fill in your personal cure-all here ], and as long as we give it time.
the reality of course is that the surge cheerleaders are not in charge. they’re not going to get the chance to run the type of surge they think will finally produce that pony.
the folks in charge are the same criminals, starting with the commander-guy, responsible for the mess-o’-potamia, and they really don’t care what anyone else thinks. and they certainly won’t be applying [ your personal cure-all ] to the problem.
it’s been oft said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, but the real insanity of supporting this escalation is expecting the same idiots, with such a record of failure, to do anything different.
nothing will change as long as they are in charge. which means either another year and a half before even preparing for withdrawal — or impeachment now.
another point:
in this analogy, it is different Iraqi factions that are the actual fuel for the fire. Even US troops (the ostensible firemen) are fuel. Does it make sense to put out a fire by asking the fuel to put it out?
Training burning embers to wield a firehose is impossible. Hiring arsonists to put one out is foolhardy.
Iraq is FUBAR.