The September Deadline: The Pigeon's Response

Hmmm... not much discussion on the last OPEN TOPIC OF THE WEEK:  but I'll plow into it anyways!

From the US standpoint, this is what I want from Gen Petraeus:  an unbiased, nonpartisan assessment.  I don't want him to tell the President or the public what we want to hear; but what we need to hear.

Personally, I don't doubt Petreaus' character, and 100% think he'll give us the straight dope.  That doesn't mean, though, I'm not worried about high ranking government functionaries whispering After Action Review recommendations in his ear.  Or other functionaries feeding him hearsay, half-truths and out right lies from which he'll unfairly draw conclusions. 

Am I saying he's not smart enough to see through the battlefield clutter?  Absolutely not:  he wouldn't be where he is otherwise.  But he's still just one man being bombarded by field reports, hopefully well-filtered and analyzed by trusted command staff.

Needless to say, many strategic blunders occur thanks to the command chain feeding inaccuracies to the high command.  That, or the commander refusing to believe iron-clad accurate Intel. Petraeus isn't one of those latter commanders.

But from the Iraqi standpoint, what can we hope to achieve if the Iraqi decision makers aren't committed?  I mean, going on holiday while the wolves are still in the hen house?  To heck with US objectives:  I truly want Iraq to succeed.  But now even my patience is wearing thin:  why should we waste more lives, money and materiel when the government we're trying to help doesn't give a damn?  As I've mentioned before, Democracy in America worked because ultimately the people wanted it to work (royalists aside).  Without such critical political mass it'll be a long time coming in Iraq.  And now even I'm losing faith.

However, from a cultural standpoint, the whole timetable process is a clash of civilizations.  Americans?  We like deadlines.  We like being on time, and we curse the tardy to the deepest reaches of hell.  We formulate objectives, establish metrics and deliverables, and promote/fire minions based on them meeting said objectives.  Our lives are ruled by the relentless and unforgiving ticks of the clock.

Speaking broadly of Middle Eastern culture, though, the proverbial sundial is still the preferred method. There's a word in Arabic and Persian that captures the sentiment:  enshallah, or "God Willing."  If the lord wills it, it will be done.  In other words, I'll get to it when I get to it, and if it doesn't get done?  That's what God willed.  Time is measured by calls to prayer, by meeting socially before meeting for business, by actually realizing, "who the [PIGEONED] wants to work when it's 110 degrees outside?" 

I've read the books, taken the classes, studied the cultures, and experienced "enshallah" first hand.  When I was deployed to Saudi Arabia back in March 2001 to help build the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), we regularly had to go to Riyadh to pick up supplies.  In the US, such a run would've taken 6 hours, including travel time.  In Saudi Arabia, turn around time for a typical semi-load of equipment was 12 hours or more.  We'd depart the base on schedule (ours, that is), arrive at our destination on time, and end up waiting an hour or more for our contacts to show up.  Then we'd sit around for another 2-3 hours drinking coffee and shooting the bull (okay, that's not so bad). 

Did I mention spanning this whole time were three daytime calls to prayer?  Can you imagine New York City shutting down for 20 minutes so everyone could pray?  Neither can I.  But by Allah, Riyadh came to a standstill five times a day, every day.

Then, if we were lucky, the truck would actually be loaded after tea time.  Usually the truck hadn't even arrived, let alone been loaded.  See what I'm getting at?

We're projecting our metrics-driven, appointment mandated culture on another that considers being an hour late to an appointment on time.  I'm not saying the Arab world is wrong, or ours is right, or vice versa; indeed, there's something to be said about how we're so willing to sacrifice precious hours, family and friends in pursuit of a corporate metric, while when in Saudi I observed friends and family always came first (masters of the roosting arts, if you will).

Regardless, these are the kinds of issues people need to consider when formulating security policies.  If we wanted to achieve goals this September, then perhaps we should've surged last September, not two months before the Iraqi government decided it was beach time.

"Enshallah."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary's Thoughts, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Right Truth, Inside the Northwest Territory, Shadowscope, Webloggin, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, Cao's Blog, The Amboy Times, The Bullwinkle Blog, , Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, Allie Is Wired, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Wyvern dreams, CommonSenseAmerica, Wake Up America, High Desert Wanderer, Gone Hollywood, The Yankee Sailor, CatSynth.com, and Church and State, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Comments

[Sam Tresler]

I realize this is a lot of what you just said, but my point in _any_ war to help a third party is a simple subjectivity-objectivity argument.

In general, we assume that everyone wants what we want, and that just isn't true. These people didn't want to be a democracy. They did want out from under the rule of Saddam (as I understand it), but that isn't necesarily our place. If American security is at risk, that is one thing, and a stable Iraq would help that, but in the end we need to understand that a stable Iraq may not be anything we can imagine.

And on another note. Democracy pretty much requires a separation of church and state to be effective, -or- possibly a single religion state (but that gets ugly quick). Otherwise, political problems become belief wars and that can't happen in a Senate for example, and be expected to work.

I mean, when taking a long view did we really think we could change someone else's culture to be more like our own that easily? Especially when we knew SO LITTLE about the existing culture in the first place? Sure we had experts, but we also had to run ads in the paper to find people who even spoke the language when all this started. What made anyone think that we knew what was better for them? Again, I'm ot questioning that the initial war _might_ have made things better for us, but this whole concept that we are their to help the iraqi people is either a farce, or a Very very misguided thought process.