Watching the Republicans talk about Iraq makes me want to scream. There is absolutely no recognition of the complexities, the difficult choices, the reality there. The most upsetting performance was by McCain, who knows the military and should know better. His granite-skulled insistence that the surge is working, “absolutely” working–and his attempt to browbeat Romney into agreeing with him–was nothing short of demagogic. The progress in turning the Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda in Iraq is real; Petraeus was wise to see it and take advantage of it (in a similar circumstance in 2003, Jerry Bremer refused to recognize the importance of the tribes). But that has practically nothing to do with the “surge,” which was originally all about pacifying Baghdad through the use of counterinsurgency tactics and creating the “space” for an Iraqi political resolution.
Well, Baghdad has been quieter–mostly because it has been ethnically cleaned, with many Sunnis fleeing, and is now largely under the tacit control of Muqtada Sadr’s populist movement. The U.S. troops fighting in Baghdad against the remaining Sunni militants, mostly on the west side of the Tigris River, are carrying Sadr’s water. As I reported a few months ago, the shopkeepers and shoppers in Shorja market, where McCain took his famous walk, overwhelmingly support Sadr. McCain never mentions this. He talks “victory” or “surrender,” neither of which is an actual possibility here. His unwillingness to talk about the complexities of the situation represents, I believe, a willful misleading of the American public.
Actually, Romney–confused, constricted, embattled Romney–came closest to being reasonable about Iraq. Beneath the scrambled verbiage and unfamiliar terms–what is a “support” role?–he seemed to be saying that as soon as we finish off AQI, we should start getting out, leaving Iraq to the Iraqis while maintaining a small regional presence. But he didn’t exactly say that…and he allowed McCain to bully him on the surge, retreating from his position that the surge “seems to be working.” The most accurate statement would have been “aspects of the surge seem to be working, but the larger situation in Iraq–the slide toward all-out civil war and civic chaos–continues unchecked.”
Duncan Hunter shows how easy it is to lead an important committee–the House Armed Services in his case–and remain deeply misinformed. He keeps talking about 129 Iraqi combat battalions that will take over for U.S. troops…as if those troops weren’t, in most cases, Shi’ite or Kurdish militias wearing Iraqi uniforms. He should read the report prepared by retired General Jim Jones–an officer of Petraeus-level excellence–about to be released today about the Iraqi Army and national police (the latter should be disbanded, Jones says).
Rudy Giuliani is out-to-lunch on Iraq in a peculiarly toxic, neoconservative way. His utterly delusional definition of “victory” is when Iraq joins us in the fight against Islamic radicalism. Let’s posit for a moment that such a thing as “victory” were possible: If it were, a more plausible definition would be this–the moment Iraqis stop killing each other and we, and the world, leave them alone and give them a chance to recover their lives, their families, their economy. Giuliani’s World War IV notion of the fight against Islamic radicalism is ridiculously overblown. There’s a longterm struggle, to be sure–but turning Osama Bin Laden and his cavedwellers into Hitler or Stalin only aggrandizes them in a way that helps them and hurts us.
The mini-debate between Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee was entertaining, but insubstantial. Paul is right on the merits, of course. (His answer on Iran, by the way, was eminently sane–the fact that Iran may someday build a nuclear device is a problem, but not an existential threat to the U.S., or Israel, for that matter. Any Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would also kill tens of thousands of Muslims and make the third most holy Islamic site–the Al Aksa mosque–uninhabitable.)
Huckabee’s summoning of the Colin Powell Pottery Barn rule–you break it, you own it–was apt. We do owe the Iraqis something. Huckabee seemed to have no idea what we owed them, though…and he seemed far more concerned about America’s honor than about the devastation in Iraq. He offered no way forward and has yet to show even the slightest bit of evidence that he understands the situation on the ground.
Let me say this one more time: We are at war. Iraq is the most important issue facing America, literally a life and death issue for the troops over there and for the Iraqi people. It deserves the most serious, sober consideration from our Presidential candidates. It hasn’t so far. The Democrats–especially those, like Bill Richardson or John Edwards, who offer get-out-now bumper stickers–haven’t been fabulous. But they are closer to reality than the Republicans, who are selling poison and fantasy. What a shame.