Defeatest Howard Dean Says US Troops Can't Win

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Your attitude is more of the same-o lib inability to see the nuances in military/geo-political situations and apply an appropriate, even if not perfect, strategy. Any military action that lasts more than 3 months obviously must be wrong. Tell that to the insurgents whose objective is to allow us to defeat ourselves by losing our will and withdrawing before the Iraqi government is capable of handling the situation on its own so that they can impose a non-democratic government on their fellow Iraqis.

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The idea that "the insurgency" will impose a non-democracy on Iraq if we leave is incredibly simplistic and ignorant. The insurgency is made up of many, many different groups. Some Shiite islamists, some sunni saddamists, and a small minority of outside terrorists (these are the suicide bombers). Their fight has been waged under the banner of "resistance" to an occupation and they have often worked together in this fight.

Do you seriously suggest that these diverse groups, ideologically different in many ways, will manage to stay cohesive following a full US withdraw next year AND mount a coup over a government which according to Bush controls 100+ army batalions? EVEN with an over the horizon marine presense left in Kuwait?

The idea is so ridiculous. The presence of the US keeps the insurgency together. The absense of the US will be different for every insurgency group, its hard to say what they will do:
A) Saddamists might shift to trying to take over the government (gl with that) or actaully negotiate with them,
B) Shiites may try to cooperate with the Shiite lead gov which now appears much less collaborative with no US troops around (hard to believe that many of these guys will continue to attack the government),
C) the outsider terrorists may either declare the Iraqi govornment is still colaberating with the US and continue to fight the government with suicide bombing OR they may declare victory in expusion of US troops and try to gain a foothold in Iraq via negotiation (gl with that)

Once we withdraw, there is no doubt the terrorists will declare victory. I hate to break it to them: our goal of regime change was achieved; our goal was never to control the country indefinitely or secure dominance of their oil. Of course, this is assuming we do withdraw and these are not in fact our goals!

What scares me is the talk of "victory" which almost implies that we need to stay until the insurgency is completely subdued. Clearly, this is impossible with the US there and killing terrorists and insurgents itself is not reasonable justification for sticking around if withdrawing will marginalize them. This implies our goals has not been achieved since Bush has some other goals in mind, perhaps to draw this out and secure our interests in the Middle East with a few garrisons in Iraq. This is where comments like "we can't win" (Dean) and "we can't do much more in Iraq" (Mertha) come from, they respond to Bush statements that we will "stay the course", "stay till the job is done" etc. Because if our goal is to completely subsue the insurgency, then I agree with Dean: "we can't win!"

We are almost at the point where our presence is not enhancing the Iraqi governement prospects for stability and legitimacy. If we stay until 2008, will the Iraqi government really have a better chance of sucess than if we withdraw in 2006? I don't think so, the governemnt will be older of course but on the other hand every day of US troops about worsens the perception that they are collaborating with western imperialism. Two, three, or five more years of US presence will lead to: more insurgents dead, more terrorists dead, more innocent Iraqis dead, and more Americans dead. Doesn't seem worth it when our goal is achieved (right?) and withdraw clearly spells the end for the insurgency as we know it.