'Fight in Iraq Vital to Stopping Iran'

George W. Bush strongly defended his Iraq policy in a press conference Thursday, warning that a swift American withdrawal would threaten allies in the region and strengthen forces calling for Israel's destruction.

"The fight in Iraq is part of a broader struggle that's unfolding across the region," he said, singling out groups including Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and countries including Syria and Iran. "The same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe Israel off the map is also providing sophisticated IEDs [improvised explosive devices] to extremists in Iraq who are using them to kill American soldiers," he told reporters at the White House as part of an assessment on the situation in Iraq. "All these extremist groups would be emboldened by a precipitous American withdrawal, which would confuse and frighten friends and allies in the region,"

Tigerhawk weighs in regarding the timing of any retreat from Iraq: "the editors of the Washington Post are more intellectually honest than their colleagues at the New York Times:

We agree with Mrs. Clinton that President Bush has been guilty of "wishful thinking" on Iraq. When he was promoting his surge policy at the beginning of this year, we said Iraq's political leadership was unlikely to accept compromises any time soon. It was predictable, therefore, that Mr. Bush's benchmarks would not be met and that within a few months the policy he put forward without popular or congressional support would become even more difficult to sustain.But his wishful thinking can't excuse, even if it helps explain, the wishful thinking on the other side. Advocates of withdrawal would like to believe that Afghanistan is now a central front in the war on terror but that Iraq is not; believing that doesn't make it so. They would like to minimize the chances of disaster following a U.S. withdrawal: of full-blown civil war, conflicts spreading beyond Iraq's borders, or genocide. They would have us believe that someone or something will ride to the rescue: the United Nations, an Islamic peacekeeping force, an invigorated diplomatic process. They like to say that by withdrawing U.S. troops, they will "end the war."Conditions in Iraq today are terrible, but they could become "way, way worse," as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, a career Foreign Service officer, recently told the New York Times. If American men and women were dying in July in a clearly futile cause, it would indeed be immoral to wait until September to order their retreat. But given the risks of withdrawal, the calculus cannot be so simple.

The generals who have devised a new strategy believe they are making fitful progress in calming Baghdad, training the Iraqi army and encouraging anti-al-Qaeda coalitions. Before Congress begins managing rotation schedules and ordering withdrawals, it should at least give those generals the months they asked for to see whether their strategy can offer some new hope.

Even ignoring the obvious electoral considerations (no Democratic presidential candidate wants to explain what he or she would do about Iraq if elected), there are spoken and unspoken arguments for withdrawing from Iraq. One version of the spoken argument for a rapid withdrawal is that our presence in Iraq is making the situation worse, not better. Another version is that even if there may be a small chance of a benefit in continuing to fight in Iraq, the cost of doing so in human and financial terms (including for these purposes the opportunities lost because of the "distraction") is not worth that small benefit multiplied by the probability of achieving it.Both of these arguments depend on something of a leap of faith, as does the counterargument that the total costs of retreat will far exceed the costs of remaining.

Both sides, in effect, are asking that we believe. The advocates of retreat have more supporters because they are asking that we take a risk in return for a certain benefit -- fewer American casualties and lower costs today. The retreatists also have more credibility than the Bush administration, which has made one incorrect prediction after another since before the war began.The problem, of course, is that retreat also allows for the possibility of genuine catastrophe, not just in Iraq but in the region. That risk has to be weighed against the costs of continuing the fight, which after four years are pretty well-defined. We know that compared to our national income and population, the costs of remaining in Iraq are relatively low.

In both human and financial terms, Iraq has been and will probably continue to be an inexpensive war for America to shoulder.1The fact that we are faced with this choice should make supporters of the war -- including me -- wonder whether they were right to entrust this enterprise to George W. Bush. As of July 2007, it certainly looks as though history will judge us to have erred. The original sin of having invaded Iraq or having mismanaged the occupation does not, however, tell us how we should decide our next move.

The answer to that depends on whether you believe that the presence of American soldiers in Iraq is making the situation there worse. If you believe that, you are obviously in favor of immediate withdrawal. If, however, you are unwilling to say that American troops are making the situation worse, then the case for immediate withdrawal requires that you believe that things will not get seriously worse in some way that hurts our interests more than the costs of continuing the fight.

Since I believe that American troops are not making the situation worse and that there is a tragically high probability of a humanitarian or geopolitical disaster if we withdraw, I support the waging of a sustained and thoughtful counterinsurgency.This thinking does point the way toward a line of questions for any supporter of immediate withdrawal. Do you believe that the American presence in Iraq is making the situation there worse? If so, why? If not, what do you believe the consequences will be of American withdrawal? If you say it will be catastrophic, what then is your reason for the withdrawal? I

f you say it will not be catastrophic, why is it that you have so little confidence in the ability of the government of Iraq to govern?At this point, most supporters of withdrawal argue that the government of Iraq is ineffective because the various players know they will not have to do the hard work of compromise until they are truly at the brink, and they will not be at the brink until the United States withdraws, or credibily threatens to withdraw.Perhaps there is truth in this argument, but it strikes me as unlikely.

The government of Iraq is riven by differences, but its politicians have labored on under extremely difficult circumstances and at great risk to life and limb. It may well be that there is no coalition in today's Iraq that can govern both effectively and inclusively. Perhaps one group of strong men will have to beat the others into submission.That leads to one of the unspoken arguments for withdrawal, the one that no "anti-war" activist -- or the New York Times -- will admit: if the United States leaves, so will the reporters. Western concern with Iraq's intramural fighting will return to the disinterest with which we usually regard domestic wars in the Arab world. Even (or especially) the left simply will not care what happens. Then the Iraqis can truly get about the business of killing each other with the violence necessary to crush dissent quickly, rather than doing the patient work required to fight a counterinsurgency the Western way."_____________________________________________

1. Total defense spending, including Iraq, remains a much smaller proportion of GDP than it was even during the 1980s, much less the height of the Cold War. Casualties remain low, even including the seriously wounded. Yes, it is "stretching" our military, but only because in the recent reorganization of our military we guessed the next war would look like the Gulf War rather than Vietnam or the Phillipines. We could fix that, and should.

VDH also analyzes the Times editorial and the war discussion more generally. Greatly worth reading.