Kinsley; ignore your lyin’ eyes

Today in the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley in an aptly titled opinion piece “Defining Victory Downward” tries to send out the message to the anti-war/anti-Bush troops that all is not lost (from their perspective) the “surge” isn’t working. So convoluted is his reasoning, at first Kinsley feels a need to redefine the word “surge” downward for us.

I don’t know who invented this label, but the word “surge” evokes images of the sea: a wave that sweeps in, and then sweeps back out again. The second part was crucial. What made the surge different from your ordinary troop deployment was that it was temporary. In fact, the surge was presented as part of a larger plan for troop withdrawal.

Although he is right, in some respects, his whole premise for the failure is that the tide of troops hasn’t swept back out yet – well, except for only 30,000 troops (nearly 20% of the surge forces) who’ve been rotating back for the last three months. But in typical Leftist fashion, Michael declares the surge a failure because there might still be 100,000 troops in Iraq a year from now (62% of surge strength).

But the whole strategy of the surge was to stabilize the situation in Iraq so that a political solution to Iraq’s balkanized tribes could be worked out without mortar shells falling on them every ten minutes. It has never been about reducing our troops under a deadline – some nebulous Kinsley cooked up in his apparently-adled mind.

In fact, Charles Krauthammer, in the same issue of the Washington Post, reports on some of the political solutions that have been reached in recent weeks;

First, a provincial powers law that turns Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but also elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.

Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenue — about 85 percent of which is from oil — to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.

What will the Democrats say now? They will complain that there is still no oil distribution law. True. But oil revenue is being distributed to the provinces in the national budget. The fact that parliament could not agree on a permanent formula for the future simply means that it will be allocating oil revenue year by year as part of the budget process. Is that a reason to abandon Iraq to al-Qaeda and Iran?

But Democrats feel a need to keep moving the goal posts while the political game continues, otherwise they’d have to admit the failure of their ideas and their politics at some point. Admitting that the surge is working wouldn’t be very encouraging to the Democrats allies in al Qaeda and Iran and end the war before the Democrats can shoulder aside Republicans and take credit for the victory.

Besides, I don’t see Michael Kinsley declaring Bosnia a failure because we still have troops there 12 years after President Clinton told us they’d be withdrawn.

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Category: Antiwar crowd, Politics, Terror War