Taking yes for an answer in Iraq

A while ago I was watching a television show (I think it was Law & Order). The prosecutor and the defense lawyer were arguing a motion in the judge's chambers. The judge ruled for the defense, but the defense lawyer kept on arguing. Finally, exasperated, the judge turned to the defense lawyer and said: would you just take yes for an answer?

I am frequently reminded of this scene when I listen to the Left(especially Barack Obama) talking about Iraq . Before the Surge, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama himself predicted that the Surge would fail, arguing that Iraq was in the grip of the civil war, and injecting additional U.S. Troops would not work. Obama also said that, if the Iraqis had not gotten their act together in five years, they probably never would, and it was time for the United States to withdraw.

Both of these positions were plausible, but they were wrong. Iraq was not in the midst of a full-blown civil war. Much of the mayhem was being caused by Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) who were, perversely, killing Muslims, Sunni and Shia alike. Once the Surge suppressed the violence, many of the Sunnis allied themselves with the Iraqi government and against AQI.

The Left responded to this development (to the extent they acknowledged it at all) by saying that they always knew that the surge would work militarily (not true), but that the Iraqis had failed to get their act together politically, so we still needed to withdraw.

But during the last 6-8 months, the Iraqi Parliament has passed a series of measures that aided reonciliation and accommodation, including a national budget that apportioned its oil revenues among various regions and factions. I could compare the performance of the Iraqi Parliament favorably with that of the US Congress during the same period, but that would be damning the Iraqi parliament with faint praise.

Moreover, Iraqi security forces have lately taken over more of the fighting. Iraqi forces led the fight to disarm or otherwise neutralize the largely-Shiite rogue militias that were threatening the country's security. This action by the al-Maliki government, itself largely composed of Shiites, helped establish its legitimacy with the Sunnis and the Kurds.

What is the left saying about Iraq now? Not much. Obama's website link still claims that the al Maliki government has made "no progress" in ending "the civil war" in Iraq and that violence in Iraq remains at unsustainable 2006 levels. The first claim is dubious at best, and the second is flat wrong.

Why doesn't Obama know what is happening in Iraq? Well he hasn't been there in over two years and he's never spoken directly with General Petraeus or Ambassador Crocker. On the other hand, I've never been to Iraq or spoken with General Petraeus or Ambassador Crocker, and I seem better informed about what's happening over there than Obama. So what is going on here?

I think that Obama, like much of the Left, is in denial. Obama's strongest selling point during the Democrat primaries was that, unlike Hillary Clinton, he opposed the Iraq invasion from the start. During those primaries, Hillary liked to say that both she and Senator McCain had lifetimes of experience, and Obama had "a speech he gave in 2002." That 2002 speech trumpeted Obama's opposition to the Iraq invasion from the start.

If the Iraq invasion actually turns out to be a success, Obama's opposition to it won't look nearly as good in the general election as it did in the Democrat primaries. Simply put, Obama can't afford to admit that he may have been wrong about Iraq and that McCain was right. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is frequently quoted as saying that everyone has the right to their own opinion, but they don't have the right to their own facts. That observation may end up haunting Obama,if things continue to go well in Iraq.