Foreign Affairs Does It Again?

In the Summer of 1947 "Foreign Affairs” published an article that profoundly changed our views of how to act towards Russia. It’s possible that in the Summer of 2005 they have published an article that will profoundly change our views of how to act in Iraq. The 1947 article, of course, was the proposal of the containment policy by George Kennan. The 2005 article is entitled “How to Win in Iraq” and is written by Andrew Krepinevich, Jr., a retired Army officer and author of “The Army and Vietnam.”

Krepinevich argues that we have no strategy in Iraq, neither for defeating the insurgency nor for achieving our larger objectives. This comes as no surprise. He feels that Bush describes a withdrawal plan not a strategy when he says, “Our strategy can be summed up this way: as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” Nor does the author feel that a speedy withdrawal is much of a strategy either. As has been said before, withdrawing now will only makes things worse for us, for the region and for most Iraqis.

Krepinevich proposes an “oil-spot strategy”. You defeat the insurgents not by killing them, but by making the regular Iraqis secure and able to lead a fairly normal life. That is, the cliche “winning hearts and minds” is, in fact, mandatory to defeat the insurgents. His ‘oil-spot’ idea is to focus on building up areas where the people can feel safe and can live fairly normally. Once those goals have been achieved for an area(s) you can expand the area, just as an oil spot starts small and seeps to cover a large area.

Krepinevich acknowledges that the strategy is risky, costly and requires us to be in Iraq for a long time. But it is a strategy that has worked in Malaysia and the Philippines. He feels that it is a clear strategy that should be presented to the American people, who can decide whether the costs of implementing the are ones they want to bear. His confidence in this country’s people echoes Senator Biden’s.

Let’s look at more of what Krepinevich has to say.

The Face of the Insurgency
In Krepinevich’s view the insurgency has three causes: the lack of any post-war planning by Rumsfeld and company; Iraq’s tradition of government being the prize of those who wrest power by violence; the jihad caused by our invasion of Iraq.

Since the insurgents cannot beat us militarily, their goal is to promote disorder and prevent the establishment of a legitimate Iraqi government. Their arguments are simple. if the leaders of the nascent government can be killed and captured, how can the average Ali feel safe? And, they also rely on Reagan’s question, “Are you better off today than four years ago?”.

There are some things with regard to the insurgency that are working in our favor, according to Krepinevich. The insurgents are fairly isolated from the people; Sunnis comprise the majority of the insurgents, but are only 20% of the population. And, they have no positive message to inspire the people’s support.

Centers of Gravity
Krepinevich recognizes that we have to “win the hearts and minds” of three different constituencies: the Iraqis, the American public and the American soldier. Essentially, all three groups must believe that the war is worth the sacrifice and progress is being made. It’s very difficult to really make the case if we don’t have real control of an area. And, our current modus vivendi does not give us that control.

The way we are operating now emphasizes killing the enemy while minimizing American casualties. He feels that we should emphasize the security of the Iraqis. Our various ‘operations’ have little lasting effect; once we leave, things essentially return to what was happening before we attacked. We’re focusing on the number of Iraqis trained, rather than how well they are trained.

The big problem in combating insurgencies is obtaining good intelligence about the insurgents. Unless the Iraqis feel that defeat of the insurgents is in their interests and they are living a reasonably normal life, it’s unlikely that they will give us the intelligence they have and we need.

History Lessons
Today, life in fourteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces is reasonably normal and secure as these provinces are controlled by coalition troops or local militia, such as the Pesh Merga. It is in these provinces that the ‘oil-spot’ should begin. And, it can begin, by making the Iraq army stronger through training, embedding our soldiers in Iraq units and providing quick-reaction troops to aid the Iraqis.

The quick rotating of officers and generals must stop. This was needs the most capable leaders we have. It is a serious mistake to bring experienced, highly capable officers back to sit at a desk in Washington when they could be leading troops in Iraq.

The Grand Bargain
You defeat the insurgency only if the political and the military are interrelated. Politically, we should strive to win over ‘a substantial portion’ of each of the Iraq major groups, Sunni, Shia, Kurd, so that we would have the critical mass necessary to support a democratic and unified Iraq. But, in order to do so, we need to understand Iraqi tribal politics, which is almost always in flux.

Better Metrics
An axiom of my managerial canon is “You can’t manage if you don’t measure.” So, I was pleased to see this topic.

Krepinevich proposes some interesting metrics: the number of assassinated government officials (can the government protect its own), the number of insurgent leaders killed (which would discourage recruits), battles which we initiate (meaning we’re getting good intelligence from Iraqis), the price paid by the insurgents to someone willing to bomb his fellow Iraqis (the higher the price, the fewer supporters).

Will our leaders listen?

Do miracles occur?

Another oldie. I wrote this in 2003.

I’m the only person I know who has bathed in the waters of Lourdes, where the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Bernadette almost 150 years ago and where 5,000,000 annually flock, many looking for a miracle. Bathing in the waters of Lourdes is something that I’ve looked upon as virtually a unique experience, and it is - at least in the circles in which I’ve traveled. How many people do you know who have had a miraculous experience, whether successful or not?

I was born with a club foot plus additional complications. It was these additional complications – a leg of stunted growth, a knee that didn’t bend – that made me a candidate for a miracle. My parents had been told by the orthopedist that a portion of my leg would be amputated when I reached puberty so that I could be fitted with a “normal” prosthesis. My mother, a firm believer in the teachings of the Church, felt that God could be called upon to prevent the amputation and render me whole. It was natural for her to put her beliefs into practice, so off to Lourdes we went in the summer of my eleventh year.

The heart of the shrine then as now was the grotto, the site of the first miracle (the discovery of a spring where none had existed). It is the water from this spring that has miraculous powers. Naturally, the area surrounding the grotto was filled with the infirm in wheelchairs, on crutches, lying on stretchers, leaning on their companions. People of all ages and with all sorts of maladies had come, as we had, to be made healthy. Hundreds of crutches enveloped the small chapel that had been built into the grotto; they had been left by those who were cured at Lourdes.

The grotto still housed the miracle spring, but the water was now piped into a building where there were rooms containing bath tubs. It was to one of these tubs that my mother accompanied me and watched and prayed as I sat in the miraculous waters. Most bathers must have found the experience very moving. But I did not. Perhaps, I was too young, too wrapped up in my daily life, too eager to get on to the next experience, not enough of a believer. Who knows why? My strong feeling then and my vivid memory all these years later is that the water was cold. That’s it! No thoughts of a miracle and what that might mean. No prayers. No appreciation of what my parents had gone through to bring me there. Just the typical self-centeredness of a pampered child.

One could conclude that, in addition to being a spoiled brat, I was also a child of the scientific century, where miracles did not occur, where science could explain everything, and, thus, it was right and fitting that my reaction was primarily physical. The scientist would say that my parents were superstitious and simply grasping at straws to help their child.

Fifty-five years later, there is a certain truth to these conclusions. But, in these same fifty-five years, there have been times where the truly unexplainable did happen to me and people I know. Perhaps, the world doesn’t move solely and at all times to the laws of science. Science has yet to fully explain the power our minds and spirit can exert over our bodies. Maybe I was wrong in 1948 and after. Had I been blessed or more receptive, a miracle might have occurred to me as it did, according to Lourdes’ records, to Maddalena Carini who visited the shrine a month after me.

I acknowledge that man is gullible and can be easily deceived by others or his own wishful thinking. Mass hallucinations have occurred. Pious frauds have existed. Closer, more comprehensive and independent examinations have explained away a number of claims of the miraculous. And, yet, there remains a doubt in my mind that questions the certitude of those who assert the impossibility of miracles.

Have miracles occurred at Lourdes? I’m not sure, but the process of verifying that a miracle happened there is fairly conservative. There are two levels of medical investigation. The first level, it is true, is that of the Medical Bureau at Lourdes. One could argue that, being based in Lourdes, they have a vested interest in finding miraculous cures. But, there are some built-in safeguards to minimize this. The most important of these safeguards is time. The person claiming to be cured first has to demonstrate that he had a condition incurable by medical means before he visited Lourdes. Then, the claimant must return at least one and, often, many years later for subsequent examination. Only if 75% of the doctors agree is the case referred to the second level.

This second level, which was established in 1947, consists of thirty medical specialists from around the world. Again, time is the primary safeguard to prevent false claims. The claimant can be examined for several years before a decision is reached. This second level, the Lourdes International Medical Committee, has referred only 29 (2.2%) of the 1300 cases they have investigated up to the third level, the religious level.

This third level is comprised of priests, theologians and canonists, whom the skeptic would claim to be very prone to seeing miracles where none exist. However, of the 29 cases referred to them, they have rejected about one-third. So that since 1947, only 1½% (19 of 1300) of the claims of a miracle have been approved. That is, 19 of the cures ascribed to the waters of Lourdes have been found to be “certain, definitive and medically inexplicable”.  Furthermore, in the past 145 years, despite the hundreds of crutches arrayed around the chapel, only 66 miracles are claimed, or one every two  years or so. In fact, in the past fifty-five years, that average has increased to more than two years and eight months.

Yes, it does seem odd to be talking about miracles in the twenty-first century. But maybe these claims are justified. Have I been unable to explain a tiny percentage (1½) of events that have happened to me over the years? Do odd things happen once every two years or so? I’d have to answer “yes” to both questions. What would your answer be?

Have miracles occurred at Lourdes? You tell me.