The Order of the Higher Weaselality
{Dirty Hippies and Lefty Bloggers Need Not Apply}

Does it really matter whether or not there is an actual emerging consensus about how to bring our adventure in Iraq to a less-than catastrophic conclusion as long as so many dues-paying members of that most exalted beltway Club of The Higher Weaselality insist there is one?

Find the correct answer below the fold:

It matters exactly as much as it matters that we invaded Iraq in order to keep Saddam Hussein from using the WMDs he didn’t have.

Credit where credit is due, David Ignatius got there first, as I pointed out here. Not too much credit is due, though, because Ignatius has been pushing this line forever, and even a broken clock…

Case in point, behold this May 31, 2007 op ed in which Ignatius quoted the President seeming to embrace the Baker-Hamilton report as a plan B for Iraq…

President Bush said publicly last Thursday what his top aides have been discussing privately for weeks. He talked about a transition to “a different configuration” in Iraq after the surge of U.S. troops is completed this summer. When pressed on whether he was talking about a post-surge Plan B, Bush answered: “Actually, I would call that a plan recommended by Baker-Hamilton, so that would be a Plan B-H.”

Barely two weeks later, on July 12th, Ignatius was fingering Democrats as bearing equal blame with the Bush administration for the mess in Iraq, mainly because of Democrats’ refusal to be guided by Mr. Ignatius’ ideas regarding an emerging consensus on Iraq, although he is forced to admit, deep in the bowels of that second column, that for some inexplicable reason, the President muffed his opportunity to act on that Plan B-H.

By careful design, Ignatius ignores the obvious possibility that in Bush’s mind it was always Plan B-S, which then allows him to ignore the consequent implications for Democrats, that dealing with an administration whose words one can never trust to reflect the true condition of what they are doing, or what they plan to do, is a genuine problem for an opposition party.

It’s that ever-emerging consensus which demands of Ignatius that he not notice the full implications of how this White House operates, and the depth of the enabling that the Republican party continues to do in support of Bush; how else could Ignatius do what needed doing in that later July 12th column, which was to make clear that in the bi-partisan world existing solely in the fantasy collective mind of the beltway 500, whenever it looks like blame is being accorded to Republicans, readers must always be reminded that Democrats are equally as accountable for the mistakes of this administration as are the administration and its supporters.

This weekend, it was Fred Hiatt’s turn to pile onto this always-emerging meme, in an unsigned editorial, “The Phony Debate,” that nonetheless had Hiatt’s smudged fingerprints all over it.

Fasten your seatbelts, dear readers:

THE SENATE Democratic leadership spent the past week trying to prove that Congress is deeply divided over Iraq, with Democrats pressing and Republicans resisting a change of course. In fact that’s far from the truth. A large majority of senators from both parties favor a shift in the U.S. mission that would involve substantially reducing the number of American forces over the next year or so and rededicating those remaining to training the Iraqi army, protecting Iraq’s borders and fighting al-Qaeda. President Bush and his senior aides and generals also support this broad strategy, which was formulated by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission. Mr. Bush recently said that “it’s a position I’d like to see us in.”

Who could doubt that the President truly meant that he was now ready to change strategies?

The emerging consensus is driven by several inescapable facts. First, the Iraqi political reconciliation on which the current U.S. military surge is counting is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Second, the Pentagon cannot sustain the current level of forces in Iraq beyond next spring without rupturing current deployment practices and placing new demands on the already stretched Army and Marine Corps. Finally, a complete pullout from Iraq would invite genocide, regional war and a catastrophic setback to U.S. national security.

But wasn’t the reason d’etre of that military surge precisely that political reconciliation which we are now told not to expect anytime soon, although we are also told our ability to maintain the surge will be pretty much be over come next Spring? Our pundit corps, like the President they insist on protecting from even the most minor forms of accountability, don’t know from strategic thinking.
Of course “Democrats” is too vague a villain for a short unsigned editorial.

Turns out it is specifically Harry Reid’s fault that the emerging consensus keeps refusing to emerge. Significant numbers of Republicans, we are told to believe, are ready to join the consensus, and would have, had it not been for Harry Reid’s cheap political theatrics:

The decision of Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) to deny rather than nourish a bipartisan agreement is, of course, irresponsible. But so was Mr. Reid’s answer when he was asked by the Los Angeles Times how the United States should manage the explosion of violence that the U.S. intelligence community agrees would follow a rapid pullout. “That’s a hypothetical. I’m not going to get into it,” the paper quoted the Democratic leader as saying.

Of course Harry Reid might be interested in being told, as I am, precisely how editorial editor Hiatt proposes to manage the distinctly non-hypothetical daily explosions of violence in Iraq, the persistent ethnic cleansing by means of forced expulsions and brutal sectarian violence, back and forth, tit for tat, and let us not forget the daily insurgent violence against our troops and the occupation in general, the breakdown in a functioning civil government, the continuing failures of our attempts at reconstructing an Iraqi infrastructure, and the resultant failure to offer Iraqis some semblance of security, all of which we’ve been talking about the need to accomplish since three weeks into the occupation - that would be since April/May of 2003.

And why shouldn’t Republicans, whose leadership is clearly determined to shut down debate on arriving at any consensus on Iraq not shared by the Bush administration, be forced to deal with that which the American electorate demanded in the last congressional elections, instead of being able to shut it down by relying, ironically, solely on the threat of a filibuster? And how was Senator Reid’s insistence that such a debate take place an attempt to obstruct rather than nourish bi-partisanship?:

For now Mr. Reid’s cynical politicking and willful blindness to the stakes in Iraq don’t matter so much. The result of his maneuvering was to postpone congressional debate until September, when Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, will report on results of the surge — in other words, just the outcome the White House was hoping for. But then, as now, the country will desperately need a strategy for Iraq that can count on broad bipartisan support, one aimed at carrying the U.S. mission through the end of the Bush administration and beyond.

Except for that “and beyond” who could disagree? Would Harry Reid? I doubt it. But wait, maybe we are nearer that consensus than we thought?

There are serious issues still to resolve, such as whether a drawdown should begin this fall or next year, how closely it should be tied to Iraqi progress, how fast it can proceed and how the remaining forces should be deployed.

Ah, so there are significant issues to be debated. And guess what, they turn out to be exactly those issues the Democrats have been trying to have a debate about. And why couldn’t those thirty hours of debate Reid scheduled last week have been used for that purpose? The editorial speaks to none of these possibilities

Oh, and BTW, where does the President fit into all of this?

There’s no guarantee that Mr. Bush can agree with Congress on those points or that he will make the effort to do so.

Huh? Now he tells us. ‘Cause, gee whiz, wouldn’t that make President Bush the biggest obstacle to that emerging consensus, not to the meta -consensus among the punditista class, to that actual consensus about what to actually do about and in Iraq?

But a Democratic strategy of trying to use Iraq as a polarizing campaign issue and as a club against moderate Republicans who are up for reelection will certainly have the effect of making consensus impossible — and deepening the trouble for Iraq and for American security.

Would it really? I know we’ve been conditioned to despise partisanship, but is it even true that Democrats attempting to put political pressure on Republicans to do some actual dealing with points of view that are not acceptable to the White House is really only about electoral politics?

In the world in which I live, arriving at a consensus means that both sides have worked through their polarizing differences, and how do you do that when one side has decided to use obstructionist tactics to protect a White House that stakes its identity on a refusal to compromise? If all Democrats were worried about was the 2008 election, they would sit back and let the Republicans murder their own electoral viability; nothing would ensure a bigger, more certain electoral win in 2008 than for this country to still be in Iraq in significant numbers, staying the Bush course.

For argument’s sake, though, let us accept the editorial’s loaded language, accept that Democrats are clubbing moderate Republicans with the Iraq issue, and that Democrats daring to bring to the table a set of ideas of their own represents an unacceptable polarization of the debate; why should any of that keep a genuine consensus from emerging? Because Republicans are too petty to overlook their own pique and anger at being on the receiving end of an issue that has gone bad for them?

Is it really okay with Fred Hiatt, and with David Brooks that Republican irritation about their own fragile political hold on the issue of Iraq and other national security issues, in itself a partisan political concern, is being used to excuse a Republican refusal to do the hard work necessary to find a way to bring this administration disastrous Middle East policies to a less than disastrous end, something that cannot be accomplished without Democrats?

Yes, of course it is.

DAVID BROOKS: I’ll just tell you that, in private conversations months ago, Republican senators, senior Republican senators were anxious to move away from the White House, to move towards some sort of withdrawal. Now they’re not talking that way. They’re talking, “We’ve got to stick with the president.” And why? Two words: Harry Reid.

It’s because they detest the way he’s drawn the line. He’s drawn the line that said, “You’re either for a certain withdrawal right away, or starting with 120 days or whatever, or you’re with the president.” And they hate those two choices. And they’d rather not be in those choices, but Reid is the majority leader. He sets the parameters of the choices, and that’s the dilemma they’re in.

edit

DAVID BROOKS: Well, first, Lamar Alexander, he wants to be where the Iraq Study Group is. And he’s right: There are 60 or 70 there. And you could have that tomorrow, which would totally transform the politics, the domestic politics of this war.
So what did we have instead of that? Well, I hung around the Senate the night they stayed all night to talk. It was a joke. The only way they could go through this process was by having no sense of the absurd. I watched as the Democrats walked down the steps of the Senate, surrounded by throngs of cameras. How they did it without giggling, I don’t know, because it was just this stupid publicity stunt, a repetition of the same, old points everybody has been making, when privately they’re all having serious conversations, but they wanted this publicity stunt, because it’s partisan.

Of course Brooks has been humming this tune for a while now; here he is writing on January 11th, 2007:

If the Democrats don’t like the U.S. policy on Iraq over the next six months, they have themselves partly to blame. There were millions of disaffected Republicans and independents ready to coalesce around some alternative way forward, but the Democrats never came up with anything remotely serious.

The liberals who favor quick exit never grappled with the consequences of that policy, which the Baker-Hamilton commission terrifyingly described. The centrists who believe in gradual withdrawal never explained why that wouldn’t be like pulling a tooth slowly. Joe Biden, who has the most intellectually serious framework for dealing with Iraq, was busy yesterday, at the crucial decision-making moment, conducting preliminary fact-finding hearings, complete with forays into Iraqi history.

The Democrats have been fecund with criticisms of the war, but when it comes to alternative proposals, a common approach is social Darwinism on stilts: We failed them, now they’re on their own.
So we are stuck with the Bush proposal as the only serious plan on offer.

Hmm, at the time Brooks wrote that, Baker-Hamilton had issued its report, and it had been ignored, and even ridiculed by Bush and Bush supporters. And to David Brooks, just like those extremists from whom he is always so determined to distance himself, the Baker-Hamilton report is not a serious plan, except where it emphasizes that we’ve got to stay in Iraq.

That July 11th op ed is titled “The Fog Of War,” but what it is really about is the “the fog of gasbags.”

That first half attacking the Democrats’ lack of serious policy options is there to make Democrats responsible for “the surge” being the only serious plan for Iraq “on offer,” while the second half seeks to justify the policy as a genuine strategic change in what we will be doing in Iraq in this new year of 2007, by letting us, Brooks’ readers, in on what insider Brooks has been able to reconstruct about the evolution of the policy.

As ever, Brooks wants to be seen as a willing critic of the White House, and his final point is that where Bush & co are failing is in the way they are selling the policy, but since Brooks has already insisted that Bush is essentially being forced by the dynamics of Iraqi society to sell it the way he is selling it, the critique turns out to be less than biting.

Then again, David Brooks was already for the surge when he wrote the op ed, having published five days earlier, this op ed, “Making The Surge Work.”

Like the reasonable, historically-minded conservative Brooks likes to pretend to be, he chooses to explain the mighty change the surge represents in US policy by offering this summary of our previous four years there, during which time we’ve been trying to lighten our Iraqi footprint, which put too much pressure on Iraqis to take responsibility for making the enormous changes required in their society, especially in the context of astonishing levels of brutality and violence.

Picture the person you love most in the world. Now imagine that person shredded by a bomb or dropped off one morning in the gutter with holes drilled through the back of the head. Imagine your lifelong rage, and the terror of not knowing who will die next. Now imagine this has happened to someone in nearly every family on your block, and on the next block, and in the whole town. This is Iraqi society.

And yet Gen. George Casey and Gen. John Abizaid wanted to put the burden of nation-building on the victims and initiators of this maelstrom. U.S. war strategy for the past three years has been to lighten the American footprint in Iraq and compel Iraqis to undertake the policing tasks we ourselves couldn’t accomplish.

Over this time a chorus has arisen to oppose this strategy. The members of this chorus — John McCain, The Weekly Standard, whispering dissenters in the middling rankings of the military — argue that it’s simply unrealistic to expect human beings in these circumstances to become impartial nation-builders. These dissenters have argued, since the summer of 2003, that the U.S. must commit more troops to establish security before anything else becomes possible.

For over three years, President Bush sided with the light-footprint school. He did so for personal reasons, not military ones. Casey and Abizaid are impressive men, and Bush deferred to their judgment.

But sometimes good men make bad choices, and it is now clear that the light-footprint approach has been a disaster. If the U.S. had committed more troops and established security back in 2003, when, as Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek recently reminded us, the Coalition Provisional Authority had 70 percent approval ratings, history would be different.
It is now 2007, and President Bush has finally replaced Donald Rumsfeld, Casey and Abizaid. The question now is whether the policy that should have been implemented in 2003 can still be implemented four years on — after so many thousands have died.
Many in and out of the administration think so, hence all the talk about a surge — putting 20,000 more troops into Baghdad, finally occupying the dangerous neighborhoods, finally starting a jobs program, finally forcing national reconciliation.

The only problem with this analysis is that it is fundamentally untrue. Yes, Brooks only has an 800 word length to make his argument, but to insist that McCain and the Weekly Standard gang have no responsibility for the chaos into which our invasion plunged Iraq, a chaos which has intensified without respite from the moment that statue of Saddam was toppled in April of 2003 is to present a picture of the past that can only be called manufactured.

How light was our footprint in Falluja? What was the cry from all the wingers, from Kristol to the AEI to everyone? We blew Falluja by not crushing it more thoroughly…with the occasional, “more Fallujas” thrown into the mix.

This is unserious commentary, unserious history, and unserious criticism.

Oh there is some negative critique of the surge:

Unfortunately, if the goal is to create a stable, unified Iraq, the surge is a good policy three years too late.

Edit

The odds that the surge can accomplish these tasks are vanishingly small. The tragic truth is that the social context for this military strategy has changed since 2003.

But another surge may be realistic. This surge would begin by giving up the dream of national reconciliation and acknowledging that Iraq is in the process of dividing itself.

As the best reporting from Baghdad makes clear, today’s Iraqi leaders have little interest in healing the Sunni-Shiite divide. People are retreating to their sectarian homelands by the tens of thousands. In an ever-radicalizing climate, the Sadrs are supplanting the Sistanis, and genocidal Sunni leaders are replacing the merely racist ones.
Perhaps, in other words, it’s time to merge the military Plan B — the surge — with a political Plan B — flexible decentralization. That would mean using adequate force levels (finally!) to help those who are returning to sectarian homelands. It would mean erecting buffers between populations where possible and establishing order in areas that remain mixed. It would mean finding decentralized governing structures that reflect the social and psychological facts on the ground.

Feeling a bit dizzy? Not to worry, you really are on a merry-go-round, and yes, you are right back where we started, with David Ignatius, although perhaps we should give Brooks credit for coming up with Plan B-BH-B, the surge, plus Baker-Hamilton, plus Senator Biden.

In Part 2 we will examine another ever-emerging beltway consensus, closely related to the meta-consensus about the always imminent emergence of a bi-partisan consensus, the one about Democratic unseriousness on the issues pertaining to Iraq, their lack of a positive agenda, until they present one, at which point they are labeled as being politically motivated partisans.

In Part 3, we will deal with what Democrats and liberals and progressives, oh hell, the left, have actually been saying about Iraq, and we hope to show that John Kerry in the 2004 campaign turns out to have been prophetic about Iraq, and to explain how and why the order of the higher weaselality will never admit it.