bloggie

To the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians of Multi-National Force-Iraq:

We serve in iraq at a critical time. The war here will soon enter its fifth year. A decisive moment approaches. Shoulder-to-shoulder with our Iraqi comrades, we will conduct a pivotal campaign to improve security for the Iraqi people. The stakes could not be higher.

Our task is crucial. Security is essential for Iraq to build its future. Only with security can the Iraqi government come to grips with the tough issues it confronts and develop the capacity to serve its citizens. The hopes of the Iraqi people and the coalition countries are with us.

The enemies of Iraq will shrink at no act, however barbaric. They will do all that they can to shake the confidence of the people and to convince the world that this effort is doomed. We must not underestimate them.

Together with our Iraqi partners, we must defeat those who oppose the new Iraq. We cannot allow mass murderers to hold the initiative. We must strike them relentlessly. We and our Iraqi partners must set the terms of the struggle, not our enemies. And together we must prevail.

The way ahead will not be easy. There will be difficult times in the months to come. But hard is not hopeless, and we must remain steadfast in our effort to help improve security for the Iraqi people. I am confident that each of you will fight with skill and courage, and that you will remain loyal to your comrades-in-arms and to the values our nations hold so dear.

In the end, Iraqis will decide the outcome of this struggle. Our task is to help them gain the time they need to save their country. To do that, many of us will live and fight alongside them. Together we will face down the terrorirsts, insurgents, and criminals who slaughter the innocent. Success will require discipline, fortitude, and initiative — qualities that you have in abundance.

I appreciate your sacrifices and those of your families. Now, more than ever, your commitment to service and your skill can make the difference between victory and defeat in a very tough mission.

It is an honor to soldier again with the members of the Multi-National Force-Iraq. I know that wherever you serve in this undertaking you will give your all. In turn, I pledge my commitment to our mission and every effort to achieve success as we help the Iraqis chart a course to a brighter future.

Godspeed to each of you and to our Iraqi comrades in this crucial endeavor.

David H. Petraeus
General, United States Army
Commanding

Petraeus was sold as the commander who would bring a fresh approach, a new strategy, a "surge" that would establish security. This order reeks of a four-year old failed strategy, chock full of the worst cliches of the Bush Administration, and one that frankly admits that as we have stupidly defined "victory" in such a manner that it is IMPOSSIBLE for US forces to achieve victory on their own. This order ADMITS that Iraqis hold the keys to victory and that our men and women are being asked to die in order to give them time to wake up and realize that they should act as we wish them to.

Embarrassing. Demoralizing. Wrong.

We need to leave, now.

More from the Corner on point, here from Andy McCarthy:

Over the last couple of years, we've had some spirited debate in these parts about whether Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is an authentic Muslim moderate who is a huge plus for the Bush administration's democracy project, or, as I have maintained (see, e.g., here and here), an Islamic fundamentalist of the familiar anti-Semitic, anti-infidel, anti-gay variety who embraced "democracy" (i.e., not real democracy but popular elections) because it was the easiest route to Shiite rule ... the first step on the road to a Shiite Sharia state.

Now, former Reagan administration official John Agresto is weighing in. Agresto, who appeared on Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday, has a new book out, Mugged by Reality, which is a memoir of his recent nine months of service in Iraq as an adviser to the education ministry. Here is some of what he has to say about Sistani:

"We insisted that the Ayatollah Sistani was surely a "moderate" and a friend to civil and religious liberty despite all the hard evidence to the contrary. Let me repeat my previous observations and predictions: The Ayatollah Sistani is an Islamist bent on establishing a theocracy not far removed from that found in Iran. He is an open anti-Semite and a not-too-subtle anti-Christian. He threw his support behind democratic elections because they were the handy vehicles for imposing religious authority all over Iraq. Nor is he the only one, or even the worst, only the most prominent. Yet while I believe the evidence is as clear here as it is in the case of [Ahmad] Chalabi, we only see what we want to see, not what's visible. In our religious lives, hope may well be a virtue — but in foreign policy it is more often a sin, a temptation to willful blindness."

This much, at least, has been obvious for three years, if not more. If, as Agresto says, you want to see.

I appreciate your frustration Jourdan but could you be falling prey to the same mindset that has crippled our warfighting in the last half century?

My impression is the intelligence is never good, the strategy is never on target, the situation is always turns out other than what we thought and our plans are the first casualty. I think we struggled with this in every war. The difference was our resolve not to accept defeat. That we fight until we make the other bloody lump keel over before we do. Have we even approached that?

Indivdually our soldiers have. They shame us. Whether we allow them to win or lose, there is going to be a reckoning when they come home. We and their government have a lot of explaining to do.

A decisive moment approaches.

Wrong tense. The decisive moment approached in 2003-04. Fallujah. To win in Iraq, the Americans should have evacuated women/children/elderly, then incinerated the place with everyone left in it. Think, Grozny.

Quite apart from the unrealistic/naive assumption behind Sharansky's book (which I reckon significantly caused Bush to invade Iraq) and the incorrect strategy adopted once the invasion occurred (rather than working towards a tripartite, loose confederation that would ultimately morph into a semi-stable post-Jugo-Slavian dissolution), the Americans could have immediately put the Iranians on notice by wiping out the Sadrite thugs.

I agree with papijoe that the WH and State have explaining to do to the returning troops: "Why, with Viet Nam as our example, did we not permit you to win the war?" The world's most sophisticated military, outspending the Russians and Chinese five-fold- and five years in to an invasion of a third-world sh*t-hole, the theatre commander is nattering on about "a decisive moment approaches"? For shame.

Yep. :(

Earl, I agree with all of your points, though I would go back a bit further than Vietnam. We haven't actually won a war since we became a superpower. As Heinlein once said, "No Department of DEFENSE has won a war or ever will win one." He said that in 56 or 58 and it's STILL true (with the possible exception of the Gulf War, which I would argue was not won but I could see how technically one could make a case for it having been won).

Good point - prior to Armed Forces unification in 1947, the then-separate department of the Army was known as the "Department of War".