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The Assault on Petraeus – Michael Gerson, Washington Post
… On Petraeus's brief watch, al-Qaeda in Iraq has suffered a major setback. It has been cleared out of the main population centers of Anbar province; its cells scattered into the countryside. The resentment of Sunni tribal leaders against al-Qaeda's highhanded brutality predated the surge -- but the surge gave those leaders the confidence and ability to oppose al-Qaeda. And this approach is showing promise among other Iraqi tribal groups as well.
In Baghdad, the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy -- a kind of community policing with very serious firepower -- has reduced sectarian murders significantly. Some militia activity has been pushed outside Baghdad or gone underground -- and this is also a victory of sorts, because order in Iraq's capital has great symbolic and practical importance.
But for opponents of the war, such progress is beside the point. Anything less than perfection in reaching a series of benchmarks is evidence of failure and reason for retreat…
An Only-Time-Will-Tell View on Political Gains – Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
Maybe the Iraqi government will seize the opportunity for political reconciliation that the United States set out to buy for it with blood and treasure, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker said yesterday. And maybe it won't.
"My level of confidence," Crocker replied dryly to a question from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), "is under control."
Monday's House appearance by Crocker and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, focused on President Bush's troop buildup and improving security trends. In two Senate hearings yesterday, Crocker took the lead in offering a look at the political side of the Iraqi equation. His message was one of lowered expectations and small seeds of progress that might bear fruit in some distant future.
"We are pushing them constantly in all sorts of ways," he said of the Iraqi government.
"But I've got to be honest. This is going to take more time." …
Planning for Defeat – George Packer, The New Yorker
… It’s easy to fall under the illusion that a perfectly framed ten-point proposal could allow for a painless withdrawal. But what if there is no such thing as a “responsible exit” from Iraq? This is the view of Stephen Biddle, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who spent the spring in Iraq, as part of a strategic-assessment team of military and civilian experts. He said, “When you look at the spectrum of policy approaches in Iraq right now, the extremes” - maintaining the largest force possible or pulling out immediately - “make more sense than the middle.” The “middle-ground policies,” he argued, “tend to dramatically reduce our ability to control the environment militarily, because they all involve withdrawing about half of the troops. It’s our combat activity that’s currently capping violence around the country, and almost everybody would cut that out - which means the violence is only going to increase. And yet they leave tens of thousands of Americans in the country, to act as targets. Continued U.S. casualties, continued deterioration of the situation all around them: within two or three years, that’s going to generate powerful pressure to go all the way to the zero option. Why not do it sooner, and save the seven to eight hundred lives you’re going to lose to walk through this drill in the meantime?”
A military officer with extensive experience in Iraq was less polite. “I just think it’s dishonest when people say we could go to advisory, get to fifty thousand troops, focus on training, still do the counterterrorism thing but not counter-insurgency,” he said. The reality of Iraq is bound to defeat the fantasies of Washington, the officer suggested. “What about the enemy, man?” he said. “Are we going to ask them to conform to our plan?”
David Kilcullen, an Australian counter-insurgency adviser who served on Petraeus’s staff in the first half of the year, said, “The real question is not withdrawal dates or troop numbers. The real question is: What do we want Iraq to look like once we don’t have a hundred and sixty thousand troops there? And is what we want achievable?” This spring, Kilcullen also served on the strategic-assessment team, which was led by Colonel H. R. McMaster, of the U.S. Army; David Pearce, of the State Department; and Colonel James Richardson, of the British Army. The assessment implicitly contradicted the Administration’s rhetoric by declaring the violence in Iraq to be driven by a communal power struggle in which the Iraqi government was one of the main actors. The goal that it set for the next two years was not a democratic Iraq but “sustainable security,” with Iraqis in the lead. One participant told me that a majority of the team believed that it was too late to achieve this goal.
In Kilcullen’s view, allowing the surge to run its course into next spring, while doing as much damage as possible to Al Qaeda in Iraq in the meantime, would make it likelier that a gradual withdrawal of troops would not leave behind the chaos of previous drawdowns - from Falluja and Mosul in 2004, from Tal Afar and Baquba in 2005, and from Baghdad in 2006. He said, “The longer you stay there doing police and counter-intelligence work, the more long-term stability there is once you leave.” He compared the surge to a course of antibiotics: “You keep taking it as long as possible, even after the symptoms are gone, to kill the underlying infection.” …
Hopeful Signs in Iraq – Helle Dale, Washington Times
It is deeply unfortunate, but it is a fact that the debate over the success or failure of American policy in Iraq is generating more heat than light. Yet, at the same time, rarely has more information been available to policy-makers about our progress on the ground that could be the foundation of a genuine debate over the way forward and the possible outcomes for the most important foreign engagement of our time.
Even before the surge progress report was delivered this week, Democrats and other intemperate critics of the U.S. presence in Iraq launched a full-fledged assault on the credibility of Gen. David Petraeus, the very same man who was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate to lead U.S. troops in Iraq earlier this year. MoveOn.org, the organization that has practically become the Internet arm of the Democratic Party, ran a full-page ad in the New York Times under the headline, "General Petraeus or General Betrays Us? Cooking the books for the White House." Other critics of the Bush administration on the Hill have not been quite as obnoxious, but still have not hidden their contempt for the facts on the ground that Gen. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker laid before them on Monday…
Facing Evil – Cal Thomas, Washington Times
There is no photograph of Satan, so we must improvise with what we have: Osama bin Laden. Looking like a Middle East version of a bad "Just for Men" beard dye commercial, bin Laden has resurfaced to deliver another rambling address to America.
Conversion to Islam, he said, would mean no taxes, just a low single digit "alms" requirement. Maybe he's trying to appeal to the Republican base. The downside to his vision of no taxes and its accompanying fundamentalist baggage would mean a transformation in our way of life; from prosperity and individuality, to living in dirt and serfdom. No thanks. Our nation was born fighting and defeating tyranny and only fighting and defeating this latest tyranny will sustain it.
The gist of the opposition to the war and to the reports by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker is that they are either not telling the truth or are not telling the entire truth. Facts and figures are in dispute about the number of sectarian killings and the general level of violence in various Iraqi provinces. Some areas appear less violent than others, but a political settlement remains elusive.
Opponents of the war and of continued American involvement cannot forecast what will happen if the United States pulled out before some stability is established. Neither will they accept responsibility if a pullout produce a bloodbath, followed by a huge terrorist base that would surely spawn new and more devastating attacks on the United States…
Iraq Through China’s Lens – Thomas Friedman, New York Times (subscription required)
… No, I have not gone isolationist. America has real enemies that China does not, and therefore we have to balance a global security role in places like the Middle East with domestic demands.
But something is out of balance with America today. Looking at the world from here, it is hard not to feel that China has spent the last six years training for the Olympics while we’ve spent ourselves into debt on iPods and Al Qaeda.
After 9/11, we tried to effect change in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world by trying to build a progressive government in Baghdad. There was, I believed, a strategic and moral logic for that. But the strategy failed, for a million different reasons, and now it is time to recognize that and focus on how we insulate ourselves from the instability of that world — by having a real energy policy, for starters — how we protect our security interests there in more sustainable ways and how we get back to developing our own house.
By now it should be clear that Iraq is going to be what it is going to be. We’ve never had sufficient troops there to shape Iraq in our own image. We simply can’t go on betting so many American soldiers and resources that Iraqis will one day learn to live together on their own — without either having to be bludgeoned by Saddam or baby-sat by us.
So either we get help or get out. That is, if President Bush believes staying in Iraq can still make a difference, then he needs to muster some allies because the American people are not going to sustain alone — nor should they — a long-shot bet that something decent can still be built in Baghdad…
Military Tactics May be Working but Iraq’s Real Conflict is Political - Bronwen Maddox, London Times
The Senate came into its own yesterday and put to General David Petraeus the central weakness of his case. Senator Joe Biden, a Democrat sceptical of the war and of the US’s attempts to hold Iraq together, challenged Petraeus, the US commander, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to explain why present military success meant lasting political improvement.
Even if the military tactics have worked, he argued, while Iraq lacks a government that will embrace all factions, then when US forces go home, Iraq will fall apart.
It is hard to argue against that, and Petraeus and Crocker did not do so. In analysis of Iraq, they are towards the upbeat end, but not to the point of implausibility. But although Petraeus’s confidence about military progress will not have disappointed the White House, both were rightly cooler about Iraq’s politics. The Shia-led Government interprets democracy as winner-takes-all, and, so far, the US has failed to persuade it to take less in the cause of national unity.
The two Senate committees yesterday pressed the point home where the sprawling House of Representatives panel on Monday failed, losing direction in effusive compliments to Petraeus. For all the fanciful comparisons with General Dwight Eisenhower (suggesting that Petraeus may eventually be offered political office), it is not going to be easy for anyone to win advancement by association with Iraq…
Petraeus Takes the Beltway – Wall Street Journal editorial
So the two men best qualified to give an honest and comprehensive account of events in Iraq have marched through Congress to say--and show--that the surge is working and America's goals are still within reach. Yet it's a sign of the U.S. political debate that their evidence of progress seemed to make the headlines in none of our leading news sources yesterday.
Instead, the "news" seems to be that General David Petraeus has recommended that some 5,000 U.S. troops can rotate out of Iraq by the end of this year, and that U.S. forces might be able to return to pre-surge levels by next July if progress continues. That's no small matter, but it obscures the larger message of the testimony by the General and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. To wit: The U.S. is gaining ground in Iraq--often in the least expected of ways…
As for U.S. politics, the lesson of the last few months is that the way to gain ground on Capitol Hill is not with the promise of troop withdrawals. As our experience in Vietnam showed, such withdrawals quickly become a Congressional addiction. All Americans want fewer troops in Iraq; most Americans also want that drawdown to be honorable and victorious. The way to stop, or slow, the calls for too-rapid withdrawal is to succeed in making further military and political progress in Iraq.
The success of the surge so far has bought Mr. Bush more time and support to press the initiative in Baghdad and the larger Middle East. He owes it to General Petraeus and U.S. troops to exploit this opening on every front--including Syria and Iran.
Troop Reduction Talk – Washington Times editorial
Sen. Dick Lugar yesterday provided the latest illustration that the quickest way for a member of Congress — especially a Republican — to win fawning coverage from the mainstream media is to call for yanking U.S. troops out of Iraq more quickly. As Gen. David Petraeus waited to testify about Iraq before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Lugar suggested that the general's plan to withdraw almost one-fifth of troops in Iraq by next summer does not go far enough. Mr. Lugar lectured Gen. Petraeus that the current troop surge "must not be an excuse for failing to prepare for the next phase of our involvement in Iraq, whether that is partial withdrawal, a gradual redeployment or some other option." As media coverage in the past day clearly shows, Mr. Lugar's comments (which were non-specific enough to give him plenty of wiggle room if they should result in disaster) make perfect sense as means of self-promotion. But as a prescription for policy-makers, the senator's approach is irresponsible…
Another $100 Billion for Iraq – Los Angeles Times editorial
Iraq is too important to lose, so we've got to keep on trying, no matter the cost, and though it's not clear when we will succeed.
This is the essence of the two-day report to Congress by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. The general and the ambassador freely admitted that the situation in Iraq is frustrating, that U.S. military might cannot force Iraqis into the political reconciliation that is the only basis for real stability, and that it's impossible to predict when Iraqis will be able to run their country themselves. Nevertheless, they argued, the consequences of U.S. troops departing could be so horrific -- Iraq turning into an Al Qaeda haven plagued by ethnic cleansing and preyed upon by Iran -- that the only prudent course is to keep at least 130,000 soldiers in Iraq at least until July.
President Bush is expected to accept this recommendation in a speech Thursday. Despite Democratic protests, it's unlikely that this toothless Congress will stop him from continuing the de facto occupation of Iraq for the remainder of his term. We fear this is a grave mistake that will compound the colossal error of invading Iraq in the first place -- although we fervently hope that Petraeus, Crocker and the courageous people they lead will somehow manage to prove us wrong…
Realistic Optimism – National Review editorial
In their testimony yesterday, Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker gave a factual, sober, and cautiously optimistic assessment of the Iraq war. It’s the optimism that drives the Left over the bend, with MoveOn.org accusing Petraeus of treason (“General Betray Us”) for the offense of persisting in trying to win a major war in the Middle East.
Elected Democrats quickly scurried away from the MoveOn.org ad, but many of them certainly endorse its spirit. One Democratic senator told the Politico a few days ago, “No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV. The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us.” MoveOn.org — one of the most well-heeled and active groups in the Democratic base — duly met the expectation. Its accusation only took the mainstream Democratic charge that Petraeus has been “cooking the books” to its logical conclusion.
While the Left questioned his honesty and patriotism, Petraeus made the case that “the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met.” He noted the blows that have been dealt to al Qaeda in Iraq; the decline in ethno-sectarian violence in Baghdad and the rest of the country; the improvement of the Iraqi Security Forces; the tribal rejection of al Qaeda; and the disruption of the operations of Shiite militants and Iranian agents. He said that “the situation in Iraq remains complex, difficult, and sometimes downright frustrating,” but that we can “achieve our objectives over time.”
Petraeus outlined a timetable for drawing down from the surge by summer 2008, but offered important stipulations. First, that withdrawals be made “without jeopardizing the security gains that we have fought so hard to achieve.” Second, that the mission not move prematurely away from the goal of securing the Iraqi population, since that has been so important to the surge’s success. Third, that any consideration of troop withdrawals to levels below the pre-surge total of 130,000 be put off until next March. Given how dynamic the war is, projecting how it will stand — and what forces we will need — “far into the future is not just difficult, it can be misleading and even hazardous.” …
Iraq: The Unanswered Questions – Boston Globe editorial
In two days of congressional testimony, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker offered sober yet willfully hopeful assessments of the prospects for stability in Iraq. The diplomat and the general tried to describe the present chaos as remediable. The most acute summary of the situation, though, came in a sequence of stark questions from Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. "Where is this going?" Hagel asked Petraeus. "Are we going to continue to invest American blood and treasure at the same rate we're doing now? For what?"
For what? Those two words did not just express the broad doubts of the American public, which appears to have lost confidence in President Bush's rationale for sticking to the current strategy in Iraq. Hagel's question also pointed to the central flaw in the case Petraeus and Crocker were trying to make for patience: There is no clear link between Petraeus's tactical gains in clearing and holding a few Baghdad neighborhoods and any achievable, worthwhile strategic aims.
So the senator's question is one that neither the military man who wrote the Army's counterinsurgency manual nor the foreign service professional who speaks Arabic and knows the region was able to answer…
West Must Stand By Iraqis - The Australian leader
The intensely anticipated report by General David Petraeus on military progress in Iraq has confirmed that he has achieved what a year ago seemed impossible - a reduction in violence in Iraq. Since General Petraeus took over as the commander of the multinational force in Iraq at the beginning of this year he has achieved remarkable success, with civilian deaths more than halved, declining from 3550 in January to 1584 in August. There has been a sharp reduction in attacks using improvised explosive devices, roadside bombs, car bombings and suicide attacks. Deaths of Iraqi military and police, which peaked in April at 300, fell to 76 in August. Equally important, while 36,000 extra US troops have been sent to Iraq, there has been no increase in US military fatalities, which were 83 in January and 84 in August.
The most significant development of the past six months has been the increasing emergence of tribes and local citizens who have joined the coalition forces rejecting al-Qa'ida. It is a strategy that is not without risks, bringing the danger that armed sheiks and citizens might shift their loyalties in the future, but General Petraeus's strategy of rewarding loyalty and punishing those who support the terrorists has been effective to date.
All this is dramatic evidence that General Petraeus knows what he is doing. But the politically charged commentary by left-leaning media makes it clear that opponents of the war are still willing the US to fail, driven by a virulent hatred of President George W.Bush. Anti-war protesters continue to advocate immediate withdrawal, even though it is obvious that this would escalate violence and that the only way to end the bloodshed is to follow General Petraeus's plan and stabilise the country...
Democrats Scramble for Iraq Strategy - Martin Kady II and Daniel Reilly, Politico
In public, Democrats maintained a brave front, dismissing recommendations from Army Gen. David Petraeus as too little, too late and suggesting he was the puppet of an unpopular president.
Behind the scenes, though, Democrats are scrambling to deal with a new dynamic on Capitol Hill — they’re the ones who are trying to come up with a new political strategy on the war. Definitive timetables for ending the war are dead on arrival in the Senate, yet embracing Petraeus’ partial withdrawal would give Republicans a significant victory.
So Democrats in the Senate, where critical votes are expected next week on the war, spent much of Tuesday trying to finesse legislative language that mandates a withdrawal that’s faster and more robust than what Petraeus wants, yet lacks a requirement for total withdrawal…
Our New National Divide – Owen West, Wall Street Journal
… Here in the United States, the vast moral chasm that so clearly separates the combatants in Iraq is too rarely discussed. Disillusion with the entire effort has obscured and in some cases mutated the truth that small numbers of evil men tilt entire populations. Many Americans, including prominent senators, cringe when they hear about warriors like Zembiec going door-to-door, notwithstanding the fact that most Iraqis in the neighborhood greet them as deus ex machina.
Nearly six years into the war on terror--which is being fought by less than 30% of the military and less than one-half of 1% of the nation--and the stark irony of America in modern war has emerged. Our professional warriors who take the most risk believe the nation must commit to a long-term fight that includes Iraq in some form. Overall support for the endeavor wanes with distance.
This divergence isn't new. Those who have battled the enemy up close have always been more heavily invested in the cause. What's different is that in past wars, the nation was tied to its soldiers and had a familial barometer. Today most Americans have never met a Gold Star family, let alone shaken the hand of a fallen soldier. The military community is increasingly insulated even as the burden of global war swells. Within it there are those who drift in and out of the fight according to orders. But there is also a group that is distinctive--those who join the military to hunt the enemy for a living, and for the rest of us. Doug Zembiec was such a man…
Partisan Bickering Won't End the War – Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times
Not for the first time, self-awareness was in short supply across Washington during this week's marathon congressional hearings on Iraq with Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
The one point that drew agreement from Republicans and Democrats alike was that Iraq's political leaders have too often failed to transcend their narrow sectarian interests to forge compromises in the national interest.
Pot, meet kettle.
Here in the U.S., the two parties are doing much the same thing. President Bush and congressional Democrats are each so determined to win the argument over Iraq that they have lost sight of their joint interest in finding a way forward that can attract broad and lasting support from a public disillusioned and dangerously polarized over the war. More than ever, the parties this week structured the debate as if it were an electoral campaign. Each asked Americans to ponder only the pieces of the picture most congenial to its arguments…
On the Road in Samarra – Jeff Emanuel, Weekly Standard
Last Tuesday night, Charlie Company 2-505 (82nd Airborne Division) left "the wire" and departed Patrol Base Olson to perform a cordon-and-search operation in a neighborhood where a notorious al Qaeda terrorist used to live. "We think we killed him," said Company commander Captain Buddy Ferris, "so we're going to ask [the people here] if he's dead."
Charlie Co.'s Green (4th) Platoon left the base at 2230 and met the National Police just outside. The group slowly made its way to the targeted neighborhood. Upon reaching the first house, the soldiers quickly dismounted and the Humvees scattered to provide security. The soldiers knocked on doors, spoke with and photographed military-aged males, and searched houses and roofs. In the third house, we heard the loud, unmistakable crack! of bullets directly overhead. The National Police at Patrol Base Uvanni, in south-central Samarra, were firing at the Chem Lite glowstick the troops had placed on the house's roof.
"It's nothing new," said one soldier. "Every time we go out at night, Uvanni shoots at us, even when we tell them where we're going to be well ahead of time." One of our Iraqi Police companions radioed the NPs at Uvanni and ordered them to stop shooting…
The People’s Code – Washington Times editorial
The New York Times considers it "authoritarian" to prosecute protesters from CodePink, the antiwar radicals. On Monday, members of CodePink crashed the Petraeus hearings. This prompted Rep. Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat, to order the hooligans arrested and to vow prosecution. This, the NYT claims in a Tuesday editorial, is "an unnecessarily authoritarian response to people just want to be heard."
Please. CodePink does not simply "want to be heard." It literally screams because it wants to force others to listen. There is a massive difference. When that difference is obscured, a group like CodePink steps in, and free speech as it is conducted by lawful people with diverse views ends. Free speech consists of more than grubby ruffians shouting. We'd have thought the New York Times editors could grasp the distinction — or, at minimum, not defend the very people who try to upend the laws which enable Congress to operate…
The War on Terror Six Years On – Tony Blankley, Washington Times
As we start the seventh year since the September 11 attacks, the people of the world and our governments seem largely baffled and conflicted as to the nature of the world in which we live.
In the Muslim fifth of the world, probably about a quarter of the population wishes to be in conflict with America and the West. Probably more than half do not wish such conflict but wrongly suspect that America is out to divide and suppress Islam.
Meanwhile, much of the Muslim Westernized elite (no more than 5 percent of the total population) both in Muslim countries and in America and the West rather desperately hope radical Islam and the Western response it has induced would just go away. They would prefer to live and prosper peacefully in the globalized Western political world.
Muslim governments in the Middle East and elsewhere are playing a dangerous double game — cooperating with Western intelligence and covert military efforts and jailing some of the terrorists, while at the same time giving rhetorical and sometime financial support to much of the deranged paranoia about Americans and the Jews that further inflames the radical instincts of the Muslim masses…
Running on Empty – New York Times editorial
The dangers of America’s Faustian bargain with Pakistan’s military dictator are growing more obvious by the day. Gen. Pervez Musharraf was on his way to declaring a state of emergency last month until Washington rightly warned him that such a move could set off a political explosion. This week General Musharraf defied Pakistan’s Supreme Court and blocked the return of his longtime political rival, Nawaz Sharif, and then arrested nearly the entire top leadership of Mr. Sharif’s party.
Mr. Sharif is no Washington favorite, and this time the Bush administration’s criticism of the general’s overstepping has been pro forma. The violent street protests in Pakistan, however, are raising new fears of cataclysmic political upheaval in a country that is both armed with nuclear weapons and the fault line in the fight against terrorism…
Patriot Act Balancing Act – Washington Post editorial
It’s always difficult to find the right balance between a citizen's right to be free from undue government intrusion and a government's duty to protect national security. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York, in his 103-page decision on national security letters (NSLs) last week, wasn't entirely successful.
National security letters are used for counterintelligence and counterterrorism probes and are most often served on Internet service providers, financial institutions and telecommunications companies. The letters require businesses to turn over to the government certain client information, such as telephone records or e-mail logs. Unlike subpoenas, NSLs do not require judicial approval, but they also cannot be used to obtain the content of calls or e-mails. Evidence acquired using NSLs often serves as the basis for warrant requests to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. We applauded Judge Marrero in 2004 when he struck down a breathtakingly broad gag order that permanently barred recipients of the letters from ever speaking about them. In response to that ruling, Congress amended the provision in 2005 as part of the Patriot Act reauthorization. It allowed the recipient of an NSL to challenge his gag order before a federal judge, and it gave extended oversight authority to the Justice Department inspector general, who earlier this year criticized the FBI for sloppy and inappropriate use of national security letters…
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