The Failed Democratic Strategy With Regards to General Petraeus

Ed Kilgore wrote a fascinating article for the Democratic Strategist. He criticizes the Democrats and MoveOn for the strategy they used the last couple of day. Instead of focusing directly on what’s happening in Iraq and on whether or not sufficient political progress has been made in the wartorn country, Democrats and activists have focused on the military aspect of it all and on General Petraeus himself. Mr. Kilmore explains that this has been a major mistake: Democrats should have repeated time and time again that what matters is not whether military progress has been made but whether political progress has been made. From their perspective they could then have argued that the political progress is virtually non-existent.

‘Perhaps the right response to his testimony would be a shrug rather than a shriek. The war can never be “won,” and will inevitably be “lost” if Iraqis can’t reach a political settlement. They certainly can’t and won’t so long as we are involved in combat operations in their country. And the events of the last six month, whatever else they show, do show that abundantly,’ writes Kilgore.

Matthew Yglesias agrees with Kilgore, writing: ‘The question of the surge, and of the military presence more generally, is whether or not the presence is creating a situation where the presence will no longer be needed in order to avoid the Potentially Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal. As long as we have a situation where the day after we leave, the Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal will come to pass, then we may as well just leave tomorrow.’

Good points from a Democratic perspective. Matt concludes: ‘All of which is to say that there’s no such thing as “military progress” that we can tally up next to absence of political progress and say, “eh, the glass is half full.” The military exists to try to help accomplish political ends. If the military isn’t succeeding in achieving those political ends, then it’s not making progress, and our troops ought to be sent somewhere where they can do something useful.’

All good points. In this debate, it’s important for all of us to listen to all sides. Dismissing what one side has to say in favor of the other is not the right way to go. The situation in Iraq is complex, easy answers are most likely the wrong answers. Although military progress has been made, one can wonder in how far political progress has followed as was planned. In this regard, one can fairly conclude that the political progress has been less than what Bush had hoped. On the other hand, some progress has been made recently with the Sunnis rejoining the government and with Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki reaching out to both Kurdish and Sunni tribal leaders. Furthermore, although the central government remains weak, local governments are gaining in strength and power.

Does this constitute enough to say that the surge is a success? No. Not in my opinion. But it does make clear that to call it a failure is not accurate either. It’s closer to success than to failure: it’s not successful yet but it’s working. Modestly, but working nonetheless.

Americans get tired of hearing ‘we need more time,’ but sometimes more time is quite simply needed. This seems to be such a situation. Time in itself won’t solve Iraq’s problems, but Iraq’s leaders need time to take the necessary political steps.