Washington Can’t Handle the Truth About Iraq
Gen. David Petraeus didn’t stand a chance. The top U.S. military commander in Iraq tried to present a nuanced picture to Congress this week. So did his diplomatic counterpart, Ambassador Ryan Crocker. But the political world, in Washington and beyond, has lost the ability to see shades of gray. Its divisions become deeper and more bitter by the hour. Its capacity for sophisticated thinking has dwindled just when it is needed most.
The two men’s testimony on Sept. 10 reportedly buoyed the spirits of some Republicans. G.O.P. die-hards claimed to see in it the potential to improve their party’s lowly standing with the American public.
Conversely, even though General Petraeus’ optimism was limited and tightly qualified, its mere existence was enough to dismay Democrats and liberal activists.
Representative Tom Lantos on Monday accused the general of having been sent by the administration to persuade Congress that “victory is at hand.”
The liberal group MoveOn.org didn’t even bother waiting to hear what the general had to say. “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” ran the rhetorical question atop its full-page ad in The New York Times.
The partisans on both sides ignore huge parts of the picture. Republicans are surely living in dreamland if they believe that the American public will forgive the Bush administration its colossal missteps in the early years of the war.
Those errors are not erased, nor are their catastrophic consequences lessened, merely because General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker appear to have had a degree of success in their efforts to impose some sense of order in parts of Iraq.
A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Monday asked respondents whether they approved or disapproved of the way President George W. Bush was handling the situation in Iraq. A massive 71 percent disapproved.
But the judgments proffered by General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker also brought the intellectual inconsistency of the “Troops Out Now” segment of American liberalism into sharp focus.
Both men emphasized the havoc that would be the near-inevitable result of hasty withdrawal.
“A premature drawdown of our forces would likely have devastating consequences,” Mr. Petraeus said. He then referred to an intelligence report that enumerated some of the dangers, including a high risk of disintegration of the Iraqi security forces and a marked increase in sectarian violence and displacement.
Mr. Crocker expressed his certainty that “abandoning or drastically curtailing our efforts will bring failure, and the consequences of such a failure must be clearly understood. An Iraq that falls into chaos or civil war will mean massive human suffering—well beyond what has already occurred within Iraq’s borders.”
The gravity of those assessments stood in stark contrast to the shallowness of some of the arguments coming from the Democratic Party, many of whose members seemed to regard the Petraeus testimony as, more than anything else, a political inconvenience.
Even in the course of praising the general personally on the day of the testimony, Representative Ike Skelton, the Democratic chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said that General Petraeus was “the right person, three years too late and 250,000 troops short.”
That was a cute enough sound bite. But while it sought to replay for the millionth time the debate over how the U.S. got into the war in Iraq, it displayed no leadership or depth of thought about how to make the best of the current situation, and what responsibility America now bears to prevent things from getting far worse. Next Page >
Having lost sight of our objectives we redoubled our efforts to reach them. This joke quotation used to hang on many an office wall and I was reminded of it by the Republican euphoria over Petraeus' appearance on Capitol Hill. They are delighted that this make it harder for the Democrats to close down the war in Iraq. The obverse is that the Republican party is going to fight the 08 campaign with this as the major issue. Are they completely mad, do they want to commit electoral suicide. Apparently.
I think this situation exemplifies how the desire to gain power and maintain will take a person to great lengths. Here we has elected officials attempting to discredit a decorate military figure. I do not ofter describe very many things that go on in Washington as sickening, but this unfortunately is one of those times. I believe that we as Americans really to take a step back and look at who we are putting into office and then move forward full steam ahead in changing the demographic of Congress, not necessarily right or left but responsible. A Congress of official who are willing to compromise and respect the institutions that are on the front lines like the military. Never in my life have I seen such blantant disrespect as I have seen in congress' handling of this report.
knowing that the iraqis had a chance to create the greatest nation in the middle east and they threw it away makes me worry a little less about how they destroy themselves if we leave, but their stupidity does ironically give me hope that if we keep making progress they might finally get with the program of creating something more than a 3rd world hell hole
they are capable of recognizing a winning cause, aren't they?
The slimeballs of our Congress had their remarks and criticism of the General all typed and ready to read, before he opened his mouth.
It shows once again that partisanship is the ONLY thing that counts with these slugs, except for fund raising-legal or otherwise.
Do you think that the ANTICHRIST aka Hillary will release the names of her contributors whose money is being returned?
Our present government is rotten and crooked and ALL need to be replaced.
Congress reminds me of an infant's diaper first thing in the morning. (full of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
I was at first taken aback by the prejudgement of General Petraeus' report before he had a chance to give it. Moveon.org.'s ad in the New York Times was unfair, disrespectful and adolescent. This group has a malicious and unsavory odor, and the lack of decency on the part of prominent democrats to disavow it is disheartening.
Unfortunately, these jokesters are not the only denizens of the farthest left, who are the faded imitations of the anti-everything clowns of the 60's. Most of them either live in the suburbs and work in the system they were going to change, or have been elected to Congress. There they spend most of the time raising money to maintain themselves in office, traveling around, and sniffing the air for a chance to get quoted in the New York Times.
What bothers me is the claim they and others, like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed, Barbara Boxer, John Edwards and that ilk make that they speak for the vast majority of the American people regarding the Iraq war. They base this on the results of the last congressional elections, and on some polls. The fact is that, although the democrats gained a slim majority of control in both the Senate and House, it was not a landslide victory on this or any other issue. The evidence is that they do not have the votes to implement their "strategy" of forcing an immediate and disastrous withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq. They have wasted everybody's time by crafting and introducing legislation for effect. They have accomplished nothing, and have only denigrated the public discourse by their ineffectual antics.
This group deems itself qualified to take over the responsibilities and powers of the executive branch of our government, with, in most cases, no background or experience in military or diplomatic matters. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker and their staffs have this experience.
There is not much of an argument that in hindsight we probably should not have invaded Irag, but that IS hindsight. No argument that Donald Rumsfield in his hubris made decisions that, to paraphrase John McCain, qualify him as the worst secretary of defense in our history. President Bush should have been watching this guy more closely. The misjudgments of Rumsfeld, Paul Bremmer, Wolfowitz and that crowd are legend. They should have been summarily fired, rather than escorted out of office with honors.
But we are where we are, and the consequences of our troops fleeing Irag on the first planes available would cast us in the light of an unreliable power, so weak as to be unable to influence events in the Middle East or anywhere else. With no significant remaining influence, our friends in the region would probably find it in their best interests to make accomodations with Iran, and there would be no stomach in Europe to resist it. The result may well be increasing hegemony by Iran and its theocracy, or war. If Iran is on the cusp of having nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them, war may be inevitable anyway, but a sure way to hasten that unhappy result is an ignominious retreat.
If the Iraqis want to kill each other, let them. Why should their genocidal murder sprees bother us if Darfur, Congo, etc.. don't? We may have enabled the civil war to start by removing Saddam, but we didn't cause it. Three years of trying to stop it is enough. The only people there worth protecting are the Kurds.
A decent summary, but a key element is missing, elite liberalism's mouthpiece: the MSM. Sure the Bush admin has "blown" this and that (welcome to the Oval Office), but consider the relentless media headwind that it has had to labor against! Could *any* presidency have hoped to operate effectively against it? Abu Ghraib Abu Ghraib Cindy Sheehan Abu Ghraib. OF COURSE the average working stiff, who has no time (or stomach) for the details, believes that Bush has lost in Iraq. How could he think otherwise?
And as for the yadayada poll that says that 71 percent of Americans are unhappy with Bush's Iraq strategeries, so what? I'm unhappy too. But it is because he has not been clear enough, or consistent enough, or TOUGH enough in fighting this altogether necessary war against state-sponsored Islamic terrorism. So yeah, lump me into that 71 percent. But also ask me what I think of the Democrat "leadership" on the matter. Or that of the effete silver-maned media establishment. Ask me what I think of the prospect of a John Edwards as CiC.
gary2850,
There is no "civil war" in Iraq. If there were a "civil war" in Iraq the factions would be forming their own states and hailing artillery down on one another. See, for instance, the "civil war" in the former Yugoslavia a few years back, in which Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia–Herzegovina, and Macedonia broke away from Serbia and Montenegro. AQI has tired very hard to start a "civil war" in Iraq, but they have failed, and in fact the effort has turned around and bit them in the hind end. AQI is on the ropes, thanks to their own stupidity & brutality combined with the military effort that has been waged against them. Only a democrat pansy would want to let them go to fight another day.
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