Taheri On Obama's Perfidy & Naivity

Amir Taheri opines in the NY Sun today on Obama's world tour, providing some fascinating observations from his sources in Iraq and Europe. They track with what I have been saying since I started this blog - that the far left wants to declare Iraq illegitimate and a defeat for political gain. It is perfidy, partisanship and naivity writ on a grand scale. And in part, Taheri explores the hypocrisy and consequences inherent in Obama's call to leave Iraq in order to shore up Afghanistan with two combat brigades.
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This from Amir Taheri:

Termed a "learning" trip, Sen. Barack Obama's eight- day tour of eight nations in the Middle East and Europe turned out to be little more than a series of photo ops to enhance his international credentials.

"He looked like a man in a hurry," a source close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said last week. "He was not interested in what we had to say."

Still, many Iraqis liked Obama's claim that the improved situation in Iraq owed to Iraqi efforts rather than the Gen. David Petraeus-led surge. In public and private comments, Obama tried to give the impression that the Iraqis would've achieved the same results even without the greater resources America has poured into the country since 2007.

In private, though, Iraqi officials admit that Obama's analysis is "way off the mark." Without the surge, the Sunni tribes wouldn't have switched sides to help flush out al Qaeda. And the strong US military presence enabled the new Iraqi army to defeat Iran-backed Shiite militias in Basra and Baghdad.

Nevertheless, in public at least, no Iraqi politician wants to appear more appreciative of American sacrifices than the man who may become the next US president.

Iraqis were most surprised by Obama's apparent readiness to throw away all the gains made in Iraq simply to prove that he'd been right in opposing the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. "He gave us the impression that the last thing he wanted was for Iraq to look anything like a success for the United States," a senior Iraqi official told me. "As far as he is concerned, this is Bush's war and must end in lack of success, if not actual defeat."

Even so, Obama knows that most Americans believe they're still at war with an enemy prepared to use terror against them. So he can't do what his antiwar base wants - declare an end to the War on Terror and the start of a period of love and peace in which "citizens of the world" build bridges between civilizations.

That's why Obama is trying to adopt Afghanistan as "his" war. He claims that Bush's focus on Iraq has left Afghanistan an orphan in need of love and attention. Even though US military strategy is to enable America to fight two major wars simultaneously, Obama seems to believe that only one war is possible at a time.

But what does that mean practically?

Obama says he wants to shift two brigades (some of his advisers say two battalions) from Iraq to Afghanistan. But where did that magical figure come from? From NATO, which has been calling on its members to provide more troops since 2006.

NATO wants the added troops mainly to improve the position of its reserves in Afghanistan. The alliance doesn't face an actual shortage of combat units - it's merely facing a rotation schedule that obliges some units to stay in the field for up to six weeks longer than is normal for NATO armies.

Overall, NATO hopes that its members will have no difficulty providing the 5,000 more troops it needs for a "surge." So there's no need for the US to abandon Iraq in order to help Afghanistan.

The immediate effect of Obama's plan to abandon Iraq and send more troops to Afghanistan is to ease pressure on other NATO members to make a greater contribution. Even in Paris, some critics think that President Nicolas Sarkozy should postpone sending more troops until after the US presidential election. "If President Obama can provide all the manpower needed in Afghanistan, there is no need for us to commit more troops," said a Sarkozy security adviser.

Obama's move would suit Sarkozy fine because he's reducing the size of the French army and closing more than 80 garrisons. Other Europeans would also be pleased. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will soon face a difficult general election in which her main rivals will be calling for an end to "the Afghan adventure."

Today, with the sole exception of Spain (where the mildly anti-American Socialist Party is in power), pro-US parties govern Europe. These parties feel pressure from the Bush administration to translate their pro-American claims into actual support for the Afghanistan war effort. By promising to shoulder the burden, Obama is letting the European allies off the hook.

. . . Having announced his strategy before embarking on his "listening tour," he couldn't be expected to change his mind simply because facts on the ground offered a different picture. . . .

Read the entire article. One of the things Taheri misses in the above is that Obama is the Chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee for Europe. While our problems in Afghanistan are NATO related, Obama has yet to hold a single hearing to find out why our NATO allies are not cooperating and to bring pressure on them to do more.

I could think of no man less qualified to be commander in chief than Obama. That belief is far from predicated on his lack of any military experience. It seems clear that his decision making will be guided by political expediency rather than principle. It seems clear that his decision making will always prioritize the political over military necessity or force protection. While he will no doubt make the American hating far left happy, what that translates into for those who have volunteered to served and defend this nation is dead U.S. soldiers.

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Doubling Down On Defeat & A Pattern Of Avoidance

Doug Ross has a superb retrospective on how our Dems have embraced defeat at all costs. After detailing their perfidy, he characterizes their actions:

They were wrong. They were unbelievably partisan, putting their interests before those of the United States and the safety of its military.

No party has been more wrong, more often, on serious issues of national import than the Democratic party since 1864.

Read the entire post.

Plus there is not only an embrace of defeat, but a refusal to defend it - at least from our would-be Messiah-in-Chief. Gateway Pundit notes that Obama met with Maliki but DID NOT raise the issue of his sixteen month timetable during the meeting - apparently wanting to avoid any fall out that might require Obama to publicly discuss "refining" his plans. To put this in context, Obama also deliberately avoided raising his sixteen month timetable when he had the opportunity to question General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker in April. He went AWOL from a town hall meeting before military families where the issue of Iraq and his embrace of defeat was almost sure to be raised - rather pointedly. And he is staying as far away as possible from any debates with McCain that are not both truncated and moderated by MSM synocophants. There is a pattern here.

What does one take from all of this. My take is that Obama is one cowardly SOB without the courage of his convictions to be able to defend his positions in any sort of pointed debate.

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Denial or Dissimulation?

Charles Krauthammer believes that our Democrats are in a “state of denial” about Iraq. The Democrats, a year ago, justified their embrace of defeat on the meme that our soldiers in Iraq were in a “civil war” that “could not be won militarily.” Now that Iraq is well on its way to being pacified following the posting of a new U.S. commander with a different strategy, the Democrats are searching for any excuse to add a patina of legitimacy to their continued attempts to legislate defeat in Iraq.

For Mr. Krauthammer to call that a "state of denial" suggests the Dems are using a psychological defense mechanism that prevents them from recognizing reality. Mr. Krauthammer is being far too tactful, suggesting an excuse for what is clearly conscious perfidy.

The Democrats, a year ago, saw an opportunity for partisan gain by exploiting problems in Iraq and they jumped on it without any regard to the long term costs to America. Now they are trapped in their total embrace of defeat, hoping to be saved by bad news out of Iraq before they have to provide funding for the war again. It is all a coldly calculated decision by intelligent and ambitious but unprincipled people. They are not in a state of denial. They are trapped in a corner and know that they will face the wrath of the electorate if they concede to success in Iraq. They are consciously dissimulating in an effort to find some means of escape. Their stranglehold on the concept of the formal “top down” benchmarks to justify surrender and their utter refusal to acknowledge the “bottom up” grassroots progress clearly occurring in Iraq and now reported by even the NYT is incredibly transparent dissimulation.

This today from Mr. Krauthammer:

It does not have the drama of the Inchon landing or the sweep of the Union comeback in the summer of 1864. But the turnabout of American fortunes in Iraq over the past several months is of equal moment -- a war seemingly lost, now winnable. The violence in Iraq has been dramatically reduced. Political allegiances have been radically reversed. The revival of ordinary life in many cities is palpable. Something important is happening.

And what is the reaction of the war critics? Nancy Pelosi stoutly maintains her state of denial, saying this about the war just two weeks ago: "This is not working. . . . We must reverse it." A euphemism for "abandon the field," which is what every Democratic presidential candidate is promising, with variations only in how precipitous to make the retreat.

How do they avoid acknowledging the realities on the ground? By asserting that we have not achieved political benchmarks -- mostly legislative actions by the Baghdad government -- that were set months ago. And that these benchmarks are paramount. And that all the current progress is ultimately vitiated by the absence of centrally legislated national reconciliation.

. . . But does the absence of this deus ex machina invalidate our hard-won gains? Why does this mean that we cannot achieve success by other means?

Sure, there is no oil law. But the central government is nonetheless distributing oil revenue to the provinces, where the funds are being used for reconstruction.

Sure, the de-Baathification law has not been modified. But the whole purpose of modification was to entice Sunni insurgents to give up the insurgency and join the new order. This is already happening on a widening scale all over the country in the absence of a relaxed de-Baathification law.

. . . Why is top-down national reconciliation as yet unattainable? Because decades of Saddam Hussein's totalitarianism followed by the brutality of the post-invasion insurgency destroyed much of Iraq's political infrastructure, causing Iraqis to revert to the most basic political attachment -- tribe and locality. Gen. David Petraeus’s genius has been to adapt American strategy to capitalize on that development, encouraging the emergence of and allying ourselves with tribal and provincial leaders -- without waiting for cosmic national deliverance from the newly constructed and still dysfunctional constitutional apparatus in Baghdad.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is in disarray, the Sunni insurgency in decline, the Shiite militias quiescent, the capital city reviving. Are we now to reverse course and abandon all this because parliament cannot ratify the reconciliation already occurring on the ground?

. . . So, just as we have learned this hard lesson of the disconnect between political benchmarks and real stability [following elections and then the Samarra bombing], the critics now claim the reverse -- that benchmarks are what really count.

This is to fundamentally mistake ends and means. The benchmarks would be a wonderful shortcut to success in Iraq. But it is folly to abandon the pursuit of that success when a different route, more arduous but still doable, is at hand and demonstrably working.

Read the article here. Mr. Krauthammer describes realistically what is now obvious in Iraq. He does not do so as regards what is equally obvious in Washington. This is emblematic of the problem conservatives seem to have in responding truthfully and with appropriate disdain and volume to the partisan, conscious and traitorous acts of today's Democrats. To call what the Democrats are doing today anything else requires, as Senator Clinton put it, a "willing suspension of disbelief." And do remember the context of her remarks. She was attacking General Petraeus over his reports of success in pacifying Iraq.

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