No, Sadr won, not us. Bush claimed this man would be brought to justice, instead he's given a free pass to continue sucking up valuable oxygen as well as run for office.

Sadr, as well as terrorists, also are winning the PR war. Why isn't the story of his defeat #1 on every news channel? Oh, I forgot, they can't bump Bubba's book promotion. I asked 3 people at work who have a passing knowledge of events in Iraq and none of them knew about this. Ask them the exact number of naked Iraq's in the dogpile and they're able to tell you without thinking.

Numbers + money for visible reconstruction -- these are the two keys. The occupation has failed in both respects: not enough troops to ensure security and slower than molasses rebuilding efforts.

Well illustrated in this example.

"The division estimates it killed at least several thousand militia members."

It's more than the PR war we're losing when several thousand people are driven to armed resistance against the occupation. We're losing the war for the hearts and minds of regular people in Iraq and throughout the Muslim world.

Terrorism is an idea--not easily defeated by killing people and blowing up stuff. So what to do about Iraq at this point? Hell if I know. Sometimes you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But it is clear that US presence in Iraq is radioactive, as far as regular citizens are concerned.

Dan, I think you meant to say that more troops would give terrorists more inviting targets, not topics.

One comment on the Washington Times article: we got very lucky with Sadr. Some twenty thousand American troops were scheduled to rotate out of Iraq by the end of June before he launched his uprising. If he had been able to wait (and he may not have been -- the degree of his control over all his own followers isn't clear) he could have caught coalition forces in a much weakened state, and done substantially more damage. As things stand now Sadr has gained substantial popularity among many Iraqis whom he cannot count on to fight for him, at the cost of losing a large number of men whom he could count on.

Dr. Drezner,

You seem to have left out some important intermediary steps in your argument. How exactly does the campaign against Sadr bolster the case for more troops?

The uprising was put down with the troops already in Iraq. Are you arguing that it would have been put down faster if there were more American troops already there? Or are you arguing something else?

The article supports the idea that the US needs to keep combat troops in Iraq. It doesn't help us determine how many soldiers or how long they should stay.

There is a real incoherence of rhetoric on the troop issue. Clearly terrorism is harming the reconstruction, particularly oil and power which go hand and hand with happy Iraqis. The argument is that there are too many targets to guard effectively. That only makes sense if their are too few troops to guard them. QED. If 75,000 more troops meant 4 more hours of electricity a day in Baghdad, we have a serious debate on our hands. Debate is good, but simply stating the troops arent wanted or needed flies in the face of simple observation. Someone in the chain of command (ultimately Bush) made the choice that the infastructure's tardy recovery was acceptable, even if it was not a conscious decision.

No, Sadr won, sorry.

We lost the Shi'ites (maybe even worldwide) and Sadr is now the most popular figure in Iraq.

"No, Sadr won, sorry.

We lost the Shi'ites (maybe even worldwide) and Sadr is now the most popular figure in Iraq"

Right. Most people celebrate there victories by disbanding their armies.

I think george is right. I fail to see how Dan leaps from (a) we put down Sadr with an unspecified number of troops to (b) we need more troops in Iraq.

A split verdict. Sadr gained political support - he went from a fringe guy like Nadar to being a Put Buchanan - radcial but accepted within the mainstream. Militarily we won, and Sadr had no choice but to pursue a political resolution. Just as we had no choice except to accept him within the body politic of Iraq.

More troops sooner would have helped. That's all there is to it. The army is not a precision laser scalpel. It is a sledgehammer. It breaks stuff. The more troops you have the more saturation you can throw at the enemy.

That being said the past mismanagement of the military forces means that presently the only means of obtaining enough soldiers in the next six months to make a difference would likely be a draft. If we'd started earlier with a massive recruitment program - 400,000 soldiers within a year and a half we could have afforded to send another 100,000 now and still make the rotation scheme.

Now the only way to get those soldiers is to go full war footing and/or institute a draft. It's still not quite too late to make the old idea work but it'd take a hell of a lot more guts and initiative than has been shown by all governing parties so far.

IMHO Sadr's purpose all along was to position himself as a player in Iraqi politics. Whether through street violence or negoitation, he did it almost to the damn day (a week short of Iraqi "sovereignity") The Bush Administration and CPA we played like fiddles.

FWIW, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article today on his blog about the question of more troops.

Great, then we just have to do the opposite of what Victor Davis Hanson says, and we should be fine !!

As far as Sadr goes, I agree that we did manage to crush his rebellion and did so without much collateral damage. However, if we're not going to capture him, we might have been better off not getting into a fight with him in the first place.

However, if we're not going to capture him, we might have been better off not getting into a fight with him in the first place.

How do you do that?

The Washington Times

What triggered the fight with Al Sadr was our decision to close down one of his newspapers. I'm sure the newspaper was a hatemongering piece of junk, but there was little point to shutting it down.

Newspapers that are shut down just go underground, so there is no advantage to be gained in doing that.

Now you might argue that a confrontation with Sadr was inevitable, but we could have waited till we had a better trained Iraqi force to do the job, we could have waited till sovereignty was handed over.

"Most people celebrate there victories by disbanding their armies."

Exactly. He got what he wanted and he can always call the army back again if he needs it. He is now a political figure and a major force in Iraq.

If you're winning a conflict militarily,you don't wimp out and let your adversary go at the last minute.If al-Sadr "surrendered", how come he's still free,instead of in jail?Didn't the USA just recently declare that they were going to get al-Sadr, no matter what?

All the protestations notwithstanding,nobody in the Middle East is going to believe the US won this one.And neither will I.

Look, we killed 1,500 ghetto kids with AKs and RPGs.

Guess how many poor Shi'ites there are in Iraq? Guess how much an AK costs? An IED? An RPG?

Ridiculous. We needed more troops to deal with Sadr? Why? According to the General he had all the force he needed to deal with the threat. He used local intelligence and brute force, but the brute force was measured in capability not numbers.

Things have not gone perfectly in Iraq by any means, but things have gone well enough in the spectrum of possible outcomes, that most critisism seems more oportunistic than substansive. It is quite likely that having a heavier footprint in Iraq would cause more resentment and friction, while not doing much to reduce the level of violence. Those actually causing the violence were not going to be deterred by any coalition action. Critics of the Administration that claim more troops are needed haven't offered any evidence that it wouldn't cause more problems than it would solve.

'Things have not gone perfectly in Iraq by any means, but things have gone well enough in the spectrum of possible outcomes'

I've learned a new term -- now I can tell my boss no matter how badly a project goes, I can say that 'things have gone well enough in the spectrum of possible outcomes'. Its true that some of the worst possibilities -- Lebanon style civil war haven't happened (yet), but in other ways, the Iraq project has gone very badly.

What triggered the fight with Al Sadr was our decision to close down one of his newspapers. I'm sure the newspaper was a hatemongering piece of junk, but there was little point to shutting it down.

Oh, please. The newspaper thing was a pretext. Sadr was looking to cause trouble, and found an opportune time once we were distracted by Falluja.

If you're winning a conflict militarily,you don't wimp out and let your adversary go at the last minute.

Why not? Happens all the time. See, e.g., Gulf War I. Perhaps it was a good decision and perhaps, like Gulf War I, it wasn't. Time will tell.

Guess how many poor Shi'ites there are in Iraq?

The crucial question is: how many poor Shi'ites have death wishes?

The incitement of violence by the newspaper wasn't the main problem with Sadr. Sadr's militia was already causing problems before they shut the newspaper down. Remember a few weeks before the newspaper was closed Sadr's militia razed a village south of Baghdad because of dancing girls. The story was on the front page of the Washington Post. Sadr's militia was the biggest problem, not Sadr. Sadr can do jack shit by himself. Destroying his militia or otherwise separating them from Sadr is more important than destroying Sadr.

Death wishes?

They won.

The">http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_06_21.shtml#1087950677">The Greatest Generation was a progressive generation.

"They won."

Just because you keep saying that doesnt make it true. What did they win? They were tossed out of Najaf, the cream of the 'army' is dead, and the vast majority of Iraqis failed to support them, indeed many turned against them. The guy lost his nerve, period.

"Oh, please. The newspaper thing was a pretext. Sadr was looking to cause trouble, and found an opportune time once we were distracted by Falluja."

We chose to shut down his paper and then we chose to arrest one of his key people. That's starting the fight by any standard. To counter actual facts with unverifiable suppositions of intent is ridiculous.

Sadr had his militia for a year and a half and made no significant move. His goal was always political power and the militia merely a means, otherwise he wouldn't have waited for us to attack him. He is now a player, second in popularity only to Sistani, who has committed to not seeking office. And, just to rub it in, he has been invited into the government before we even "turn over sovereignty". He won.

It was our stupidity to go after Sadr without having achieved control of Fallujah. The result was a military loss in Fallujah, and, in Najaf, a military tie (a battle that ends with an unconditional truce is a tie; winners force concessions) coupled with a clear political defeat. It was our further stupidity to first bellow hugely that our victory in Fullujah would be "awesome and terrible", and that Sadr would be captured or killed (when you make a pronouncement like that, you cannot claim victory unless it occurs), and then meekly squeak away.

Yes, we need and have needed more troops. Much more. Probably the 500,000 Shinseki wanted in the first place. Without allies, where do we get them? A draft? Well, that has serious political repercussions. Dress for riots. We needed more troops and didn't have them, which is one more reason the war should never have been fought. Americans suffer from the delusion that we have no limitations other than limitations of will. Reality is not so mystical as that.

I posted on it a while ago when I saw Sadr turn into a political opportunist.

It's important to analyze the electoral system that the UN will be putting into place. (Quite defunct I might add).

While Sadr only has 2% of the population behind him for a PM position, it's still very possible that he could get a large slate of mini-Sadrs elected to Parliament.

Bad news, bad news. What if he were to get a large enough minority that the winning party(ies) had to form a coalition with the bastard?

Quite scary stuff...the US needs to alleviate the problem before it starts in my view.

Dear Beuhner,

It's the same old saw that was true in Vietnam. Military victory and political defeat. We reduced Sadr's forces to a handful of hardcases militarily, and politically the man that we declared it was our objective to take 'dead or alive' will be running as a parlimentarian as the second most popular politician in Iraq.

Before we go round and round over this issue, we need to understand that the people saying 'we won' are stating that militarily we demonstrated absolute supremacy. On the other hand we need to understand the people saying 'Sadr won' are stating that Sadr achieved his political goals and our politics were the ones that received a setback.

And to reinforce the idea that 'more troops are good' - apparently the US military thinks so too. That's why they told the Army to be prepared to send another 25,000 troops there if the fighting heats up after June 30.

Considering that through postponing homeward deployments we're already bulked up to 145,000 before that it seems that the Pentagon and Admin have been undercutting the talking points parroted by the faithful.

Even as the faithful repeat the line that no more troops are needed, the WH stealthily raises the number of troops - first to 145,000 and now with a "contingency plan" to raise that to 170,000 - that indicates they aren't stupid enough to tell the lies they ask their supporters to repeat.

We are headed toward a massive mobilization and occupation of Iraq, and the question all along was whether it was going to be a volunteer army that did it through expanded recruitment earlier or a drafted one that will get their selective service assignments later.

If anyone is still naive enough to believe that, barring sheer luck, that we aren't headed toward this scenario then let them be minded that the previous lies told them by the politicians are being openly contradicted now on the troop number increases.

Obviously we did have more soldiers to send, because we're sending them. Amazing how they can get those soldiers out of thin air right? We were at 100,000 when the meme that there were no more to send went out. Now we're about to go up to 170,000 - amazing how 70,000 soldiers appear "out of thin air". Imagine that.

I have a few problems with Fareed Zakaria's article:

“The root causes of Islamic terrorism lie in the dysfunctional politics of the Middle East, where failure and repression have produced fundamentalism and violence. Political Islam grew in stature as a mystical alternative to the wretched reality--secular dictatorships--that have dominated the Arab world.”

Zakaria overlooks the rage and bitterness resulting from the mistakes their ancestors made some 400-500 years ago. This earlier situation is the central reason for the latter “dysfunctional politics.” I suspect that perhaps I’m being a bit nit-picky. Still, this point should not be ignored.

“The biggest mistake I made on Iraq was to believe that the Bush administration would want to get Iraq right more than it wanted to prove its own prejudices right.”

Zakaria must deal with the fact that perhaps never before in the history of the United States has an opposition party been so hostile to a president during wartime. Politics supposedly ends at the water’s edge. Has anyone told this to the Democrat leaders? Why the silence by Zakaria and others?

Oldman, we needed more troops. We probably still do, although bringing in large numbers at this point may prove counterproductive with the Iraqi people. I can excuse the initial lack of planning, mainly because no-one had a clue what a post war Iraq would look like. Heck, no-one would have been crazy enough to suggest the war would be over in a couple of weeks. But the lack of ability to adapt to changing circumstances is what I condemn in this administration.

That being said, lets examine Sadr. What has he accomplished? Is he more or less influential than he was before his uprising? Is the US better or worse off? Ok, here's what we know. Sadr drew his power by rabble rousing the absolute dregs of Shiia society in Sadr City. His respect amongst mainstream Shiia was extremely low, and he was generally thought of the way Bush is thought of by your average Berkeley undergrad, clueless rich kid of a powerful dad. His power stemmed from his control of his army of thugs and his virtual feefdom of Sadr City.
Look at him now, the thugs that give him what power he had are broken, dispersed, and their morale is shattered. He gained some popularity for standing up to the US, but little respect according to the polls. His political influence is miniscule. He's the Ralph Nader of Iraq. Worse he has made enemies all over Iraq, particularly in Najaf, for unleashing his criminals on their towns. The straw that broke the Sadr army wasnt American firepower, it was the fact that his thugs started getting assassinated by local residents. His position was untenable.
The bottom line is, Sadr is Hitler without his brownshirts. He is a spent shell. Mainly, he has consistantly proven himself to be a fool for squandering the influence he did have. Iraqis know this. America, on the other hand, has improved its image by being very selective about reducing Sadr's army. It wasnt Americans kicking doors in and shooting up mosques and houses in Najaf, it was Sadr's goons.
Not every war is Vietnam, and not every analogy applies. This is much more akin to Phillip handling the Greek uprising after Chaeronea, or how Alexander handled the Greeks throughout his career. Sometimes force isnt the best option, destroying the strength of your enemy is the objective, destruction is just incidental. Sadr is marginalized and probably wont survive long.

I agree it may be a mistake to overestimate Sadr. This is a guy who owes his prominence to who his father was; he's a symbol to a lot of armed young men he doesn't necessarily control. I'm not sure he meant for his Mahdi Army's response to the newspaper closing to trigger a full-scale uprising against a vastly superior American force. If your power base is men with guns able to intimidate the civilian population, deciding to send them against the 1st Armored Division is not an obvious tactical move.

This guy is not Napoleon. I think it likely he has some influence with some people, but doubt he is calling more than a few of the shots among his followers. His increased general popularity among Iraqis may be a consequence of the fighting in April and May, but it seems to me one Sadr lucked into.

Dear Mark,

You make a persuasive argument. I still think you aren't cynical enough, but time will tell. Let's touch back on the argument in three months and six months. That should be enough time to tell whether this was really a political victory for Sadr or a retreat to defensible ground.

If you're right and Sadr has fallen by the wayside, I'll admit it frankly. If I'm right, I hope you'll do the same.

DT,

“The biggest mistake I made on Iraq was to believe that the Bush administration would want to get Iraq right more than it wanted to prove its own prejudices right.”

Zakaria must deal with the fact that perhaps never before in the history of the United States has an opposition party been so hostile to a president during wartime. Politics supposedly ends at the water’s edge. Has anyone told this to the Democrat leaders? Why the silence by Zakaria and others?

Your partisan demagogery has sunk to a new low DT. Whatever Bush and co have done in Iraq, they did it because it was their idea and they wouldn't listen to anyone else. Ask them, that's what they're all saying.

Dr. Drezner, hello? hello? anyone in there?

you haven't responded to the only really cogent question: why does the fact that Sadr got his ass handed to him lead to the conclusion that we need more troops?

we're waiting..

"Let's touch back on the argument in three months and six months. That should be enough time to tell whether this was really a political victory for Sadr or a retreat to defensible ground."

Agreed. I'll do you one better, in 6 months we're going to have a much better idea whether there is going to be real democracy in Iraq, or some sham perpetrated for the sake of stability. Could be Bush, could be Kerry, could be some Iraqi seizing the reigns. Regardless, it'll be pretty obvious. If Iraq hasnt moved significantly towards real independence and self determination, i'll be the first to admit the failure.

Oldman wrote:

"Before we go round and round over this issue, we need to understand that the people saying 'we won' are stating that militarily we demonstrated absolute supremacy. On the other hand we need to understand the people saying 'Sadr won' are stating that Sadr achieved his political goals and our politics were the ones that received a setback."

Very true. I would like to add that it is the political victory that matters. If war is at all rational, it serves political ends, not vice versa.

Mark Buehner wrote:

"Sometimes force isnt the best option, destroying the strength of your enemy is the objective, destruction is just incidental."

This is true, but once you *publicly announce* that you will destroy the enemy, this option becomes a major hit to your credibility. Bush and Rumsfeld have consistently tied their own hands with the schoolyard tough talk that plays well to their constituents.