Lawrence Kaplan of The New Republic, has a must-read scorching column today excoriating the wilful ignorance of the Democratic congressional leaders about the war in Iraq.
WHEN Nancy Pelosi confessed last year that she felt "sad" about President Bush's claims that al Qaeda operates in Iraq, she seemed to be disputing what every American soldier in Iraq, every al Qaeda operative and anyone who reads a newspaper already knew to be true. (When I questioned him about Pelosi's assertion, a U.S. officer in Ramadi responded, incredulously, that al Qaeda had just held a parade in his sector.)
Perhaps the House speaker was alluding to the discredited claim that al Qaeda operated in Iraq before the war. Perhaps. But the insinuation that al Qaeda's depredations in Iraq might be something other than what they appear has become a staple of the congressional debate over Iraq.
Thus, to buttress his own case for withdrawal, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, "We have to change course [away from Iraq] and turn our attention back to the war on al Qaeda and their allies" - the clear message being that neither plays much of a role there.
What is going on here? Two possibilities: First, Reid and Pelosi could be purposefully minimizing the stakes in Iraq. Or, second, they don't know what they're talking about. My guess is some combination of the two.
Political maneuvering certainly contributes to the everyday pollution of Iraq discourse. But a lot of the pollution derives from legislators being functionally illiterate about the war over which Congress now intends to preside.
As he points out, the Democrats are urging that we return to the exact strategy that was failing when Donald Rumsfeld was pursuing it to such dismal results.
Consider a speech last week by Reid, who neatly summarized the strategic logic behind legislation mandating a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.
Speaking of "where things stand on the ground in Iraq," Reid insisted that the role of U.S. forces is to train Iraqi security forces, protect U.S. troops and conduct targeted counter-terrorism operations: "This transitions our mission to one that is aligned with U.S. strategic interests, while at the same time reducing our combat footprint. U.S. troops should not be interjecting themselves between warring factions, kicking down doors, trying to sort Shia from Sunni, friend from foe."
There are several problems with this formulation, not the least of which is that, far from being a "new strategy," it mirrors exactly the approach that was tested and found wanting when Donald Rumsfeld was presiding over the war and "reducing our combat footprint" was a raison d'etre. Chaos, not stability, was the result.
Still, the idea dovetails neatly with Reid's insistence that it is "the specter of U.S. occupation [that] gives fuel to the insurgency" - and that, absent this specter, the violence will magically subside.
But just the reverse has been true. Falluja and Tal Afar in 2004, Ramadi in 2005, Western Baghdad in 2006 - these places became charnel houses when U.S. forces pulled back.
Kaplan gives example after example of the ignorance that congressional leadership have displayed, most notably their ignorance of what the counterinsurgency that General Petraeus is leading in Iraq.
The suggestion, moreover, that American forces ought to confine themselves to "targeted counter-terror operations" rather than trying to sort "friend from foe" misunderstands the most basic tenets of counterinsurgency, ignores the lessons of the past four years and purposefully slights the testimony of Petraeus and his fellow experts.
Living among the population and sorting "friend from foe" is precisely how the military generates intelligence tips, which, in turn, provide the key to "targeted counter-terror operations." It can't be done from Kuwait, and it can't be done from Okinawa.
THOUGH Reid has no use for the Bush administration's military "surge," he does propose a "surge in diplomacy," in line with the cliché that the war has no military solution. As The Washington Post's David Broder has pointed out, "Instead of reinforcing the important proposition . . . that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can succeed."
Nor is this the only reason to doubt the reasoning behind Reid's "diplomatic surge." To begin with, even if they were inclined to assist the American cause in Iraq, neither Iran nor Syria have much, if any, sway over al Qaeda. Moreover, the violence in Iraq has its own, wholly internal logic. In fact, the one brand of diplomacy that truly matters in Iraq - the U.S. militiary's tribal diplomacy, which accounts for the recent turn-around in Anbar Province - is precisely the mission that Reid's demand for a skeleton force would shut down.
Then, they can achieve the result that they apparently are fine with - a defeat in Iraq that will have consequences throughout the world.
WHERE all this leads is clear. Piece together a string of demonstrably false "facts on the ground" from a suitably safe remove, and you're left with a scenario where we can walk away from Iraq without condition and regardless of consequence.
You don't need to watch terrified Iraqis pleading for American forces to stay put in their neighborhoods. You don't need to read the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which anticipates that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal will end in catastrophe. Why, in the serene conviction that things are the other way around, you don't even need to read at all. Chances are, your congressman doesn't either.
The only question is whether this ignorance is deliberate or not. Are people like Senator Reid so bound up with the political ramifications of the war in Iraq that they deliberately close their eyes to what is going on right now in Iraq or is their ignorance just a result of having been politicians all their lives and not ever having studied war much less the war we're in?
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