Petraeus' report was everything we were told it would be
THOMAS BARNETT
Having been leaked out slowly in the days leading up, there were no surprises.
Petraeus makes his case for tactical progress, and surge critics argue the disconnect with strategic goals (the government in Iraq is not jelling and the slo-mo partitioning proceeds--albeit with fewer deaths).
Making the case for the status quo on troops until next spring, promising a drop down to pre-surge levels only a year from now, is going to be a very hard sell to make.
Most of the rejection will come from a public that sees a return to war-plus levels of casualties, but with little sense of payoff or positive movement. LIke the addict who consumes the drug with no hope of a high but merely the absence of an unbearable low, we seem to be running faster just to stay in place.
Still, since the public trusts the military far more than either Congress or the White House regarding a fitting glidepath toward lower troop levels, Petraeus may just have sold enough well enough to buy some significant leeway on his request.
But if so, I will also tell you this: the public won't stand for a serious ramping up toward a major military intervention into Iran on the side.
If Petraeus wins most of what he wants (say, he gives up some token reductions before the end of the year but most of the surge is preserved through next spring, as we engage in all the troop rotational lengthening schemes we can muster), then we'll be definitely locked into a long, slow drawdown starting next spring that will effectively rule out any other major intervention by Bush save for the pointless lobbing of missiles and bombs from above.
If so, and the latest intell estimates are correct in saying that Iran's within a couple years of achieving its bomb, then this is a done deal that's been left to the next president, most likely along with Kim.
See what happens when you telegraph your punches with that "axis of evil" bit?
You end up only landing one.
The dream of Iraqs is alive and multiplying
THOMAS BARNETT
POLITICS & ECONOMICS: "Congress's Last Chance to Alter War: Lawmakers Agree Drawdown of Troops Probably Falls to Next President," by Neil King Jr. and Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 10 September 2007, p. A4.
OP-ED: "Listening to Petraeus," by John McCain and Joe Lieberman, Wall Street Journal, 10 September 2007, p. A14.
OP-ED: "'You Have Liberated a People,'" by Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal, 10 September 2007, p. A15.
LEADING THE NEWS: "U.S. Zeroes In on Iraq-Iran Border: Targeting Flow of Weapons To Shiites Is Part of a Shift In Focus Away From Sunnis, "by Yochi J. Dreazen and Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 10 September 2007, p. A3.
ARTICLE: "Hunt Oil Skirts Baghdad, Signs Deal With Kurds," by Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal, 10 September 2007, p. A1.
ARTICLE: "To Understand Sheiks in Iraq, Marines Ask 'Mac': Self-Taught, He Serves As Corps' Tribal Expert," by Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, 10 September 2007, p. A1.
This cluster of pieces, all in the WSJ the day of Petraeus' report, is wonderfully indicative of where we've landed--finally (I don't get to the print version, typically, til all are asleep in my house).
First, buttressing my point in the previous post, is the King and Jaffe piece. Congress is basically MIA at this point, just like the White House. McCain and Lieberman want Congress to "change course," but that's almost a sad joke, since Congress has never had any "course on Iraq,"--just like the President. The closest we've come to political leadership is Joe Biden pointing out the reality of the soft partition.
No, instead of political leadership, we dawdled, until the Army and Marines, most under duress from this sad mismanagement, brewed up their own answer and pursued it--the surge strategy.
Petraeus gets the Sunnis somewhat settled and puts AQI somewhat on the run: two big successes. Now we're going to shift to more advising and more focus on border security (the Vietnam-in-reverse).
Ajami thinks a "people" have been liberated, but let's be clear: the Kurds were liberated and the Shia liberated themselves--from the Sunnis. The Sunnis have been made to accept these outcomes, or what I once called (three years ago in Esquire), "the same narrowing solution we forced on the Serbs in the Balkans."
As one military planner puts it so well in the Dreazen piece:
"The Sunnis realize they have lost the battle for Baghdad. The problem we face is that the Shiites don't realize they have won."
Meanwhile, the Kurds cut their own oil deals and the Bosnia-done-backwards continues to unfold. We can argue about the likelihood of the much ballyhooed "bloodbath" to follow, but the separation of sects continues unabated. The battle for Baghdad is over and the first Arab Shia state, Bush's unintended gift to the world, continues to emerge. Bush's second unintended gift, the first Kurdish state, likewise flourishes.
With these three Iraqs emerging, we'll need every tribal expert we can get. As I like to point out in the brief: SysAdmin work is not classified. You just need to be able to speak the language and learn the cultures.
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