- The carefully crafted statements of Gen. David Petraeus
and Ambassador Ryan Crocker delivered before House and Senate committees
were a study in political evasion. Every major description of the situation
on the ground in Iraq pointed to "progress," however slight,
however large the problems, and however dim the hopes for a long-term solution.
It was, in fact, this "hopeful" lack of certainty about anything
that emerged as the trump card of these two artful dodgers. They couldn't
be pinned down to anything--a timetable for withdrawal, certainty of success,
political stability--NOTHING except hope--which, naturally, meant more
time, more money, and more sacrifice in Iraq. To assuage the critics, there
was even a token proposal for phased but limited "withdrawal."
-
- Nothing more clearly demonstrated this art of bobbing
and weaving, hedging and dodging, than when questioned by Democratic leaders
critical of the war. They wanted assurances that this was not going to
be an interminable process and they came away empty handed. As Jim Lobe
told it, "Democratic leaders say such a reduction [in troops] is not
nearly enough, particularly in light of the inability of either Petraeus
or his civilian counterpart in Baghdad, Amb. Ryan Crocker, to point to
any serious progress over the past eight months in achieving the kind of
national reconciliation among the warring factions in Iraq that the surge
was designed to promote.
-
- The war critics brought up embarrassing administrative
benchmarks crafted last January where the President said the Iraqis would
take charge of the Iraq's security by November 2007. This and other benchmarks
were explained away with assurances of partial progress requiring "more
time." Someone should remind the president that he said the US would
not be infinitely patient with Iraq's failure to meet its commitments.
Really? So where are the consequences? There will be none, except making
the occupation indefinite.
-
- "Sen. Joseph Biden, who chaired Tuesday's Foreign
Relations Committee hearings at which Crocker and Petraeus testified asked:
'Are we any closer to a lasting political settlement in Iraq...today than
we were when the surge began eight months ago, and if we continue to surge
for another six months, the Sunnis, the Shias and the Kurds will stop killing
each other and start governing together? ...The answer to both those questions
is NO'.... But even with the two most recent Republican defectors' support
(Sen. James Walsh and Sen. Elizabeth Dole), Democrats are still unlikely
to come within hailing distance of the two-thirds majority they need to
overcome a veto by Bush of any legislation that would force him to change
the military mission in Iraq, let alone withdraw more troops more quickly.
'Unless we get 67 votes to override a veto, there is nothing we can do
to end this war,' said Biden."
-
- Returning to the evading of hard questions, even mild
mannered Jim Lehrer of the News Hour on NPR tried for almost 10 minutes
to pin down both Petraeus and Crocker to any substantive assurance on time,
troop withdrawal levels and political stability. When Lehrer tried to determine
whether the "hope" in the "progress" they reported
translated into some kind of personal assurance that this would ultimately
lead to success in Iraq, neither would commit themselves to any assurance,
which was very telling. They, like every other analyst living in Iraq,
know this process isn't going to lead to success, but won't say so because
they are lackeys and yesmen to government.
-
- Gen. Petraeus did include several remarks, including
inferences from major Iraqi leaders in the current government, that claimed
Iraqi leaders need a long-term US presence in Iraq. The only Iraqi leaders
who would say such a thing are those whose position is completely dependent
upon US support.
-
- Petraeus and Crocker coordinated their every word and
move with the administration, while going to great lengths to avoid the
appearance of close collusion. They made a big point on the News Hour with
Jim Lehrer of the fact that they had not talked to President Bush until
the day after their presentations to Congress. Anyone who believes their
written texts were not known and approved of by the White House before
their arrival in the US is ignorant or naive. Coordination and vetting
of their words was long ago assured prior to their arrival in Washington
DC.
-
- The President on Thursday night gleefully announced his
satisfaction with the reports, lauding the integrity and impeccable credentials
of the message bearers. Based upon the "hopeful" progress given
the nation by Gen. Petraeus, the president assured the nation the "process"
of drawing down limited number of forces can begin next year. He will reduce
U.S. troop levels by some 30,000 -- or only about 20 percent -- by August
next year, just as Petraeus recommended. "The more we succeed, the
more troops we can bring home from Iraq." So, our troops are now held
hostage to "success," whatever that is.
-
- This is pure political grandstanding, and will be quickly
forgotten once a strike on Iran is launched. Even without a war with Iran,
the US is fully intending to keep more than 130,000 combat and support
personnel in Iraq after the token withdrawal of five combat brigades involved
in "the surge." That means 15 combat brigades remaining and,
effectively, no withdrawal of any pre-surge forces. This little maneuver
has netted the US a continued combat involvement in Iraq at pre-2007 levels
while letting the nation think we are withdrawing! Slick, really Slick.
-
- President Bush told the nation that the troop surge had
done what it was designed to do: protect the Iraqi people from vicious
attacks and limit sectarian violence. Naturally, the American people are
now expected to give the president more time (and money) to let his strategy
have time to work.
-
- Tell that to the increasing number of US soldiers being
killed. Two of the Sergeants who had the courage to sign the anti-war op-ed
piece published in the NY Times were killed this week. They died along
with 5 others in a truck accident outside of Baghdad.
-
- Critics of the Bush administration's interventionist
policies were not fooled by all the media hype and administration grandstanding.
Tom Engelhardt [tomgram.com] evoked the image of "Eliza Doolittle
in these lyrics from My Fair Lady: 'Oh, words, words, words, I'm so sick
of words.... Is that all you blighters can do?' We've had to bear with
the bloviating [speaking pompously, verbosely] of almost every member of
Congress, the full-blast PR apparatus of the White House, and two endless
days of congressional testimony from General David Petraeus and Ambassador
Ryan Crocker, not to speak of the flood of newspaper, radio, and TV stories
about all of the above and the bevy of experts who are hustled out to do
the horse-race assessments of how the general and ambassador performed,
whether they 'bought' time for the President.
-
- "And -- count on it -- that's just the beginning.
The same cast of characters will be talking, squabbling, spinning, and
analyzing stats of every sort for weeks to come -- with a sequel promised
next spring. Everyone knows that's the case, just as everyone has known
since mid-summer that we would get to this point and, when we did, that
things similar to those said (and written) in the last two days would indeed
be said (and written), and that nothing the blighters would say or write
would matter a whit, or change the course of events, or the tide of history...'
-
- Engelhardt's comments about how they can just keep analyzing
and assessing things for years, playing people along indefinitely, are
true. Sadly, the PTB will punctuate the boredom and predictability of their
strategy with new wars and terrorist acts to keep the public hyped up in
its patriotic stupor of blindness.
-
- Robert Scheer added, "Back on Sept. 26, 2004, in
the weeks before the midterm congressional elections, Petraeus [demonstrating
his political partisanship] took to the op-ed pages of the Washington Post
to make sure the voters didn't vote wrong. Despite appearances, he claimed
the war in Iraq was going very well: 'I see tangible progress [through
rose-colored glasses]. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the
ground up,' Petraeus wrote. 'The institutions that oversee them are being
re-established from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward,
leading their country and their security forces courageously. ... There
has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the
load for their own security, something they are keen to do.' So keen, it
makes one's heart swell. So keen that three years later, after the expenditure
of $450 billion more in taxpayer funds, and more U.S. troops in proportion
to the Iraqi population than we had in Vietnam at the height of that war,
the good general now insists it would be disastrous to even think about
bringing any American troops home before next summer. That's at least another
$150 billion and many more Iraqi and U.S. lives wasted.
-
- "But wait--Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador
to Iraq, also testified before Congress this week with Petraeus, and he
has more good news about what he still celebrates as the 'liberation of
Iraq.' Remember that Bush administration promise that the oil-rich Iraqis
would pick up the check for the cost of their liberation? Well, Crocker
is bullish on that front: the Iraqi economy is on schedule to grow by 6
percent, according to his testimony. Perhaps he is referring to the additional
money dumped into Iraq's economy by American taxpayers chipping in for
the 'surge.'"
-
- Crocker's political remarks are at odds with how Iraqis
see it. According to a BBC poll of Iraqis 70 percent of Iraqis believe
"security has deteriorated since the surge began" and 60 percent
believe attacks on U.S. forces are still justified. 93 percent of Sunnis
express hatred for the United States and those Iraq leaders who serve as
puppets for the US.
-
- Perhaps that is why one of the sheiks from Anbar province
(lauded by President Bush and Gen. Petraeus for switching over to the American
side) was assassinated this week. Sattar Abu Risha was head of the Anbar
Awakening Council, a tribal alliance that fought the Sunni al-Qaeda group.
-
- Pepe Escobar explains why the loss of Abu Risha damages
the administration's success claims in Anbar: "The success story in
Anbar is not due to the general's wily ways, but to an Iraqi sheikh: Abdul
Satter Abu Risha, the leader of a coalition of tribes, including 200 sheikhs,
formed in the autumn of 2006 under the name
-
- Anbar Sovereignty Council (now it's called Iraq Awakening)...
Abu Risha is not, and never was, a Salafi-jihadi. He considers himself
an Iraqi nationalist. He's not in favor of a caliphate. But he's definitely
in favor of restored power to Sunni Iraqis." -which wasn't going to
happen. He would have eventually defected again.
-
- Further the BBC poll found only "29 percent of Iraqis
now think the situation will get better, as opposed to 64 percent who shared
that optimism before the surge----which almost 70 percent of Iraqis believe
has 'hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic
development.'" In short, one can always cherry-pick some tidbits of
good news out of any conflict. The bottom line is that Iraq is a sectarian
quagmire of multiple ethnic groups warring over their share of oil and
other government benefits. This is the natural outcome of all raw, unrestricted,
democracies where the "majority takes all."
-
- That's why we in the United States have a constitution
where the government is (or used to be) restricted from redistributing
wealth and benefits to favored groups. Unlimited majority rule is a recipe
for constant conflict among competing groups and there is no resolution
except to strictly limit the power of the majority to legislate--limiting
legislative and executive powers to the defense of fundamental rights alone
(properly defined: see my section on Law and Government at <http://www.joelskousen.com>www.joelskousen.com
). Sadly, in the wake of war and nation building our government refuses
to allow any political party or movement to emerge in developing countries,
including Iraq, who wants to install a US style constitution. I have personal
knowledge of this betrayal having served as an advisor to developing free-market
political parties in Central America during the Reagan administration.
-
- PDF Version: http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/pdfbrief/World%20Aff
- airs%20Brief%2014%20September%202007.pdf
- World Affairs Brief September 14, 2007
-
- World Affairs Brief, September 14, 2007. Commentary and
Insights on a Troubled World.
-
- Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution
permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief (<http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com>
http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com )
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