I didn't have time to watch Gen. Petraeus' testimony yesterday afternoon, and I refused outright to watch him sing and dance on Fox, so I'm not sure I have much to add on the subject that will be terribly original. But, given that my blogging license would likely be revoked if I didn't comment, let me briefly press on nonetheless.
Gen. Petraeus, as we all know, literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency. That book - his book - states that the primary goal of a counterinsurgency operation is political, not military. As such, it seems to me that using military metrics to judge the surge is both useless and counterproductive. I can understand (sort of) why most commentators miss this distinction; why Petraeus does is beyond me. Unless, of course, he is choosing to shift the focus away from political metrics deliberately.
We need to be honest here. It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that the US military has had some military success in the areas where it has significantly increased its presence. There was never any reason to think that it couldn't (more here). But given that the purpose of the operation was to provide the security necessary for political reconciliation, that sort of domination was always the means, not the ends. Which is why Petraeus' presentation of levels of violence is really beside the point.
On that point, this article from McClatchy really nails it. It isn't what Petraeus and Crocker said that matters; its what they didn't say that counts. For example:
A chart displayed by Army Gen. David Petraeus that purported to show the decline in sectarian violence in Baghdad between December and August made no effort to show that the ethnic character of many of the neighborhoods had changed in that same period from majority Sunni Muslim or mixed to majority Shiite Muslim.
Neither Petraeus nor U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker talked about the fact that since the troop surge began the pace by which Iraqis were abandoning their homes in search of safety had increased. They didn't mention that 86 percent of Iraqis who've fled their homes said they'd been targeted because of their sect, according to the International Organization for Migration.While Petraeus stressed that civilian casualties were down over the last five weeks, he drew no connection between that statement and a chart he displayed that showed that the number of attacks rose during at least one of those weeks.
Petraeus also didn't highlight the fact that his charts showed that "ethno-sectarian" deaths in August, down from July, were still higher than in June, and he didn't explain why the greatest drop in such deaths, which peaked in December, occurred between January and February, before the surge began.
And while both officials said that the Iraqi security forces were improving, neither talked about how those forces had been infiltrated by militias, though Petraeus acknowledged that during 2006 some Iraqi security forces had participated in the ethnic violence.
The problem here is that in every case, the things they left out are what matter most to Iraqis, both politically and socially. Taking Petraeus' charts at face value (a dubious proposition, at best), they we learn nothing more than that from a military standpoint, the policy has been moderately successful. The means, in other words, have been implemented. But what about the political ends? About this his charts remain silent.
Why? This may have something to do with that.
Last but not least, as for the entire debate... I think the LA TImes gets it precisely right here:
The talk in Washington on Monday was all about troop reductions, yet it also brought into sharp focus President Bush's plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq, and to leave tough decisions about ending the unpopular war to his successor.
The plans outlined by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, would retain a large force in the country -- perhaps more than 100,000 troops -- when the time comes for Bush to move out of the White House in January 2009.
The plans also would allow Bush to live up to his pledge to the defining mission of his presidency, and perhaps to improve his chances for a decent legacy. He can say he left office pursuing a strategy that was having at least some success in suppressing violence, a claim that some historians may view sympathetically."Bush has found his exit strategy," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former government Mideast specialist now at the Brookings Institution.
Make a mess, and then let some one else clean it up. That's the story of Bush's life. He broke it, we bought it. Fun, huh?
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan and George will are right on right here.
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