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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (240522)	9/1/2007 5:42:25 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

A couple of days ago, the NYT reported that the White House "is growing more confident that it can beat back efforts by Congressional Democrats to shift course in Iraq." It's not because conditions in Iraq have improved, and it's not because the president's policy is producing results, but because the administration has "a sense the dynamic has changed." Oh, please. Observers as different as Bill Kristol, Ken Pollack (who has been blasting the Bush Admin's work in Iraq for years now), and Congressmen Baird (who opposed the war) have all noted significant progress in Iraq, especially in Anbar, militarily, and politically at the local level but not so far in Baghdad. There is plenty of violence and non-performance of "benchmarks" (which as written by Congress may or may not be relevant to anything) to focus on if you are so inclined to focus that way. And we all know that the NYT is so inclined, along with Harry Reid et al, right? However, to draw from that the idea that all progress is non-existent, it is some invention of Gen. Petreus (a straight-shooter by all accounts), is frankly absurd. Right up their with Harry Reid declaring that the surge had failed before it had even started. [Petraeus is] keenly aware of the value of both the media and public opinion, and he did what any counterinsurgency expert would have counseled in his circumstances: he unleashed a hearts-and-minds campaign aimed at opinion makers and politicians I don't know why it's a standard liberal trope to express horror at regular intervals that the other side also engages in politics and try to elevate this to a scandal. Petraeus has a mission to accomplish. He needs political support to accomplish it. Ergo. If you can say the Petareus is lying then you have a scandal. But so far the big complaint is that the "dynamic has shifted." Omigod, something sinister must be happening, we all know that real dynamics always favor Democrats, they only shift the other way due to evil Republican political tricks. Republicans, I've noticed, don't seem outraged that the other side engages in politics, just that they corrupt (in the Republicans' view) institutions like the courts to do so. It's just one of those permanent quirks of the system, like liberals believing conservatives are evil and conservatives believing that liberals are stupid.