The Actual Big Story: Pentagon Admits No Iraq Progress Without Political Progress

On a normal day, this would be the top headline absolutely everywhere. This is not a normal day. But the Presidential candidates might want to pay some attention to this official statement of policy, essentially, coming out of the Pentagon.

Today at the Heritage Foundation, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Mark Kimmitt said 2008 will be “far more difficult” than 2007 for the U.S. strategy because “it depends far more on the Iraqis themselves to show progress on key legislation, on their economy, and reconciliation.” Kimmitt predicted only a mild chance that “surge” security gains will last:

"2008 and beyond will be a success, the surge will be a success, if the gains in security can be translated into gains in stability…if I had to put a number to it, maybe it’s three in 10, maybe it’s 50-50, if we play our cards right."

We've had months upon months of hearing this brash talk about success in Iraq, with very little pushback from the reality-based community (I would add that the Democrats did a somewhat decent job of this in the ABC debate). Democrats in Congress have basically been cowed into saying that the surge is working. The basic unanimity among the Presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle has taken Iraq off of the front page, much to the delight of endless warhawks like John McCain, who admitted to being glad that Iraq is off the front pages.

But this admission by Gen. Kimmitt, that the myth of the surge is just that, that only political progress can meet American goals, is extremely key. It shows the bankruptcy of the President's "plan" for Iraq, which was simply to play out the string and hand off a combustible situation to the next President. Let's be clear; Kimmitt is speaking from a position of authority at the Pentagon, and is pretty much giving the stated position of the Defense Department. I've heard a lot from the losers on the right claiming that anyone who doubts that the surge is not working is a liar, that talking about political progress instead of security gains consists of moving the goalposts. The truth is that the opposite is true. It's not the easiest argument to make; people would rather believe the good news about less casualties and leave it at that. But it has the benefit of being true, even in the opinion of the Pentagon.

And given that, you have to reassess the strategy that has brought these security gains in the first place. If we're not moving toward political progress, what would possibly be the point of arming opposing sides of a nascent civil war? The ephemeral gains of security are far outweighed by the risk of absolute chaos if no reconciliation is met.

You can listen to the entire presentation here. This is actually big news.