Thinking like Karl Rove

It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it…
So okay, if I were Karl Rove, what would I need to have happen in Iraq before November 2?
I think, if I were him, the thing I’d most like to see is some palpable progress toward stability and elections in Iraq. (As in Afghanistan, where the holding of the elections has been rushed forward to October, specially to fit Mr. R’s election priorities in the US.)
But if actual progress toward stability in Iraq doesn’t look probable–and faking it for the whole electorate might be a LOT harder than faking it for the GOP faithful who flocked to new York last week– then, well, how would a bit of determined bang-bang play for Bush’s election campaign instead?
My fears about this are certainly related to my experience of seeing half a dozen successive Prime Ministers in Israel launch escalations in Lebanon as part of their re-election strategies… Oh, the Lebanese have a very intimate view of the dark chauvinistic under-belly of Israel’s “democracy”. And then, remember the strong influence that Israeli politicians have on many in Bush’s close circle.
Actually, if I were Karl Rove, I wouldn’t think that a big, showy escalation in Iraq would necessarily–in the US context–be such a great vote-getter. But still, I might be tempted… Wag the dog, and all that…
So my fears in this regard [Helena speaking now, not Mr. R.] were piqued when I read a big piece of US Army swagger coming from the lips of Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, the number 2 in the military command in Iraq, as reported by AP’s Jim Krane today.
Krane wrote:

A U.S. assault on one or more of Iraq’s three main ‘no-go’ areas – including Fallujah – is likely in the next four months as the Iraqi government prepares to extend control before elections slated for January, the U.S. land forces commander [Metz] said Sunday…
‘I don’t think today you could hold elections,’ Metz said during an interview with three reporters at Multinational Corps headquarters near Baghdad International Airport. ‘But I do have about four months where I want to get to local control. And then I’ve got the rest of January to help the Iraqis to put the mechanisms in place.’
An American military offensive will be needed to bring the toughest places to heel, Metz said.

The three places Metz singled out as needing to be “brought to heel” were Fallujah, Samarra, and Sadr City.
The piece continued:

Assaults to retake these areas could be done consecutively or simultaneously, Metz said.

But he was graciously open to having the local people in these cities surrender to his terms without his forces having to pulverize their cities, the same way they pulverized Najaf:

‘If you’re a leader in a town … do you want to have to go rebuild it because it got destroyed, because foreign fighters came to hang out in your city? They can help us make these decisions,’ Metz said.
The general also said the Americans’ August siege of Najaf could be considered a model for subduing rebel-held areas.

Well, let’s not get hung up for too long on the totally bizarre use that Metz– like many others in the US military– makes of terms like “foreign fighters”. (What the heck, in the Iraqi context, are the Americans and all the ragtag members of their so-called coalition, anyway?)
But let’s ask ourselves, if the US powers-that-be in Iraq have decided there needs to be some bang-bang there before January– how averse would Karl Rove be to having some of that happen before November 2? Or are the orders out there that Metz and Co. should basically avoid escalations until after that fateful date?
I don’t know the answer to that. I am not Karl Rove. (And I confess I find it hard even to try to think like him, though I still think it’s good to try to do so.)
But there is a much larger issue at stake here, too: Why should the US forces feel they need to control everything inside Iraq before the elections, anyway? Seriously, why?
Now, I know it’s true that you need a basic degree of peaceableness in the country if the elections are to be successfully and credibly held in January. That goes without saying. Candidates, party workers, and–especially–election administrators all need to be able to move around the country in security.
But why does all that zone of peaceableness have to be under US control? From the point of view of holding a credible nationwide election, there is no requirement that the whole country be under US control. Certainly, elections have been held before in many countries and zones where control was actually, on the ground, divided; and they worked.
If the momentum toward elections is strong enough, and the terms on which they are held are solid enough–in other words, the elections have to be credible and fair, and they have to be about something serious, not merely about the formation of yet another local-Quisling administration… If those conditions are met, then arranging the security situation on the ground through a nationwide, election-related ceasefire would be easy enough.
In other words, you don’t need to “bomb Fallujah into submission”, Before Fallujah can participate in the national democratic election.
Indeed, a moment’s thought would surely indicate that doing this–or even threatening to do it– sends exactly the wrong signals about how political differences among groups need to get resolved in a democracy, anyway.
No, General Metz, you can’t build democracy by using inherently anti-democratic methods of coercion, violence, and threats of violence. Ends are always related to means.
So back off, all of you little strutting Bismarcks, please, please, please! Let’s have no more threats about bombing cities into submission. Instead, let’s hear all of you talk a lot more about how democratic means of joint problem-solving can be used to achieve the desired end of building a functioning democracy…
Oh, that’s not how you do things in the US Army? Well in that case, maybe the US Army is the wrong instrument to be trying to do this job of helping Iraq build a functioning democracy… In that case, move over, and make more space for the body that has a solid, recent record in this arena: the UN.