Dispatches From The Wars: Iraq Lost. Iran Won. So Where's That Leave U.S.?

Long story short, things are looking downright sucky in the two wars that President Obama inherited.

Beyond the firestorm over the discovery of a nuclear fuel-processing plant and the threat of sanctions against the slimy Tehran regime is a back story that in the long run is perhaps as troubling but gets virtually no publicity: The slow but steadily growing influence of Iran in Iraq as the U.S. troop draw down accelerates.

If Iran is Iraq's evil twin, then there is Afghanistan and Pakistan, two deeply dysfunctional terrorist-harboring countries that present Obama with untenable choices: Huge troop increases to protect the Afghan people that will be political poison, or a combination of troop withdrawals and intensified focus on counterterrorism strikes that will leave the population unprotected but perhaps take out some bad guys.

IRAQ and IRAN

An Army officer who recently returned stateside from a year in western Baghdad tells military blogger Thomas Ricks that behind the steadily growing Shiite influence in the capital city is the long hand of Iraq as manifested in the spate of recent bombings.

"Given what we've seen in classified reports and in the revolving door of Iraqi army commanders in select Baghdad neighborhoods," the notion of Iran strengthening its grip "is spot on, the officer tells Ricks. "Plus, Shiite militiamen have melted into the army and police over the past few years making it much easier for them to create Shiite havens throughout the city. It'll be interesting to see where Baghdad is in about 5 years.

"In your book, The Gamble, you cite [U.S. Ambassador] Ryan Crocker's comment that the most important events in Iraq have yet to happen. This is quite true and the troubling fact is that these events are going on right now and we don't even know what to do about them. Probably the better question is if can we do anything about them, especially given the constraints of the Security Agreement."

AFGHANISTAN and PAKISTAN

A still-secret Army report on what is being called the "Blackhawk Down of Afghanistan" is a vivid reminder of how the Bush administration starved that war of boots, material and support to fight the Iraq war.

Bad things happen to even the most prepared and resourced troops, but the men of Chosen Company had made neither the preparations nor had the resources, primarily air support, in the Battle of Wanat, a four-hour firefight in July 2008 in which the 48-soldier unit and 24 Afghan soldiers were outnumbered three to one by insurgents. Nine Americans died and 27 were wounded, an appalling 75 percent casualty rate.

The lessons from that battle are said to be a major factor in General Stanley McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops.

My own nuance-free view is that the U.S. needs to get the hell out of Afghanistan. This is because any counterinsurgency plan needs a government to base it on and Afghanistan is ungovernable, while eight years after 9/11 the country is no longer a vital interest while an initiative to tidy up South Asia through a rapproachement between India and Pakistan is.

Eric Martin's view over at Obsidian Wings is nuanced, and it goes something like this:

It is taken as a given by most proponents hanging tough in Afghanistan that the American presence is good for civilians beleaguered by the Taliban.

"This formulation ignores the obvious rejoinder that for U.S. forces to stay and battle the "Taliban" (whatever that term is supposed to mean on any given day) means to target large swaths of that same Afghan population," writes Martin. "Some of the anti-government groups are remnants of the Pashtun-dominated Mullah Omar-led Taliban that hosted Al Qaeda, some are entirely unrelated tribal entities, some are ordinary Afghans radicalized by the presence of a foreign occupying army, some are narco-warlords defending their turf and revenue stream, some smaller group are foreign fighters, etc."

To which Martin adds that the American presence breeds conflict at least as much if not more than it breeds stability. Just like Iraq.

Top photograph from U.S. Army