Stephen, so you EXPECT the senate to rubber-stamp every appointment made be the president? What the hell is the point, then? If there is no check or balance in it, it's useless. And if there was "substantial 'get out of Iraq' sentiment in the Congress and in the country" why send a guy in with a new plan and then fund him? That seems like it would be a monumental waste of resources and criminally irresponsible, since it was expected that moving the troops out of larger bases, in an attempt to connect more with Iraqis and hold cleared areas, would lead to more troop deaths.

"You state that the argument isn't being reduced to Petraeus, and then you turn specifically to Petraeus and "his" chance in the next sentence."

I want the "Surge" to win, and right now Petraeus is the man directing the surge. If you want to look at who is trying to reduce the conversation to focus solely on Petraeus, I suggest rereading the title of this post.

"The real issue isn't Diyala or Anbar (or even AQI), it is the Iraqi state, and we appear to be no closer to a functional state now than we were before Petraeus was appointed."

So the issue, as you see it, has nothing to do with the initial successes of a strategy in its infancy? You see no correlation between security and trust in a government? You see no correlation between securing major enemy strongholds and victory? Interesting. Naive and poorly thought out, but interesting.

"The issue is hand is well beyond simply Petraeus and his chance. When this fails, are we going to have to give the next guy a chance, and the next?

And understand: Petraeus already is one of several 'next guys.'"

In a word: yes. We fight until we win. We adjust as best we can while we still have the ability to fight. And we sure as hell don't turn our backs on the millions we encouraged to defy barbarism by engaging in the democratic process, all because some pathetic whiners back home can't see past their ignorance or self-guilt to see the bigger picture of what a democratic Iraq means for us back here.

Really, this stuff isn't hard.

...

Please detail how my argument is "disengenuous"--the bottom line is the we expect the Senate to ratify the President's appointments, especially military ones. To pretend as if that confers automatic endorsement of what said appointee does is simply incorrect.

Further, it isn't as if before Petraeus replacement Casey that there wasn't substantial "get out of Iraq" sentiment in the Congress and in the country.

And, I must confess, this statement is amusing:

I don't recall anyone, even Krauthammer, trying to "reduce the discussion to Petraeus." But for Gods sake, give the man his chance.

You state that the argument isn't being reduced to Petraeus, and then you turn specifically to Petraeus and "his" chance in the next sentence.

The issue is hand is well beyond simply Petraeus and his chance. When this fails, are we going to have to give the next guy a chance, and the next?

And understand: Petraeus already is one of several "next guys."

The real issue isn't Diyala or Anbar (or even AQI), it is the Iraqi state, and we appear to be no closer to a functional state now than we were before Petraeus was appointed. At some point we have to change course, and while there have been some tactical shifts, the basic strategy has remained the same--and it doesn't appear to be working (i.e., wait it out with US troops in place until the Iraqis are ready to take care of themselves).

Two words - 'Anbar' and 'Diyala'. These two provinces have been turned from nearly lost to well under control.

The Sunni tribes have had enough of A-Q and their evil members. The Sunnis have begun activly helping us fight them.

Maybe the Sunnis had to get first hand experience with A-Q to understand how much better it is to work with us. If so, the last four years were shaping years that will allow Gen Petreaous to be more successful than in the past.

Again, the only way we lose this war is if we quit, the costs are minimal (in both human life and monetary terms) - as a nation, we could keep this up for decades with no loss of national power. Before you run screaming into the mist, this has been the lowest casualty rate in any war, any police action or any occupation of any time.

Regards,

They should not, however, as Krauthammer suggests, effectively cede grand strategy to the military, dispensing entirely with the fundamental notion of civilian control.

Civilian control is crucial to our system of government. The question is do we have any national civilian political institutions with the capability of providing this control?

Watching the stupidity congress churns out on a regular basis gives me little faith in their ability to competently comprehend, let alone manage, a grand military strategy.

The various bridges to nowhere and fiascos like the energy bills show the further congress is away from military strategy the better off we all are.

Regards, C

In actual fact we're operating under powerful bureaucratic handicaps in the face of stubborn social forces. Even the liberal focus on GWB and Fourth Branch's failings as The Problem are just an inverse example of Right-Man Syndrome. It's only true insofar as the two of them began the war at all - the real failing. And the thing brainy is right about is that even there they had help.

First, you use the same rational for letting Congress off the hook for the "Surge" as you do for the entire war. Congress approved both. If they had objected or believed either were doomed to fail, they could have stopped either or both. They did not, in fact Petraeus was confirmed unanimously, and it's not like he wasn't forthright with what he was going to do.

Second, although Petraeus was confirmed in January, the "Surge" was only fully staffed late last month. And that was after a contentious battle over funding it. So the Senate unanimously confirmed Petraeus and funded his plan, but have been calling it a failure for awhile now, when it only got going a few weeks ago.

I don't recall anyone, even Krauthammer, trying to "reduce the discussion to Petraeus." But for Gods sake, give the man his chance. Anbar and Diyala are performing well, and many of the ISF troops Petraeus was charged with training are also doing well, albeit in small areas for now. But even that, if you read Mike Yon, is mostly due to incompetent leaders, not any failure of training or will.

Well, the problem with your statement is that a) Congress didn't appoint Petraeus, Bush did. All the Senate did was ratify the choice. As such the argument that Krauthammer makes that somehow Congress sent Petraeus and now wants to yank the plan doesn't actually track with the way things work.

(Indeed, I addressed that here and here).

Second, the issue is not that the clock on Iraq started in January of 2007 (which was more than a second ago, btw), but instead it started over four years ago. As such, judgments over what can and cannot be done in Iraq have to be made in a broader context than simply the Petraeus era.

Yet, for some reason there is a contingent out there, of whom Krauthammer is a partisan, who seem to think that we can reduce the discussion to Petraeus.

That doesn't make any sense.