Shoot First, Ask Questions Later?

Compare and contrast David Brooks:

More important, the nations have not really defined what they hope to achieve.

Is the coalition trying to depose Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi? Are coalition forces trying to halt Qaddafi’s advances or weaken his government? Would the coalition allow Qaddafi to win so long as he didn’t massacre more civilians? Is it trying to create a partitioned Libya? Are we there to help the democratic tide across the region?

And Max Boot:

FOR weeks, I’ve argued that the United States and our allies should impose a no-fly zone over Libya and mount airstrikes to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s advance against the embattled rebels. Last week, the United Nations Security Council authorized precisely those actions. Over the weekend, missile strikes began.

I should be elated, right? Instead, I can’t stop worrying about everything that could go wrong.... The question is whether this will be enough to stop [Qaddafi's] attacks....

Will the rebels be able to root out Qaddafi loyalists? If not, are we prepared to use Western ground forces? So far President Obama has ruled out that option, which runs the danger of a protracted stalemate. Colonel Qaddafi could simply cling to power, while international support for the whole operation frays.

Even if Colonel Qaddafi steps down — an outcome that I believe we must now seek but that hasn’t been declared as a formal aim — the problems hardly end.

That is, even if you're an informed, ardent supporter of the intervention and would support it as a unilateral military venture, there is no reason to believe that that you'll have any sense of what happens next. As Tom Ricks recently stated,

As for the American military, let's knock off the muttering in the ranks about clear goals and exit strategies. Fellas, you need to understand this is not a football game but a soccer match. For the last 10 years, our generals have talked about the need to become adaptable, to live with ambiguity. Well, this is it. The international consensus changes every day, so our operations need to change with it. Such is the nature of war, as Clausewitz reminds us. Better Obama's cautious ambiguity than Bush's false clarity. Going into Iraq, scooping up the WMD, and getting out by September 2003 -- now that was a nice clear plan. And a dangerously foolish one, too.

Granted, Bush's approach could have been an "exit strategy" had he been prepared to admit on September 1, 2003 that his strategy was a complete failure, accept defeat and go home. But as Ricks suggests, I don't think many people would accept that as a good exit strategy.

I'm nowhere near as pollyannaish about war as Max Boot - the stuff that he worries about after wars start is stuff I believe should be addressed beforehand. Even granting that the strategy may have to change, or may turn out to have been misguided, I believe that absent extraordinary circumstances the U.S. should not enter a war of choice without a clear strategy. (For wars of choice, can such extraordinary circumstances ever arise?) If you can't form a coherent strategy for achieving your desired goals, you need to reconsider either your strategy or goals before committing to war.

At the same time, as Ricks suggests, no matter how well-constructed the strategy and plan for invasion and occupation, it's war. Some element of the best laid plan will turn out to have been wishful thinking and anticipating the end game will inevitably involve a lot of luck.

Poor Maliki

So Maliki made the "mistake" of essentially agreeing with Obama on the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. Almost immediately we were told, "The translator got it wrong." Except it turns out that it was Maliki's own translator, and his translator didn't get it wrong. Then an effort was made to interject nuance into the endorsement. That didn't work out so well, either. So now what? Let's ask McCain backer and uberhawk Max Boot.

There is some irony in the fact that Democrats, after years of deriding Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a hopeless bungler and conniving Shiite sectarian, are now treating as sacrosanct his suggestion that Iraq will be ready to assume responsibility for its own security by 2010.

Ah. So it must follow that Republicans view Nouri al-Maliki as a competent leader, supported by Shiites and Sunnis alike, right? Well... Maybe not.

• His public support for the U.S. is mixed: "[Maliki] has hardly been an unwavering friend of the United States - at least in public." (But thank goodness, he's two-faced: "To his credit, although he has postured as a fierce nationalist in public, Maliki has often accommodated American concerns in private.")

• He's skeptical of U.S. motives: "[He] has had to overcome deeply ingrained suspicions of the United States."

• He's incompetent on military issues and insulated from reality: "Maliki has no military experience and that he has been trapped in the Green Zone, relatively isolated from day-to-day life."

• He has poor judgment: "[H]e has been a consistent font of misguided predictions about how quickly U.S. forces could leave."

• He's ungrateful: "Maliki won't give U.S. troops their due"

  In the famous interview with Der Spiegel last weekend, he was asked why Iraq has become more peaceful. He mentioned "many factors," including "the political rapprochement we have managed to achieve," "the progress being made by our security forces," "the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias," and "the economic recovery." No mention of the surge.

• He's unreliable: "Maliki's public utterances do not provide a reliable guide as to when it will be safe to pull out U.S. troops."

So... basically Boot seeks Maliki as an out-of-touch, hopeless bungler and two-faced opportunist, but not necessarily a "conniving Shiite sectarian"? I'm glad Boot set that record straight.

Oh yes, and Boot tells us that this statement is "ambiguous":

When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned." He then continued: "US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Wow. You can barely tell that Maliki is expressly endorsing withdrawal of combat forces "as soon as possible", on a schedule largely consistent with Obama's timeframe. Darn that ambiguity.

Incidentally, as others have noted, there's no inconsistency between observing that Maliki's dependence upon U.S. backing makes his endorsement of continued occupation questionable, while also observing that his willingness to stand up to the Bush Administration may be qualitatively different - he has a lot to lose by what the Bush Administration and McCain's backers plainly see as biting the hand that feeds him.
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Update: Charles Krauthammer offers a much more generous interpretation of Maliki's choices:

What is Maliki thinking? Clearly, he believes that the Iraq war is won. Al-Qaeda is defeated, the Sunni insurgency is in abeyance, the Shiite extremists are scattered and marginalized. There will, of course, be some continued level of violence, recurring challenges to the authority of the central government and perhaps even mini-Tet Offensives by both Shiite and Sunni terrorists trying to demoralize U.S. and Iraqi public opinion in the run-up to their respective elections. But in Maliki's view, the strategic threats to the unity of the state and to the viability of the new democratic government are over.

Maliki believes that his armed forces are strong enough to sustain the new Iraq with minimal U.S. help. He may be overconfident, as he has been repeatedly in estimating his army's capacities, most recently in launching a somewhat premature attack on militias in Basra that ultimately required U.S. and British support to succeed. And he is certainly more confident of his own capacities than is Gen. David Petraeus.

Another way to look at that is that Maliki believes he will be more free to cement his party and his religious sect's control over Iraq in the absence of U.S. combat forces than in their presence - something entirely consistent with the Sunni factions' concerns about U.S. troop withdrawal. Needless to say, Krauthammer carries on to present a rather churlish attack on the Democratic Party as being too "pliant" in willing to be something other than an autonomous occupying power prepared to stay in Iraq until we establish a "strategic relationship that would not only make the new Iraq a strong ally in the war on terror but would also provide the U.S. with the infrastructure and freedom of action to project American power regionally, as do U.S. forces in Germany, Japan and South Korea." In other words, Krauthammer believes we should occupy Iraq until they learn to like it.