Iraq critics try conscience avoidance of good news

Michael Continetti:

Last week, when the New York Times published an op-ed arguing that Gen. David Petraeus should be allowed more time to pursue his counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, supporters of President Bush's "surge" got excited. The political momentum seemed to shift in their direction. But Bush's supporters shouldn't get carried away. They are in danger of seriously underestimating the ability of those who believe the war is lost or was always unwinnable to ignore, deny, and attack all news of positive developments. They should not underestimate the popularity of what you might call the Iraq shuffle.

Antiwar activity seemed to crescendo in July, when leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post suggested the Bush administration was planning a significant reduction in American forces or a major shift in strategic goals in Iraq in coming months. The leaks--combined with congressional demands for a progress report on political and security "benchmarks" in Iraq and public criticism from several GOP senators that the current war strategy isn't working--caught the administration off guard. It scrambled to complete the progress report, explain the lack of political progress in Baghdad, and fight off further Republican defections.

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Those developments set the stage for a hard week for antiwar congressional Democrats eager to cause maximum damage to the administration before the August recess. It all began on Monday, July 30, when the headline "A War We Might Just Win" appeared on the Times opinion page over a piece by Brookings Institution scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. The two left-leaning national security experts, backers of the invasion of Iraq but also critics of the administration's "miserable handling" of war policy, recently returned from their second (O'Hanlon) and third (Pollack) trip to Iraq. They found that the United States is "finally getting somewhere," at least "in military terms." O'Hanlon and Pollack conclude: "The surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008."

These words, coming from two well-regarded members of the Democratic foreign policy establishment and appearing on the nation's most liberal editorial page, resonated profoundly among war supporters in the White House and Congress. Right-wing radio talk show hosts began citing the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed, as did House Republicans during a debate on Iraq policy. Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani told talk show host Bill Bennett that when he read the piece, "I dropped my coffee." Supporters of the surge, who had long been aware of positive developments in Anbar province and elsewhere, felt as if their message finally was getting out.

Is it? It is hard to say. Antiwar Democrats immediately started dancing the Iraq shuffle, in which you ignore your opponent's arguments, shift the terms of the debate, and attack his motivation and character. Witness the left's reaction to a recent interview Petraeus gave to conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Rather than rebutting Petraeus's findings, lefty bloggers accused the general of being a partisan political actor. Or consider the liberal, antiwar Center for American Progress's "Progress Report" of July 31, entitled "Bush's Enablers." The email newsletter is sent to left-wing political operatives, activists, and journalists throughout the country and is a reliable barometer of progressive opinion.

Rather than rebut O'Hanlon and Pollack's evidence of progress in Anbar, the reduction in (still high) civilian fatality rates, and the growing capability, integration, and accountability of Iraqi army units, the Progress Report said the authors were "cherry-picking anecdotal signs of progress in order to justify continuing a war they supported from the beginning." Rather than acknowledge the extraordinary alliance between coalition forces and the tribal sheikhs who rule Anbar, the Progress Report redirected attention to the problems facing the Iraqi national government--problems O'Hanlon and Pollack acknowledge in their op-ed. And rather than assuming its opponents argue in good faith, the Progress Report accused O'Hanlon and Pollack of "providing political cover for the administration's misguided war policies."

And so it goes. In recent days, however, surge critics seem to be performing the Iraq shuffle more frequently....

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The antiwar reaction to the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed, and to the likely consequences of American withdrawal, suggest what will happen come September, when Petraeus reports to Congress. Those who want to leave Iraq as quickly as possible will ignore contrary evidence. They will attempt to shift the debate onto the ground where they are strongest. They will attack the messenger. For those most committed to American withdrawal from Iraq, no amount of positive reporting will matter. They will be too busy dancing the Iraq shuffle.

There are political consequences to ignoring reality. As their desperation for defeat becomes more obvious to those who also see that we are winning their position may not change but the underlying political realities on which they have been counting will change. The President and the people who want to win can probably buy the time the generals need to finish the job and come election day in 2008, it will be the anti war caucus that will be the real losers.