Roguely Stated

Missing the forest for the trees
We need more discussion about Iraq at a grand strategic level, rather than at a purely operational or tactical level. As many uniformed officers have said, we have tactical successes on a daily basis. If General Petraeus’ surge yields results, as it well may, we will have achieved a major victory at an operational level, too. Hopefully, it will give us the breathing room we need to have a full, higher-level discussion about how we should deal with Iraq over years, not days. Already, there’s a dialogue brewing about a policy of containment in Iraq:

Talking strategically about Iraq
In a recent NYT op-ed, A War Best Served Cold, Nicholas Thompson of Wired Magazine wonders what a strategy of containment would look like in Iraq.

For a quick refresher, I ran a quick Google search to see what well-thought-out analyses “containment” would turn up. The top results came from the 1990s. So the dialogue needs some work. Still, a few interesting pieces came up:

In 2006, Michael Hirsh wrote in Newsweek about the Bush administration’s tilt towards containment: Washington’s New Watchword: Containment. Hirsh’s main argument is that containment today “is largely unconscious—and it has gone unacknowledged in public. It may be time to call it by its name.” Again, the lack of a grand strategic debate may be hurting American vital interests.

Just a few weeks ago, an article on political solutions in Iraq referenced Daniel Byman of Georgetown University as a proponent of containment: Iraq Study Group Says Political Solutions in Iraq Crucial.

To keep things really interesting, think about containment as it relates to Iran. Just yesterday, NPR published an intriguing piece: Gates, Rice Taking Arms Offer to Saudis.

Containment may or may not be the right strategy. But the debate is worth having, as it informs the U.S.’ strategic aims in Iraq, and Nicholas Thompson’s piece is a good move in the direction of that debate.

Tags: bush, containment, iran, iraq, war
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