This coming 2 days before Patraeus and Crocker's testimony smells of campaign politics. An objective observer is likely to wonder how anyone can respond intelligently to testimony not yet given. Unfortunately, objective observers are rare these days.
But it's pretty certain that the report will not be effusively positive. It'll cite
gains, but on the whole it will not put the dems on the defensive, as would an unmistakendly positive report. If anyone here doubts how lackluster it will be, ask yourself what picture you have in your mind about the status quo in Iraq right now, progress in al Anbar notwithstanding.
All this points to the stupidity of having set milestones and a date to report on them in the first place, especially when it is widely expected to be a prelude to a decision on whether to keep on going or to begin withdrawing from Iraq. That not only encourages whoever has an interest in seeing us withdraw, but virtually hands them a ready-made strategy for opposing us.
Once you announce to the world you may withdraw if you don't meet certain goals by a certain time, that's tantamount to telling your opponants where to concentrate their resources and how long they have to hold out. If a giant tells a midget, 'if I don't pin you in 3 minutes, I'll let you go,' you can be pretty sure what the midget is going to do for the next 3 minutes. (No offense to midgets.
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What's the counter to Biden and his like-minded colleagues? One could hold them accountable in some measure for a poor report. Afterall, they forced Bush to convert all his objectives into milestones and report on them on a set date. Did it ever occured to them that they were virtually telling our opponents, 'here's what you have to do to get us to start drawing down our troops'? This is touchy ground, best left to pro-war commentators.
And one could argue that if Biden, etal. had really wanted to see progress, they would have kept the exact milestone secret and required more frequent reports on them rather than one granddaddy of them all. But it's a rare person who isn't invested in his opinion, and the temptation to manipulate events to validate one's opinion is always present.
An important question, of course, is, how will a tepid report play out in Congress? IMO, there's reason to believe that we'll see a lot of political theater with nothing much happening to change our force structure. Biden, etal., won't have an easy time passing any legislation intended to force Bush's hand, unless, the report is more dismal than expected, which is not likely.
Any legislation they introduce to force a drawdown will take a long time to come to a vote, and if passed, it faces a veto that will be very hard to override. Either way, we seem to be in for a political ride designed to play well on the campaign trail. Meanwhile our guys keep dying in Iraq in the absense of a determined, unified Congress.
How about a last minute surprise, like a polticial settlement between the Sunnis, Shia and Kruds? 48 hours and counting...
The good news is that the Redskins won today.
If you know Washington, you know the town's mood rises and falls with how the Redskins do.