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Petraeus Returns to War That Is Now His Own - Peter Baker and Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
He sat absolutely still as members of Congress discussed his credibility and patriotism. His face did not twitch. He did not nod or frown or smile. Not a single muscle moved. He was as impassive as a boot-camp recruit resisting a drill sergeant's provocations.
For Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, navigating the political shoals of Washington this week has been a challenge unlike any he has faced. When he testified before the Senate for his confirmation hearing in January, Petraeus was widely regarded as the quintessential military professional, a credible, independent voice who stood above the political fray.
But when he returned to Capitol Hill this week for marathon hearings and a media blitz, the general labored to retain that image. Partisans sought to portray him either as a politicized officer carrying water for the White House or as the only possible savior of an increasingly unpopular war.
The war in Iraq has diminished the reputations of many of its generals. As Petraeus returns to Baghdad to continue carrying out President Bush's strategy, his image has changed as well. Like it or not, he has become a political player, and more than ever before, the U.S. venture in Iraq has become his own…
US Tactics at Odds with Contradictory Iraq Strategy - Michael Lind, The Australian
… The tactic of reducing violence by Shia and Sunni militias and jihadists, some Iraqi and some foreign, was supposed to serve two goals: reconciling the Iraqi population to the central government and giving Iraq's three main ethnic groups - Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds - time to agree on a stable power-sharing arrangement in a national unity government.
Unfortunately, it appears that however successful the surge may be as a tactic, the two strategic goals are incompatible. The Iraqi nation cannot be reconciled to the Iraqi government if there is no Iraqi nation, only three ethnic nations, each of which prefers a government it controls to one in which it shares power with the others.
Petraeus is a brilliant soldier and he has sought to apply the time-tested lessons of counterinsurgency in Iraq. The purpose of a counterinsurgency or pacification strategy, carried out by native troops and their foreign advisers, is to provide firm and enduring security to the people so they are not intimidated by rebels. Through time various non-military projects will win the hearts and minds of the population over to the government's side.
It is not true that counterinsurgency efforts by outside powers supporting local allies are always doomed. The Americans, although they failed in Vietnam, succeeded in The Philippines in the 1950s and the British succeeded in Malaysia in the '60s. The premise of traditional counterinsurgency is that there is one government and one population. The premise is reflected in the term nation-building: there is one majority nation and a majority nation-state.
However, traditional counterinsurgency does not apply to dissolving multi-ethnic states such as Iraq, an incoherent entity created by the British from a few Ottoman provinces and artificially held together by the tyrannical rule of members of the Sunni minority until the fall of Saddam Hussein…
Six More Months – Washington Times editorial
After three days of testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, antiwar Democrats on the Hill are in a state of disarray. Meanwhile, pivotal senators like Republican John Warner of Virginia have disappointed Democrats by refusing to swing fully away from the war effort by favoring Democratic withdrawal bills. President Bush seems to have secured another half year, at minimum, to head off the Iraqi disintegration which, for reasons we cannot fathom, the Washington Iraq-withdrawal caucus still fervently desires.
The general's testimony rang with integrity and honesty; he was not flashy, but modest and forthright. As Mr. Crocker put it, there are "no magic switches to flip in Iraq." We would particularly like to highlight Gen. Petraeus' refusal to assert that the surge in Iraq has "made the United States safer." Lesser men might have asserted that it has, even though this is at root unprovable, in knowledge that they could do so with impunity. Gen. Petraeus did not because his testimony has stuck to facts. That he sails through these hearings despite the evident Democratic animus suggests, perhaps, that integrity still means something in this town…
The Ambassador’s Message – Washington Post editorial
Ryan C, Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, deserves credit for frankly and soberly delivering a message this week that neither his audience in Congress nor his superiors in the Bush administration wanted to hear: that a political solution in Iraq will take considerably more time than Washington has counted on. Again and again, the Bush administration has drawn up wildly unrealistic timetables for restoring stability to Iraq, from the sketchy plans for a transitional government in 2003 to this year's "surge," which envisioned Iraqi political leaders striking a series of fundamental accords in a matter of months. Democrats in Congress have been equally delusional, arguing that a fixed timetable for U.S. withdrawal will somehow cause Iraqis to settle.
Mr. Crocker's testimony, along with that of Gen. David H. Petraeus, ought to have punctured some of these illusions. He said, in essence, that it should not be surprising that Iraqi leaders have not met the political benchmarks they agreed to under pressure from Washington, given the chaos and violence that have racked the country and given their own lack of consensus about what kind of state Iraq should be. The ambassador, an Arabic-speaking veteran of the Middle East, said he sees "seeds of reconciliation" among the political leaders he meets with -- something he conceded was not readily apparent from Washington…
Straight Shooting on an Uprising - Miranda Devine, Sydney Morning Herald
… One of the fronts of that war now, like it or not, is Iraq. And on Monday and Tuesday the commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, reported to the US Congress on the progress of his military strategy, as foreshadowed in my interview with him two weeks ago in Baghdad.
As he said, in his first-floor office in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, on that 48-degree Baghdad day, the military objectives of the "surge" of 30,000 extra troops are being met, in reductions in ethno-sectarian violence and civilian casualties, and increasing numbers of al-Qaeda killed or captured, weapons seized, and so on.
Petraeus's statement to Congress is at www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/pet091007.pdf. Read in conjunction with the latest online essay in the Small Wars Journal, by Lieutenant-Colonel David Kilcullen, the Australian Army anthropologist who has just completed a tour in Iraq as Petraeus's senior counterinsurgency adviser, it gives as good an understanding as any of the situation in Iraq…
Bottom-Up Progress – Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic
The Iraq War has brought out the worst in a lot of people. Many who opposed it from the start have been beating their chests in triumph about how badly things have gone, while hunting for bad news wherever they can find it, which isn’t very hard. Many who supported the war have been searching for any positive trend that would allow them to claim that the tide is turning. This second group assumes that history will redeem them, not realizing that even if Iraq were brought gradually to rights, and the clerical regime in Iran were to suffer severe setbacks, it would still be hard to justify the loss of tens of thousands of lives merely for the sake of strategic positioning.
Of course, had the occupation been planned with the same meticulousness as the initial invasion, the loss of life might have been far less severe, and thus the war might have been justified with hindsight. That didn’t happen, though. Those like myself who argued for regime change are stuck with the facts as they are, not as we would like them to be…
After the Hill Surge – Peter Wehner, National Review
General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, testifying before the House and the Senate during the last two days, did what many people thought was impossible: They reset the Washington clock. These good men, by what they have achieved in Iraq and by the force and power of their testimonies, have recast the terms of the debate. They will now have until next summer to build on their successes, which in turn could eventually lead to a decent outcome in Iraq. To appreciate how extraordinary this is, it’s worth recalling how far we have come.
2006 was an awful year in Iraq. A very difficult situation turned grave in the aftermath of the February bombing of the Samarra mosque. Iraq began to break apart, with ethnic and religious violence increasing across the land. The American strategy, flawed from the outset, was not able to contain the spreading chaos and the approaching civil war. The American public, already weary, began to turn in large numbers against the war. And Republicans lost control of the House and Senate in the November midterm elections.
By the end of 2006 the original “light footprint” strategy was jettisoned — but a new strategy was not yet in place. Confronting gale force political winds and calls from almost every side to wind down the Iraq war, the president — to his everlasting credit — did the opposite: He called for a surge in forces. It was the last chance we had to keep Iraq from a descent into hell. And to oversee that new strategy, the president turned to a general named Petraeus.
By now most people know what unfolded in the aftermath of that decision. General Petraeus, in combination with his exceptional team, put in place the elements of a successful strategy, which included a significant increase in American troops who were armed with a new mission. And now, eight months after it was announced — and only three months after the full compliment of troops arrived — we have seen signs of real progress…
The Ottoman Swede – Roger Cohen, New York Times (subscription required)
As members of Congress mull what to do next in Iraq, they might glance at a League of Nations report of July 16, 1925, on the new Middle Eastern state then being carved by the British from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire.
The report said that despite “the good intentions of the statesmen of Iraq, whose political experience is necessarily small, it is to be feared that serious difficulties may arise out of the differences which in some cases exist in regard to political ideas between the Shiites of the South and the Sunnites of the North, the racial differences between Arabs and Kurds, and the necessity of keeping the turbulent tribes under control.”
And it warned: “These difficulties might be fatal to the very existence of the State if it were left without support and guidance.”
So much for things changing. They don’t, or only slowly, when attempts are made to carve sustainable nation states from multiethnic empires…
New Face, Same War – Harold Meyerson, Washington Post
If you believe what you read in the papers, President Bush will go on television tonight to announce that he will adopt the Petraeus plan as his own, if for no other reason than it really is his own.
I'm not in the business of offering tactical advice to the administration, and it's not in the business of taking it. But if I were Josh Bolten (I think he's still in the White House; I can't vouch for anyone else), I'd try mightily to keep the president off the tube.
The whole point of the Petraeus PR offensive, after all, is to decouple the war from the president. If it's the president's war, no one will vote to keep it going.
Respondents to the New York Times-CBS News poll released Monday were asked whom they'd trust most "with successfully resolving the war in Iraq." Fully 68 percent said military commanders; 21 percent said Congress. A mind-boggling 5 percent said the Bush administration…
The Remains of That Day – Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal
Hillary Clinton, as the clock struggled toward the final hour of the Petraeus-Crocker hearings this week, reminded the two witnesses that it was September 11. "I started my morning today at Ground Zero," said the New York senator, not looking at the men but at the papers on the desk before her, "where once again the names of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attack on our country were read solemnly in the rain. We have seen Osama bin Laden reappear on our television sets, essentially taunting us. We have the most recent reports out of Germany of terrorists plotting against American assets, who have been trained in Pakistan."
These remarks were delivered without passion. It was expected that the Petraeus-Crocker hearings would be two days of high drama. They were not. Gen. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker were questioned about Iraq by Democrats on three full committees, including five candidates for the presidency, and the hearings were flat. Could it be the air is going out of Iraq as a hot political issue?
If true, it is good news. Good news, first of all, for this country, whose people may have grown tired of the war but are more so with the war's corrosive domestic politics.
Good news, too, for the Democrats. The Democrats in Congress need to put some space between themselves and the Web-footed antiwar movement. MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times made it difficult for any Democrat to breathe fire at Gen. Petraeus. MoveOn.org pre-used all that political capital. A malady endemic to the Web is that much of the Netroots is essentially narcissistic. That ad proved it's more about them than about elected Democrats. The politicians had better figure this out. A marriage of two narcissists often proves difficult…
More False Optimism on Iraq – Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune / Real Clear Politics
Gen. David Petraeus says the Iraq war is going well, and I believe him. I believe him the way I believe the coach of a perennial football doormat who, every August, assures fans he expects a winning season. Coaches don't get paid to admit they're bound to lose, and generals who are tasked with military missions don't get paid to announce that they can't get the job done.
Petraeus is, by all accounts, an experienced, capable and intelligent commander. So when he says that "the security situation in Iraq is improving," the natural impulse is to trust his battle-seasoned judgment. The Bush administration encourages this notion by suggesting that the opinions of military commanders are the only sound guide to policy.
But if high-ranking military officers are a good barometer of the future, I have a question: Where are the generals who told Americans when things were about to get worse in Iraq, as they have over and over? Which of them warned that insurgent attacks would steadily proliferate in 2005, after elections that were supposed to quell violence? What guy with stars on his shoulders forecast that Iraqi civilian deaths would double over the course of 2006? …
We're Losing in Afghanistan Too - John Kiriakou and Richard Klein, Los Angeles Times
Former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld says in the current edition of GQ magazine that the war in Afghanistan has been "a big success," with people living in freedom and life "improved on the streets."
To anyone working in the country, there is only one possible, informed response: What Afghanistan is the man talking about?
In reality, Afghanistan -- former Taliban stronghold, Al Qaeda haven and warlord-cum-heroin-smuggler finishing school -- feels more and more like Sept. 10, 2001, than a victory in the U.S. war on terrorism.
The country is, plain and simple, a mess. Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies have quietly regained territory, rendering wide swaths of the country off-limits to U.S. and Afghan forces, international aid workers and even journalists. Violent attacks against Western interests are routine. Even Kabul, which the White House has held up as a postcard for what is possible in Afghanistan, has become so dangerous that foreign embassies are in states of lockdown, diplomats do not leave their offices, and venturing beyond security perimeters requires daylight-only travel, armored vehicles, Kevlar and armed escorts…
Osama’s Crazy Makeover – Ariel Cohen, Washington Times
Osama bin Laden commemorated the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attack with a surprising left-leaning rhetorical attack on America and the West, which was distributed to TV channels and on the Internet last Friday.
It was a sad reminder that the mass murderer is still at large. And beyond the plugs for an American New Left philosopher and a former CIA analyst, the chilling message was: convert to Islam, or else. Two attacks which were recently avoided in Denmark and Germany, while dozens were murdered in India and Algeria. Europe and the United States, India and the Middle East. The whole world is the jihadi battlefield.
If those who have been attacked by jihadis won't fight in Afghanistan, al Qaeda will reinstate it base there, from where it can reach the world. And if Iraq goes wrong, al Qaeda will claim victory and expand its operations to Jordan and Saudi Arabia…
Battleground Europe - Timothy Garton Ash, Los Angeles Times
To return from the United States to Europe is to travel from a country that thinks it is on the front line of the struggle against jihadist terrorism but is not, to a continent that is on the front line but still has not fully awoken to the fact.
Only a fool would rule out the possibility of another terrorist assault on what is now styled the American homeland, but the fact is that in the six years since 9/11, there have been several major attacks (Madrid, London) and foiled plots in Europe. In the United States, there have been no major attacks and, as far as we know, just a few averted conspiracies. All the evidence suggests that American Muslims are better integrated than those in Western Europe. Last week's arrest of a group apparently planning a 9/11 anniversary attack in Germany suggests that the threat to the heimat is greater than that to the U.S. homeland.
An invisible front line runs through the quiet streets of many a European city or town where there is a significant Muslim population. Whether you live in London or Oxford, Berlin or Neu-Ulm, Madrid or Rotterdam, you are on that front line -- much more than you ever were during the Cold War. This struggle is partly about intelligence and police work to prevent those who have already become fanatical, violent jihadists from blowing us up at St. Pancras or the Gare du Nord. Ordinary non-Muslim Europeans can only do a little to help this work, as well as worrying about the curtailment of civil liberties. Ordinary, peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Europeans can do a little more…
A New Strain of Anti-Semitism is Spreading – Victor Davis Hanson, Real Clear Politics
… A new virulent strain of the old anti-Semitism is spreading worldwide. This hate -- of a magnitude not seen in over 70 years -- is not just espoused by Iran's loony president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or radical jihadists.
The latest anti-Semitism is also now mouthed by world leaders and sophisticated politicians and academics. Their loathing often masquerades as "anti-Zionism" or "legitimate" criticism of Israel. But the venom exclusively reserved for the Jewish state betrays their existential hatred.
Israel is always lambasted for entering homes in the West Bank to look for Hamas terrorists and using too much force. But last week the world snoozed when the Lebanese army bombarded and then crushed the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, which harbored Islamic terrorists.
The world has long objected to Jewish settlers buying up land in the West Bank. Yet Hezbollah, flush with Iranian money, is now purchasing large tracts in southern Lebanon for military purposes and purging them of non-Shiites. Here at home, "neoconservative" has become synonymous with a supposed Jewish cabal of Washington insiders who hijacked U.S. policy to take us to war for Israel's interest. That our state department is at the mercy of a Jewish lobby is the theme of a recent high-profile book by professors at Harvard University and the University of Chicago…
Morocco and Democratization - Ahmed Charai, Washington Times
The legislative elections held last Friday in Morocco were a watershed in this country's unbending march toward democracy.
Morocco has for a decade engaged in an increasing process of democratization. Though the state has ceased to interfere in the electoral process, turnout remains very low in urban centers, resulting in a national turnout of barely 37 percent. Those analysts who had hitherto been the harbingers of an Islamist outburst are the same today who put the low voter turnout down to ignorance.
Still, the voter issue is more complex than meets the eye, and hence does not amount to mere sociological factors... rather it is essentially political…
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