The Petraeus-Crocker Spin Report

When the “temporary” surge began, we were told we could not leave Iraq while it was engulfed in so much violence. Instead, we needed to implement “the surge,” which would reduce the violence, stabilize the country, and allow political reconciliation to take place. Critics were told to stifle their objections for just six months, to give the surge a chance to work — and then we could talk about drawing down our forces.

When the six months was up, Petraeus told Congress the surge was a huge success, and therefore we could not leave Iraq, because we had to build on our success. Another six months passed, which brings us to today, and Petraeus’s congressional testimony this week. We are still surging successfully, the general tells us, but the success is “fragile and reversible,” and therefore we must stop the troop withdrawals and stay in Iraq indefinitely:

If President Bush adopts the recommendations of Petraeus and Crocker, which aides said he is expected to do, it will all but guarantee that about 140,000 troops will remain in Iraq at least through the fall presidential election.

During a day of Senate hearings against the backdrop of a heated campaign for the White House, Petraeus called security in Iraq “significantly better” than before last year’s troop buildup but still “fragile and reversible.” He plans a 45-day “period of consolidation and evaluation” after the reinforcements leave in July, followed by an indefinite period of assessment before any further drawdown.

The testimony before two Senate committees offered another marker in the nation’s five-year-old engagement in Iraq and drew complaints from Democrats and some Republicans about a war that they said seems to have no end. President Bush made no comment on it yesterday but teared up at a White House ceremony awarding the Medal of Honor to a Navy SEAL who died in Iraq. He plans to address the nation tomorrow, when aides expect him to adopt Petraeus’s plan.

“Withdrawing too many forces too quickly could jeopardize the progress of the past year,” Petraeus testified. In the face of skeptical questioning, he added later: “We have the forces that we need right now, I believe. We’ve got to continue. We have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it there.”

We’ve got to continue — for how long? Petraeus won’t say. What conditions in Iraq define success? Petraeus doesn’t know — but when he sees the conditions, then he’ll know what they are:

Asked repeatedly yesterday what “conditions” he is looking for to begin substantial U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after this summer’s scheduled drawdown, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said he will know them when he sees them. For frustrated lawmakers, it was not enough.

“A year ago, the president said we couldn’t withdraw because there was too much violence,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Now he says we can’t afford to withdraw because violence is down.” Asked Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.): “Where do we go from here?”

Clearly, Petraeus and Crocker are the very last people to know the answers to that question. They can’t define the goal, which of course means that they don’t know how to know when they reach the goal. Actually, when you don’t know what the goal is, then there is no goal. We can’t leave Iraq if we don’t even know how to know when we’ve got the conditions we need to leave Iraq. Which means that we can’t leave. Ever. That would suit Bush and Cheney just fine.

Phillip Carter thinks that Petraeus “overplayed his hand.”

“The reality is, it is hard in Iraq”

That statement by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker pretty much sums up what he and Gen. David Petraeus presented to Congress yesterday. Iraq is hard, but we are making headway; victory is possible, if we only persevere.

Except that in making this pitch, Petraeus and Crocker overplayed their hand. They overstated the threat posed by al-Qaeda in Iraq in an effort to justify the mission — a mindset that has generated a deeply flawed strategy. They also overplayed the surge’s success — downplaying or discounting factors that likely did more to create today’s improved security conditions. While their “Anaconda” strategy looks cool on a PowerPoint slide, it confuses the issues of control and influence, putting too much stock in America’s ability to engineer success in Iraq. And, perhaps most tellingly, the two men made the case for perseverance without placing Iraq in the context of vital U.S. national interests, offering only apocalyptic predictions of what would happen if we don’t stay the course.

The AQI threat. According to Petraeus and Crocker, the real threats in Iraq are al-Qaeda and other sinister forces originating in Iran and elsewhere. Blame for all of Iraq’s bloodshed lies with these parties.

It makes for a neat narrative. It’s also wrong.

Everything is wrong about what the U.S. is doing in Iraq. It’s wrong for us to be occupying the country five years after an illegal invasion. It’s wrong to be constantly moving the goalposts for withdrawing. It’s wrong for the Bush administration to take credit for seemingly reduced levels of violence that were illusory to begin with and that were achieved, for the most part, without any significant contribution from our military. It’s wrong to boast about “liberating” Iraq while never mentioning the 4.5 million refugees this war and occupation have caused. It’s wrong to use American men and women as chess pieces in a vast geopolitical power grab. It’s wrong that over 4,000 people, all of whom were loved, cherished, and adored by someone, are dead for no good reason; that tens of thousands have been injured in ways that cannot always be seen; that families are being torn apart; and that returning soldiers are not getting the services, the compassion, and the support that they need and deserve. They don’t need a free cup of coffee. They don’t need to hear “Thanks for your service.” They don’t need you to put yellow ribbons and “Support the Troops” magnets on your cars. They need appropriate medical and health care; they need jobs; they need this military occupation to end so they don’t need to go back again and again and again.

And hey, how about a little honesty? How about using language to communicate and not obfuscate? Eve Fairbanks has a great post at The New Republic about that:

But of all the posturers, Petraeus and Crocker were the worst. Their mode of self-protection was linguistic: Working in concert, they tried to brand this phase of the Iraq war with two specific words, “fragile” and “reversible.” “Such inflection points underscore the fragility of the situation in Iraq,” said Crocker. “Like so much else, Iraq’s economy is fragile … I must underscore, however, that these gains are fragile and reversible … Progress is real, though still fragile …” “The progress made since last spring is fragile and reversible,” Petraeus echoed. “Fragile and reversible,” snorted California Democrat Barbara Boxer, after the two were all done. “Those are terms of art.”

She was right. “Fragile” and “reversible” were consciously, artfully crafted words, meant to evoke a military and political situation so precariously balanced it cannot be touched. (If a hospital patient’s condition was described as “fragile,” would you try to move him?) It’s a Catch-22, as Fred Kaplan puts it: “If things in Iraq get worse, we can’t cut back, lest things get worse still; if things get better, we can’t cut back, lest we risk reversing all our gains.”
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Perhaps more than anything else, Petraeus and Crocker’s performance reminded me of this exchange from Waiting for Godot:

ESTRAGON: I sometimes wonder if we wouldn’t have been better off alone, each one for himself. …
VLADIMIR (without anger): It’s not certain.
ESTRAGON: No, nothing is certain.

Who can break the hold of this attitude?

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