Anthony Cordesman on the Iraq War

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is one of the US' leading military analysts. He's already published one book on the Iraq War. He's clearly working on another. And CSIS has been keeping various updates of the work-in-progress on their Web site. The last version as of 03/23/06 runs to 327 pages: Iraq's Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War. But a lot of the most recent information is included in the 26-page executive summary. I've been saying that Cordesman is a supporter of Bush's "stay the course" policy, and that still seems to be true. But if the executive summary is any measure, his support is now half-hearted, if that.

For me, almost every paragraph of the 26 pages is worth quoting in a blog post. But for now, I'll just use these. Cordesman thinks the chance of the US losing is still even. But he also knows who's in charge of our war effort. So you don't have to scrutinize between the lines too closely to see that he realizes the thing is lost:

There is a grimmer lesson from the evolution of the insurgency in Iraq. It is a lesson that goes firmly against the American grain, but it is a natural corollary of limited war. If the course of the political and military struggle shows the US that it cannot achieve the desired grand strategic outcome, it needs to accept the fact that the US must find ways to terminate a counterinsurgency war. Defeat, withdrawal, and acceptance of an outcome less than victory are never desirable in limited war, but they are always acceptable. For all the arguments about prestige, trust, and deterrence, there is no point in pursuing a limited conflict when it becomes more costly than the objective is worth or when the probability of achieving that objective becomes too low. (my emphasis)

Those latter two points, the costs of victory compared to the value of winning and the probability of achieving success, are two main elements of the Christian theory of the Just War going back to St. Augustine.

When you've got serious military analysts talking this way, in this case one who has supported the war and still manages to support Bush's "stay the course" approach, why, why, why do the Democrats have to act so tame about this thing? I genuinely don't understand it.

He continues:

This is a lesson that goes against American culture. The whole idea that the US can be defeated is no more desirable for Americans than for anyone else, in fact, almost certainly less so. But when the US lost in Vietnam it not only lived with the reality, it ultimately did not suffer from it. When the US failed in Lebanon and Haiti, it failed at almost no perceptible cost. Exiting Somalia was not without consequences, but they were scarcely critical.

Cordesman clearly does not mean that no one suffered from the Vietnam War. He means that it did not damage our national interest in any significant way. He has some brief but insightful comments on Vietnam in the executive summary.

This does not mean that the US should not stay in Iraq as long as it has a good chance of achieving acceptable objectives at an acceptable cost. But, it does mean that the US can afford to lose in Iraq, particularly for reasons that are frankly beyond its control and which the world will recognize as such. There is no point in "staying the course" through a major Iraqi civil war, a catastrophic breakdown of the political process, or a government coming to power that simply asks us to leave. In all three cases, it isn't a matter of winning or losing, but instead, facing a situation where conditions no longer exist for staying. (my emphasis)

Cordesman, as I said, from his analytical perspective judges that there is still an even chance of "winning". But for us regular citizens, I would say the game is up. Bush and Rummy lost their war. The real question is whether they can find a way to get out before the country disintegrates as a consequence of civil war and/or an expansion into regional war.

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