The Iraq Quagmire

Why we're not getting out of Iraq in the foreseeable future, and what the next president can do to change that.

General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified before Congress yesterday on the situation in Iraq. Neither of them provided any surprises in their testimonies; Petraeus agreed that progress was evident militarily, but recommended a 45-day pause in troop reductions this summer. Neither he nor Crocker were willing to provide a timetable for withdrawal nor specify conditions under which troops might be permitted to come home. Also predictably, most of the coverage focused on Petraeus, who has become the most visible sign of the war other than President Bush.

The fact that Petraeus is the center of attention, however, should be cause for concern. America's involvement in Iraq reached the five-year mark last month, and it's becoming increasingly clear that a primarily military strategy isn't working. The last major positive development from Iraq was the surge, which at best merely delayed the problems we're seeing now. Sectarian conflict is as bad as ever. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is growing weaker daily. Al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't appear to be losing strength. And yet the Bush administration is confident that their war strategy is working, and loudly insistent that we can't bring the troops home until we achieve success.

Here's the central problem: what exactly does "success" mean? The White House has provided several different definitions for us over the last five years. At first, "success" was toppling Saddam Hussein and establishing a stable democracy. When a stable democracy proved more difficult than we envisioned, "success" changed to helping the Iraqi government achieve certain benchmarks for progress. (Remember when benchmarks were all the rage?) In time that changed to battling down the insurgency. Currently, the goal is something vague like "creating a stable situation in Iraq where freedom can spread through the Middle East." As long as the goal is vague, it's going to remain unachievable, and as long as it's unachievable, our troops aren't coming home.

This is where our next president, whomever he or she is, can help. In order for the war to end, we need to have a clear goal of what we intend to accomplish. A primarily military strategy doesn't seem to be working. Our next president can change that by making Crocker the center of attention rather than Petraeus. Talking with the enemy and negotiating is more likely to have an effect than shooting him. Albert Einstein once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." In essence, that's been the country's Iraq policy for the last five years. We sent in troops, and they became bogged down in sectarian conflict. When our military strategy wasn't working, we sent in more troops. Guess what? It's still not working.

It's clear that America doesn't want to become involved in a long-term conflict in Iraq - at least, not any longer-term than it is now. If our next president doesn't act to clear up the situation and our goals, we might find ourselves stuck there for longer than anyone wants to imagine. John McCain's "100 years" suddenly doesn't sound that unrealistic.

Image from Associated Press.