Goldberg v. Cole: Battle Royale

For the last couple of days I've been following an ongoing debate between Jonah Goldberg of the National Review, and Juan Cole of "Informed Comment". Apparantly Professor Cole took exception to Goldberg's commentary on Iraq (read it here) and it's gone downhill from there. So I decided to throw in my two cents by writing an email to Goldberg to respond to his original Iraq column(since getting a personal response from Max Boot, I've held out hope someone else might reply), which I'm posting here. I know using an email as a blog entry is kind of cheating-it allows me to write a specific response and a blog entry at the same time without actually having to write a real blog entry-but it's a worthy topic. Enjoy.

====

Mr. Goldberg-

I saw the link to your column from Juan Cole's website(yes, I've heard of him but don't automatically count me out)and though frankly I think either of you hijacking your own column/blog to snipe at each other short-changes the rest of us, I do think that perhaps you might be interested in a laymen's response to your column on Iraq. I for one am lacking in the vast store of knowledge Professor Cole posseses which you seem to regard as a detriment, but I'm also lacking in a national forum in which to espouse my views like yourself, which I consider a detriment. So, I thought it might be interesting to give it a try.

Yes, 45 dead is not "peanuts", and yes Ms.Lorch sounds a like a chicken little with that comment, always looking for the sky to be falling. But I don't think Ms. Lorch was trying to say that 45 dead meant the elections were a failure. Rather, that despite the general peacefulness of the elections, the insurgents continued and shall continue their attacks unabated. Somewhere between the sight of conservative pundits praising the success of the election(and GOP politicians dipping their fingers in ink as if they had anything in common with the average Iraqi who braved death to vote), and anti-war pundits trying vainly to point out that people still died, lies the truth, which is that the insurgency continues as ferociously as it did before, and Iraqis are still dying daily.

Second, it's a cheap tactic to attribute an argument to someone then attack that argument, rather then what they actually are saying. Kennedy and Moore have never, to my knowledge, said that because there are no WMDS we need to get out. Rather, they said we never should have been there in the first place, because they didn't trust this administration on the issue of WMDs. They were right, which many conservative pundits refuse to admit by simply changing the rationale for us invading in the first place. Their current position is also more complex then you give them credit for. They, and others, believe that we cannot fix Iraq, and since we cannot we should leave now and spare ourselves further pain and loss. To rebut this claim you must either provide some evidence that Iraq can be fixed, which would be belied by the mistaken assumptions that neo-cons and conservatives have had about nearly every aspect of the war from it's beginning. Or, you must argue that we are honor-bound to see through our commitments, which you do, and which I happen to agree with. Unfortunately for that position there is the evidence of Vietnam, where we stayed for honor, lost more men dead, more credibility in the eyes of the world, and lost South Vietnam anyway. Such historical precedent is difficult to argue with, and you should give the anti-war crowd the credit for making the valid point that perhaps the extra loss isn't worth "honor."

You're also correct that some failures in Iraq are to some extent overplayed, but I would argue so are many of the "successes" that you speak of. Unfortunately for conservatives, precedent supports the pessimists. Since the beginning the Bush administration and conservative pundits have played up every little success as the "turning point" at which Iraq would begin to become first a stable country, then a unified nation. Those claims are belied quite obviously by the reality, which is that suicide bombings and attacks on Iraqi and American soldiers continue to grow in both intensity and number. If the setbacks, such as the failure to secure Fallujah during the first siege, or the failure of the insurgency to abate after the second, or the suicide bombing at an American base in Mosul, are greeted with gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair among liberal pundits, then they are greeted no less by worried anxiety among the general American public, who everyday see the toll of killings increase despite the administration's general claim of progress.

Lastly, it is far too soon to claim that the elections were a success. In a narrower sense they were, in that many millions of Iraqis were able to go to the polls and vote, and it did confer some legitimacy on the political process in Iraq, even with American soldiers patrolling the streets and invading Iraqi homes looking for insurgents. But Cole and others never argued that success or failure could be measured by how many Iraqis showed up to vote. Rather, he argued that it might be measured by how many Sunnis showed up to vote, and thus far the evidence is that a much smaller percentage of Sunnies showed up to vote then Shiites.Thus Iraq will have a government which confers power mostly on the Shia, less so on the Kurds, and even less on the Sunnis who most believe are providing most of the popular support for the insurgency. It is too early to say whether the Sunnis will see the election as a wake-up call to begin participating, or confirmation of their worst fears and a reason to fight even harder. Only time will tell...time in which more Iraqis and Americans will continue to die. So let's not be hasty in calling it a "success" just yet. The word has lost enough meaning in this war as it is.

That's my take on the matter. And as an aside, I think a debate is a fine idea, with no conditions on who can say what. As long as Cole can avoid beating you over the head with arcane knowledge of Iranian politics, and you can avoid beating him over the head with arcane knowledge of American politics, it might actually be worth something.

Thank you for your time.