The Democrats in Congress have been rolled on the Iraq war. That's no news flash. Given that they long ago decided not to pull the trigger and defund the war, they were left with the option of trying to force George W. Bush to change course. He stood firm. They blinked. And when General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, testified before Congress last September, the Democrats greeted him with softball questions. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama wimped out when they had a chance to grill Petraeus. Bottom-line: Bush won political space for the war, and the meme was established that the surge was working and the war was going better. That narrative, though, had a hole in it, for a successful surge (if that is what it was) was not equivalent to a successful war. Sure, pouring 30,000 extra troops into the hotspots of Iraq would certainly cause some of the violence to decline. But that did not mean that the roots of the conflict(s) in Iraq were being addressed--let alone addressed effectively. Yet Petraeus, generally unchallenged by the Dems (who were scared to be associated with MoveOn's anti-Petraeus campaign), was able to sell the surge.
Now that sales job is wearing thin. The recent fighting between the Iraqi government and the militia of Moqtadar al-Sadr suggests that the problem in Iraq is civil war rather than insurgency. Or, at least, maybe both. Here we have the government trying to crack down on what is, as journalist Patrick Cockburn calls it, "the only mass movement in Iraqi politics." Say what you want about Sadr, he ain't no insurgent. What's our dog in this fight? What does any of this have to do with combating al Qaeda (which seems to be a small slice of the challenge in Iraq, Bush's pronouncements to the contrary)? Why back the inept and corrupt regime of Nouri al-Maliki?
The surge was supposed to create space for national reconciliation. But even Petraeus has recognized that this opportunity has been squandered. And if one Shi'ite bloc (the government) is fighting another Shi'ite bloc (Sadr and his followers), what does that tell us about progress on this front? Meanwhile, top U.S. military officials told Congress on Tuesday that the surge in Iraq and deployments in Afghanistan have stressed out the military so much that it may not be able to handle other conflicts. This assessment comes just as Petraeus is expected to tell Congress next week--when he comes back for a return engagement--that he wants to delay any de-surging.
So it's a mess. The surge may not be the temporary move Bush had promised when he announced it in January 2007. The violence is increasing. Four million Iraqis remain dislocated and displaced. The Sunnis have been armed to beat back al Qaeda in Iraq--but those arms can be put to other use. And civil war between the Shi'ites is but a flashpoint away--and only prevented recently due to the intervention of Iran, which helped cool down the clash between the government and Sadr and which seems to have more influence in Iraq than the United States.
Will members of Congress--Democratic and Republican--grill Petraeus about all this? Or let themselves once again be dazzled by charts, graphs, and confident assertions of progress. This is a good time for a surge in oversight. And if the Democrats need any help, I've prepared a list of questions that national security experts would like to see posed to Petraeus. (See it here.) But I am sure they can come up with their own queries. One only needs to read the papers and to wonder, what the hell is going on?
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Comments
Grill?
Pepper pickled Petraeus with a peck of questions?
Press for honest answers?
Um, doubtful.
It is the neo-paradigm - never call a liar a liar (that would be rude) and never ask questions that probe the truth because it is like calling them a liar so also rude.
Posted by: capt
| April 2, 2008 12:10 PM
Surge Success Runs Into Sadr
[...]
Regardless of how the surge is couched, it will have to end, not due to shift in strategy, but because the available resources will dry up.
"You can't take a 43 brigade force, and have 23 of those 43 brigades deployed, and have a one to one exchange for time at home and time in the theater," said Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, a Vietnam veteran and former president of the Army War College.
"Without reshaping our national military strategy and without re-slicing the defense pie to focus on the wars we have rather than the ones we want, we'll never have the resources to prosecute any kind of conflict in the future," he said.
"Your national security strategy is supposed to determine the number of troops that you need to affect that strategy rather than the actual number of troops that you have determining the national military strategy," said Scales.
The last time the White House had to shift strategy to meet conditions on the ground was during the U.S. Civil War in the 1860s, he added.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/akhavi.php?articleid=12619
Posted by: capt
| April 2, 2008 12:30 PM
Klein: In January, McCain insisted Basra was ‘not a problem.’
Last week, Sadr waged a full-out assault on Iraqi national forces in Basra, a move that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said “surprised” him. Today, Time’s Joe Klein writes that McCain assured him of Basra’s stability just two months ago:
Furthermore, McCain’s frequent “You don’t know anything” tirades about national security might be more effective if he had a better sense of the war in question. When I asked him about Basra in January, he assured me that it was “not a problem.”
As Klein puts it, “McCain’s carelessness and oversimplification, and wrong analysis, when it comes to the situation in Iraq puts him in a surprisingly vulnerable position.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-basra/
*****
But if the M$M really like you - this kind of thing just doesn't matter.
Posted by: capt
| April 2, 2008 12:57 PM
Obama overtakes Clinton in PA
Raleigh, N.C. – Barack Obama has taken the lead over Hillary Clinton 45-43 in Pennsylvania, according to the newest survey from Public Policy Polling.
It’s a remarkable turn around from PPP’s last Pennsylvania poll, conducted two and a half weeks ago, that showed Clinton with a 26 point lead in the state. That poll was released at the height of the Jeremiah Wright controversy and the day before Obama’s major speech on race in Philadelphia.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Penn_Release_040208.pdf
Posted by: capt
| April 2, 2008 4:55 PM
Obama trims Clinton's lead in Pa.
PHILADELPHIA - Sen. Barack Obama received endorsements Wednesday from a labor union and two Democratic superdelegates, as a poll showed he has cut Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania almost in half since mid-February as he strives to deny her a resounding victory in the state's presidential primary.
The Illinois senator peeled off an affiliate of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has endorsed Clinton. The Philadelphia-based local of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees has about 16,000 members.
Its president, Henry Nicholas, announced the endorsement while introducing Obama at a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO in Philadelphia.
(yahoo news)
Posted by: capt
| April 2, 2008 5:54 PM
CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a former Clinton administration appointee, announced Wednesday that he will support Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.
(yahoo news)
Posted by: capt
| April 2, 2008 6:13 PM
Time for some tax breaks for rich folks. That'll fix the problem, Right? Right.
Posted by: Pandemoniac | April 2, 2008 7:04 AM
The question of socializing losses and privatizing gains aside, it was easy credit and the deregulation of mortgage brokers that put us into this housing bubble in the first place.
So what is the Fed's solution? Open up the Fed's discount window to investment banks without any requirement for capital reserves, without any additional regulation whatsoever. This is crisis management. Period.
The question about how to protect our financial system - how to insulate our financial system from the excessive leverage of the investment banks and complex interdependent derivative instruments - without regulating investment banks will be fought indefinitely as lobbyists for those same investment banks and their DMW party, bought and paid for, looks after their financial futures without balancing their interests with ours.
Posted by: Neil
| April 2, 2008 7:00 PM
Coming soon: ‘George W. Bush Sewage Plant.’
SFist reports that the enterprising Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is looking to rename Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility to the “George W. Bush Sewage Plant.” The group explains it seeks to “select a fitting monument to this president’s work” and to “honor George W Bush for his eight years of honorable public service.” “No other president in American history has accomplished so much in such a short time,” the group notes.
(HT: Huffington Post) via Thinkprogress
Posted by: capt
| April 2, 2008 11:16 PM
"Will the Dems Grill Petraeus This Time?"
If you have to ask, the answer is almost invariably No.
Posted by: Kevin
| April 2, 2008 11:29 PM
Currently the Democrats in Congress reside in the "No Spine Zone. " They will do nothing until they are certain the GOP will lie down and beg.
Maybe Americans have short memories but elected officials seem beset by political alzheimers. Nothing anyone says sticks longer than a few seconds.
Arming and bribing Sunnis is a miserably poor short term solution to America's quandry in Iraq. Since Bush will not pressure the Iraqis to do a deal, the next president will be forced to get tough or get the hell out of Iraq. No matter which way it goes the GOP will scream that the next president is a traitor to America's best interests. It will not matter which political party the president will be from.
The guys who dug the hole will complain that the hole is too deep, too shallow or not wide enough for them and that is why America needs the old hole diggers back in charge.
Posted by: kalpal
| April 3, 2008 7:13 AM
Obama May Get Carter’s Support
Former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter has hinted that he might cast his vote for Senator Barack Obama to aid his emergence as the candidate for the Democrats in America’s bid to elect a new President.
Carter, who is a Super Delegate from Georgia State, gave this hint at a media interaction after the Carter Center Awards for Guinea Worm Eradication in Abuja yesterday.
Carter, who was accompanied by his wife Rosalynn, did not profess a direct support for Obama but rather choose to make a veiled statement.
“We are very interested in the primaries. Don’t forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia. My town which is home to 625 people is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro- Obama.
My grandchildren are also pro- Obama. As a Super Delegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess," he said.
*****
If BHO gets the ex-prez peanut farmer it is over for HRC.
Posted by: capt
| April 3, 2008 9:15 AM
I predict the Democrats will jellyfish again.
Posted by: corky
| April 3, 2008 9:15 PM
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