While O'Hanlon still peddles his silly "soft partition" idea for Iraq, he at least can see that things are going better in Iraq. He has a piece up with Kenneth Pollack.
There is still a misconception that we were losing the war until this summer, but I'll take some signs of backbone where I can get it. Remember, clear, hold, and build has always been our strategy. But we hoped the Iraqis could do the holding and building. Unfortunately, the enemy backed by Iran and Syria is too strong for the weaker Iraqi security forces to handle yet. So our new strategy backed by new troops is to do the holding and building ourselves.
Ultimately, however, the original goal of getting Iraqis to hold and build (and eventually clear, too) must be accomplished. And smashing up the enemy to make the relative power of the Iraqis versus the enemy tip to the Iraqis makes this goal more reachable.
Stopping Iranian and Syrian support for terrorists would go a long way to weakening the remaining enemies inside Iraq.
And of course, political advances must gut the enemy in central Iraq, to really atomize the enemy and make them too weak to resist even green and shaky Iraqi police patrols.
Meanwhile, wobbly war supporters may steady a bit more with the cover of these two moderate Democrats and war critics (though Pollack was an early supporter of invading Iraq), and for long enough to hang on to our current strategy.
I an heartened that not all Americans critical of the administration are committed to losing in Iraq.
UPDATE: More on O'Hanlon and Pollack:
The Democratic-led House of Representatives is due this week to hold more symbolic votes on bringing US troops home, in the latest of a string of so-far unsuccessful attempts to dictate President George W. Bush's war strategy.
Pollack and O'Hanlon returned from eight days of meetings with US generals, diplomats and Iraqis saying they were more hopeful than they had expected.
They noted progress in the US battle against Al-Qaeda in Iraq in western Al-Anbar province, and said there had been impressive stabilization in the northern cities of Tal-Afar and Mosul.But they warned that southern Iraq and the city of Basra were like the "Wild West," pummeled by violence, and that security in the capital was uneven, with some neighborhoods returning to normal and others like a "war-zone."
"This is the first trip I have taken to Iraq that I actually came back more hopeful than I went over, (but) again that is a more qualified hopefulness," Pollack told a small group of reporters."We saw considerably greater progress on the security side than I would have expected," Pollack said, adding that some economic and political strides were evident at local levels.
But he warned he saw none of the critical, top-down political momentum from the Iraqi central government that US policy is designed to promote, describing it as "a complete mess."
Not that they don't see problems, of course, but their change in tone is dramatic.
John Burns of the NYT also sees a mixed bag but is hopeful for victory. He also offers the nuanced (and this is without sarcasm here) view that while Congress is making it more difficult to achieve a political settlement as Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and Shias hedge their bets that we might leave and let them settle this the old-fashioned way, that does not mean that a stalwart Congress would make political compromise easier. The Shias might think they don't need to deal with any sense of urgency if they think we'd never leave. In theory, I agree. But in practice, Congress has far exceeded what is useful in a good cop/bad cop routine. Consider the message sent to the Iraqis that we won't stay forever.
Finally, the newest O'Hanlon/Pollack report is a problem for the Left that wants to lose. This report truly will bolster shaky Republicans and give conservative Democrats uncomfortable with the ease their leadership counsels defeat to hold on longer and win the war. This collection is useful.
As for me, I again say that even those who are saying we have a shot at victory underestimate how much we've achieve so far. We are clearly winning this war. Perhaps the political environment makes it difficult to write anything bolder than that we have a sliver of a chance at victory.
We are defeating our many enemies in Iraq. And have been for four plus years now. This war is ours to lose. More specifically, it is our Congress' to lose. The September reports may well provide enough support in Congress to win this war.
