by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n T<\/b>his was not Churchill, not FDR, and not JFK Wednesday night, and there was not quite enough about winning and victory \u2014 but the content was still good enough.<\/p>\n Many of us were skeptical of a surge\/bump\/increase for an obvious reason: Our military problems in Iraq have been tactical and strategic (too-slow training too few Iraqis, arrest\/release of terrorists, too many targets off limits, patrolling in lieu of attacking, worry over our own force protection rather than securing the safety of Iraqi citizens, open borders with Syria and Iran, etc.) \u2014 and not a shortage of manpower.<\/p>\n So the increase \u2014 no one knows whether the 20,000 number is adequate \u2014 could make things far worse by offering more targets and creating more Iraqi dependency if we don\u2019t change our operations. But if the surge ups the ante by bringing a radical new approach on the battlefield as the president promises, then it is worth his gamble.<\/p>\n All the requisite points were made by the president, almost as if were quoting verbatim Gen. David Petraeus\u2019s insightful summaries of counterinsurgency warfare \u2014 an Iraqi face on operations, economic stimuli, clear mission of clearing terrorists out of Baghdad, political reform, a \u201cgreen-light\u201d to go after killers \u2014 while addressing the necessary regional concerns with Syria and Iran.<\/p>\n W<\/span>ill these \u201cbenchmarks\u201d work? Only if the Maliki government is honest when he promises that there will be no sanctuaries for the militias and terrorists. So when the killing of terrorists causes hysteria \u2014 and it will, both in Iraq and back here at home \u2014 the Iraqi-American units must escalate their operations rather than stand down.<\/p>\n The American people will support success and an effort to win, whatever the risks, but not stasis. We saw that with the silent approval of Ethiopia\u2019s brutal rout of the Islamists in Somalia, and our own attack on al Qaeda there.<\/p>\n The subtext of the president\u2019s speech was that our sacrifices to offer freedom and constitutional government are the only solution for the Middle East \u2014 but that our commitments are not open-ended if the Iraqis themselves don\u2019t want success as much as we do.<\/p>\n But why believe that this latest gamble will work? First, things are by agreement coming to a head: this new strategy will work, or, given the current politics, nothing will. Second, the Iraqis in government know this time Sadr City and Baghdad are to be secured, or it is to be \u201csee ya, wouldn\u2019t want to be ya,\u201d \u00a0and they will be on planes to Dearborn. Finally, note the pathetic Democratic reply by Sen. Durbin, last in the public eye for his libel of American troops (as analogous to \u201cNazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime \u2014 Pol Pot or others\u201d). There was no response.<\/p>\n Durbin simply assumed credit for the Bush policy of deposing Saddam, fostering democracy, and then blamed the Iraqis and said enough was enough. Not a word followed about the effects of a rapid withdrawal. In other words, the Democratic policy is that anything good in Iraq they supported, anything bad they opposed. And they will now harp yet do nothing \u2014 except whine in fear the surge might actually work.<\/p>\n So where does that leave us? All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City and our courageous Americans fighting in them. If they are allowed to rout the terrorists, all will trumpet their victory; if we fail, President Bush alone will take the blame.<\/p>\n In other words, as in all wars, the pulse of the battlefield will determine the ensuing politics. So let\u2019s win in pursuit of victory, and everything else will sort itself out.<\/p>\n \u00a92007 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online This was not Churchill, not FDR, and not JFK Wednesday night, and there was not quite enough about winning and victory \u2014 but the content was still good enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[762],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-XT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3719,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/stasis-or-victory\/","url_meta":{"origin":3713,"position":0},"title":"Stasis or Victory?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A surge in troops will fail miserable unless we correct past laxity. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There are troop surges,\u00a0and then there are troop surges, in military history. Some radically alter the calculus of the battlefield. Others simply add to the stasis and sense of quagmire, ending\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Janurary 2007"","block_context":{"text":"Janurary 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/janurary-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3517,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hope-yet-for-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":3713,"position":1},"title":"Hope Yet for Iraq","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Iraq for most Americans is now a toxic subject \u2014 best either ignored or largely evoked to blame someone for something in the past. Any visitor to Iraq can see that the American military cannot be defeated there, but also\u00a0is puzzled over exactly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2007"","block_context":{"text":"October 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/october-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-tale-of-two-surges\/","url_meta":{"origin":3713,"position":2},"title":"A Tale of Two Surges","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services From 2007 to 2009, a surge of 20,000 troops under the generalship of David Petraeus saved a mostly lost war in Iraq. Petraeus\u2019s counterinsurgency doctrine helped win over the population, as the surge in troops gave greater security to Iraq\u2019s government and military.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3563,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/post-surge-dialectics\/","url_meta":{"origin":3713,"position":3},"title":"Post-Surge Dialectics","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The larger question that will await General Petraeus is not just the tempo of the surge per se \u2014 after all, given the efficacy of the U.S. military it can pretty much do what it wishes if it is willing to invest sufficient amounts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2007"","block_context":{"text":"August 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/august-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":543,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iraqi-irony\/","url_meta":{"origin":3713,"position":4},"title":"Iraqi Irony","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Amid all the stories about the ongoing violence in Syria, the most disturbing is the possibility that President Bashar Assad could either deploy the arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that his government claims it has, or provide it to terrorists. There are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1695,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/so-what-happened-to-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":3713,"position":5},"title":"So What Happened to Iraq?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Six years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Ayad Allawi, then prime minister of the appointed Iraqi Interim Government, was a puppet of the United States. Last month, though, the Allawi-led Iraqiya alliance won, by a narrow margin, more parliamentary seats than any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2010"","block_context":{"text":"April 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/april-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3714,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions\/3714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}