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The Wolves Circling Rumsfeld

The major reason the nation urgently needs a new defense secretary is far more urgent. Put simply, the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. Rumsfeld’s famous “long screwdriver,” with which he sometimes micromanages policy, now thwarts the top-to-bottom reexamination […]

The major reason the nation urgently needs a new defense secretary is far more urgent. Put simply, the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. Rumsfeld’s famous “long screwdriver,” with which he sometimes micromanages policy, now thwarts the top-to-bottom reexamination of strategy that is absolutely essential in both war zones. Lyndon Johnson understood this in 1968 when he eased another micromanaging secretary of defense, McNamara, out of the Pentagon and replaced him with Clark M. Clifford. Within weeks, Clifford had revisited every aspect of policy and begun the long, painful process of unwinding the commitment. Today, those decisions are still the subject of intense dispute, and there are many differences between the two situations. But one thing was clear then and is clear today: If the man at the center of the military chain of command remains, the policy will not change.

That first White House reaction will not be the end of the story. If more angry generals emerge — and they will — if some of them are on active duty, as seems probable; if the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan does not turn around (and there is little reason to think it will, alas), then this storm will continue until finally it consumes not only Donald Rumsfeld. The only question is: Will it come so late that there is no longer any hope to salvage something in Iraq and Afghanistan? ~Richard Holbrooke, The Washington Post

No one would confuse me with a supporter of Mr. Bush and his war, much less with a fan of Donald Rumsfeld. Nonetheless, I find Leon Hadar’s arguments against firing Rumsfeld fairly compelling. Likewise, I find the assumption that if only Rumsfeld were to go the war in Iraq might still be “won” to be incredible.

Holbrooke’s op-ed relies on this assumption for its final justification: for the sake of our war effort, Rumsfeld must step aside. But does anyone really think, deep down, that this is principally a problem of the management at DOD? It may be unprecedented and highly symbolic for retired generals to speak for their colleagues against their civilian leadership, but it will always have to remain symbolic, as the man who ought to resign is the man who ordered this war in the first place. That will not happen, so we are satisfying ourselves with a symbolic repudiation of the administration. A repudiation that will change absolutely nothing in terms of basic policies–policies that, as the last six months have shown us, are not going to succeed.

Many of the screw-ups in the pre-war months and afterwards do indeed fall to Rumsfeld and his underlings, many of whom encouraged and implemented the bad policies for which Rumsfeld is being blamed before scurrying away to their new hiding places, but whatever the flaws in execution the fundamental policy, which is the President’s policy, was never going to succeed in its entirety. We should remember that Rumsfeld wanted the smaller-than-recommended force in Iraq because he had never had any intention of our remaining there this long. The original vision was of a large American force whose presence would be measured in weeks, not months. He probably wanted no part of a long-term mission of social and political transformation of Iraq, a project that would have to strike the old man as either foolish or unnecessary.

The joys of Schadenfreude aside, chucking out Rumsfeld will in some ways provide Mr. Bush with a clean slate to start the same dreadful, futile process all over again. Instead of choosing one of the highly implausible and politically humiliating candidates suggested in press speculation (McCain, Hagel), he will choose someone even less experienced, more ideological and more “loyal.” That is the basis on Mr. Bush has selected his personnel over the past several years. Remember Mike Brown? Remember Harriet Miers? Now imagine the equivalent of a Mike Brown or Harriet Miers being given control of the armed forces! The war in Iraq could go from the present failure to absolute disaster.

None of which is to suggest that a John McCain would know the first thing about winning a war if he were somehow to become Secretary of Defense (a promotion as hilarious in its way as the idea that Condi might have replaced Cheney as VP). This is a man with the strategic good sense of a Norse berserker. Oh, he would change policies all right, ensuring the prolongation of the war in Iraq and probable escalation of hostilities with any number of other nations. He was not the original Weekly Standard foreign policy poster boy for nothing.

Chuck Hagel, God bless him, has no alternative strategy that could possibly fit with the overall administration policy. He would never be selected, because he could not, in good conscience, pretend that helping entrench the political masters of the Badr brigades in government through “democracy” will resolve the conflict to everyone’s satisfaction. Even if the President were inclined to change some aspects of the policy with a new Secretary, Sen. Hagel, valid as many of his criticisms have been, remains a dedicated internationalist who generally accepts all of the canards about “America’s place in the world” that will always prevent him from calling for the kind of policy of withdrawal that has become the most plausible and reasonable option.

With all that in mind, having Rumsfeld continue to muddle through in the same ineffective way he has done may be the least bad option at the present time. The war in Iraq cannot be “won” in any conventional sense, and it has already been lost politically with the onset of sectarian warfare, which defeats the political goals of the administration as surely as anything could. Withdrawal has increasngly become the only escape route available, and it is up to Mr. Bush, not Rumsfeld, to take that route. Perhaps a suitably devastating repudiation of the GOP in the fall elections will concentrate his mind on that option. If the public’s opposition to his policy does not get through to him at that point, a change in Defense Secretaries won’t matter a bit.

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