Amen
"Earl Evleth" wrote in message
news:1184238904.246982.203760@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
> Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, is a 36-year career
> diplomat who has served under seven administrations in Iran, Syria,
> Kuwait, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pakistan. He's no partisan
> gunslinger. So it's worth listening to his views as Congressional
> Democrats and a growing number of Republicans press for a precipitous
> withdrawal from Iraq on the excuse that the Iraqi government hasn't
> met a set of political "benchmarks."
>
> "The longer I'm here, the more I'm persuaded that Iraq cannot be
> analyzed by these kinds of discrete benchmarks," Mr. Crocker told the
> New York Times's John Burns in an interview on Saturday, referring to
> pending Iraqi legislation on an oil-sharing agreement and a relaxation
> of de-Baathification laws. "You could not achieve any of them, and
> still have a situation where arguably the country is moving in the
> right direction. And conversely, I think you could achieve them all
> and still not be heading towards stability, security and overall
> success in Iraq."
>
> Mr. Crocker's comments are a useful reminder of the irrelevance -- and
> disingenuousness -- of much Washington commentary on Iraq. For
> proponents of early withdrawal, the "benchmarking" issue has provided
> a handy excuse to make the Iraqi government rather than al Qaeda the
> main culprit in the violence engulfing their country. A forthcoming
> Administration report indicating lagging political progress is certain
> to be seized on by Congress as it takes up a defense spending bill and
> debates an amendment ordering troop withdrawals by the fall. A
> proposal to mandate extended times between deployments (and thus force
> withdrawal) failed narrowly in the Senate yesterday, though not before
> winning the support of seven Republicans.
>
> Nobody claims the Iraqi government is a model of democratic
> perfection, or that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is the second
> coming of Lincoln. We advised the White House not to lobby against his
> predecessor. But Mr. Maliki's government is democratic and more
> inclusive than most reporting suggests, and it is fighting for its
> life against an enemy that uses car bombs and suicide bombers as its
> policy instruments. In an interview this week in the New York Post,
> General David Petraeus noted that while the performance of the Iraqi
> Army has been mixed, "their losses in June were three times ours." To
> suggest that Iraqis aren't willing to fight for their freedom is an
> insult to their families.
>
> General Petraeus also noted that "the level of sectarian deaths in
> Baghdad in June was the lowest in about a year," evidence that in this
> key battlefield the surge is making progress. As a result, al Qaeda is
> being forced to pick its targets in more remote areas, as it did last
> week in the village of Amirli near Kirkuk, where more than 100
> civilians were murdered. More U.S. troops and the revolt of Sunni
> tribal leaders against al Qaeda are the most hopeful indicators in
> many months that the insurgency can be defeated.
>
> But that isn't going to happen under the timetable now contemplated by
> Congress. "I can think of few commanders in history who wouldn't have
> wanted more troops, more time or more unity among their partners,"
> General Petraeus told the Post. "However, if I could only have one at
> this point in Iraq, it would be more time."
>
> It's also not going to happen if Congress insists on using troop
> withdrawals to punish Iraqis for their supposed political delinquency.
> The central issue is whether the Iraqis can make those decisions
> without having to fear assassination as the consequence of political
> compromise. The more insistent Congress becomes about troop
> withdrawals, the more unlikely political reconciliation in Iraq
> becomes.
>
> That said, it's becoming increasingly clear that the issue of
> reconciliation has become a smokescreen for American politicians who
> care for their own political fortunes far more than they do about the
> future of Iraq or the consequences of Iraq's collapse for U.S.
> interests in the Middle East. Here again, they could stand to listen
> to Mr. Crocker.
>
> "You can't build a whole policy on a fear of a negative, but, boy,
> you've really got to account for it," he said. "In the States, it's
> like we're in the last half of the third reel of a three-reel movie,
> and all we have to do is decide we're done here . . . and we leave the
> theater and go on to something else. Whereas out here, you're just
> getting into the first reel of five reels, and ugly as the first reel
> has been, the other four and a half are going to be way, way worse."
>
> Mr. Crocker is referring, of course, to the possibility of far nastier
> violence if the U.S. departs before Iraqi security forces can maintain
> order. Some will denounce this as a parade of horribles designed to
> intimidate Congress, but we also recall some of the same people who
> predicted that a Communist triumph in Southeast Asia would yield only
> peace, not the "boat people" and genocide. Those Americans demanding a
> U.S. retreat in Iraq will be directly responsible for whatever happens
> next.
>
> WSJ COMMENTARY
>
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