Benchmarks to nowhere

Opinion Journal:

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, is a 36-year career diplomat who has served under seven administrations in Iran, Syria, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pakistan. He's no partisan gunslinger. So it's worth listening to his views as Congressional Democrats and a growing number of Republicans press for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq on the excuse that the Iraqi government hasn't met a set of political "benchmarks."

"The longer I'm here, the more I'm persuaded that Iraq cannot be analyzed by these kinds of discrete benchmarks," Mr. Crocker told the New York Times's John Burns in an interview on Saturday, referring to pending Iraqi legislation on an oil-sharing agreement and a relaxation of de-Baathification laws. "You could not achieve any of them, and still have a situation where arguably the country is moving in the right direction. And conversely, I think you could achieve them all and still not be heading towards stability, security and overall success in Iraq."

Mr. Crocker's comments are a useful reminder of the irrelevance--and disingenuousness--of much Washington commentary on Iraq. For proponents of early withdrawal, the "benchmarking" issue has provided a handy excuse to make the Iraqi government rather than al Qaeda the main culprit in the violence engulfing their country. A forthcoming Administration report indicating lagging political progress is certain to be seized on by Congress as it takes up a defense spending bill and debates an amendment ordering troop withdrawals by the fall. A proposal to mandate extended times between deployments (and thus force withdrawal) failed narrowly in the Senate yesterday, though not before winning the support of seven Republicans.

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The benchmarks were design to move toward reconciliation with the Sunnis. In the meantime, without the benchmarks the Sunnis have been rallying to our side and fighting against al Qaeda. That is what we wanted and the Democrats are ignoring the achievement of a much more important objective than was contained in the benchmarks, in their desperation for defeat in Iraq.

One of the reasons that Iraq has had difficulty meeting the political benchmarks is structural. They have a government that can't force a vote. That is why it took months to pick the Maliki government and it is why they can't get approval for the proposed benchmarks without a bigger majority than is required by the US Senate. In fact, the Senate will lose its title as the worlds greatest deliberative body to the Iraqi parliament which can't schedule a vote on anything beyond a recess resolution.The reason the structural difficulties were imposed, was to protect minorities like the Sunnies and the Kurds. Ironically, it is keeping them from getting the benefits that would come from the benchmarks.

However, the benefits of the Anbar reawakening and its spread through the country far outweigh the artificial benchmarks mandated by Congress.