A famous general once said that “war is hell,” but many presidents have not truly meditated on this fact. Bush claimed to wrestle with his conscience over the issue of war, which he said he saw as necessary for the safety of the “homeland,” while at the same time sending American men and women into battle without adequate planning. To my conservative friends I say this: Bush mismanaged the Iraq war at the outset and the proof is in his tacit admission of failure when he fired Donald Rumsfeld, SecDef at the time, when he handed over command to Army General David Petraeus, and when he authorized the “surge” strategy. I scatter blame on the initial mismanagement on the Bush team proper, the Democratic Party, the anti-war movement, and the media.

• The Bush team deserves by far the most blame: did not plan for contingencies, did not secure the border, did not send enough troops, did not take steps to marginalize Iran (or at least get them to play ball), did not prepare enough to contain ethnic tensions, and most importantly, allowed Al-Qaeda to infiltrate Iraq. By any measure, Bush mismanaged the war. To his/their credit, they completely changed their strategy and started to win the war after 2006… far too late for my tastes since it discredited the idea of preemptive strikes (which may be necessary in cases where mass casualties would result, though America must be exceedingly careful in verifying the accuracy of its intelligence), it set up Iran as a more powerful regional player, and it diverted resources from securing Afghanistan for too long (we could have secured Iraq earlier and diverted troops to secure Afghanistan and helped Pakistan deal with Al-Qaeda/Taliban).

• The Democratic Party, instead of advocating a more sane strategy, pushed for complete withdrawal and kept insisting that the Iraq war was unnecessary. They played politics with the Iraq war rather than contributing to helping steer the war in the right direction. Democrat Senate Majority even declared that the “war is lost” . Democratic Senator John Kerry even insinuated that soldiers in Iraq were unintelligent and/or lazy, demonstrating the general lack of support for the brave men and women serving in Iraq. Constant talk of withdrawal at that time, when IED’s, suicide bombings, and guerrilla ambushes on American soldiers were routine occurrences, was tantamount to surrender. Of course after the surge, both parties and some of the media have finally admitted that there is definite progress in Iraq.

• The anti-war movement for being even more feverish in their support of unconditional withdrawal (aka surrender). They have the right to protest and express their opinion on how we should back down from the Iraq fight… but a dialogue on the best way out would have been better than chanting “Bush lied, people died.” I am being overly simplistic, but their insistence on withdrawal only (for example the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition) and bundling their cause with the Socialist Agenda (they are sister organizations with “The Party for Socialism and Liberation”) was not the best way to get their point across, in my opinion… and by the way, down with Communism (especially Castro, both of them).

• The mainstream media, in an effort to redeem themselves for being so “instrumental” in bringing us to war, did an about face and started to portray the Iraq war as a failed effort. It’s true that prior to the invasion it was biased in favor of war (also here), but in the 6 years since, we have experienced a constant barrage of negativity. A Gallup poll shows that most people believe that the news is overly negative and the positive news out of Iraq has been filtered out (some, not all). This can be confirmed by googling “iraq” and checking the news. Oddly enough, if one were to google “iraq elections” or “iraq surge” you get more balanced reporting from the media, which cannot easily deny the facts on the ground: progress is being made. Even Obama agreed that the surge worked (of course he had to criticize parts of it). He’s even planning a “surge” in Afghanistan.

Who I don’t blame for our missteps in the Iraq war are those brave Republicans who broke with the party line and advocated a more sane strategy in Iraq and military leaders who were honest in their assessment of what we needed for victory, such as Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham, General Eric Shinseki, General Norman Schwarzkopf, and the list goes on.

Afghanistan is another issue. Thus far, the Afghanistan war has been a success, particularly in terms of the initial reasons for going in: remove Al Qaeda, defeat the Taliban, and not allow Al Qaeda to resume its training and planning operations in Afghanistan. Another goal of the Bush administration was to establish a democratic government, but if that has any hope of succeeding it must be an Afghan version of “democracy,” rather than a western one. On the military front, both the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been forced to relocate to the ungoverned regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, but have been launching guerrilla and terrorist attacks across the border, similar to the strategy employed by the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese in Laos and Cambodia. History repeats itself. America’s inability to invade Pakistan and root out the enemy has left the responsibility of defeating America’s enemies in the hands of Pakistan. From all indications, Pakistan has not been and is not being as serious as they need to be in order to take out Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Enter Obama. The current administration intends to withdraws some troops from Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan in what has been described as Obama’s “surge.” Obama must avoid the mistakes the Bush administration and reflect on that maxim “war is hell”… … particularly with regards to the number of troops and Pakistani involvement. Hopefully, Obama will listen to the generals carefully and give them all the tools they need to succeed as quickly as possibly… U.S. public opinion turns against wars the longer they last. On the whole it seems that Obama’s plan is very similar (at least in general theory) to Bush’s strategy, even his speech sounded Bush-esque. Unfortunately, one policy that has been retained is increasing the amount of aid to the Pakistani government. Bush has spent $10 billion already and Obama plans on spending more. Much of the aid has already been squandered or “lost” by a corrupt Pakistani government. Essentially, to root out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, America must provide a big enough incentive for Pakistan to help us and to give up aid before they make any progress is sort of putting the cart before the horse. We cannot afford to destabilize Pakistan, but at the end of the day, we need a push (pressure), pull (incentive), and implementation strategy in order to get them moving. By implementation I mean using our resources and expertise in helping the Pakistan government launch a campaign that explains to the Pakistani people the urgent need and benefits of helping root out terror groups. We should mobilize Pakistani politicians, religious figures, nationalists, and activists who also believe that if Pakistan is destabilized by the Taliban or Al Qaeda, then catastrophe will ensue… and we shouldn’t forget to remind them that there’s another party out there that may be interested in Pakistan’s implosion: India.

-AG