He has no ability to look past the next year in Iraq. I am frustrated listening to the debate of whether the surge has worked or not. It reminds me of the debate over WMD's. We have allowed the question in the debate to be framed by the Administration. Who cares what Petraeus says. He has not said that the troops will be out of Iraq in the next year. What happens by focusing on his testimony and the report is that the question of "should we stay in Iraq" is tied to the question of "has the surged worked", even when these are independent questions. This is the same mistake we made with WMD's when the question of "does Saddam have WMD's" got tied to "should we go to war".
Update:
Ok, I edited the title. And the poll is supposed to read, "Hypothetically, if the surge had been a success, should we leave Iraq?"
The question of staying in Iraq has already been defined. Do you believe we should have about 100,000 troops in Iraq for at least 10 years at a cost of close to 200 billion dollars a year or should we leave in the next year? Petraeus said nothing to indicate that there would be major troop withdrawal (rather than token) in the next year. He even went so far as to say he could make no predictions past a year.
And therefore it is the President who is once again misrepresenting how the how decisions are made. The decision about staying in Iraq is not a military decision, it is a political decision. Do we continue to commit troops to Iraq or not? The interesting fact is that the American people are not falling for the misdirection again. Yes, they don't trust what the general is saying, but more importantly they do not care, because it does not matter.
It is important when reviewing questions, that one makes sure the questions are actually dependent on each other. You do this by looking at both answers to the question and then determining if this changes the answer to the other question. The prime example of this is the WMD question. Does Saddam have WMD's? If the answer is "no" then the answer to the question "should we go to war" is "no", but if the answer is "yes", the answer "should we go to war" is still "no", therefore why are we were even debating the first question.
So let's assess the question of if the surge is working or not. "Is the surge working?", if the answer is "no", than the answer to "should we stay in Iraq" is "no". If the answer is "yes", the answer is still "no"? Why? As General Petraeus has pointed out about his 2004 article, a postive assessment now, basically means nothing for future events. And this is why Mcjoan is wrong, Petraeus does not have to admit that his oped was wrong, he admitted the most important item. His oped, like his testimony today are irrelevant.
So what is the right question? The right question has already been framed by the President in his comparison of this war to Korea. Do you believe this war, regardless the outcome (since that is pretty much unknowable and could be the same if we withdraw) is worth 10 years (I use 10 a little arbitrarily, but it is a nice round number) and trillions of dollars (I am not going to use body counts here, because both in the case of withdrawal and staying, the number of total casualties is unknowable [Iraqi civilian, Iraqi military and American, which is the only true way to count casualties since all human life has equal value]) and therefore not really usable as an argument). Or do you believe that America can keep itself more secure and prosperous by withdrawing troops in the next year and committing the resources and focus to other domestic and international issues?
I believe the latter, and the success or failure of the surge has no bearing on my decision. So I am not sure why we care what the General has to say, when even he admits he can not predict the future?