Carl Levin, the senior Senator from Michigan, returned from a two-day Iraq trip, and issued a statement on Monday co-authored by hopefully retiring Virginia Republican Senator John Warner, saying the surge appears to be showing "measurable" signs of progress, but the political front is hopeless. Here's a little of what Senator Levin had to say in his statement:
We have seen indications that the surge of additional brigades to Baghdad and its immediate vicinity and the revitalized counter-insurgency strategy being employed have produced tangible results in making several areas of the capital more secure. We are also encouraged by continuing positive results -- in al Anbar Province, from the recent decisions of some of the Sunni tribes to turn against al Qaeda and cooperate with coalition force efforts to kill or capture its adherents. We remain concerned, however, that in the absence of overall “national” political reconciliation, we may be inadvertently helping to create another militia which will have to be dealt with in the future.
In Tuesday morning's Washington Post, Jonathan Weisman writes the first couple of paragraphs summarizing the take away from Levin's trip:
Declaring the government of Iraq "non-functional," the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq's parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.
"I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.
So does Carl Levin have the credibility for anyone to trust his analysis of what should or should not now happen in Iraq? I suggest absolutely not.
One of the architects of the surge plan is Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute. Here's a link to the key elements of the surge plan. Most of the goal of the surge is to finally provide security for Iraqis, something that never was one of the primary objectives in the four years U.S. and coalition forces have been there. The security aspect alone makes this policy a different strategy in Iraq. The last two planks in Kagan's piece are this:
As security is established, reconstruction aid will help to reestablish normal life, bolster employment, and, working through Iraqi officials, strengthen Iraqi local government.
Securing the population strengthens the ability of Iraq’s central government to exercise its sovereign powers.
It's a bottom-up strategy. As the Iraqi population, city by city, recognizes the level of violence decreasing and that security is being taken seriously, that allows the reconstruction effort to bolster, which has happened very rapidly in former al Qaeda hotbeds like Ramadi and Baquba, good signs which even Senator Levin acknowledge. Once local governments are established, that naturally leads to an environment in which a central government can start to grow. As Kagan said on the Hugh Hewitt Show last week,
And then they [Democratic opponents] focus on the political problems, and I think that’s going to be the nature of the debate in September, but I think it’s a false debate, because the truth of the matter is if you’re improving security, the logic of the surge all along was that political progress follows that.
So far, by and large, the elements of the surge have delivered what was advertised. The surge was never designed to say that troops move in on X date, leading to national political progress by Y time. But after four months or so of full implementation of forces, the plan seems to be playing out as it was intended.
Now back to Carl Levin and his questionable credibility. He spends two days in Iraq, begrudgingly admits the military end of the surge is working, but wants to completely overturn the national government unless they can reconcile and govern in a matter of days, a ludicrous demand. I watched the United States Senate, one body of one arm of a three branch system in the greatest democracy on Earth, try to unify on an immigration bill in a matter of days. It didn't happen. Levin's new line in the sand is unrealistic.
Levin previously offered a resolution before the surge even had time to build up to full strength, a measure which thankfully the Republicans, under Mitch McConnell's leadership, defeated before it could get voted on. Here's what Carl Levin said in the Democrats' weekly radio address in July.
This week, the Senate had the opportunity to do what most Americans want us to do: change course in Iraq. Although a bipartisan majority of the Senators supported an amendment to do just that, we were blocked by the Republican leadership from voting on it.
And,
By now, nearly everybody agrees that there is no military solution to the violence in Iraq and that only a political settlement by the Iraqi leaders themselves can stabilize that country. Even the Iraqi Prime Minister has acknowledged that. “The crisis is political,” he said, “and the ones who can stop the cycle of bloodletting of innocents are the Iraqi politicians.”
And,
If those Republicans who say they want a change in course in Iraq will vote for one, we can start bringing our troops home and force the Iraqi political leaders to take responsibility for their own country. That is the only hope of success in Iraq.
Was he right? The surge itself was a change of course in Iraq. Ask anyone in Iraq. The Petraeus offensive was a completely new way of looking at American policy in Iraq, and has shown signs of progress. The most glaring example of where it hasn't gone well is in Basra, where the British implemented Levin's proposed plan of a quick withdrawal and handover of security to Iraqi officials who weren't ready to handle it. Basra is now a mess.
Was Levin right about there being no military solution to the violence in Iraq? It doesn't look like it. Tribal sheiks of both Sunni and Shiite stripe have seen U.S. forces alongside Iraq Security Forces clear out al Qaeda from cities, and then roll from previously being enablers of al Qaeda to helping us root them out. The political process is beginning to work on the local level.
Levin also fails to remember that the national politicians weren't in a position to be able to stop the bloodletting, specifically because the United States didn't want a strong central government. The last thing anyone here wanted after the despot Saddam Hussein was another up and coming despot. The framework of the new national government was to be a much more weakened central government, with more power and control located with provincial leaders. So it makes sense for a bottom-up strategy to develop, something which again appears to be happening from the accounts of left, right and center foreign policy experts who have spent the requisite amount of time to assess the effect of the surge.
Was Senator Levin right about cutting and running being the only hope of success in Iraq? Nope. There's more hope now in Anbar and Diyala Province than at any recent time. Baghdad is still rough. But the safe zones for al Qaeda and insurgent militias are getting smaller every day. But clearly us leaving is not the only chance Iraq succeeds. That is flatly untrue.
I'm not saying that Maliki is going to be the Iraqi version of George Washington, and he might indeed need to be replaced, if the Iraqi population deems him to be too weak of a leader. But whatever the reality about the assessment of Iraq's national leaders, I'd trust the opinion of General Petraeus in September, who has spent a lot more time in Iraq than Carl Levin's little Weekend At Bernie's jaunt.
Levin has gotten too many things wrong to now make proclamations of who should go and when. He never wanted to give the surge a chance to work, and now that it is, he's trying to move the goalpost in order to continue making a case for cutting and running and appease his base.