The Instant Iraq Perspective

This is pernicious, but I don't think we'll ever get it to fully stop, because members of Congress and foreign policy elites are puffed-up and self-important, so they believe that anything that happens in their presence must have vital significance, oblivious to the fact that their visits are meticulously planned and don't reflect reality.

As Washington anticipates a September report assessing the troop surge, there is good reason to be skeptical of such snapshot accounts.

A dizzying number of dignitaries have passed through Baghdad for high-level briefings. The Hill newspaper reported this month that 76 U.S. senators have traveled to Iraq during the war, 38 in the past 12 months. Most never left the Green Zone or other well-protected enclaves. Few, if any, changed the views they held before arriving. […]

Those who visit Iraq undertake significant risks, which are inherent in traveling to Baghdad, no matter who’s providing their security. Policymakers should be commended for refusing to blindly trust accounts from diplomats, soldiers or journalists. But it’s worth remembering what these visits are and what they are not. Prescient insights rarely emerge from a few days in-country behind the blast walls. […]

It goes without saying that everyone can, and in this country should, have an opinion about the war, no matter how much time the person has spent in Iraq, if any. But having left a year ago, I’ve stopped pretending to those who ask that I have a keen sense of what it’s like on the ground today. Similarly, those who pass quickly through the war zone should stop ascribing their epiphanies to what are largely ceremonial visits.

There's a major expectations game going on right now, with the White House planning to offer extremely modest troop cuts so they could say "we're bringing the troops home," when their targets fall far short of what Democrats in Congress demand. The miltary has to get down to pre-surge numbers because they simply don't have the warm bodies. So this proposed "withdrawal' isn't anything of the sort. In that environment these dog-and-pony shows take on a lot of significance, and those that use them as the basis to sanction the continued occupation of Iraq are simply not being honest.

Gideon Rose, a major-league wanker for The Economist, wrote a steaming pile of garbage about "how the netroots are like the neocons" in decrying the foreign policy establishment and their experience. That argument would go a bit better if the foreign policy establishment didn't ENABLE the neocons by going along with every one of their crazy schemes. In fact, both the neocons and the Very Serious People who control the foreign policy discourse are likely to be flattered by these meaningless visits behind blast walls, where their assumptions can be validated in a wholly theoretical environment. And if anyone should question those assumptions, why, they're just silly people who should mind their manners.

(By the way, the Economist blog is, predictably, moderated.)