The double reverse chickendoves

Jules Crittenden reads Tom Friedman so you don't have to and his take is much more interesting.

To paraphrase some Marine wag in Ramadi … Tom Friedman isn’t at war, the Marine Corps is at war. The Army is at war. Tom Friedman’s at Neiman Marcus:

Boy, am I glad we finally got out of Iraq. It was so painful waking up every morning and reading the news from there. It’s just such a relief to have it out of mind and behind us.

Huh? Say what? You say we’re still there? But how could that be — nobody in Washington is talking about it anymore?

I don’t know whether it was the sheer agony of the debate over Gen. David Petraeus’s testimony, or the fact that the surge really has dampened casualties, or the failure by Democrats to force an Iraq withdrawal through Congress, or the fact that all the leading Democratic presidential contenders have signaled that they will not precipitously withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, but the air has gone out of the Iraq debate.

That is too bad. Neglect is not benign when it comes to Iraq — because Iraq is not healthy. Iraq is like a cancer patient who was also running a high fever from an infection (Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia). The military surge has brought down the fever, but the patient still has cancer (civil war). And we still don’t know how to treat it. Surgery? Chemotherapy? Natural healers? Euthanasia?

Actually, Iraq is more like a tortured, politically traumatized nation of 25 million people desperate for a chance in life, after decades of being cynically abused by everyone from Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda to the Iranian mullahs, a plague of viruses that have infected the entire region. The cure? Determined, patient counter-insurgency in Iraq. Airstrikes targeting Iran’s capability to project trouble. A long war. Diplomacy with honest partners, when they emerge.

To the extent that the surge has worked militarily, it is largely because of what Iraqis have done by themselves for themselves — Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders rising up against pro-Qaeda Sunni elements, taking back control of their villages and towns, and aligning themselves with U.S. forces to do so. Some Shiites are now doing the same.

Now that’s supporting the troops. Apparently Friedman missed the part about the Iraqis recognizing the Americans aren’t leaving, that Americans can fight and won’t quit, that the Americans, as they have bled, are actually trying to help them, while al-Qaeda was just bleeding them. That the American “strong horse” represents their interests. That the Americans represent order and prosperity, and will leave when Iraq is on that path. That al-Qaeda represents chaos, death and violently enforced Sharia. Clearly the Americans had nothing to do with this uprising.

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There is much more. It is also apparent from the last paragraph that Crittenden quotes above that friedman is clueless when it comes to counterinsurgency warfare. The surge is all about getting the Iraqis to do for themselves. It is about protecting them so they can act in their own behalf. He must have been too bored by the facts to pay much attention to what Gen. Petraeus has been doing. This is also another attempt by Democrats to rob the troops of the credit they are due for turning things around because they fear if the give the troops some credit, it might rebound to the President who accepted Petraeus' strategy.