The King
Kinger raised some good points in his last few posts. Aside from the amusing quote from the department of the WTF, I particularly like his looking forward to the inevitable debate about "Who lost Iraq" (which will be the PR battle of a lifetime for conservatives) and the critical analysis of Donald Stoker's could be article in FP.
First, on who lost Iraq. Despite all of the counterfactuals which IR professors will write for decades, people familiar with the region were convinced that the mission would fail from the outstart. Indeed, even people familar with the general history of foreign occupations and insurgency had strong convictions that the regime change would fail (see my undergraduate thesis here, for an example. But, as King suggests, the Revisionists will tell a different story, just as conservatives have tried to distort the explanation for America's failure in Vietnam. The beauty of revisionist history is that you can choose an moment to begin creating your fairy tale. Revisionists will most likely start with this moment, when Liberals voted against the troop surge, as the turning point. The argument will go something like this:
Of course, the strategy could have worked. I recently played the Powerball while I was in the states. The grand prize was around $160 million (which without taxes and multiple winners is better than a fair bet) and I bought a ticket. I could have won!!! But I didn't. What were my odds? Exactly 1:146,107,962. Donald Stucker is right, the strategy could work, and the revisionist story I outlined above could be true, just as Aliens might arrive tomorrow. Any student of statistics will appreciate the difference between things that could happen and things that are likely to happen. As Kinger says, "Last time I checked, sound policy needs to be based on the likelihood of success rather than on wishful thinking about how it could work."
Posted by Peter
First, on who lost Iraq. Despite all of the counterfactuals which IR professors will write for decades, people familiar with the region were convinced that the mission would fail from the outstart. Indeed, even people familar with the general history of foreign occupations and insurgency had strong convictions that the regime change would fail (see my undergraduate thesis here, for an example. But, as King suggests, the Revisionists will tell a different story, just as conservatives have tried to distort the explanation for America's failure in Vietnam. The beauty of revisionist history is that you can choose an moment to begin creating your fairy tale. Revisionists will most likely start with this moment, when Liberals voted against the troop surge, as the turning point. The argument will go something like this:
President Bush's Administration, and particularly Donald Rumsfeld, made some careless mistakes after their overwhelmingly successful invasion, which led to an increase in sectarian violence. Just when President Bush arrived at the winning strategy of increasing US troops and pressuring the Iraqis to control Sadr, Liberals in Congress lost their nerve, demoralized the troops and eventually forced the US withdrawl of troops at the end of Bush's last year as President, in hopes of giving Republican candidates some help. If the Liberals hadn't been so weak, the USA would have prevailed. This story will pop up somewhere; it's patently false.
Of course, the strategy could have worked. I recently played the Powerball while I was in the states. The grand prize was around $160 million (which without taxes and multiple winners is better than a fair bet) and I bought a ticket. I could have won!!! But I didn't. What were my odds? Exactly 1:146,107,962. Donald Stucker is right, the strategy could work, and the revisionist story I outlined above could be true, just as Aliens might arrive tomorrow. Any student of statistics will appreciate the difference between things that could happen and things that are likely to happen. As Kinger says, "Last time I checked, sound policy needs to be based on the likelihood of success rather than on wishful thinking about how it could work."
Posted by Peter
posted by PWN at 5:14 PM
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