Here we go again. The past few weeks, most of the political press has noted instances in which Democratic lawmakers travel to Iraq and reflect on military successes. War supporters, inside DC and out, immediately pounce, proclaiming, “See? Even the Democrats agree the president’s ‘surge’ is working.” News reports immediately follow, with reports such as, “Even Democrats are now conceding that….”
This was common a couple of weeks ago, and the week’s examples are just as bothersome.
As we noted Monday, Sens. Carl Levin and John Warner have returned from Iraq to report that while the “surge” may be producing “measurable results” in reducing violence, they are “not optimistic” that the Iraq government will use its newfound “breathing space” to make the compromises “essential for a political solution in Iraq.”
In a follow-up press conference call with reporters, Levin made it clear that his was no glass-half-full assessment. “The purpose of the surge, by its own terms, was to … give the opportunity to the Iraqi leaders to reach some political settlements,” Levin said. “They have failed to do that. They have totally and utterly failed.”
Fox News’ headline on Levin’s report? Think Progress caught it: “Sens. Warner and Levin Travel to Iraq, Praise Surge Results.”
The Washington Times did the same thing. Levin described the government of Iraq “non-functional,” and called for Maliki’s ouster. The Times reported, “Top Senate Democrats have started to acknowledge progress in Iraq, with the chairman of the Armed Services Committee yesterday saying the U.S. troop surge is producing ‘measurable results.'”
It’s not just obviously-conservative news outlets, either. Digby noted CNN screwing it up last night, too.
All of this is supposed to suggest that Democrats are starting to buy into Bush’s surge policy. They’re not. Reporters are confused — again.
As Tim Grieve noted, Hillary Clinton’s speech before the VFW annual convention is getting similar treatment.
The Washington Times checks in this morning with a headline that reads, “Democrats See ‘Results’ in Iraq.” The story bundles Levin’s comments with similar ones Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin made recently and with a speech New York Sen. Hillary Clinton made before the Veterans of Foreign Wars Monday. In the speech, Clinton said: “We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar province, it’s working.” How the Washington Times uses that sentence: “‘It’s working,’ Mrs. Clinton said of the troop surge.”
Clinton went on to say that the United States alone cannot “impose a military solution” on Iraq; that the Iraqis are not “ready to do what they have to do for themselves yet”; that it is “unacceptable for our troops to be caught in the crossfire of a sectarian civil war while the Iraqi government is on vacation”; that it’s “time the Iraqi government took responsibility for themselves and their country, because the American people and our American military cannot want freedom and stability for the Iraqis more than they want it for themselves”; and that the “best way” to honor the men and women who have served in Iraq is “by beginning to bring them home and making sure that when they come home that we have everything ready for them.”
The New York Times quotes Clinton more fairly than the Washington Times does, but it still says that her remarks about the “surge” were “notable because Mrs. Clinton has been a consistent critic of the Bush administration’s troop escalation in Iraq, and Republican presidential candidates have been seizing on signs of progress in Al Anbar Province in arguing against a troop withdrawal.”
A flip-flop from Clinton? That’s the implication. MSBNC says Clinton’s speech may “raise a few eyebrows,” and CQ Politics’ Craig Crawford explains why: “Speaking to a veterans group, Clinton undercut claims, including her own, that President George W. Bush’s troop buildup would not work.
This need not be complicated. The point of the so-called “surge” was to pave the way for political progress, which is what everyone agrees Iraq needs. Eight months after the policy began, there’s been no political progress at all. Indeed, Iraq, politically, has gone backwards.
Dems have noted that U.S. troops are going into some areas of Iraq and routing enemy forces. Of course they are; our military is exponentially stronger and better than anything Iraq can throw at them. But the crisis cannot be resolved through U.S. military power — our troops can succeed in practically every military confrontation they face in Iraq and the president’s policy can still be a failure.
As Philip Carter, an Iraq war veteran, recently explained, successful military battles don’t reflect a successful policy.
Today, in Iraq, we face a similar conundrum. Our vaunted military has won every battle against insurgents and militias—from the march up to the “thunder runs” that took Baghdad; the assaults on Fallujah to the battles for Sadr City. And yet we still find ourselves stuck in the sands of Mesopotamia. In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, Brookings Institution scholars Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack argue that “[w]e are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.” They go on to describe the myriad ways the surge is succeeding on the security front.
But in emphasizing this aspect of current operations, they downplay the more critical questions relating to political progress and the ability of Iraq’s national government to actually govern. Security is not an end in itself. It is just one component, albeit an important one, of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Unless it is paired with a successful political strategy that consolidates military gains and translates increased security into support from the Iraqi people, these security improvements will, over time, be irrelevant.
That conservatives and journalists still seem confused about this is disconcerting.