The Questionable Relevance of Petraeus

Ed Kilgore makes a good point here -- it's really not clear why the details of General Petraeus' presentation on the military state of play in Iraq matter at all. The question of the surge, and of the military presence more generally, is whether or not the presence is creating a situation where the presence will no longer be needed in order to avoid the Potentially Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal. As long as we have a situation where the day after we leave, the Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal will come to pass, then we may as well just leave tomorrow.

Obviously, though, the aspect of the situation in Iraq that makes the CCW frightening isn't the quantity of last week's car bombs, but rather the political conflict that led to the car-bombings. If violence declines simply because American troops are patrolling the country, then the troops need to patrol forever. If, by contrast, the decline in violence leads toward a resolution of the political conflict then it's a different story.

So the question of the surge is fundamentally outside of Petraeus' domain. And as hard as Ambassador Crocker tried to dodge the point (by for example, trying to relabel the total absence of central government control over the vast majority of the country as an experiment in federalism) the answer here is clearly no. We could, of course, just give it some more time. And then more time. And then yet more time. But by the same token, if we leave and some Catastrophic Consequences break out and then we give that more time, things will eventually calm down.

All of which is to say that there's no such thing as "military progress" that we can tally up next to absence of political progress and say, "eh, the glass is half full." The military exists to try to help accomplish political ends. If the military isn't succeeding in achieving those political ends, then it's not making progress, and our troops ought to be sent somewhere where they can do something useful.

Comments

How about back home so they can Accomplish the Mission of raising families and living a normal life?

Posted by Tim P. | September 10, 2007 7:04 PM

Military progress is a necessary precondition for political progress. Accordingly, contra Matthew, it certainly is important that Petraeus makes progress. Even if that isn't sufficient for our goals to be met.

One would think that a philosophy major would understand the concept of necessary but not sufficient.

Posted by Al | September 10, 2007 7:26 PM

"As long as we have a situation where the day after we leave, the Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal will come to pass, then we may as well just leave tomorrow."

Whether it's tomorrow or 18 months from now makes all the difference to George W. Bush. If the withdrawal comes before January, 2009, the Catastrophic Consequences will be seen as a direct result of something he did, i.e. the invasion, rather than how the dastardly Democrats fouled up his noble experiment in bringing liberty to the brownish people.

Posted by Grumpy | September 10, 2007 7:45 PM

The military exists to try to help accomplish political ends. If the military isn't succeeding in achieving those political ends, then it's not making progress, and our troops ought to be sent somewhere where they can do something useful.

The political end is to have 100k+ US troops in Iraq the day Bush leaves office, and ideally to have something going on in Iran as well, so that the consequences can be blamed on The Next Sucker.

From what I can tell, that's going just swimmingly.

Atrios nailed it: 'not leaving' is the strategy.

Also: fuck off, Al.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | September 10, 2007 7:49 PM

"Military progress is a necessary precondition for political progress"
I'm not a philosophy major. Maybe Al might be able to show me where it is written that one cannot have political progress without militarily enforced 'stability'.

Posted by CDM | September 10, 2007 8:01 PM

"Military progress is a necessary precondition for political progress. Accordingly, contra Matthew, it certainly is important that Petraeus makes progress. Even if that isn't sufficient for our goals to be met.

One would think that a philosophy major would understand the concept of necessary but not sufficient."

The whole point of the surge was to create the breathing space for political progress to take place. In the time period between the start of the surge and today, the Iraqi parliament spent a lot of time on vacation. Chalabi has made so much political progress that DC elites have been wondering aloud whether there should be some sort of change in the PM's office. American troops are not needed to give money to tribal leaders in Anbar.

Posted by Reality Man | September 10, 2007 8:14 PM

Good post, Matt.

Posted by Korha | September 10, 2007 8:39 PM

Um, duh? Needed to be said of course.

Posted by Armando | September 10, 2007 9:06 PM

This is the same thing John Edwards was talking about just the other day:

"What should be asked when Gen. Petraeus and the administration officials appear before the Congress…is the basic question of whether there's been any serious move toward a political solution, because everyone recognizes there cannot be stability and peace in Iraq unless some comprehensive political solution is reached."

Posted by Amare | September 10, 2007 9:15 PM

This is kind of random, but:

1) Ike Skelton announced that Petraeus and Crocker had a "hard stop at 6:30" that the joint committee hearing would need to respect, although the witnesses "generously" extended their testimony by 20 minutes. So: Petraeus had something more important to do than talk to Congress beyond 6:50PM. Whatever that something was, it did not take very long: by 9:00 PM Petraeus was live on FOX News, showing his charts and graphs. Anybody know what (besides a quick dinner, a trip to the bathroom, and the walk over to the FOX studio) Petraeus's prior commitment was?

2) I don't believe any organization deserves to be called a "government" unless it can support itself by taxes levied on the population it purports to govern. Crocker's testimony seemed to amount to this: Iraqui "government" at all levels has no tax revenue. Oil revenues are all Iraquis have to fight about. Have I got that about right?

-- TP

Posted by Tony P. | September 10, 2007 9:34 PM

If the U.S. military can successfully pacify a country and prop up a puppet government, that is extremely useful for certain agendas and a good demonstration of "strength" to the rest of the world. Even if said military has to stick around forever. For the thousandth time, withdrawal is not the point. Not just in this administration, but for the foreseeable future.

Posted by mq | September 10, 2007 10:11 PM

The US will leave Iraq when it runs out of money. Everything else is theater. Commentators could save vast amounts of effort by turning to more productive subjects. The public has been persuaded that a small chance of stealing Iraqi oil is worth financing the war until we run out of money. This is like playing a losing carnival arcade game until your wallet is empty. It is profoundly stupid behavior, and it will have appropriate consequences.

Posted by HH | September 10, 2007 10:20 PM

" ...If violence declines simply because American troops are patrolling the country, then the troops need to patrol forever..."

So it would follow that if looting declines simply because the National Guard is patrolling the disaster area, then the Guard needs to patrol forever?

Posted by Frogwhistle | September 10, 2007 10:20 PM

Frogwhistle would do well to eschew trasparently silly analogies, if he has a valid point to make. Alternatively, he might consider what the "disaster" was, in his analogy, that created a need for the "National Guard" in the first place.

-- TP

Posted by Tony P. | September 10, 2007 10:42 PM

Military progress is a necessary precondition for political progress. Accordingly, contra Matthew, it certainly is important that Petraeus makes progress. Even if that isn't sufficient for our goals to be met.

Telling that you don't actually quote Yglesias, Al.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 10, 2007 10:43 PM

"I don't believe any organization deserves to be called a "government" unless it can support itself by taxes levied on the population it purports to govern."

Our own government fails that test.

Posted by kafka | September 10, 2007 10:57 PM

November 17 will be the second anniversary of the Murtha Plan to withdraw our troops from Iraq "over the horizon" (probably to Kuwait). Whatever happened to this idea? It's not a great idea, but it sure looks like the least bad alternative.

Or, Bush can kick the can down the road and blame the next president for losing Iraq. Lovely.

Posted by Hal | September 10, 2007 11:24 PM

The MoveOn ad's title does have an oily whiff of the Swift Boat to it, but given the way the right has continually scored huge political victories by character assassination, I'll go with an earlier posters' recommendation that those offended "go cry on Kerry's shoulder".

But I think the more important problem with the ad is the way it confirms the White House's framing of the issue as centered on "the generals on the ground" rather than the brain-damaged policy makers in DC. If the central question we need to argue about is the essential character and integrity of a guy named David Petraeus, then we've already missed the point.

Petraeus/Betray Us -- either way he's an excellent heat shield for the "Dr. Evil" impersonator at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue.

Posted by STS | September 10, 2007 11:48 PM

Al writes: Military progress is a necessary precondition for political progress.

Military progress is meaningless without political progress. That's exactly the lesson of The Surge so far, although it's certainly arguable whether there has even been any military progress.

(Maybe one could be more receptive to your argument if you dropped the ad hominem attacks.)

Posted by Geaghan | September 11, 2007 12:32 AM

I agree with your larger point that the "military exists to try to accomplish political ends" and that to the extent that we are not making progress toward a political solution we are only delaying the "Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal."

However, I think just as violence begets violence, order also begets order. Therefore, I think it is likely that a reduction in violence is a necessary precondition for a reduction in hostility that is necessary precondition for a political solution.

Thus, the extent to which our military presence can successfully make meaningful reductions in the violence will have a great bearing on the possibility a political solution.

Now, I'm not saying that we have meaningfully curbed the violence in Iraq or that our continued military prsence will sufficiently curb the violence going forward. I am merely making the case that the level of violence, in and of itself, should properly be seen as the most appropriate indicator of progress.

I opposed the war. More importantly, I believe that sunk costs are sunk. If our miltary presence in Iraq is to continue, it should only be because the likely costs of leaving outweigh the costs of staying.

I guess my sense at the moment is that beginning to withdraw now might be even worse than staying awhile longer. I do fear the CCW.

Posted by Bob M | September 11, 2007 12:44 AM

I think you're losing sight of what Petraeus's job really was/is. Let's look at a nice quote from business-culture author Michael Korda:

"...reports, however elaborate, are usually designed to justify plans that have already been made or to serve as expensive rationalizations for decisions that were taken before the 'facts' were ever put on paper."

Petraeus's job was to find some justification (any justification) to continue Bush's chosen policy of remaining in Iraq.

Had he not done his job and concluded that the best option was to Get! Out! Now!!! It's safe to say that Bush's policy would not change.
Had he found credible evidence that need just a month's time and a little determination to turn Iraq into Rainbowlollipopstan, those in opposition to Bush's policy would not change their opinion.
(For the record, my opinion for some time now has been: I don't have a clue and I'm glad it's not my responsibility in any way, shape or form. Let me know how it all works out won't you?

Can we please stop pretending that this report ever had the slightest chance of changing a single mind (among those whose opinions matter).

By now I think the real audience of the report is political commentators who'll chase after it like a squeaky play toy thrown to a puppy in lieu of real attention.

Posted by Michael Farris | September 11, 2007 3:40 AM

firstly, this argument is bunk(reducing violence is meaningless if there is no political reconcialiation because political reconcilliation is the only way to reduce violence!). That said it wouldve made much more sense politically to go down this route rather than the route much of the left(fatboy included) actually went down.

the specious and contradictory arguments the left employed to deny the existence of military progress in iraq have been cringe worthy.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | September 11, 2007 3:55 AM

firstly, this argument is bunk(reducing violence is meaningless if there is no political reconcialiation because political reconcilliation is the only way to reduce violence!).

Please elaborate.
Thanks.

Posted by Adan | September 11, 2007 5:47 AM

Dear Congress,

Please don't cancel my favorite show "Surge!"

I know its ratings are low...but I'm sure if you just give it a little more time, I just know it will turn into a hit!

David Patraeus

Posted by alphie | September 11, 2007 7:03 AM

After watching Taguba and Shinseki (and knowing what happened to them) Petraeus knew what to do. Dealing with Washington and Congress is a military operation. He used charts and diagrams to explain battlefield geometry. Funny eh: our politicians are reluctant to take on the generals for fear of being labelled unpatriotic. A country seemingly dedicated to free speech produces the spectacle of politicians too terrified to ask blunt questions. McCain, otoh, must be down on his knees thanking Petraeus for giving his campaign a shot in the arm. Perhaps he does not need to fly economy any longer and carry his own bag on the campaign trail.

Posted by Alan | September 11, 2007 7:58 AM

“All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
~Words of President Bush to a CIA briefer who delivered the memo titled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US” to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, about a month before the September 11 attacks happened- a memo he ignored.

We.
Will.
Never.
Forget.

Posted by Republicans are traitors | September 11, 2007 8:17 AM

the specious and contradictory arguments the left employed to deny the existence of military progress in iraq have been cringe worthy.

Huh? Spoken like someone who has never looked at even the most basic evidence. Try checking out the rate of U.S. casualties over the last few years. See any change recently? Didn't think so.

Posted by mq | September 11, 2007 10:26 AM

By questioning the relevance of Petraeus, however, we continue to support the notion that there ever WAS ANY "relevance" to Petraeus.

More precisely, we fail to push on to the more obvious and important fact: Petraeus is a liar, lying for George Bush, a known liar.

This is why the MoveOn ad is appropriate - they are pointing at the obvious fact that Petraeus is a liar and thus a traitor.

Which makes Bush (yet ONE MORE TIME) a liar and a traitor.

It's pointless to quibble over Petraeus statements or any part of his "report".

It's ALL a LIE.

Focus on that to the exclusion of all else.

We were lied INTO the war, lied to about the RESULTS of the war, lied to about the COST of the war (in dollars and lives), lied to about the EFFECTS of the war (on the civilians, the environment, on terrorism, on just about everything), lied to about the CONDUCT of the war, lied to about the intentions to END the war, lied to about the LENGTH of the war, lied to about the so-called "RECONSTRUCTION" of Iraq, lied to about just about everything.

Not ONE single true statement has been made by this Administration about ANY element related to this war. Nor has ONE single true statement been made by any member of the Pentagon authorized to speak to the public about ANY element related to this war.

And we're supposed to take Petraeus seriously?

Is that somehow necessary to be considered a "Very Serious Person"?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 11, 2007 11:22 PM