Lieberman and McCain write yet another Op-Ed in the WSJ to defend the White House surge and it must be said that they are quite brilliant in their political approach, with just the right combination of selected facts, fearmongering, low-key demonization of adversaries, sheer bad faith, and bluster.
The way the article is promoted by the WSJ says it all: "Listening to Petraeus - The president had the courage to change course on Iraq. Does Congress?
Translation: The President is pragmatic and listens to expert advice, as opposed to the ideological Congress.
Reality: hmmm.... the exact opposite?
Consider how the situation has changed. A year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq controlled large swaths of the country's territory. Today it is being driven out of its former strongholds in Anbar and Diyala provinces by the surge in U.S. forces and those of our Iraqi allies. A year ago, sectarian violence was spiraling out of control in Iraq, fanned by al Qaeda. Today civilian murders in Baghdad are down over 50%.
The manipulation of the numbers and the facts is not very subtle - respond to an argument about a large metric by providing a much narrower metric - which was created for that purpose. Switch from "sectarian violence" to "civilian murders", and from Iraq to Baghdad and you manage to squeeze one positive sounding number out of the surge (presumably that was the only "technical" goal of the surge) - ignore all other metrics and repeat the 'right' one endlessly.
As facts on the ground in Iraq have improved, some critics of the war have changed their stance. As Democratic Congressman Brian Baird, who voted against the invasion of Iraq, recently wrote after returning from Baghdad: "[T]he people, strategies, and facts on the ground have changed for the better, and those changes justify changing our position on what should be done."
All it takes is one name from the other side to label the effors as bi-partisan, and claim wide support for the surge beyond a few extremist die hards. One name. Lieberman played that role for a while until his 'brand' became too mixed up and, frankly, toxic, so he's just now officially on the WH side, but now they got the quote they needed from Baird. One name. It takes a lot of party discipline to avoid that, but the systematic (ab)use of vaguely favorable quotes by Democrats should give pause to those Dems that want to talk about Iraq.
Unfortunately, many more antiwar advocates continue to press for withdrawal. Confronted by undeniable evidence of gains against al Qaeda in Iraq, they acknowledge progress but have seized on the performance of the Iraqi government to justify stripping Gen. Petraeus of troops and derailing his strategy.
Next, take on the "extremists". Extract any word that can be distorted as an acknowledgement that some things are less bad than others as a tortured recognition (pun intended) by even the extremists that things are going in the right direction. Then take a small piece of their argumentation , make it, with no justification or explanation, into their main line of reasoning. Ideally, once taken out of the context it was provided, it will sound weak or lame and can then be safely debunked. Conclude that you have destroyed the arguments of the extremists, and show how reasonable you are by even giving them a serious hearing.
In the neighborhoods and villages where U.S. forces have moved in, extremists have been marginalized, and moderates empowered. Thanks to this changed security calculus, the Sunni Arab community -- which was largely synonymous with the insurgency a year ago -- has been turning against al Qaeda from the bottom-up, and beginning to negotiate an accommodation with the emerging political order.
Turn a changed strategy by one Iraqi group, to use US forces as shields from another group instead of as a target, as a success - despite the fact that US forces have become a bigger target for another group... This sounds like Enron-style accounting, where you count only the earnings from one deal, and neglect to take into account the corresponding liabilities.
Start dropping the Al-Qaida name.
Sustaining this political shift depends on staying the offensive against al Qaeda -- which in turn depends on not stripping Gen. Petraeus of the manpower he and his commanders say they need.
Now that the bogeyman has been introduced, come back to the try and tested argument: not supporting Petraeus means giving the advantage to the all-encompassing enemy of civilisation, the USA and freedom. It makes you a traitor.
it is a choice between a young, imperfect, struggling democracy that we have helped midwife into existence, and the fanatical, al Qaeda suicide bombers and Iranian-sponsored terrorists who are trying to destroy it. If Washington politicians succeed in forcing a premature troop withdrawal in Iraq, the result will be a more dangerous world with our enemies emboldened. As Iran's president recently crowed, "soon we will see a huge power vacuum in the region . . . [and] we are prepared to fill the gap."
Bring in arch-enemy n°2 - axis of evil regular Iran and its caricatural ayatollahs. Claim that only these outside forces are causing trouble, and that otherwise, without them, without the evil terrorists, all would be going well in Iraq (and Iraqis would be throwing roses at Americans).
Use the silly words of fellow religious fanatic Amhedinejhad (who is, contrary to his American counterpart, mostly powerless in his country) to paint the enemy as overwhelmingly dangerous and bent on the destruction of the USA. Spread fear, guilt and shame liberally.
Whatever the shortcomings of our friends in Iraq, they are no excuse for us to retreat from our enemies like al Qaeda and Iran, who pose a mortal threat to our vital national interests. We must understand that today in Iraq we are fighting and defeating the same terrorist network that attacked on 9/11.
Raise the stakes. "Vital national interests" is the diplomatic code used to signify red lines to other countries, and making it explicit that any attempt to touch these will bring about nuclear retaliation. Mentioning Iran specifically in the same sentence makes the destination of the nukes clear. Linking the current occupation in Iraq to both 9/11 and to Iran in the same paragraph sends a message both the the US public (using 9/11 to whip up frenzy about both the surge, and abotu the yet unclear plans for Iran) and to outsiders - nukes are explicitly on the table. It is quite sneaky to use Lieberman and McCain to pass that message on - they are known in practice as spokespeople for the White House, but they are not speaking in any official executive capacity and thus leave a bit af strategic ambiguity abotu whether the US actually means that it might respond to terrorist attacks in Iraq with nukes on Tehran... But the threat is now undoubtedly there.
The Bush administration clung for too long to a flawed strategy in this war, despite growing evidence of its failure. Now advocates of withdrawal risk making the exact same mistake, by refusing to re-examine their own conviction that Gen. Petraeus's strategy cannot succeed and that the war is "lost," despite rising evidence to the contrary.
The Bush administration finally had the courage to change course in Iraq earlier this year. After hearing from Gen. Petraeus today, we hope congressional opponents of the war will do the same.
Pretend that you are critical of the administration (funny how we did not hear these back then...) to try to boost your credibility today. Claim boldly that the administration is flexible and pragmatic and not at all preoccupied by the politics of its decision. And beat all previous chutzpah records by pretending at the same time that a flip-flop is now the thing to do, that the inexistant change in policies in Iraq is a change in course and that such claim is enough to make the president a listener and its opponents rigid ideologues.
Quite a performance altogether. Ruthless exploitation of any weakness on the other side, shameless distortion of reality to create apparently favorable facts, random threats and ultimatums to various parties, and a brazen willingness to use contradictory arguments side by side.
This article is actually a pretty good summary of the political model of the Bush administration. There's only one way to tackle it - head on. When will that ever happen?