Kicking A.S.S.

Congressional hearings on Iraq this week, featuring the report by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on the Surge, became a showcase for Democrats to rake the Bush Administration over the coals for its grotesque bungling and mismanagement of the Iraq occupation.

President Bush, speaking in Australia, claimed that his Surge was “kicking ass.” But given the level of violence, which even under the most optimistic assessment has only receded to its 2006 level, Bush’s “kicking ass” comment was used repeatedly as a point of ridicule. If a slight reduction in horrific violence can be called “kicking ass”, then it’s hard to imagine how much lower the bar for success in Iraq can be set.

The most important question of today’s Senate hearings came from Barack Obama, and it went unanswered. In essence, he wanted to know under what circumstances the Ambassador and General would recommend that we withdraw our forces without our goals being met.

It’s more than a fair question. And the absence of an answer tells us that the Bush Administration and its minions want to meet their “goals” under any circumstances, suffering any losses.

But their “goals” have always been wildly unattainable and misguided. They wanted to kill every individual in Iraq who fit the description of a terrorist, as if this were a finite number. They wanted to impose order and security, apparently in the fashion that we enjoy here in America. And they wanted an American-style democracy to flourish, absent any notion of ethnic or tribal identity. Now, as then, these goals are tragically laughable, deranged and effectively impossible.

The latest goal, facilitated by the Surge, has been to provide better security while the government, military and police "stand up". But the Surge has done little to change the facts on the ground in Iraq. Other developments unrelated to the Surge have given small glimmers of hope. That the Sunnis have grown sick of Al Qaeda and kicked them to the curb is the most important of these. But the long-running and deep-seated conflicts and resentment among tribes and clans is not going to go away any time soon.

Thus, it is becoming clear that we remain faced with two hideous choices. Stay the course without any end in sight, with mounting casualties and with no guarantee of success, or begin a phased withdrawal and hope that Iraq doesn’t fully implode.

The only thing getting its ass kicked these days is President Bush and his policies.

- JT Compton

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