The improving situation in Iraq is increasingly being acknowledged. But after years of setbacks, people are - understandably - hesitant to assume that the situation is permanent. The factor most commonly cited as having the possibility to undermine our gains is a return to violence by Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
Today, Frank Rich does his best to salvage the argument for withdrawing from Iraq. It was an easy argument to make when the violence seemed unstoppable and the country looked irredeemably broken along sectarian lines. But now that Iraq’s economy is growing and its security situation improving, he is forced to stoop to a couple of fundamentally dishonest arguments.
Rich repeats one of the most illogical arguments made by commenters on left-wing blogs. But at least they have the advantage of anonymity - Rich is actually willing to attach his name to this garbage:
[T]he McCain policy is nonsensical on its face. If “we are winning” and the surge is a “success,” then what is the rationale for keeping American forces bogged down there while the Taliban regroups ominously in Afghanistan?
[Update: This blog post was updated on June 22 to incorporate polling data from the March 2008 ABC/BBC/ARD/NHK poll]
It’s hard to believe good news from Iraq.
For five years, the drumbeat of insurgency, terrorism, and civil war was relentless, while successes were few and far between. Even when there was good news, it was reported by an Administration that had little credibility. People felt manipulated by the way the war was sold, and the Administration did little to win back trust after the war began. Until the Republican losses in the 2006 election, the Administration delivered only rosy pronouncements, as if seeing only success in Iraq would make it so. But since the mission was not accomplished and the insurgency was not in its last throes, skepticism was not only appropriate but necessary.
Facts are stubborn things. When the Administration tried to sell Iraq as a success story in 2006, reality made a mockery of these claims. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and facts are the best antidote to political spin.
But the truth does not serve any one political side, either. The same statistical measures and journalists who once showed Iraq on the wrong path now paint a very different picture. After five years of war, many have written off Iraq as a lost cause and yearn only to bring our troops home. But the situation has dramatically improved over the past 8 months – so much so that it is safe to speak of a turning point towards a stable and peaceful Iraq.
Ideology matters in foreign policy. The difference between confronting Iran and negotiating without preconditions is as clear as day. McCain is a neo-con and Obama is a liberal, and that is significant.
But it is not the whole story. Tactics, temperament, and knowledge matter too. Ideology only sets the larger goals and predisposes a set of tools; individual decision-making and implementation turns those abstractions into reality. Ideology alone does not determine outcomes. If intent were controlling, then every high school rocker would sound like Eric Clapton.
John McCain shares an ideology with George Bush. But that does not mean his foreign policy will be a mirror this Administration’s. In fact, we can see the difference that personnel make even within the Bush Administration.
I try not to pay attention to day-to-day politics. As you can tell from my posts on this blog, I think that in-depth, long-term analysis is far more important than the mudslinging of a political campaign. We don’t really need any more proof that Republicans lie about Democrats and vice versa.
So I really should let yesterday’s tempest about McCain’s new comments about Iraq pass. But the attacks made against McCain were so scurrilous that I feel compelled to comment.
The American left prides itself on seeing America for what it is - warts and all. The shared premise of the blogging world’s “reality-based community,” a million “Dissent is Patriotic” bumper stickers, and Obama’s missing flag pin is that an informed citizenry is preferable to an unthinking, jingoistic patriotism. It’s a fair point.
Following the recent fighting with the Mahdi Army, Slate’s Fred Kaplan wonders:
Are the Iranians extraordinarily clever, or are we extraordinarily dim? Certainly, when it comes to pursuing our respective interests in Iraq, they seem to be thinking and acting strategically, while we seem not to be.
Individually, I don’t disagree with any of Kaplan’s points. I too dispute the Administration’s framing of the fighting as a cut-and-dry battle between government forces and an Iranian-battled militia - everything I’ve read supports Kaplan’s assertion that, “the Badr Organization’s ties to Iran are not merely as close as Sadr’s; they are much closer.” And his interpretation of Iran’s goals and tactics is plausible, although there are so many analyses of Iran floating around that it seems like we have a lot more speculation than knowledge.
But the overall thrust of his argument - that we have made another strategic blunder, while the Iranians have scored a victory - understates the extent of our success on a tactical level, misunderstands where this tactical victory fits into our larger strategy, and overestimates the likelihood of Iran benefiting from the fighting.