Big Sticks and Small Carrots

Michael Ledeen, resident scholar at Bush administration’s favourite think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, has just released a book. It’s called “The Iranian Time Bomb”.

I’ve not read it and have no intention of lining the man’s pockets by buying a copy but I have read this review in the NYT (via a post well worth reading in full by Barnet Rubin). Here’s the paragraph which particularly caught my eye:

“The Iranian Time Bomb” has its strengths. On the topic of Iran’s repression of women and ethnic minorities, for instance, it is genuinely moving. But Ledeen’s effort to lay virtually every attack by Muslims against Americans at Tehran’s feet takes him into rather bizarre territory. He says the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania “were in large part Iranian operations,” which would come as news to the 9/11 Commission, which attributed them solely to Al Qaeda. He says Shiite Iran was largely behind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a man famous for his genocidal hatred of Shiites. He claims that “most” Iraqi insurgents are “under Iranian guidance and/or control,” not just Shiite warlords like Moktada al-Sadr, but Sunni militants as well — the very people who say they are fighting to prevent Iranian domination. In Ledeen’s view, in fact, Sunni-Shiite conflict — the very thing that most observers think is tearing Iraq apart — is largely a mirage, because Iran controls both sides. And Al Qaeda is a mirage too, a mere front for the regime in Tehran. “When you hear ‘Al Qaeda,’ ” Ledeen writes, “it’s probably wise to think ‘Iran.’ ” Not surprisingly, he thinks the mullahs were probably behind 9/11.

Just in case there’s any doubt, Ledeen is not a member of the reality-based community.

But he’s also not just some guy. He is, as I said, a resident scholar at the Bush administration’s favourite think tank. The “think” in think tank is apparently a euphemism for “We are tremendously sexually stimulated by the enormous gun on the front of a lovely big” in this case.

(Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ledeen is also a member of Benador Associates, the agency which brought us Amir Taheri of yellow badges for Jews in Iran fame.)

Ledeen’s desperate attempts to tie Iran to the attacks of September 11th might be more than just propaganda. Similarly, the Bush administration’s plan to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation may have a deeper significance.

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, Congress passed a joint resolution on the Authorisation for Use of Military Force. It is obvious to anyone with the slightest attachment to reality that this resolution absolutely does not authorise the President to use military force against Iran without Congressional approval. For the Bush administration on the other hand, well, you wouldn’t be surprised, would you?

So General Patraeus has made his long awaited report to Congress.

As John Bolton rightly said on BBC radio today (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d type), the general appeared before Congress in a smart military uniform with four stars on his shoulders and lots of bright shiny medals on his chest. Apparently, this gives his words a credibility and authority with the American public which critics of the Iraq war can never hope to challenge.

Judging by these poll numbers (pdf), Bolton may have a point. Asked “who would you say you trust the most with successfully resolving the war in Iraq — the Bush Administration, Congress, or U.S. military commanders in Iraq?”, 68% opted for the men in uniform compared to 21% for Congress and only 5% for the Bush administration. Well, who hasn’t got a thing for uniforms?

The Bush administration have sought to exploit this sentiment for all its worth by continually claiming that they base their Iraq strategies on the recommendations of the men in uniform. Their critics, on the other hand, clearly hate the brave defenders of freedom and their lovely outfits and are desperate for them all to be shot in the head or at least fail miserably…

This isn’t the truth of course, Rumsfeld in particular refused to listen to anyone who disagreed with him, nice uniform or not, and seemed to make up strategies as he went along based on pies in the sky delivered by half-baked neo-conservative think tanks, but you can certainly see why they keep on hammering away with the line. The troops are providing cover for more than just their fellow soldiers (not an exclusively American phenomenon by any means).

The irony is that Patraeus does understand how difficult the situation is, unlike
“sweets and flowers” Wolfowitz, “last throes” Cheney or any of the previous body count military men who failed so miserably. Patraeus genuinely does seem to understand that traditional military methods will not work, that winning the support of the local population is crucial and he even understands some of what that entails. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Patraeus had been listened too from the start, and I mean from at least a year before the invasion, there’s a chance that the last four and a half years could have been very different.

Now, I’m afraid, it’s too late. The surge is, by definition, a temporary measure and the insurgents and militias know that just as well as everyone else. In the period of lawlessness which has existed in Iraq since the invasion, they’ve had a taste of the power they could wield and although they may be lying relatively low at the moment, they have not gone away. Unless the US intends to keep 150,000+ troops in Iraq permanently, and that is clearly ridiculous, the debate on whether a timetable would encourage “the enemy” is entirely spurious. Even in the best case scenario, it will take years before the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi “unity” government, both heavily beset by sectarian tensions, will be capable of controlling Iraq. Timetable or not, most of the US soldiers will have to leave Iraq long before then. That’s just a fact, one which the Bush administration seems determined not to acknowledge.

As to the general’s assessment of the success of the surge, it is questionable to put in mildly. That’s not to question his integrity exactly. The fact is that he’s a general at war and if he was really telling the unadulterated truth, it’d be a first for any general in any war ever. His job is not to tell the whole truth but to present the situation in a way which best suits the military and political imperatives. His assessment is nothing like as outlandish as comical Ali’s claims of victory as US troops rolled into Baghdad but its certainly not the unvarnished truth. And, for all that Patraeus claimed not to be acting as a mouthpiece for the Whitehouse, that’s part of his job too. At the end of the day, his orders come from President Bush.

Still, he was wearing a very impressive uniform.

And then there’s the timing. General Patraeus reported to Congress on September 10th. On September 12th, the Whitehouse will release its report on the way forward and on the 13th, Bush will go on TV to address the American people. In between times, there’s the small matter of an anniversary to be commemorated. For those who accept that the invasion of Iraq was merely enabled by those horrible terrorist attacks rather than having any real connection to it, that’s a disgusting exploitation of a tragic event. But with “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” timing like this, it’s unsurprising that not everyone feels the same way. Earlier this month, US pollsters asked “do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks…?” 33% of Americans answered yes (from the polls linked above).

Given all of that, and the Democrats inability to come up with anything even faintly resembling an alternative plan, Bush will probably get what he wants yet again and may well manage to hold out until the end of his term. That way, he can blame his successor for the catastrophic failure of his Iraq policies. Because nothing is ever the fault of Bush and his acolytes.

In the meantime, the imaginary game of Iraqi political football will continue. It is rumoured that the score is 655,000 - 0* but that is strongly disputed by those who claim not to have been keeping score themselves.

* That’s Iraqi civilians deaths as a result of the US invasion compared to US civilian deaths as a result of Iraqi military activity against the United States.

Yesterday, Bush drew parallels between the Iraq and Vietnam wars. I presume that a few spoilt brats in the National Guard, those with influential fathers perhaps, have managed to avoid being sent to Iraq too so he does have a point.

Bush played up the consequences of US withdrawal from Vietnam but failed to mention the consequences of US participation.

Let’s just take one of those consequences. The US military dropped approximately 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other “herbicides” over Vietnam during the course of the war. Here are some photos of the effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese population. More than 30 years after the war, parts of Vietnam are still highly contaminated and people are still suffering as a result.

The American government has set up a programme to help US veterans who’ve been affected by exposure to Agent Orange. Under the heading “Agent Orange and Birth Defects”, the government website highlights the fact that “The Veterans’ Benefits Act of 1997 granted benefits for children of Vietnam veterans who were suffering from spina bifida”. Despite that, the US government has resisted paying compensation to Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange.

In 2005, when Vietnamese victims tried to take the manufacturers of the chemical to court, the case was dismissed. The judge ruled that they had not proved that Agent Orange caused birth defects and illness. This despite the fact that in 1984, several chemical companies paid $180m (£93m) to settle a lawsuit with US war veterans, who said that their health had been affected by exposure to the substance.

Perhaps there’s some scientific reason why American veterans are more susceptible to the ill effects of Agent Orange than the Vietnamese people who had the stuff dropped on themselves, their animals, their farmland and their water. Any scientists out there want to tell me what it is?

There are some signs that the US government may be slowly moving on this, due, no doubt, to the softening of relationships between the two countries rather than any humanitarian concern for the victims. Give it another 10 or 20 years and some sort of reparation might be on the cards for those who’re still alive.

And perhaps, in another 30 years time, people will again draw parallels between Iraq and Vietnam.

On Sunday, on condition of anonymity, U.S. officials told reporters that they had evidence which showed that Iranian weapons were being smuggled into Iraq on the orders of the highest levels of the Iranian government.

On Wednesday, General Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said something entirely different. He agreed that weapons manufactured in Iran had been found in Iraq but went on to say that:

I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.

Later on Wednesday, Bush attempted to tread a line between these two positions. He claimed that the Iranian Quds Force was the source for the weapons but that:

I don’t think we know who picked up the phone and said to the Quds Force: ‘Go do this’.

So that’s all totally unambiguous then…

Here are a couple more things to bear in mind when considering the possibility of direct Iranian government involvement in weapons transfers.

During his short time as head of the CPA, Paul Bremer managed to lose several billion dollars of Iraq’s money. It is almost certain that that some of this money found its way into the hands of insurgents who had infliltrated many of Iraq’s ministries. It is highly likely that some of this money has been used to fund attacks on U.S soldiers. This does not, however, suggest that the U.S. government deliberately aided the insurgents; it suggests that Bremer was an idiot who had no real control or understanding of a very unstable situation.

Today in Iraq, “U.S. issued Glock and Walther 9-millimeter pistols, and pristine, unused Kalashnikovs” are readily available on the black market. These weapons have been distributed by the U.S. authorities to Iraq’s security forces and are then sold on to the black market by members and ex-members of those forces. It is almost certain that some of these U.S. issued weapons have been bought by insurgents and used in attacks against U.S. soldiers. This does not, however, suggest that the U.S. government deliberately aided the insurgents; it suggests that in a chaotic place like Iraq, many things happen which are beyond the control of the world’s only hyperpower.

If there are Iranian weapons being used against U.S. forces in Iraq, there are any number of possible explanations. Milo Minderbinder would understand that just as General Pace appears to.

Bush however, appears determined to fix the intelligence and facts around the policy he’s already decided he wants to adopt. Again.

Newsday: The misunderstood Islamic divide

In what is viewed here as another example of the Bush administration’s flawed understanding of basic forces in the Middle East, the president in his State of the Union address Tuesday lumped together Shia and Sunni militant groups as posing the same threat to America.

“The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat,” President George W. Bush said. “They want to kill Americans, kill democracy in the Middle East and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale.”

ABC News: Potential New Evidence of Iran Providing Weapons to Iraqi Insurgents

Out of all the enemies the United States faces in Iraq, the most troubling ones come from Iran, and according to U.S. officials, the Pentagon will soon present evidence that Iran is providing deadly weapons to insurgents.

Washington Post: Bush OKs Countering Iranians in Iraq

President Bush has authorized U.S. forces in Iraq to take whatever actions are necessary to counter Iranian agents deemed a threat to American troops or the public at large, the White House said Friday.

“It makes sense that if somebody’s trying to harm our troops, or stop us from achieving our goal, or killing innocent citizens in Iraq, that we will stop them,” Bush said. “It’s an obligation we all have … to protect our folks and achieve our goal.”

New York Post: How to Fight Iran

THE American carrier the USS John Stennis and its strike group are headed to the Persian Gulf to join another carrier group in a show of force meant to make Iran rethink its nuclear program. It may be a prelude to war.

The conventional wisdom is that there are “no good options” in dealing with Iran. Most commentators see one of two scenarios, both nightmares: a large, bloody and expensive ground invasion and occupation that would cause oil to spike through the roof or a monthslong aerial bombardment of Iran’s estimated 1,500 nuclear-related targets that would trigger a worldwide terrorist backlash. (Alternately, the Israelis could do it for us and set the Middle East ablaze.)

Yet there is a third option, of which our show of force with two carrier groups could be the opening move: a naval and air campaign to topple the ayatollahs without a single U.S. soldier’s setting foot on Iranian soil.

Front Page: Constitutional Authority to Attack Iran

It may be too much to expect George W. Bush to be another FDR, but it is not too much to hope that our current President will emulate Harry Truman—who dropped two atomic bombs in order to end the war in the Pacific and prevent countless more American deaths, and who knew that the buck stops in the Oval Office.

Bush has denied that he intends to take military action against Iran itself. He said that it was “a presumption that’s simply not accurate”.

On 10th March 2003 Blair wrote that “no decision has been taken to launch military action against Iraq”.

On 12th March 2003, he again wrote that “no decision has been taken to launch military action against Iraq”.

On 14th March 2003, he wrote that “no decision to launch military action against Iraq has been taken”.

On 18th March 2003, he asked the House of Commons to rubber stamp his decision to go to war.

The war started on 20th March.

Just to be clear, it is impossible to be sure of Bush’s intentions but it seems unlikely that an attack on Iran is days away.

But it should also be borne in mind that any U.S. attack on Iran would be different to the invasion of Iraq. As a ground invasion is not an option, there wouldn’t be the need for a long build up to manoeuvre troops into position. Much of the equipment and manpower needed to launch an air attack is already in place and the second American carrier group will arrive in the region in a matter of weeks. And faced with an unfriendly Congress, Bush is highly unlikely to seek Congressional approval in advance. The actual attack, if/when it comes, is likely to come out of the blue.

For all the differences, all the sign are that public opinion is being prepared for some sort of military action against Iran just as it was before the invasion of Iraq.

Remember Cully Stimpson, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs? He’s the one who launched an attack on law firms representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and encouraged the media to join in. It was a small object lesson in the Bush administration’s cosy relationship with the right-wing media and the way they try to exploit that relationship. This time, fortunately, it backfired badly. The administration has had to deploy their plausible deniability defence.

Stimson has even apologised. Sort of.

There’s an audio link to the original interview here (wma). He said:

Actually you know I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,’ and you know what, it’s shocking.

He then listed a number of firms and went on:

I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.

It was an outrageous suggestion and has quite rightly been shouted down.

Note that there’s no messing around with words like “alleged” or “suspected” for Stimson. The “very terrorists” he said. That this man has any involvement in the process of giving the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay a “fair trial” is a farce.

Now he says his comments didn’t reflect his “core beliefs”.

There’s a good sign of the sincerity of this apology in the way he addressed the other allegation he made concerning payment. He now says:

During a radio interview last week, I brought up the topic of pro bono work and habeas corpus representation of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Regrettably, my comments left the impression that I question the integrity of those engaged in the zealous defense of detainees in Guantanamo. I do not.

Nice use of the word “zealous” there in his apology.

But that’s not the point. The point is to compare his apology with what he’s actually apologising for. When asked who was paying the firms, he said:

It’s not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they’re doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I’d be curious to have them explain that.

The implication couldn’t be clearer, particularly in the context of his previous remarks. The only impression these comments left was the one that they were specifically intended to leave. Regrettably, my comments left the impression… It is probably not the most honest apology you’ve ever encountered.

He has not been sacked.

But then, that’d be no way to repay a deniable lackey who walked up to the plate, sucked it up and took one for the team. He’ll probably be promoted.

Tim is back. Yay!

As the Iraqi end of Bush’s speech is well covered there, I’ll continue to concentrate on the Iranian angle. Let’s look at the references to Iran in yesterday’s speech. I’ll ruin the tension straight away and tell you that he didn’t explicitly reference the “captured intelligence” reported by the New York Sun.

Right, here’s the first mention of Iran.

Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq’s elections posed for their cause, and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra — in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq’s Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

It is undisputed that the Iranians support the SCIRI and therefore the Badr Organisation so the explicit, but actually very limited claim made here is probably true. No reference here to Iranian support for Sunni extremists though or of an Iranian policy of intentionally fuelling sectarian conflict. Instead, Iran is mentioned in the context of the attack on the Golden Mosque and a strategy of provoking sectarian violence. Note that the NYS article suggests that the Iranians are “clandestinely cooperating, with Sunni Jihadists who attacked the Golden Mosque“. Bush didn’t explicitly make the same suggestion. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

I’ve run out of time. More on this in an update to this post this evening.

Update

We interrupt the analysis of Bush’s speech to point out that U.S. escalation against the Iranians is ongoing.

For some reason, I’m reminded of the way Bush wanted to provoke Saddam into retaliatory action by painting U2 spy planes in UN colours and then flying them over Iraq. The thinking was that if Saddam did react, this could then be used as a justification for the military action Bush had already decided to take. That plan was never actually carried out, of course.

More later.

Update 2

Right, here are the rest of Bush’s references to Iran in yesterday’s speech.

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.

This time, mention of Iran is embedded in a series of key words and phrases. Radical Islamic extremism, chaos, Iran, nuclear weapons, our enemies, safe haven, attacks on the American people. The ultimate key phrase, “September the 11th, 2001″, is also there. No explicit link is made (apart from the nuclear one) but the implication that Iran is somehow connected to all of these phrases is obviously intentional.

In fact, of course, victory in Iraq, the stabilisation of the Shiite dominated government, would be a victory for the Iranians. Failure of the sort Bush imagines, a Sunni extremist, al Qaeda style group taking control of Iraq, would be very bad news for the Iranians too.

Last section now and this is the really troubling one.

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We’ll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We’re also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

This is the escalation as it relates to Iran. Rather than talking to the Iranians as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, Bush goes all out and claims that the Iranians are providing “material support for attacks on American troops”. Instead of dialogue, there will be increased military pressure on the Iranians.

As far the claim that Iran and Syria are “allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq” goes, this is pure misdirection. The U.S. are on the other side of those borders. If it was so easy to stop insurgents moving across them, why don’t they do it? It’s because it would be enormously difficult. Iraq’s borders with these countries are long and extremely difficult to police. You could probably stop a conventional military force from crossing because a conventional military force is large and pretty obvious. Terrorists and insurgents, on the other hand, are not easily spotted. That’s sort of the point.. You might as well claim that the U.S. government allowed the 9/11 terrorists to move into their territory before the attacks. It’s quite true but it says nothing about whether they supported the terrorists activities. (Note to conspiracy theorists: not interested, take it elsewhere.)

It may be true that the Iranians are providing “material support for attacks on Americans troops”. Juan Cole offers a considerably more plausible explanation.

Although Bush keeps implying that Iran is supplying weapons and aid to US enemies in Iraq, the circumstantial evidence is that it was helping the two main US allies in Iraq with their paramilitary capabilities– Kurdistan and SCIRI. But it is likely that the money and weapons do bleed over into insurgent groups and have a destabilizing effect.

It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if they are supplying material aid to Shiite and Kurdish groups in order to bolster their ability to fight Sunni insurgents, particularly the Baathists (all three groups hated Saddam’s regime with a vengeance). And, as the Professor says, in the chaotic world of today’s Iraq it is highly likely that some of this material aid could be diverted from its intended purpose. Material aid delivered by the British and Americans has certainly found its way into the wrong hands.

That’s a far cry from an Iranian strategy of deliberately targeting U.S. troops or indeed fuelling the sectarian violence by supporting each side against the other (the second of which, as I said, Bush did not in any way claim). It is certainly true that Iran is actively involved in Iraq but all the evidence suggests that Iranian involvement is at the active request of Shiite and Kurdish members of Iraq’s “unified and democratic” government.

If they are provoking instability, it is only to the extent that they are aiding the Shiites, and to a lesser extent the Kurds, in their efforts to defeat Sunni insurgents. This is exactly what the U.S. government says it has been doing in Iraq these last three years. I wonder if that counts as fuelling instability and sectarian violence too?

For those who think the difference is that the Iranians are funding Shiite death squads, think again. Check the date of that article. How does that correspond with the rise of Shiite death squads in Iraq?

Just to re-emphasise one more time, at no point did Bush claim that the Iranians were playing Sunni against Shiite in Iraq. But he did make some pretty serious threats.

We’ll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq… I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will… deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

These are not small measures. One U.S. carrier group is an extremely powerful force; having two in the region is significant. As a means to combat Iraq’s sectarian strife, two U.S. carriers groups would be overkill in all senses of the word. And what are the Patriot air defence systems for? You certainly don’t fight terrorists or insurgents with an air defence system designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. These are systems designed to be used against a conventional military force. What did Bush say they are being sent for? “To reassure our friends and allies”. To reassure them against what exactly?

It is possible that all of this is just sabre rattling designed to pressure the Iranians into halting its nuclear enrichment programme but Bush is not known for making empty threats. He is, rather, known for his propensity to favour violence as a means to achieve his stated goals. If that’s what he intends to do, I doubt the Democrats or anyone else will be able to stop him.

If he does escalate the conflict and start attacking Iranian facilities in any significant way, it’ll make what’s happened so far look like that elusive “cakewalk” we were promised. Because if the Iranians really start to cause trouble for U.S. forces in the region, it’ll be a whole lot worse than anything that has gone before.

By all accounts, it appears that President Bush is about to send more U.S. troops to Iraq as part of a new surge and sacrifice strategy. Blair’s refusal to meaningfully discuss any aspect of the Iraq war makes it impossible to know for sure what our great leader thinks of this extraordinarily stupid idea but given that it is in direct conflict with Blair’s stated policy of transferring more control to Iraqi security forces, it does look like Blair’s influence on Bush is operating at the level we’ve all become accustomed too. Any guesses what Blair will say when Bush announces that new strategy? Will he say anything at all?

A woefully under-reported Military Times poll meanwhile, reveals that U.S. active service personnel, for all the propaganda they’re subjected too, are losing faith in the war (poll methodology here). 41% now believe the U.S. is not very or not at all likely to succeed in Iraq and 42% disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war. There is some support among the troops for a increase in troops numbers but that’s hardly surprising; self-preservation and the need to provide force protection in an extremely hostile environment are the key motivators here.

But U.S. troops are not overly confident that Blair’s slightly less extraordinarily stupid strategy will work. Confidence In Iraq’s security forces is pitifully low.

How soon do you think the Iraqi military will be ready to replace large numbers of American troops?

• Less than a year - 2%
• 1-2 years - 20%
• 3-5 years - 36%
• 5-10 years - 22%
• More than 10 years - 12%
• No opinion/no answer - 7%

This, after nearly four years of training. Down in the south, the British government is talking about a substantial transfer in the next few months. In the rest of the country, 58% of active duty U.S. troops think it’ll be between three and ten years before the Iraqis are substantially able to control their own country without large scale coalition military assistance.

This reinforces the enormous difficulties of stabilising Iraq as a country. The Blairite line is still to minimise the realities on the ground. Des Browne recently said “I make no apology for reminding people that 14 of the 18 provinces are relatively peaceful” and other ministers do the same when unable to avoid discussing Iraq. Baghdad, by far the most populous of Iraq’s provinces, is of course one of those which is not “relatively peaceful” but that sort of number crunching really misses the point. When, for example, did you ever hear any government minister point out that suicide bomb attacks have only ever occurred in one of England’s nine regions? To play down the seriousness of the situation in that way while Iraq’s capital slowly but surely descends into violent anarchy is just the sort of disingenuous sophistry this government revels in.

But what, I hear you ask, is the point of continuing to highlight this? Previously, I wrote this sort of thing in part to point out that the situation was not improving as was claimed by our government and that it was in fact only going to get worse. In the last year, the credibility of the fiction that success in Iraq is just round the corner has been all but destroyed. (I should add again that it gives me no pleasure to have been right.)

Only the most deranged still maintain that the Iraq’s “problems” are largely manufactured by the media. You’d like to think that Malkin will have her eyes opened by her forthcoming visit but it seems far more likely that she’ll take with her a set of blinkers which will only allow her to see to those things which confirm her already existing view. She may be there for some time.

There’s no point arguing the case with someone like that. As the Flying Rodent pointed out the other day, the self-correcting mechanisms of the bl#!#$!@#ere only works “if the blogger in question has a shred of intellectual honesty”.

But there is still a purpose. There’s a war on and this country is on the losing side. People are dying every day. Our Prime Minister would rather we didn’t think too much about that. He would rather we didn’t demand that he be held to account for the entirely predictable catastrophe he has embroiled this country in.

Well, I for one do not think he should be allowed to get away with it. For that reason, posts on the bloody mess that Iraq has become will continue to be a feature of this blog in 2007.