Waiting for Petraeus: The Games We Play

Right now Washington is gearing up for the appearance before Congress of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. They are to testify on September 11th on the progress (or lack thereof) in Iraq since President Bush implemented his "surge" plan to promote political stability and military security in Iraq. The content of their reports can largely be discerned from recent briefings and the national intelligence estimate on Iraq released this week.

It all sounds straightforward, but it is not. There is gamesmanship at work.

The "surge," while having a questionable impact in Iraq has already shaken up politics here at home. No matter how the administration spins the situation in post-"surge" Iraq, it remains bleak. The killing continues as U.S. and Iraqi casualties mount. At one point, the Bush administration sought some advantage, pointing to lower July U.S. casualty totals as evidence of success. But that was immediately countered by the fact that in the past several years, July casualty figures for U.S. troops in Iraq have always been lower -- and this year's July casualty figures were actually higher than those of the past. And while Iraqi deaths are down in areas where there has been an increase in U.S. troop presence, as predicted, the violence moved to other parts of the country.

At the same time, too many Iraqis remain without power, water and basic security. More than four million Iraqis are either refugees or internally displaced, and the internal political dynamic of the country remains as volatile as ever.

Nevertheless, the introduction of an additional 30,000 troops in targeted areas and new tactics used in other areas (cooperating with some Sunni tribes against Al-Qa'ida elements) has had some impact. But progress here comes with the potential risk of further weakening the central government. In any case, the White House has been able to spin this limited progress to their advantage. While two-thirds of the American people still think that the war was a mistake and as many want the U.S. to withdraw, there is now an increase in the number of Americans who think the "surge" is "making the situation better in Iraq." This month's polling numbers show 29 percent of Americans feel this way, as opposed to only 19 percent last month.

In playing their hand, the administration holds two trump cards. For one, most Americans are loathe to criticize the military or to suggest that those who have made the ultimate sacrifice have done so in vain. The second is that as bad as the situation in Iraq may be, it is clear that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal will only make things worse.

Responsible Democrats have always understood this. Barack Obama, who alone among his party's leading candidates for president stood in opposition to the war, has consistently cautioned that "we cannot leave as irresponsibly as we entered." But others in the party have gone too far out on a limb, calling for an immediate and total withdrawal -- a position that is both irresponsible and unsustainable.

It is this view, with it inherent vulnerabilities, that the administration has targeted, and with some effect. A few Democratic members of Congress who had opposed the war and the "surge" appear to have had a change of heart following recent trips to Iraq. Democratic Congressman Brian Baird of Washington noted, "People may be upset. I wish I didn't have to say this. I know it's going to cost hundreds of Americans lives and hundreds of billions of dollars." And he added, "One, I think we're making real progress. Secondly, I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a responsibility.. and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole for our own security."

But while support for the U.S. military's effort may be growing and a concern for the consequences of a withdrawal may buy the Administration some limited time to continue the "surge," trouble is brewing on another front.

With the military inoculated against criticism, Congressional and White House wrath appears to now be focused on Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The Chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, returned from Iraq last week calling for Maliki's ouster. He was joined by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said, "I share Senator Levin's hope that the Iraqi Parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks."

Even the White House, in a sign of frustration, sent a deliberately mixed message to the Prime Minister. On August 21, Bush warned "The fundamental question is: Will the government respond to the demands of the people? ... If the government doesn't respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government." The next day he almost balanced his assessment of al-Maliki by observing, "Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, a good man with a difficult job and I support him," but then quickly added that it wasn't the job of U.S. politicians to change Iraq's leaders (read: Senator Clinton) -- that was the job of the Iraqi people (read: Al-Maliki).

Making the Iraqi Prime Minister the scapegoat may buy the Administration more time by diverting attention away from U.S. policy failures, but this is a risky business and somewhat unfair. Al-Maliki, though clearly a sectarian figure, has no independent power base, and no real armed force under his command. He sits astride a fractious government coalition of fiercely competitive factions, ideologues, and heavily armed militias -- each seeking their own advantage. His recent forays into neighboring Iran and Syria were less of an expression of affinity for these neighbors than they were driven by his need to strengthen his weak domestic position.

Blaming the failure to achieve national reconciliation on al-Maliki may score some political points at home, but makes little sense. He is in no position to force the stronger Kurdish groups to surrender their decision to expand the area further south and secure their independence. Nor is he in a position to control the armed Shi'a factions who will give little ground to the once-powerful and now disenfranchised Sunni tribes.

In reality, the failures that Petraeus and Crocker will point to belong not with al-Maliki but squarely on the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and its occupant. It is the failure of the Bush administration to embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group to pursue a comprehensive diplomatic initiative that has contributed to the disfunctionalities at work in Iraq today.

30,000 troops cannot hold Iraq together or end its civil war. Nor can one-on-one U.S. meetings with Iran or Syria, or limited U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia, bring about national reconciliation in Iraq.

Creating a regional security framework involving all of Iraq's neighbors and ceding political and eventual military control to the United Nations is way forward to national dialogue, and a way out of the current quagmire.

This will not be discussed on September 11. Instead, there will be gamesmanship, with moves countering other moves, buying time for a failed policy in a war that will only continue.

Comments

[Marnie1]

"Congressman Brian Baird of Washington noted ""...I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a responsibility.. and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole for our own security.""

It is hard to argue that point, except that historically, as in several thousand years, this region of the world has been chaotic and violent. The peoples who have lived there have never shown any serious inclination to live in peace with one another, or to have a national pride, that is greater than their parochial loyalties.

They have the responsibility to make peace among themselves, and have historically not shown any serious will to live without intermural violence.

Their inter/intr­a-fraterni­ty violence is of their own choosing.

All we are doing to bring "peace" is to add another chapter of invasion-l­eading-to-­war in the history of violence in the Fertile Crescent.

Any time there has been a significant shift of power in that region of the world, dating at least back to the Empire of the Pharaohs, there has been violence, war, and slaughter, until a pecking order is reestablished.

If we pull out tomorrow, it would, as in Vietnam, simply get the process, of the region’s reestablishing its own balance of powers, started all the sooner.

Peace will not come as long as we are there. we simply are prolonging the process, by having removed the power that held tribal violence down, thus unleashing their own urges to fratricide, and preventing the region’s own reestablishment of a balance of power.

[Doofus]

The Shia are using US to destroy the Sunni,
the Sunni are using US to destroy the Shia,
but the 'best part' is when they're all done,
they've left US the OIL!

And a big sand box to keep playing in.

That's the game.

[lgillooly]

The irony that no one speaks of is the longer we have stayed the stronger Al Quaeda has become.There is a limited time that we can leave and Iraqis can take out Al Quaeda.Are we going to stay and let them become so strong that they will take over??It is truly insane!We have done exactly what Bin Ladin hoped for.
Does anyone remember that the USSR fell apart because they stayed in Afghanistan stuck in a quagmire while their military and treasury was destroyed?

[Purple Girl]

It's time to make the multinational (US) profiteers provide their own security. This was never a national security issue- it has been a global market strategy. They are using our credit (+blood & money-the otherside of 'Blood Money' ) to purchase their new venture.
DICK is just the hologrammed BIG HEAD. the real wizards are behinf the curtain.
I've heard it a thousand times and yet no media has taken up the quest -FOLLOW THE MONEY, it will lead not only to 'our' corporate door, but the sand swept lands of Saudi Arabia and Dubia- home away from 'home'.

[LittleBrother]

The Petraeus Dog & Pony Show will proceed apace; the diagnosis and prognosis is a foregone conclusion; the Dogs of War-- the Kristols, the Kagans, Hiatt's kennel, the NYT Embeds; the hellish chorus of pro-war infotainwhores; the prolapsed circle of Republic Party leaders -- will bay and howl in fierce encouragement of protracted and quasi-permanent military engagement in Iraq and points east; the Quisling Democrats, already co-opted or cowed, will join in the Maliki Blame-Game and go along for the ride (again).

Maybe the tacky, appallingly manipulative demagoguery of those "Freedom Watch" ads will poke a few fresh sparks of blood-lust from the smoldering dregs of the Jingo Bonfire, enough to send straying Democratic sheep back to the huddled flock clustered around Mother Ewe Pelosi-- their backs resolutely turned away from the anti-war, pro-impeachment winds.

All of the rear-guard, parthian harrumphings Congressional Democrats did during this bitter Spring-- OK, we gave 'em some rope, but September will tell the tale-- will dissipate like farts in a hurricane in the face of the flurry of "positive indications" expressly manufactured for the occasion, and equally useful to both proponents and faux-opponents of the illegal, immoral occupation and destruction of Iraq.

Doubtless in the aftermath, Stern Questions Will Be Asked in investigative committee sideshows. We will be treated to an exhibition of an always-popular demonstration of skill: a seasoned solon, with a virtuoso inquisitorial style of interrogation resembling the performance of a circus knife-thrower, launching a perfect blur of sharp questions, forming a sinister and portentous outline around its target. Once in a long while blood is drawn from the slightest scratch-- a genuine slip-up, or a choreographed frisson for the cheap seats? The crowd gasps and buzzes, and the performance is the talk of the town for days.

In the end, everyone leaves unharmed and entertained for one reason or another, and the resulting great load of fertilizer is spread on the fields of partisan loyalists, to keep the crop flourishing-- its hopes ever moist and its powder dry.

[provgrays]

There isn't much dry powder with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead and well over 3000 American dead.

[Nova16]

Bush blames everyone for his failures. Maliki in Iraq, his generals, who are replaced with rapidity, the American people who don't understand his bull shit about his war on terror in Iraq, Democrats who want to manage his mismanaged debacle in Iraq. As long as he is "president" there will be no end to the fiasco he created meaning more failure and more blame to place on others except himself, the biggest failure ever to occupy the Oval Office, but it was predictable from the day the dolt announced his candidacy.

[AmericanInsurgent]

We have built 14 permanent military bases in Iraq.
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm
Why is it that none of these congressmen who visit Iraq question this? Bushco invaded Iraq in order to establish these military bases to replace the bases in Saudi Arabia. Iraq is just another US colony. Get used to it. We have no intention of leaving.
Congress won't force Junior to withdraw from Iraq. They never use the true facts to counter Bushco's lies about Iraq. The surge is working, my ass. C'mon, the only way the surge will work is if Junior and all of his fellow chickenhawks, including their children, go over there and finally serve their country. Until then, these cowards should just shut up about supporting the troops and about not losing wars.
It would be nice if the truth about these 14 bases was widely broadcast. Force Junior and the Repugs in Congress to explain these bases and admit that they lied about their true intentions in Iraq from the beginning. Maybe, just maybe, "concrete evidence" of their lies in the form of these bases will finally wake this country up. But I doubt it.
It would definitely help if the MSM started telling the truth about Iraq. Let's see some video of these bases and of the bloody mess we have created. Let's see some coverage of the maimed soldiers and maimed civilians. My god, this country is more concerned with the dogs killed by Vick than they are with the casualties of this unnecessary war.

[Herrington]

"this country is more concerned with the dogs killed by Vick than they are with the casualties"

No wthat's chilling. I suppose that if dog fighting were a billion dollar business things would be different. It would be ok to treat our dogs as badly as we treat Iraqis and our troops.

[TommyMcCarthy]

If it wasn't so awful it would be comical the way the administration, the pundits, the candidates, and the Congress are all milling about waiting for one man to come to town and issue a "report" to tell us whether the "surge" is "working".
Everybody knows that for the surge to "work" it would require close to five times the troop levels we have now (a physical and political impossibility). Even if we were miraculously able to put ahalf a million foriegn invaders (that's US,folks) on the ground, What would we mean when we say "working".

The fact that goes unstated in these debates is that "working" would not mean a blossoming of goodwill and Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq. It simply means enough firepower and the willingness to use it to IMPOSE our will on the populace of Iraq and begin a PERMANENT occupation of a sorvereign nation; just as colonial occupiers have done from the Romans to the present day. (we can all think of others:... no reason to be inflammatory)

Nobody except certain members of the executive branch and the oil companies want that: Not us, not the Iraqis, and certainly not the Arab neighbors. This business of waiting for Gen. Petraus to come inform us what's happening is a disgusting, cynical charade, who's only purpose is to put off the tough call we KNOW has to be made....

U.S. OUT OF IRAQ.....t­imetable?.­..NOW!...b­enchmark?.­.......YES­TERDAY!!

Thanks for your excellent post and all your good work on behalf of a SANE Middle East policy over the years Jim.

Shalom......tm

[provgrays]

Bush is worse than an empty suit. He's a toxic suit. He orders this terrible war and then bleats, "Tactical decisions must be made by commanders on the ground, not by a bunch of politicians in Washington D.C."

Petraeus is the modern day version of Godot. Everyone is waiting for him, but nothing will happen if and when he arrives. Petraeus is another neocon puppet who will mouth the words he is ordered to mouth. This is just a waiting game so Iraq can be called the Democrat's war.

Funny thing is, it is the Democrat's war.

[Doofus]

'Bush is worse than an empty suit. He's a toxic suit. He orders
this terrible war and then... Funny thing is, it is the Democrat's war.'

Wait a second. How did that happen?

[duggie1956]

I agree w/ Steamboater. Fear of a 'precipitous' with -drawl means we stay in Iraq forever. I just came out of 6-months in New Orleans. Is there as much concern for the deaths there from drug-violence as there is for a civil-war in Iraq that all ready exists? Why has the country turned upside down? We must bring the troops home NOW and IMPEACH the POTUS! Thanks.

[Independent voter]

It doesn't matter if the good general says that he f*cked a duck. Fearless leader will continue his war as long as it pleases him; and there is nothing that anybody, anywhere can do about it.

It blows the mind - president clusterf*ck trashed the entire country and now it's Maliki's fault that things are a mess.

[JimReed]

This may be an American perspective, blame Bush or blame the Maliki government. What is the Iraqi perspective? I would think their main concern would be they are in danger of losing control of their oil fields to the occupation. How can they end the occupation? Can they protect their fortune until then? It may take a lot of lives for them to ultimately win here, but they have a lot of lives to give. Do the Iraqis keep their feelings about the oil to themselves because they don't trust us and they know anything they say will be used against them? Is that why we don't know what they think?

[wilster]

WHO WILL BE THE LAST AMERICAN TO DIE IN IRAQ?

[TommyMcCarthy]

Don't know but one thing's fer' sure.....Whoever he/she is: they haven't been born yet. Surge/no surge....good report/bad report....whether they tell us about it /or invoke Executive privilige

Our kids will be fighting and dying there at some level for many years:perhaps decades. I't is impossible to UN-RING the bell now!!! ...tm

[Senzasord]

What a curious game this is. It seems the only winning move is to not play at all.

[Taan]

When will young men learn to think for themselves and reject the siren call of old men's futile dreams of conquest? Reinstate the draft for only men aged 50 and above and see how quickly the guns of war become silent.