One Utah

The few remaining supporters of the indefinite occupation of Iraq at all costs burst into paroxysms of joy this week. On Monday, the New York Times featured an op-ed by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution titled, “A War We Just Might Win.” Never mind the fact O’Hanlon and Pollack have never been right about Iraq. The op-ed was cited as evidence that war critics must be wrong by Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney. On Capitol Hill, just about every Republican debating Iraq on the House floor cited and read from the O’Hanlon/Pollack op-ed to argue that we are making significant progress in Iraq.

O’Hanlon and Pollack recently returned from an eight-day tour of Iraq bearing their good tidings. Where did they go? Who did they talk to? What did they see? All good questions almost no one asked. The New Yorker’s George Packer asked, and found out that they mostly attended a week of upbeat military briefings during a whirlwind tour of six cities. They spoke with very few Iraqis and could independently confirm very little of what was heard from American officials. “Everywhere he went, the line Pollack heard was that the central government in Baghdad is broken and the only solutions that can work are local ones.”

Michael O’Hanlon is walking it back, too. He hastened to point out that the military progress that he was briefed on might well be irrelevant to the overall situation in Iraq.

“Ultimately, politics trumps all else,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “If the political stalemate goes on, even if the military progress continued, I don’t see how I could write another Op-Ed saying the same thing.”

For the record, the New York Times headline, “A War We Just Might Win,” was not chosen by the authors.

This entry was posted Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), Dick Cheney, Disaster, Iraq, John McCain, Mitt Romney, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.