The Story Behind the Surge:

The Gamble by Thomas Ricks (Penguin, 2009, 400 pages)

Before we use Thomas Ricks’ The Gamble to revisit the now largely forgotten American escalation in Iraq, a few words on the US occupation there between 2003 and 2006 might be helpful, and Ricks himself provides them. Distilling three years of failure through the lens of a single day’s massacre–which left over twenty Iraqis, many of them children, dead–we learn right at the start that:

What happened that day in Haditha was the disturbing but logical culmination of the shortsighted and misguided approach the US military took in invading and occupying Iraq from 2003 through 2006: protect yourself at all costs, focus on attacking the enemy, and treat the Iraqi civilians as the playing field on which the contest occurs…Marines were ‘chasing the insurgents around the Euphrates Valley while leaving the population unguarded and exposed to insurgent terrorism and coercion.’ This bankrupt approach was rooted in the dominant American military tradition that tends to view war only as battles between conventional forces of different states. The American tradition also tends to neglect the lesson, learned repeatedly in dozens of twentieth-century wars, that the way to defeat an insurgency campaign is not to attack the enemy but to protect and win over the people.

OK, now suppose that around this same time, a retired four star general decides one evening–while watching television in his suburban basement den–to single-handedly seize control of the war, and force the floundering Bush administration to accept a change of course in Iraq. Not attempt to seize control, mind you, but to take it without delay. By drawing on decades of military experience, impressive contacts in Washington, and a special relationship with the military’s rising star par excellence, “big” Jack Keane effectively redesigns the entire approach to occupying Iraq and manages to bypass completely the hierarchy of military power, ultimately securing himself an audience in the Oval Office. Once there, needless to say, the president is putty in his hands.

Meanwhile, as our intrepid general is busy subverting the entire military chain-of-command in an elaborate end run around the Department of Defense, imagine his protégé David Petraeus, recently returned from combat duty in Iraq, cruising cross-country in a BMW 325i. He’s on his way to fill a cushy command post at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The decision to move Petraeus, the military’s most promising young general, to Middle America in the midst of two disastrous wars instead of the Middle East is roundly criticized by Washington insiders. Needless to say, though, while Petraeus may have left Iraq, Iraq has not left Petraeus. He quickly converts Fort Leavenworth into an in-house think tank of the United States Army, staffed by a rotating ensemble of the country’s most eminently formidable military intellectuals. Their task: locate “a starting point for a new approach in the war.”

Suppose further that somewhere in New York City, a 6-foot-7, chain-smoking, Brazilian-born Palestinian raised by Mennonites in Jordan, is at this moment resolving to abandon his job as a taxicab driver to pursue a more ambitious path in life. What does he choose to do? Head to Baghdad of course! with the intention of aiding the badly-bruised American occupation. Following a freak bathroom encounter with the top American commander in Iraq, Sadi Othman catches his big break, and becomes a civilian translator with the American military. Soon thereafter, the man whose previous public accomplishments extended only as far as being the first Jordanian to dunk a basketball finds himself on the path to becoming one of the most influential foreigners in Baghdad.

Now picture a career officer on the ground in Baghdad, a soldier with famous appetites for baseball and breaking heads. Up until recently, this veteran of numerous wars has come to represent all that’s wrong with the American approach in Iraq. Again and again, Raymond Odierno’s name has been connected with jaw-dropping incidents of civilian abuse, intimidation, and most troublingly, a murder conspiracy. But then, in a sudden, almost Aristotelian character reversal, Odierno experiences an epiphany that radically alters his approach to war. The battle is being lost, he decides; it’s time to change course. But how?

Finally, imagine a pacifistic British human rights crusader, fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, with a taste third world economics and a penchant for moonlighting as a spy. Emma Sky had been to Iraq, and was present during the invasion in 2003, but had vowed never to return as long as the country was under the yoke of American influence. But then one evening, she received a telephone call from Ray Odierno, asking her to become his special adviser on Iraqi affairs. Against her own better judgment, she agrees, on one condition: that should she ever witness him or his men commit a war crime, she would report Odierno to The Hague.

If I’ve set the stage for what looks to be a hokey Hollywood war flick, that’s because The Gamble crackles with the sort of proliferating improbabilities, colorful characters, and high-stakes risk-taking usually reserved for the movies. Ricks recounts the history behind a radical reorientation in the American military–the new posture that gave life, in turn, to “the surge” which many credit with recently quelling violence in Iraq–with a sure hand and flare for dramatic detail. At the same time, The Gamble is far from fluff; while the majority of literature on Iraq produced during this period will undoubtedly tumble into obscurity before long, The Gamble will likely prove an enduring artifact of the war for years to come.

The book builds on Ricks’ 2006 masterpiece, Fiasco, a scathing, smart indictment of a stupid, stupidly prosecuted war. Ricks took no prisoners in laying blame for the Baghdadi boondoggle squarely at the feet of the goonish manly-men populating the military’s highest ranks. Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department, Ricks passionately argued, allowed the US armed forces to illegally storm Iraq, with little protection and even less strategic guidance. Worse still, the Bush team dismissed credible warnings against the war from established experts with all the arrogance of high school jocks slamming the geeks against their lockers.

In The Gamble, however, we get revenge of the nerds, as a brigade of bow-tie wearing academics and PhD-holding army officers wrest control of the war from the knuckleheads at the Pentagon by outsmarting them intellectually, and outmaneuvering them on the ground. The first half of the book recounts this revolt, effectively arguing that the story is one of a double insurgency: the first raging in Iraq against the American occupation, the second quietly dismantling failed policies in Washington. The latter rebellion was hardly an organized, concentrated effort at its genesis, however. As we come quickly to find out, the surge was instead spawned by an orgy of entrepreneurial, do-it-yourself action taken by a host of different players, the various strands of which only later came together in united purpose. Ricks deftly navigates a slippery slope in his historical account by offering a meticulously clinical treatment of the ideas that ultimately shaped the American escalation in Iraq while at the same time crafting a captivating thriller packed with intrigue, double-dealing, and sedition in the name of saving what’s left of America’s honor.

This is not to suggest that The Gamble is without its shortcomings. You will have probably noticed, even from this thumbnail overview, that Ricks’ Iraq is unusually devoid of Iraqis, a problem frequently noted by the reporter’s critics. According to Marc Lynch’s perceptive review on ForeginPolicy.com, “In 325 pages of text…only ten pages…quote an Iraqi of any description, and only two [quotes are] unmediated by an American military official,” thus rendering Iraqis passive recipients of grotesque violence during the American occupation. The point is a good one, though I’m not clear that Ricks should be held responsible for producing an all-encompassing account of the past two-and-a-half years. The value of The Gamble, as well as Fiasco before it, rests in its unwaveringly sober critique of the US military–warts and all–and the dynamics that influence its action. Books that beautifully chronicle the Iraqi experience of terror, anger, humiliation and fleeting moments of joy in the war have already appeared–in English, Anthony Shadid’s As Night Draws Near and Dexter Filkins’ The Forever War stand out most immediately–and will certainly be joined by other quality contributions in future.

But another concern I have about Ricks’ account, not so easily palliated, is The Gamble’s celebration of that which was condemned in Fiasco. The protagonists in TheGamble, while surely deserving of praise for attempting to make a sickening situation in Iraq a little less horrendous, did so by flagrantly disregarding democratic transparency, the institutional structures according to which our government and its military operate, and in some cases, the law. The only difference between the revolt described in The Gamble and the one chronicled in Fiasco seems to be that the former boasts more sympathetic characters. In many ways, the real story that emerges from both books taken together is the willful insubordination and indiscipline that apparently became pro forma in the US military during the Bush years.

These considerations aside, and despite the best intentions of the architects behind the surge, the military’s about-face in Iraq would likely not have taken place if not for the 2006 midterm elections, a clear wake-up call to the Bush administration that its approach to policy could no longer be tolerated. The Democrats seized victory in grand fashion, capturing majorities in both the House and the Senate, as well as governorships and state legislatures, effectively sounding the death knell for the Bush administration. And while Bush himself described the Democratic victory in typical yokel fashion as a good ol’ fashion “thumpin,’” Ricks notes that the midterms triggered a profound change in Bush’s thinking. “Until the election, Bush seemed satisfied with blather,” he writes. “After it, he began to speak about the war seriously.”

Leading the charge in the Democrat’s congressional comeback campaign was Jim Webb–former Republican, Vietnam vet, erstwhile novelist, and father of a marine serving in Iraq–who contested George Allen for a senatorial slot in Virginia. Webb stomped Allen into the ground wearing a pair of combat boots from his son’s first tour in Iraq. Says Ricks, “Those boots that had trod the bloody streets of Ramadi gave Webb’s opinions on the war an added gravitas: not only had he served in Vietnam, his son was in the fight now.” And the newly minted senator was furious.

Webb provided a cathartic funnel for opponents of the war, aggressively pounding the White House with his clear contempt for its Vietnam-dodging inhabitants who sent other people’s children to die in Iraq. Things came to a head at a White House gathering following the elections, where Webb was sought out by the president after ducking an earlier opportunity to meet:

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked. “‘I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President.” “That’s not what I asked you,” Bush persisted. “How’s your boy?” “That’s between me and my boy,” Webb responded, before walking away.

This exchange, while controversial among those who believed Webb to have publicly disrespected the president, put the administration on notice that the status quo was no longer acceptable. The president received the message loud and clear. Immediately following the elections, Bush booted the cancerous Rumsfeld from Defense, replacing him with the more reserved Robert Gates; ordered Petraeus back to Baghdad as the top US commander in the country; and opened the floodgates allowing Jack Keane to become a de facto one-man Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Patraeus, Odierno, and their respective sidekicks, Othman included, implementing his will on the battlefield. Thus was set into motion a facelift for the American occupation in Iraq.

The bulk of the book’s second half chronicles the painful implementation of the surge. On the surface, the new strategy comprised a handful of principle elements. The first, and politically most challenging, was a troop-level boost in the neighborhood of 30,000 additional soldiers. Second, American commanders were ordered to cut deals, where appropriate, with local insurgents in order to scale back the violence. Third, Petraeus and the US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, sought to engage with Muqtada al-Sadr, the young firebrand cleric who controlled the loyalty of millions of Iraqis, including armed groups, even at the risk of alienating the central government.

Immediate effects were disheartening, if expected. The first months were smeared with blood, as violence intensified throughout the country. American troops increasingly left their bases, set up outposts in cities and towns, patrolled streets with 24/7 regularity, and became, in the process, attractive targets for insurgent attacks. Attacks on US and Iraqi troops increased 70 percent, an acceleration that produced mounting casualties with shocking frequency throughout the spring and into the summer.

“The bad news seemed relentless. On April 14, a car bombing at the main bus station in the Shiite holy city of Karbala killed thirty-two. Four days later, bombings in mainly Shiite areas of Baghdad killed more than 150.” But May was the worst. According to the military’s own data, that month witnessed over 6,000 “significant acts of violence,” by far the highest tally since the war’s start, and the culmination of the bleakest period of the war. “United States’ combat deaths climbed inexorably: 70 in February, 71 in March, 96 in April, and 120 in May, which became the deadliest month for US troops in two years.”

While American casualties mounted with shocking frequency, violence perpetrated against Iraqi civilians accelerated to grotesque heights. In February, a Baghdad market bombing left over a hundred dead, and hundreds more wounded. That same month, chemical warfare was introduced by insurgents, as was the use of children for suicide bombing missions. These attacks were soon followed by the concentrated killings of ordinary workers, attacks against the country’s industrial infrastructure, and assassination campaigns against tribal leaders and religious officials.

June promised more of the same, as the unyielding violence showed no signs of dissipating. Wave after wave of suicide bombings and other assaults whittled away the American presence–even as it mushroomed past 150,000 troops–leading to demands for immediate withdrawal in Washington, and leaving soldiers on the ground broken and demoralized. “In the hard-hit 1st Battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment…life got even worse in July. The first sergeant of Alpha Company, while on patrol, said “I can’t take it anymore,” put a weapon under his chin, and shot himself in front of his men.”

But then as the summer began to close, the gamble began to pay off, at least in security terms. Attacks declined sharply by over 60 percent as the insurgency seemed to dissolve, and Iraqis took back control of their streets. The capital, for one, “felt distinctly better. Kebab stands and coffee shops had reopened across the city…ordinary Iraqis felt safe enough to venture out of their homes at night…women discarded the head scarves that Islamic extremists had insisted they wear…Ramadan didn’t bring a major spike in violence, as it had in the previous five years. Some 39,000 displaced families safely returned to Baghdad.”

Ricks does not spend much time scrutinizing alternative explanations for the reduction in violence, nor does he ask uncomfortable questions of his own analysis, chief among them: What would have happened had there been no surge? Hints of an answer that the bloodbath would have abated on its own do crop up briefly in The Gamble, but are quickly dismissed. Ricks notes that by the time the surge hit its stride in the Iraqi capital, “the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad had been largely completed, with some neighborhoods that were once heavily Sunni becoming overwhelmingly Shia.” According to one soldier patrolling the increasingly peaceful city, “Now that the Sunnis are all gone, murders have dropped off…One way to put it is they ran out of people to kill.” In other words, as Stephen Walt recently pointed out, the surge’s success may have been all in the timing.

Still, even if we accept that the final months of 2008 proved the surge to be tactically successful, the first months of 2009 have revealed it as a strategic failure. Iraq may be physically safer, but the country’s political situation remains a morass, and it looks to get worse. The Maliki government hobbles along–dysfunctionally corrupt at best, pathologically sectarian at worst–which harbors bleak assessments of what to expect on the horizon. Steve Simon, a Middle East expert, and Council on Foreign Relations analyst, argues that the surge likely averted utter collapse of the Iraqi nation-state, but predicts that it will also leave behind a legacy that will leave the country suffering “the same instability and violence as Yemen and Pakistan.”

Heavy stuff, no doubt. But as the economic crisis continues to swallow up the world’s attention by melting all that was solid into thin air, will Americans even notice, or care? Ricks arrives at the deflated conclusion that:

“Many Americans seem to think the Iraq war is close to wrapped up, or at least our part in it. When I hear that, I worry. A phrase associated with this war that particularly haunts me is one that Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of Defense, used often in the winter before the invasion. ‘Hard to imagine,’ he would say. It was hard to imagine…that the war would last as long as they feared, or that it would cost as much as all that, or might require so many troops… I worry that we are now failing to imagine sufficiently what we have gotten ourselves into and how much more we have to pay in blood, treasure, prestige and credibility.”

In other words, we have to stay, whether we, or Iraqis, want us to. For Ricks, there are “no good answers, just less bad ones,” in Iraq, and that no matter how immoral staying may be, immediate withdrawal would be more so.

In somber conclusion, Ricks predicts that “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened,” a chilling confirmation, if he is correct, of John Grady Cole’s realization at the end of All the Pretty Horses: “He thought that the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that…in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.” A single flower, no matter how wilted, or imaginary.

Share on Facebook