A general's accounting of Iraq

Paul Harris and Peter Beaumont:

Two decades ago, General David Petraeus, the man charged with winning America's second war in Iraq, wrote a thesis for his PhD in international relations at Princeton.

Its 328 pages were an intense study of the legacies of a war that had stretched the US military, riven world opinion and deeply divided American political life. It was entitled The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam. In one passage, the young officer took on the idea that public opinion in the US could not abide a military quagmire. 'Vietnam was an extremely painful reminder that, when it comes to intervention, time and patience are not American virtues in abundant supply,' Petraeus wrote in 1987. Now Petraeus is delivering another survey of an unpopular, divisive war. Only this time his audience is not a college tutor: it is the whole world.

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In America, both sides of the political divide are breathless in anticipation. The Democrats await any hint of criticism. The Republicans have prepared a PR barrage of 'good news' to try to turn public opinion back behind the war effort. White House officials hail Petraeus as a 'warrior scholar' who finally gets what is needed to win in Iraq. They see him as a man who can save the Bush presidency.

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This is a long piece, but the authors have swerved into the center of gravity for the war in Iraq. It is not in the battle spaces of Iraq that the war will be won or lost, but in the public opinion of the US where Gen. Petraeus must persuade voters that the war is not hopeless, but winnable if we persevere.

Wars are won when the losing side sees his situation as hopeless. That is where the Democrats have been for sometime and they are desperate to make others think it is hopeless. Militarily that is a ridiculous position. In fact the only hope the enemy in Iraq has is that democrats will prevail with that ridiculous argument.

It is in the battle space of public opinion that Petraeus will have his most important test. fortunately, it is an area where he is pretty good. He is producing evidence in the Iraqi battle space that is hard for the surrender lobby to refute. I think he has a good chance of winning the most important battle of his life. I wish hem well.