Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

I guess that the things are going swimmingly well in Iraq--the July 13, 2008 Idaho Statesman carried this Associated Press story today admitting it--but of course, immediately finding the cloud to go with the silver lining:

BAGHDAD — Wajih Hameed is an Iraqi general with an attitude. With a satisfied look, he listened as a subordinate officer explained to the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad how he plans to reposition his troops in the coming weeks.
"Before, they would have asked us to propose a plan" in such a circumstance and then would have accepted it with little argument, said Brig. Gen. Will Grimsley, who led a group of American officers to Hameed's office on Thursday. "Now they are telling us how they will do it," he said in an interview afterward.
Hameed's swagger sometimes grates on American officers. But Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond sees it as a hopeful sign the Iraqi army - generals and soldiers alike - has reached a new level of self-confidence, pointing the way toward truly independent Iraqi forces and, eventually, an exit for U.S. combat troops.
The flip side is that the Americans feel their control slipping away. This feeds a worry that Iraqi security forces either will set themselves up for a catastrophic failure or might even decide - at some point when the Americans largely have departed - that the country would be better off under military rule.
...
What changed?
Hammond and nearly a dozen other American military officers said in a series of Associated Press interviews this past week that the key was the Iraqis' sudden and largely unexpected leap into hard battle in Basra in March, followed by offensives in the northern city of Mosul and the Sadr City section of Baghdad ending in May.
The Iraqi army faltered initially in the Basra offensive, but the outcome seemed transformative for the Iraqis.

Well of course. From what I have read, all the training in the world is less important than the experience of actual combat, both in learning how to do what needs to be done, and in creating confidence that you can do it. In that respect, it is no different from a lot of other activities that we train to do--but actually doing it matters more than all the training. Think of the time you spent in driving simulators (which we used a lot when I was in high school), compared to your first actual time behind the wheel.

I don't doubt that there is a real danger that at some point, Iraqi military leaders might decide that they know what they are doing more than the Iraqi Parliament. It wouldn't be the first time that this has happened--not even the first time in Iraq.

There was a whole generation of Americans who don't understand why George Washington was a hero to several generations of Americans--to the point that all sorts of juvenile stories were popular about him--such as admitting that he chopped the cherry tree. At least part of what made the American Revolution so remarkable was that George Washington made a very conscious decision to emulate the Roman general Cincinnatus--who could have made himself a king after defeating Rome's enemies, but chose to return to his farm.

That concept--the general who recognizes that civilian authority is paramount--is part of why our Revolution didn't go down the tubes like many others have done so in history. That's what made Washington great. And that's why when historians like Parson Weems tried to convey this difficult concept to kids, they went for oversimplified myths.

Does Iraq have a George Washington? Someone who, if the opportunity presents itself, will tell his underlings what Washington told the officers who wanted to march on the Continental Congress in 1783 and demand their back pay? I hope so. There's much to disrespect about the Iraqi Parliament (although it doesn't seem to be quite as bad as our Congress), but military rule has its own even worse set of problems.