It's working, it's almost perfect -- now stop!: Andrew Bacevich on Petraeus's strange tactical logic

All of the main contributors to Exit-Strategies are associated, in one way or another, with The American Conservative magazine, and thus we’re going to make a conscious effort to refrain from too much horn-tooting, hat-tipping, and praise-singing of our current or former employer.

Nevertheless! – we would be remiss in not discussing Andrew J. Bacevich’s recent analysis of the Petraeus report to Congress, “Sycophant Savior.”

So far, the provocative title has garnered most of the attention and, as discussed below, has issued some maladroit comparisons to moveon.org’s sophomoric “General Betray-Us” ad in the New York Times.

Far from resorting to name-calling, Bacevich demonstrates exactly how Petraeus was all too willing to cozy up to DC:

"Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes."

This was hardly a partisan matter as Petraeus gave Dems something to take home as well:

“A modest drawdown comes as good news to Democrats... Accused with considerable justification of having done nothing to end the war since taking control of the Congress in January, they can now point to the drawdown as evidence that they are making headway. As Newsweek’s Michael Hirsch observed, Petraeus ‘delivered an early Christmas present’ to congressional Democrats.”

In the second half of his piece, Bacevich moves beyond politics and offers one of the most pointed critiques of America’s military tactics in Iraq I’ve come across.

Petraeus’s central message was clear – “the surge is working” – but this makes his central recommendation – “it’s time to draw down troops” – deeply puzzling:

“What then should [Petraeus] have recommended to the Congress and the president? […] A single word suffices to answer that question: more. More time. More money. And above all, more troops.

“It is one of the oldest principles of generalship: when you find an opportunity, exploit it. Where you gain success, reinforce it. When you have your opponent at a disadvantage, pile on. In a letter to the soldiers serving under his command, released just prior to the congressional hearings, Petraeus asserted that coalition forces had “achieved tactical momentum and wrestled the initiative from our enemies.” Does that reflect his actual view of the situation? If so, then surely the imperative of the moment is to redouble the current level of effort so as to preserve that initiative and to deny the enemy the slightest chance to adjust, adapt, or reconstitute.

“Yet Petraeus has chosen to do just the opposite. Based on two or three months of (ostensibly) positive indicators, he has advised the president to ease the pressure, withdrawing the increment of troops that had (purportedly) enabled the coalition to seize the initiative in the first place.

“This defies logic. It’s as if two weeks into the Wilderness Campaign, Grant had counseled Lincoln to reduce the size of the Army of the Potomac. Or as if once Allied forces had established the beachhead at Normandy, Eisenhower had started rotating divisions back stateside to ease the strain on the U.S. Army.”

Nowhere else is the utter incoherence of late-Bushian Washington better expressed: “Our new tactic is working!, and therefore we’re finally able to stop doing it!”

If the government and the people we’re actually willing to do what it takes to achieve total, absolute victory in Iraq, we’d draft every man under 30 and ship them Babylon. We aren’t; we won’t. The public would rather go shopping; the government would rather use news of our great success as an excuse to do what it must do out of necessity – draw down the troops due to obvious strain.

* * *

So far, the response to the piece on the web has not been enlightening, and, interestingly, the pro-war Right has not forcefully responded.

Much of the moveon-dailykos-Left types have been fixated on the idea that the great monolithic right-wing conspiracy wouldn’t dare attack one of its own. The Pensito Review writes, “We’ll be waiting (but not holding our breath) to see if anyone drafts a similar measure [as the anti-moveon.org legislation] condemning The American Conservative magazine.” (Identical sentiments can be found here, here, and here).

These bloggers seem to have forgotten this lovely little 2003 front-page article in NR in which David Frum insinuated that those who opposed the invasion of Iraq did so out of evil anti-Semitic, America-hating motives.

When they were riding high, the pro-war Right savaged antiwar conservatives with distain and glee, now that they’re slowly being mugged by reality, silence towards serious critics on the Right is the new MO.

Petraeus and Procrastination

As we await General Petraeus’s report to congress, news is already breaking about what to expect. According to the paper of record:

"The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, has recommended that decisions on the contentious issue of reducing the main body of the American troops in Iraq be put off for six months, American officials said Sunday."

If the Times report is to be believed, it seems that the Bushies have won a limited victory. (Perhaps the Dems sensed this, as they have been noticeably talking-down the report over the weekend.)

For months the administration has been telling us, “Just a wait a few months until the Petraeus Report, and in the mean time, support the troops!" – (read, don’t question the rationale of U.S. foreign policy.)

Now it seems that Petraeus will open up more space for the administration to say, “just a wait a few months until some other is report is presented in March, and in the mean time, support the troops!"

The Times claims that Petraeus will speak of his plans for a small drawdown by December of this year, but then serious discussion of a clear exit-strategy does not seem to be in the cards.

"The general has also said that it is too soon to present recommendations on reducing American forces below that level because the situation in Iraq is in flux." [emphasis added]

“The situation is in flux" would be a good talking point for the Bushies, a good way to further avoid any kind of serious debate about war aims, what constitutes a victory, and how in the hell we’re going to get out of this mess.

Petraeus and Partisanship

Matt Drudge is reporting that after delivering his report to Congress tomorrow, General Petraeus (along with Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq) will give an exclusive live interview to Fox News at 9 pm.

One of the charges that has already been made against Petraeus is that he's a politicized general, a salesman for the administration's Iraq policy. As Lawrence Korb writes in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, "Petraeus continues to be used by the administration--willingly or unwillingly--for partisan political purposes. When many Democrats and some Republicans criticize the president's latest strategy in Iraq, Bush and his political allies argue that the strategy is not theirs but that of General Petraeus--and that by confirming him, the Senate essentially endorsed the current approach, obligating it to give 'Petraeus' strategy' a chance to succeed."

Given that criticism, is it really wise to send Petraeus onto the cable news network that is widely perceived as sympathetic to the administration? It's as if the administration is already conceding that the Petraeus report is only going to be believed by the hard core of Republican supporters of the war. If that's the case, the point of this public relations exercise seems to be to rally the base, rather than build broad support for the surge or (least of all) get an accurate, factual assessment of what's happening on the ground. Polls show the general public certainly doesn't put much credence in the report.

For more on Petraeus, see Andrew Bacevich's recent piece in the New Republic. As for his report, the Washington Post and other outlets have cited the GAO's skepticism about its accounting methods. The report--which has been written by the White House, not Petraeus's own staff--is a whitewash from start to finish. What's mildly surprising, though, is the very modest ambitions the White House seems to have for this effort: to string along the base for a few months more, without giving anyone else even pause for thought. Even the p.r. war is lost, yet the ground war won't end until either the White House faces reality or Congress decides to pull the plug--yet there's no political will for either of those actions. Both parties want to evade the responsibility for "losing" the war, but each knows that there is no prospect of "winning" it, either. So the quagmire continues...