Misreading Basra

Peter Wehner:

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Basra — Iraq’s second largest city, home to the country’s main port, and its only point of access to the Persian Gulf — is one more example of a key area of Iraq that is being reclaimed. As the Times article makes clear, the progress is fragile and reversible, as is almost everything in Iraq. But what war critics took to be a devastating loss looks to be a significant and positive achievement. It is evidence that the counterinsurgency approach embraced by Petraeus, when tried, appears to work everywhere (Basra was failing precisely because, as Max Boot wrote in March, “The British basically abdicated their counterinsurgency role in the south and allowed thugs to take over Basra. The police force is particularly corrupt. Maliki is now sending the Iraqi Security Forces to do what the Brits wouldn’t: clean up Dodge.”)

Yet critics of the Iraq war remain deeply wed to their defeatist narrative, regardless of the facts on the ground. They have settled on their views; apparently, no observable progress to the contrary will persuade them that the facts do not correspond to their rendering of the situation. The good news is that they are looking more and more desperate in their efforts to prove that America is failing in Iraq. We are in fact making substantial progress, both in terms of advancing America’s national security interests and in advancing an admirable moral end (the liberation and stabilization of Iraq after having lived for decades under a particularly wicked tyranny). That such progress seems to agitate the Left and their antiwar allies to no end tells you a great deal about them — and none of it is particularly good.

It is important to note that the British approach is the approach that the Democrats have embraced. They want us to pull back into FOB's and turn over everything to the Iraqis whether they are ready or not. The Battle in Basra shows that the Iraqis have the will to take charge and are trying to accomplish as much as possible before the Democrats can pull the rug out from under their efforts. That is why the fight in Sadr City has been so important to them. Thy are also putting a large operation into effect in Mosul the last remaining area of al Qaeda activity.

They still need our help in providing logistics for these operations. Without them they can still fail. South Vietnam did not fall until the Democrats pull the plug on their logistics and air support. Democrats seem prepared to do for the Iraqis what they did for the South Vietnamese. They may yet get the disaster they have wanted in Iraq.