This cover story, which I learned of through a link from fellow local blogger Rockford Rascal, is every bit as scathing and critical of Gen. Petraeus as the MoveOn ad that got the entire political universe all in a lather.The article, entitled "Sycophant Savior" by Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, is blunt, scathing, and remarkably insightful:
[I]n presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes.
From the very beginning of the Iraq War, such harmony has been absent. The war’s military and political aspects have been badly out of synch. (In this regard, the hackneyed comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam are tragically apt.) The failure to plan for an occupation, the wildly inflated expectations of Iraq’s rapid transformation into a liberal democracy, Donald Rumsfeld’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the insurgency’s existence until long after it had begun, the deeply flawed kick-down-the-door campaign that ensued once Rumsfeld could no longer deny reality: all of these meant that from the outset, the exertions of U.S. troops, however great, tended to be at odds with our stated political intentions. Our actions were counterproductive.
The Petraeus-Crocker hearings found Petraeus in a position to resolve that problem. Over the previous eight months, a discredited president had effectively abdicated responsibility for managing the war. “I trust David Petraeus” became George W. Bush’s mantra, suggesting an astonishing level of presidential deference. Sometime in early 2007, the task of formulating basic strategy for Iraq had effectively migrated from Washington to Baghdad, passing from the office of the commander in chief to the headquarters of the senior field commander. The president made it clear that he intended to takes his cues from his general. Military judgment would inform, even determine, political decisions.
The general has now made his call, and President Bush has endorsed it: the surge having succeeded (so at least we are assured), it will now be curtailed. The war will continue, albeit on a marginally smaller scale. As events develop, it just might become smaller still. Only time will tell.
Petraeus has chosen a middle course, carefully crafted to cause the least amount of consternation among various Washington constituencies he is eager to accommodate. This is the politics of give and take, of horse trading, of putting lipstick on a pig. Ultimately, it is the politics of avoidance.
--sniperoo--
Let us assume instead that Petraeus genuinely believes that he has broken the code in Iraq and that things are improving. Let’s assume further that he is correct in that assessment.
What then should he have recommended to the Congress and the president? That is, if the commitment of a modest increment of additional forces —the 30,000 troops comprising the surge, now employed in accordance with sound counterinsurgency doctrine —has begun to turn things around, then what should the senior field commander be asking for next?
A single word suffices to answer that question: more. More time. More money. And above all, more troops.
It is one of the oldest principles of generalship: when you find an opportunity, exploit it. Where you gain success, reinforce it. When you have your opponent at a disadvantage, pile on. In a letter to the soldiers serving under his command, released just prior to the congressional hearings, Petraeus asserted that coalition forces had “achieved tactical momentum and wrestled the initiative from our enemies.” Does that reflect his actual view of the situation? If so, then surely the imperative of the moment is to redouble the current level of effort so as to preserve that initiative and to deny the enemy the slightest chance to adjust, adapt, or reconstitute.
Yet Petraeus has chosen to do just the opposite. Based on two or three months of (ostensibly) positive indicators, he has advised the president to ease the pressure, withdrawing the increment of troops that had (purportedly) enabled the coalition to seize the initiative in the first place.
In other words, the author is saying that the General, in an attempt to square the various political circles whirling around Washington, ended up providing the exact opposite of sound military advice. Which is true. Of course, had Petraeus come to Capitol Hill and said that we needed to "pile on" in the author's term of art, he would have lost his audience. On the other hand, had he come to Capitol Hill and said, "This entire enterprise is, and has been from the beginning, a cluster from beginning to end," he would have lost his sponsor. This is not to claim that Petraeus is a liar. Rather, it is to claim that, placing a soldier in the position of doing a politician's duty - deal with policy rather than the execution of policy - the Bush Administration placed Petraeus in what can only delicately be called an impossible position. He had to weave his way carefully - and the only ammunition war supporters had was to get huffy when an anti-war group seemed to call Petraeus' integrity in to question. Bacevich does what MoveOn did, only with a bit more finesse and a lot more understanding.
The entire phony contretemps over MoveOn, and now Rush Limbaugh, misses the point that is brought home by a conservative magazine doing a pretty good breakdown of Petraeus' performance. We need to be having this discussion now. Right-wingers and war-boosters may believe that by "silencing" MoveOn they have managed to quell the possibility of Americans actually having this discussion. Now that The American Conservative has picked up where MoveOn left off, it seems to me we have an opportunity to continue the discussion.
