In an op-ed published yesterday in the Washington Post, John Podesta, Ray Takeyh, and Lawrence Korb noted that President Bush's Iraq escalation strategy has failed and argued that domestic and "strategic necessities of ending the war have never been more compelling." Naturally, the right wing is in hysterics. Leading the charge, of course, are the primary advocates of staying in Iraq forever — the editors of the National Review — who in May 2005 asserted that "we're winning" in Iraq and then argued two years later that the U.S. needs to "stay."
The National Review claimed that Podesta, Takeyh, and Korb "demonstrate the bankruptcy of the antiwar cause" because "[t]hey don't mention al Qaeda in their piece, as if it is of no consequence that al Qaeda once controlled big chunks of Iraq." But what the National Review leaves out is that according to a recent CRS report, al-Qaeda represents only a small percentage of the violence in Iraq:
Increasingly in 2007, U.S. commanders have seemed to equate AQ-I with the insurgency, even though most of the daily attacks are carried out by Iraqi Sunni insurgents.Podesta, Takeyh, and Korb said that it is "possible that in the absence of a cumbersome and clumsy American occupation, Iraqis will make their own bargains and compacts" to avoid increased violence after U.S. troops leave. National Review called that assertion a "smear" on U.S. troops because they are "welcomed by the locals in many areas."
But Iraqis have actually said the "surge" has "worsened" their lives. According to a September 2007 ABC/BBC/NHK poll:
79 percent oppose the presence of coalition forces, unchanged since winter.Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot joined in the attack, criticizing the op-ed's argument that U.S. support for the Sunni "Concerned Local Citizens" (CLCs) has undermined Iraq's government. In an article in Commentary, Boot claimed that the CLC's help in rooting out al Qaeda "has led to a fall in the fortunes of the Jaish al Mahdi, Moqtada al Sadr's militia which had long postured as the defender of Shi'ites against Sunni predations."
63 percent say it was wrong for the U.S. to have invaded Iraq, up from 52 percent in March and 39 percent in Feb. 2004.
47 percent now favor "immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces," a 12-point rise since March.
Yet General Petraeus — whom Boot has called "a man of intellect" — disagrees, stated in December that Sadr has not "been marginalized" and that "[h]e very much maintains contacts with his leaders and continues to give direction."
Finally, a right-wing attack cannot be complete without a contribution from the American Enterprise Institute. Via the Weekly Standard, AEI fellow Tom Donnelly called the Podesta-Takeyh-Korb op-ed an "air of desperation," "unsettling" and "little more than a political threat" but did not take issue with any specific claim they made.