Left Whines About Surge Success

What is the Left without whining?

So, with the surge showing success, the National Journal has to search for something to whine about and has found it:

But there's a snag. While the military as a whole is ramping down, its most politically sensitive component -- the citizen-soldiers of the Army National Guard -- is ramping up.

Dang it! People who signed up knowing what they were signing up for are getting what they signed up for. Oh, the humanity!

Hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

The Surge Is So 2007

When even John Murtha says the surge is working, inquiring strategists start thinking, "What next?" Two stories on Iraq in the post-surge era offer both insights and suggestions.

About a week ago, Omar Fadhil posted What Happens After the Surge at Pajamas Media (a Watcher's Council nominee this week), and today the other C-SM carries Christopher Kojm's Here's the Surge Iraq Needs.

Fadhil focuses his attention on the Iraqi government's crackdown on the Association of Muslim Scholars, a front group for Sunni, al Qaeda-related violence in Iraq. It's interesting that this squeeze is both process- and politically driven, a sign of increasing maturity in the Iraqi government.

Unlike previous operations, this one is different in that the troops were sent following a request submitted to the government by the department of Sunni endowment, an entity in charge of overseeing Sunni mosques and other religious activities. The chief of the Sunni endowment, Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour Samarraie, is a moderate Sunni cleric who has renounced the insurgency and explicitly accused the association of assisting al-Qaeda by justifying their murderous attacks against Iraqis.

Politically, the move was possible because Iraq's government no longer needs or seeks the support of Sadr's Shi'ite militia and, indeed, is actively involved in prosecuting Mahdi Army/Iraqi government officials charged with running death squads.

In Karbala, as a most recent example, the police chief finally declared the Mahdi Army, an outlaw group. He accused them of murdering over 700 Iraqi civilians, 70 police officers, kidnapping over 130 civilians as well as conducting some 50 attacks with roadside bombs over the last three years in Karbala province alone.

In my opinion, what we’re seeing right now is an exploitation of the achievements of the surge strategy in the direction to establish rule of law-step by step.

Kojm (Council on Foreign Relations, former 9/11 Commission deputy director) agrees, but cautions that the surge is so 2007.

What the US needs in 2008 is a surge of political, military, diplomatic, and humanitarian activity across the board, in order to achieve a reduced but still attainable objective in Iraq – stability. Without stability, more ambitious goals cannot be achieved. With it, US forces can begin to withdraw.

Kojn's argument has many common Council on Foreign Relations flaws -- the assumption that Iraq's neighbors "need" stability, and that negotiations with Iran may lead somewhere positive -- but he makes some good points nonetheless, especially this:

We need to press the Iraqi government as hard as we can on questions of national reconciliation. Why? Because the current moment of hope in Iraq will fade unless Sunnis see a future for themselves in the life of their country. They need to be brought into the Iraqi Army, police, and government ministries. They need a chance to vote for their own elected representatives at the provincial level. They need to share in Iraq's oil wealth. Otherwise, the current lull in violence will be just a timeout in an unfolding sectarian war – and a future Iraq made up of gangs and warlords.

It brings up visions of the IRA, whose blood-soaked terror war was more about economic and political equity than about theological differences between Catholics and Protestants.

Kojn also points to the need to maintain diplomatic pressure on Turkey and Saudi Arabia to continue the move towards stability (and Iran, but really!), and the need to address with more compassion the Iraqi refugees. Many of them are returning to a more stable Iraq now, something Kojn doesn't mention, but in the larger picture, helping these refugees find homes and jobs upon their return is critically important to Iraq's stability, and the U.S. budget for Iraqi refugees -- equal, Kojn says, to the cost of one day of fighting the war -- is not sufficient.

All this thinking of post-surge strategies would not be possible, of course, were it not for the success of the surge. That someone like Kojn has the opportunity to write the column he wrote is a testament to the unquestioned success of the strategy.

But the surge is our first truly successful strategy in Iraq since Saddam's government toppled. I wish we could assume that the Bush administration will gracefully move on to the next well thought out step, but history tells us that articles like these are needed to keep the pressure on.

Quote Of The Day: Surge Edition

No one is asking American journalists to start emphasizing the "good" news. All they have to do is report what is occurring, though it may conflict with their previous judgments. Some are still selling books based on the premise that the war is lost, end of story. But what if there is a new chapter in the story?

-- Robert Kagan

Kagan's column in today's WaPo, The Surge is Working, is a solid account of a changing battle in Iraq, and a quick and worthy Sunday read.

Let's see if anyone in the MSM is listening.

Why Are We Not Done With Dionne?

E.J. Dionne gets under my skin because he's a man with little common sense who has been given a massive soapbox to say what he will. The WaPo columnist had this to say on Real Clear Politics this a.m.:

The challenge to critics of the war is to make the debate about Bush, not themselves, and to make clear that the president has rebuffed all efforts to pursue a bipartisan path out of Iraq, beginning with his rejection of the core recommendations of the Iraq Study Group headed by James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton.

What a breakthrough! Make the war about Bush! Why hadn't the Left thought of that before? Brilliant!

Dionne is hanging out with former DC mayors if he thinks there's a crack-smoke-thin whiff of bipartisanship in the Dem party. Hasn't been since Florida in 2000. Their definition of bipartisanship is "My way or the highway, Bub."

If there were bipartisan leadership in the Dems, there wouldn't have been a Resolution to Show No Resolve. There might have been a non-binding resolution saying timelines and performance milestones need to be imposed on the Baghdad government, but not a no confidence resolution like the House and Senate bills.

And Dionne's reference to the Baker-Hamilton report, which has been shown to be deeply, mortally flawed, is about as compellling as a third-rate hack spinning for a losing cause. Waving that report under our noses may influence some, but most of us just smell a stink.

Of Jack Murtha's proposed end-around -- support the troops by making it impossible for them to fight by enforcing "term limits" on their action in Iraq -- Dionne says:

The Murtha measure would at least force a much-needed debate on the damage this war has done to our armed forces and the extraordinary burdens being borne by the brave minority of Americans who serve. It would also sidestep the political damage of doing anything that could be construed by Bush's supporters as "failing to support our troops.''

Granted, Dionne goes on to say Murtha's approach is doomed, but does he think we voters would actually buy Murtha's approach as anything but a slap in the face of the soldiers? We're too smart by far. We know that Murtha's measure isn't based on concern for the troops or their families -- if he's even talked to them, he knows the majority are there for the long haul -- it's just political sidestepping and cowardness.

I could go on, but I have to be 50 miles from here in an hour, so I'll just leave with this: Dionne may be a fool, but he's a fool to millions. Throughout Iraq are U.S. soldiers who are nobody's fools, certainly not his, and they would like to be able to get on with their mission without the knowledge that they are fighting to protect the liberties of liberals with oversized influence and undersized appreciation.

Dems Ignore Heroes, Vote Egos

All but two House Dems joined with 17 cowardly Republicans and denied our troops support, passing the Resolution to Show No Resolve this afternoon on a - vote.

The closing GOP speaker was Sam Johnson of Texas, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, shown here embracing his wife Shirley when he finally returned stateside on Feb. 17, 1973 -- 34 years ago tomorrow. Johnson said:

"Now it's time to stand up for my friends who did not make it home, and for those who fought and died in Iraq already. We must not cut funding for our troops. We must stick by them."

He snapped off a salute as he completed his remarks, and received an ovation from all there, even the hypocrites who, when the applause died down, voted not to stick by our troops. The measure says Congress "will support the troops" but it means nothing, as Pelosi and Murtha conspire to cut the funds the troops need to achieve their mission.

Even as the surge achieves results -- insurgents killed, arrested and fleeing, and calmer streets in Iraq -- Murtha gleefully said the vote "stops the surge for all intents and purposes, because .. they cannot sustain the deployment."

Do you need any more convincing that to Pelosi, Murtha and thier ilk, "victory" means "shame for America?"