The Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack certainly know how to raise a fuss. On Monday, their op-ed on the war in Iraq appeared in the NYT and immediately became The Most Important Opinion Piece Ever, at least as far as Bush and his supporters are concerned.
The two, who recently returned from an eight-day visit to Iraq, argued that U.S. forces are “finally getting somewhere in Iraq.” O’Hanlon and Pollack added that they were “surprised by the gains” they saw, and now believe there’s a potential for “sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.”
It’s hard to overstate the speed (and glee) with which this op-ed was embraced by the right.
* Dick Cheney cited the O’Hanlon/Pollack piece as proof that Bush’s “surge” policy is working: “They both have been strong critics of the war, both worked in the prior administration; but now saying that they think there’s a possibility, indeed, that we could be successful.”
* John McCain used the op-ed to bash everyone who disagrees with him: “I cannot guarantee success. But I do guarantee that, should Congress fail to sustain the effort, and should it pay no heed to the lessons drawn by Mr. Pollack and Mr. O’Hanlon, then America will face a historic and terrible defeat.”
* Matt Yglesias spoke with a Democratic staffer on the Hill who told him today, “Just about every Republican in the Iraq debate on the House floor today has cited and read from the O’Hanlon/Pollack op-ed to argue that we are making significant progress in Iraq. Many Republicans have called them ‘left-wing scholars’, as in ‘even lefties O’Hanlon and Pollack say we are winning.'”
With all of this in mind, it’s worth noting that O’Hanlon and Pollack are both backpedaling from their own piece.
George Packer reported:
I talked to Pollack yesterday. In answer to some of the questions I raised: he spoke with very few Iraqis and could independently confirm very little of what he heard from American officials…. The improvements in security, he said, are “relative,” which is a heavy qualification, given the extreme violence of 2006 and early 2007. And it’s far from clear that progress anywhere is sustainable. Everywhere he went, the line Pollack heard was that the central government in Baghdad is broken and the only solutions that can work are local ones.
It was a step back from the almost definitive tone of “A War We Just Might Win” (a bad headline, and not the authors’). That tone was misplaced, and it is already being used by an Administration that has always thought tactically and will grasp any shred of support, regardless of the facts, to win the short-term argument.
The White House and its allies, in other words, are drawing conclusions from an op-ed that its authors are not entirely comfortable with.
Indeed, O’Hanlon seems to be going out of his way to argue the opposite.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. O’Hanlon said the article was intended to point out that the security situation was currently far better than it was in 2006. What the American military cannot solve, he said, are problems caused by the inability of Iraqis to forge political solutions. “Ultimately, politics trumps all else,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “If the political stalemate goes on, even if the military progress continued, I don’t see how I could write another Op-Ed saying the same thing.”
Looks like war proponents are going to need some different heroes. These two aren’t sticking to the president’s preferred script.