Men at Work, Children at Play
The telling difference between General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and their congressional inquisitors.
by Frederick W. Kagan
and William Kristol
09/24/2007, Volume 013, Issue 02
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.--Mark Twain
This week, America heard about Iraq from two serious men, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. They understand Iraq in all its complexity. They have an astonishing mastery of the details of what's going on in almost every part of the country and an amazing grasp of virtually every aspect of a complex war, a multilayered society, and a new and fluid polity. They have clearly thought about the policy options before us with a seriousness appropriate to individuals who, every day, exercise considerable authority and bear great responsibilities. Last week, they were able, despite the comparative shallowness and guile of their questioners, to explain the choices we face with clarity and honesty at a critical moment in our nation's history.
The congressional critics provided quite a contrast with Petraeus and Crocker. If the general and the ambassador were men at work, the congressmen and senators were--with a few notable exceptions--children at play. They spoke almost entirely in generalizations--often months, sometimes years, out of date. They used selective quotations and cherry-picked facts to play "gotcha." They offered no meaningful proposals of their own. Petraeus and Crocker live and breathe Iraq, dealing with life-and-death problems seven days a week. Congress bloviates Tuesday through Thursday. That's one of the reasons to listen to the general and the ambassador rather than the congressional pontificators.
The contrast between those who know something about Iraq and those who don't continued with the president's speech on September 13. Bush described America's objectives in Iraq clearly, explained the strategy he is pursuing, outlined the progress that it has made in detail and in specific areas of Iraq, explained why he intends to continue that strategy with minor adjustments, and announced a conditions-based reduction of forces, which General Petraeus had recommended. In response, Senator Jack Reed spoke in the vaguest terms. He repeated the Democratic shibboleth that there has been no political progress in Iraq because the Iraqi government has not passed the benchmark legislation--ignoring the complex, nuanced, real-world discussion Petraeus and Crocker (and, yes, Bush) had offered about the different ways in which groups of citizens, local and provincial governments, and even the Maliki government have been able to make varying degrees of progress toward the goals the benchmark legislation is supposed to achieve. Reed also announced that the Democrats "have put forth a plan," which he then sketched in a few sentences. We would all like to know exactly what this Democratic plan is and when the Democrats intend to share it with the rest of us. We frankly doubt that a party whose leaders seem unable to discuss the war in Iraq in any but the simplest terms can develop a plan that will lead to anything other than disaster.
The speeches of September 13 highlighted another key problem in this discussion. Reed dismissed all the hard-won gains of our forces and our diplomats in Iraq with the assertion that the surge was intended to allow the Iraqi government time to pass benchmark legislation, which the Iraqis have failed to do. Ergo, he and other critics say, the surge has failed. But American forces are not in Iraq to enable the Iraqi parliament to have a nice-looking scorecard. As the president said in his speech, our primary objective in Iraq is to prevent al Qaeda from establishing a base there. We must also work, as the president said, to ensure that Iran does not "fill the vacuum." Establishing a stable, democratic Iraq would secure these objectives, in addition to being inherently desirable. But a productive legislative session of the Iraqi parliament is only a means to all these ends, and only one possible means.
By focusing entirely on the political problems in the Iraqi parliament, critics of the current strategy score polemical points by ignoring indisputable gains with respect to the core American objectives. Progress in recent months in Iraq has enhanced American security. Al Qaeda In Iraq has gone from near-ascendancy in 2006 to near-collapse in 2007. The reason Iran has dramatically increased its efforts to destabilize the elected, Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is that the Shia terrorists, too, have been set back, as American and Iraqi forces have done real damage to the Iranian-backed "secret cells" and death squads that are the agents of this destabilization. These are facts. But congressmen don't deal much with facts.
In his speech, President Bush announced his intention to reduce American forces in Iraq to pre-surge levels by mid-2008, if conditions permit. His critics have been quick to ridicule this announcement, since they reject the notion that there has been any progress in Iraq that might justify it. But they choose to miss the point. The size of American military forces in Iraq is not, and should not be, dependent on the status of legislation in the Iraqi parliament. It is dependent on the security situation on the ground--notably the ability of the Iraqis to maintain security themselves. Despite Democratic rhetoric to the contrary, security on the ground can improve without the passage of benchmark legislation. It has improved over the past few months. Petraeus and Bush know that, which is why they announced an intention to unwind the surge.
In choosing this plan for force reductions over the coming months, the president accepts greater risk than we would have preferred. His decision was clearly driven by valid concerns about the strain on the Army and Marines, and by the reasonable expectation that a continuation of current trends on the ground in Iraq will justify the reductions. But Iraq is a war, and the enemy gets a vote. Continued Iranian escalation could destabilize the south or Baghdad; Al Qaeda In Iraq could strike another lucky blow; and other unforeseen contingencies could arise over the next six months that might be manageable with 20 brigades but dangerous with 15.
At this point, the likeliest sources of most such contingencies lie outside of Iraq, with increased "accelerants" (as our commanders call them) of violence coming from Iran above all, but also from Syria and (indirectly) from Saudi Arabia. We cannot allow Iraq's neighbors a free hand at strengthening the forces of terror even as we work to subdue them. Restricting the ability of these outside accelerants to intervene in Iraq is the best way to mitigate the risks entailed in the announced drawdown. Given the drawdown, and given the emphasis General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker put on the damage done by these outside actors, especially Iran, in fanning the violence in Iraq, we expect that the Bush administration will now turn its attention more directly to this critical problem.
--Frederick W. Kagan & William Kristol
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