Short and sweet version of my opinion so far.
War is about the unexpected. You can beat Petraeus about not meeting all of the “benchmarks”, but what really happened is that a lot of positive things happened in Iraq that no one expected, and that no one has any way to measure.
That's a good thing. Petraeus is 'da man, he's done a tremendous job in Iraq.
Don't take my word for it, go read some of the articles over at the Brookings institute, publisher of the Iraq Index I used to read religiously. According to him:
...most categories of killings are down 20 to 50-percent since the surge began. This is true for overall civilian fatalities from all causes, including victims of extrajudicial killings (basically reprisal assassinations), murders, and for the most part, car- and truck-bombing victims.
Table showing the dramatic improvement in military momentum
Petraeus Doesn't Cook the Books
However it is true what the Democrats say; that the Iraqi legislature sucks. They're almost as incompetent as...drumroll...Congress.
Which isn't surprising. Our fatal flaw in Iraq was conducting a census instead of an election. What we really need to do is fire the existing crop of guys, and hold a whole bunch of elections focused not on what race/party you are (Sunni/Kurd/Shia) but whether you can get shit done.
Now if only we could do that in this country...
Of course, that's just a fantasy on my part. I think the senators are right though that we need a “diplomatic surge” to go along with the troop surge.
Recent Comments