Monday, September 10, 2007

Gary Ackerman Asks the Central Question   [Andy McCarthy]

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) asks General Petraeus a pointed question that homes in on the contradiction of our Iraq policy, to wit:  If Iraq is part of the overall war on terror, and the war on terror cannot be won in Iraq alone, how can we think of drawing down our forces at this stage?

I think he's right about that. 

Of course, Ackerman is result-oriented and he wants our forces out of Iraq.  Since he correctly thinks his question is the right one, and he can't tolerate the logical answer to it — namely, that we shouldn't draw our forces down until we win the overall war — his tack is to reject the premise that Iraq is part of the overall war on terror.  Iraq, he reasons, mustn't be part of the war on terror; after all, if it were, we wouldn't be talking about drawing down forces.

He's got it backwards.  But the administration is wrong too.  It may be politically expedient to talk about drawing down, but it doesn't make national-security sense if the war is broader than Iraq — especially if, as is the case, it includes Iran and Syria which, as General Petraeus has testified, are far from quelled in Iraq (to say nothing about elsewhere).

If I could, I would ask:  Does the recommendation that we draw down assume that we will reach some sort of diplomatic settlement with Iran? that Iran will cease the belligerent actions it is still taking in Iraq?  that Iran will not seek to assert itself in Iraq once we draw down (despite the fact that it is aggressively asserting itself with 160,000 U.S. troops in theater)?  that Iraq will any time soon have the capacity and the will to resist Iranian encroachment?  that stabilizing Iraq will mean Iran is no longer a threat to us, such that it makes sense no longer to have a substantial American contingent marshaled on Iran's doorstep?

Other than the politics, I don't understand the rationale of draw-down.

09/10 04:44 PMShare