E.J. Dionne is one of those columnists who come up with remarkably idiotic ideas on a regular basis. His lament in today's Washington Post is over the presentations given by Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus to congressional committees. They have illustrated a dramatic improvement in security in areas of troop surge operation in Iraq. This is apparently bad news for Dionne.
It has not won the war. It has not achieved reconciliation at the national level in Iraq. But it has bought more political time in Washington, bringing Bush closer than ever to reaching one of his main objectives: keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq beyond Election Day 2008.
Was anybody expecting the surge to win the war? Is there anybody, anywhere who said the surge would win the war. On the contrary, General Petraeus himself has often said the war in Iraq will not be won militarily. It will be won when warring factions can confidently resort to politics rather than violence. He co-wrote a book about it, as a matter of fact. It's called the U.S. Army & Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. It teaches that the way to defeat an insurgency is to provide security and basic services to a population. To win them over. In the specific case of Iraq, the surge is intended to provide enough security for a political process to work toward reconciliation among the Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds.
Which brings us to Dionne's second complaint, that the surge has not achieved reconciliation at the national level in Iraq. Apparently, nothing short of a miracle will satisfy him. Since the number of troops did not reach surge levels in June of this year, I find it astonishing that Dionne can complain, without the slightest sense of embarrassment, that factions warring with each other for decades, if not centuries, have not miraculously reconciled in the space of three months. And never mind that reconciliation has begun at the grass roots level. It's not national so that doesn't count.
And finally we get to the nut of it: motive. Today we learn, through E.J. Dionne's laser-like perception, that one of President Bush's "main objectives" is to have a large number of troops in Iraq after the U.S. election in 2008.
Not even going to touch that one. But, one might expect a journalist to be a bit slower to question the motives of others, especially while flaunting his obvious resentment of U.S. military success.
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