DISPATCHES: More of the same, four years in

The president asks for paticence as Iraq continues its downward spiral.

By: Hank Kalet
   President George W. Bush is asking for patience.
   In a speech Monday recognizing the fourth anniversary of his mistake in Iraq, the president continued his pipe-dream approach to a conflict we had no reason to enter:
   "Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won," he said. "It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through."
   Courage and resolve? We’ve had four years of resolve that have resulted in more than 3,200 dead American soldiers — along with thousands who have sustained debilitating injuries — and thousands upon thousands of Iraqis killed in combat and by the chaos that has come to replace Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime.
   "What is the difference between the beginning of the war and now?" Susan Niederer asked in an e-mail this week. Ms. Niederer’s 24-year-old son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, a graduate of South Brunswick High School, was killed by a roadside bomb in 2004 and she has been participating in antiwar rallies since — including one Tuesday in New Brunswick. "Nothing. What has changed? Nothing."
   And yet, the president says that more patience is in order, that we must avoid the temptation "to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home."
   "That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating," he said. "If American forces were to step back from Baghdad before it is more secure, a contagion of violence could spill out across the entire country. In time, this violence could engulf the region."
   I’d like to believe that our presence in Iraq may lead to greater security. But the evidence is just not there. Various reports from the region — from sources unaffiliated with the administration — have indicated that the so-called surge has forced the insurgents underground, but only temporarily.
   That has created an illusion of calm, they say, even as the many bombings continue. The Guardian of London on Tuesday reported that "six people were killed and 30 injured in a car bomb blast in a Shia suburb" on Monday, a day on which "24 corpses were found in different parts of the city."
   And The New York Times reported on Wednesday that "Insurgents detonated a bomb in a car with two children in it after using the children as decoys to get through a military checkpoint in Baghdad" — a story that shows the depths to which the combatants are willing to sink.
   And then there is the question of whether our presence is acting as a catalyst — which is the point H.D.S. Greenway made The Boston Globe last week.
   "When the president and surge proponents talk about restoring law and order to Baghdad, they underestimate the fact that it is the very presence of American soldiers themselves who are sparking the resistance, and thus the chaotic conditions in which criminals can operate, and militias appear to be the population’s only salvation," he wrote. "Americans may try to do their jobs humanely, but the nature of their business is coercive, brutal, and ultimately counterproductive."
   This is the backdrop against which the American presence is being debated, with supporters of an increased troop presence claiming that increased numbers will mean increased security, which in turn will allow the Iraqis to stabilize their government.
   Obviously, I’m no expert on this. But nearly every counterinsurgency expert I’ve come across — whether on TV, the radio or in print — has said the same thing. To stabilize Iraq would require far more troops than the United States would be willing to commit — probably, two, three, four times as many as we have there now — and far more time than the American public will stomach — perhaps as much as 10 years. And it will take a hard turn into the kind of behavior that is inconsistent with our sense of what America stands for.
   Instead, we get a surge that is likely to do little more than prolong the conflict — and may just exacerbate it, drawing the Kurds into what has primarily been a Sunni-Shiite civil war. We’re talking about more American and Iraqi deaths and injuries and a further loss of American standing in the Middle East if we stay.
   So, forgive me for a lack of patience.
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. He can be reached via e-mail by clicking here. His blog, Channel Surfing, can be found at www.kaletblog.com.