A New York Times Op-Ed today shows that the progress being made in Iraq by the surge has become so marked that it can no longer be completely hidden. The piece is by Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack of the liberal Brookings Institution, and expresses some surprise that the surge could actually work:
VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
The observations will only surprise those who gain much of their information form the MSM; Iraq as a failure and quagmire, completely ignoring the surge, has been the conventional wisdom in the MSM for some time now and nothing as meager as reality has affected that narrative. Whether such a narrative can be sustained in the face of the surge is likely to be determinative of the outcome of the war.
John Hinderaker voices a concern many supporters of the surge feel:
These are basically the same observations that most visitors to Iraq have made lately. Yet, some think this piece is significant, because of who wrote it--two liberals from Brookings--and the fact that it appeared in the Times. We discussed the column on the radio with Bill Bennett this morning, and he is of that view.
Maybe so. My fear, though, is that the leadership of the Democratic Party sees progress on the ground in Iraq as bad news, not good. I think many Congressional Democrats are committed to defeat, for political and ideological reasons. If so, they won't be swayed by this kind of report. It could help, of course, if voters perceive progress in Iraq and hold politicians accountable if they fail to sustain it. But not many rank and file voters, either Democrat or Republican, read the op-ed pages of the Times.
Richard Fernandez places our efforts into context of the war (especially the information war) against Islamic extremism. His post is an important read and underscores the importance of the surge and eventual victory in Iraq, even if such victory falls short of the Jeffersonian ideal many demand. One of his commenters, Purple Avenger, offers a counter-point to John Hinderaker's concern:
This isn't the first non-negative piece the NYT has run recently. There have been a few others on the news side as well.
They've been micro-incrementally softening their position for about 3 months now.
Petraeus's progress is undeniable. I believe the NYT is repositioning itself so they won't look like absolute fools 9-12 months from now when the election season gets hot.
If it wasn't so important, it would be a fascinating study to follow the state of MSM coverage and reporting on the war as our progress on the ground becomes more and more unavoidable. Will the Times, and their allies in the Democratic party, try to overwhelm any good news with coverage of the suicide bombings and deaths in Iraq? In this they will be more than ably assisted by al Qaeda, whose only hope of success lies in convincing American politicians that the war is hopeless and too costly. Only our withdrawal and surrender can bring about an al Qaeda victory.
Alternately, as per Purple Avenger's comment, the Times may slowly move toward a position of supporting the surge and hoping (assuming) that their readers have no memories. It will be fascinating to see if the Times, taking a page from Oceania, attempts to slowly scrub their coverage once a vector toward stability becomes impossible to ignore or undermine. In this scenario, it is hard to imagine the Democrats can make a similar transition. After all, their anti-war position has rested on a base that explicitly desires a loss for America in Iraq. Such a loss would not only discredit the hated George W. Bush, but would also discredit American exceptionalism, American "imperialism" and military intervention in general (except int hose cases where America has no abiding national interest.)
The "Iraq disaster" scenario has worked extremely well in advancing the political agenda shared by the Democrats and the Times (as well as by al Qaeda) but has always depended on continuing failure in Iraq. Once victory in Iraq appears as a real possibility and progress toward such a goal has become undeniable, the Times/Democrats will be seen to have pressed a losing strategy; at that point they will find themselves in a serious dilemma.
As the surge succeeds, and is seen to be succeeding, the tension between the Times's interests and the interests of the Democratic party, as well as the tension within the Democratic party between those who passionately oppose the war and those who have used such opposition opportunistically, will be worth watching.
Of course, the surge could still fail utterly, and we may yet abandon Iraq to its fate unceremoniously, but at the moment the tide is running against al Qaeda. Iran has some powerful interests in keeping the Shia under control and the Sunnis have an even greater investment in stability (since they would lose any civil war that ensues from an American withdrawal.) With General Petraeus finally offering superb leadership, even with the extremely short horizon allowed by the necessity to report success by September, the possibility of success in Iraq has at long last come into view.
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