Joe Klein great on the Republicans on Iraq last night: "Makes Me Wanta Holler!"

[flpoljunkie]

September 6, 2007
Makes Me Wanta Holler

Posted by Joe Klein

Watching the Republicans talk about Iraq makes me want to scream. There is absolutely no recognition of the complexities, the difficult choices, the reality there. The most upsetting performance was by McCain, who knows the military and should know better. His granite-skulled insistence that the surge is working, "absolutely" working--and his attempt to browbeat Romney into agreeing with him--was nothing short of demagogic. The progress in turning the Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda in Iraq is real; Petraeus was wise to see it and take advantage of it (in a similar circumstance in 2003, Jerry Bremer refused to recognize the importance of the tribes). But that has practically nothing to do with the "surge," which was originally all about pacifying Baghdad through the use of counterinsurgency tactics and creating the "space" for an Iraqi political resolution.

Well, Baghdad has been quieter--mostly because it has been ethnically cleaned, with many Sunnis fleeing, and is now largely under the tacit control of Muqtada Sadr's populist movement. The U.S. troops fighting in Baghdad against the remaining Sunni militants, mostly on the west side of the Tigris River, are carrying Sadr's water. As I reported a few months ago, the shopkeepers and shoppers in Shorja market, where McCain took his famous walk, overwhelmingly support Sadr. McCain never mentions this. He talks "victory" or "surrender," neither of which is an actual possibility here. His unwillingness to talk about the complexities of the situation represents, I believe, a willful misleading of the American public.

Actually, Romney--confused, constricted, embattled Romney--came closest to being reasonable about Iraq. Beneath the scrambled verbiage and unfamiliar terms--what is a "support" role?--he seemed to be saying that as soon as we finish off AQI, we should start getting out, leaving Iraq to the Iraqis while maintaining a small regional presence. But he didn't exactly say that...and he allowed McCain to bully him on the surge, retreating from his position that the surge "seems to be working." The most accurate statement would have been "aspects of the surge seem to be working, but the larger situation in Iraq--the slide toward all-out civil war and civic chaos--continues unchecked."

Duncan Hunter shows how easy it is to lead an important committee--the House Armed Services in his case--and remain deeply misinformed. He keeps talking about 129 Iraqi combat battalions that will take over for U.S. troops...as if those troops weren't, in most cases, Shi'ite or Kurdish militias wearing Iraqi uniforms. He should read the report prepared by retired General Jim Jones--an officer of Petraeus-level excellence--about to be released today about the Iraqi Army and national police (the latter should be disbanded, Jones says).

Rudy Giuliani is out-to-lunch on Iraq in a peculiarly toxic, neoconservative way. His utterly delusional definition of "victory" is when Iraq joins us in the fight against Islamic radicalism. Let's posit for a moment that such a thing as "victory" were possible: If it were, a more plausible definition would be this--the moment Iraqis stop killing each other and we, and the world, leave them alone and give them a chance to recover their lives, their families, their economy. Giuliani's World War IV notion of the fight against Islamic radicalism is ridiculously overblown. There's a longterm strug

The mini-debate between Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee was entertaining, but insubstantial. Paul is right on the merits, of course. (His answer on Iran, by the way, was eminently sane--the fact that Iran may someday build a nuclear device is a problem, but not an existential threat to the U.S., or Israel, for that matter. Any Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would also kill tens of thousands of Muslims and make the third most holy Islamic site--the Al Aksa mosque--uninhabitable.)

more...

http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/09/makes_me_wanta_holler_1.html

[TwilightGardener]

1. That was a really good analysis--I agreed with most of it. NONE

of those assholes (save Paul) seem to have the slightest understanding of what to do with Iraq, beyond keeping it going indefinitely. I agree with Klein that Romney seems unenthusiastic about the war, and at least talked a little about ending it, but McCain shut him down and the crowd cheered him--sad.

[nevergiveup]

2. I admire Joe Klein

for having the patience to listen to all of this twisted crap and then try to dissect it in a rational way. Actually I admire any sane human who could listen (without being medicated) to these fools.