by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
C<\/span>ritics of the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq, called for by President George Bush in January, early on cited American losses and then announced the plan’s failure. Supporters, on the other hand, have seen progress from new tactics (which, many argue, should have been adopted far earlier).<\/p>\n Such wide disagreement over a military campaign in progress is not that unusual. Sixty years after World War II, historians, even with the benefits of hindsight, still argue over the cost-benefit ratios and strategic results of diverse battles from Operation Market Garden to Okinawa.<\/p>\n The U.S. military reports that the surge in Iraq has helped reduce violence and defeat terrorists. But its officers also warn of manpower shortages, as well as commitments in Europe, Japan, the Balkans, Korea and elsewhere in the Middle East. We can’t maintain the surge at present manpower levels in Iraq indefinitely.<\/p>\n So how do we know whether the surge is working \u2014 especially whether its apparent present tactical success will translate into long-term strategic advantage?<\/p>\n In September, Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, will issue a status report on the war to Congress. Experts then will study quality-of-life issues in Iraq, such as the status of water, power and sewage services. American casualty figures will be weighed against a sense of improving or worsening security. And we will again examine the Iraqi government’s ability to provide effective anti-terrorist forces and relieve some of our responsibilities.<\/p>\n B<\/span>ut in the meantime, the American public can look to more subtle indicators to get some sense of Gen. Petraeus’ current progress or failure.<\/p>\n Do Democratic opposition leaders keep blaming each other for voting for the Iraq war? Or are they now talking about expanding military operations to other countries? Sen. Hillary Clinton once was damned for voting to authorize the war in Iraq. But her even more liberal rival Sen. Barrack Obama, D-Ill., now expresses his own willingness to invade nuclear Islamic Pakistan.<\/p>\n Do anti-war politicians frequently proclaim our defeat in Iraq \u2014 or instead worry that the war might be won? In the spring, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced Iraq was lost, the surge a failure and Gen. Petraeus not “in touch.” We haven’t seen Sen. Reid much lately.<\/p>\n But we have heard from the House’s majority whip, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. He’s worried that Gen. Petraeus’ good news about the surge might be “a real problem for us” \u2014 “us” being anti-war Democrats. And at a congressional briefing, when Gen. Jack Keane reviewed the positive signs from the surge, Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., walked out on the testimony. She complained that there was “only so much that you could take . . . after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.”<\/p>\n What do we hear from those who cited our success in the initial war but then wrote of the chaos of the occupation?\u00a0Democratic analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack recently returned from Iraq to co-author a\u00a0New York Times<\/i>op-ed entitled “A War We Just Might Win.” Respected veteran New York Times reporter John Burns\u00a0believes that the surge has markedly improved security in Iraq.<\/p>\n Has furor over President Bush’s Iraq war and larger anti-terror campaign resulted in concrete Democratic action \u2014 or remained largely rhetorical? Well, so far, there has been no legislation passed that would bring home the troops right now, close down Guantanamo or repeal the Patriot Act. Since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Damascus, there have been no more Democratic forays into Middle East foreign policy to seek an alternative to present administration policies.<\/p>\n Constantly changing positions on the war should not be surprising when we remember that a vast majority of American people \u2014 and most Democrats in Congress \u2014 were in favor of invading Iraq just four years ago. And current polls show that over the past few weeks, Americans are not as pessimistic that the surge won’t work.<\/p>\n Of course, we all have political biases and innately different views about what brings about war and peace, making disagreement inevitable. And there is always a fog of war that makes it hard to determine the pulse of any ongoing battle.<\/p>\n Yet the universal human desire to be associated in the here and now with the assumed winning side \u2014 and to shun perceived defeat \u2014 trumps them all. Throughout this war, that natural urge explains most of the volatile and shifting views of our politicians, pundits and media as they scramble to readjust to the up-and-down daily news from Iraq.<\/p>\n And so it is with the latest positioning about the surge that to a variety of observers seems successful \u2014 at least for now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a92007 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Critics of the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq, called for by President George Bush in January, early on cited American losses and then announced the plan’s failure. Supporters, on the other hand, have seen progress from new tactics (which, many argue, should have been adopted far earlier).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[755],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Vr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3563,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/post-surge-dialectics\/","url_meta":{"origin":3561,"position":0},"title":"Post-Surge Dialectics","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The larger question that will await General Petraeus is not just the tempo of the surge per se \u2014 after all, given the efficacy of the U.S. military it can pretty much do what it wishes if it is willing to invest sufficient amounts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2007"","block_context":{"text":"August 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/august-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-tale-of-two-surges\/","url_meta":{"origin":3561,"position":1},"title":"A Tale of Two Surges","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services From 2007 to 2009, a surge of 20,000 troops under the generalship of David Petraeus saved a mostly lost war in Iraq. Petraeus\u2019s counterinsurgency doctrine helped win over the population, as the surge in troops gave greater security to Iraq\u2019s government and military.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2233,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/thoughts-on-the-hysteria-about-afghanistan\/","url_meta":{"origin":3561,"position":2},"title":"Thoughts on the Hysteria About Afghanistan","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Afghanistan is a messy war, but so far it has been conducted with a minimum loss of American life while achieving some important goals. We can argue about current strategies, fault what\u2019s been done in the past, deplore the length of the war, lament\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2009"","block_context":{"text":"October 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/october-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1283,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iraq-through-the-looking-glass\/","url_meta":{"origin":3561,"position":3},"title":"Iraq Through the Looking Glass","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Most Americans will support President Obama\u2019s call for patience in Afghanistan and his policy of continuing the long-planned drawdown in Iraq. But there was something bizarre about his entire Iraq speech \u2014 it was as if it were being delivered by an exhausted Obama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2010"","block_context":{"text":"September 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/september-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3517,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hope-yet-for-iraq\/","url_meta":{"origin":3561,"position":4},"title":"Hope Yet for Iraq","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Iraq for most Americans is now a toxic subject \u2014 best either ignored or largely evoked to blame someone for something in the past. Any visitor to Iraq can see that the American military cannot be defeated there, but also\u00a0is puzzled over exactly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2007"","block_context":{"text":"October 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/october-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3390,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-long-war-in-a-nutshell-a-look-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":3561,"position":5},"title":"A Long War in a Nutshell: A Look Back","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Views on the war in Iraq now transcend reasonable discussion. The war rests in the realm of emotion, warped by the hysteria of partisan bickering.\u00a0 The result is that we have forgotten why we invaded Iraq in long-ago 2003. We cannot agree why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2007"","block_context":{"text":"December 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/december-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3562,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561\/revisions\/3562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}