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A war the Iraq optimists just might lose

Any hint of optimism on Iraq is proving dangerous for one’s professional reputation. That’s the lesson of Phillip Carter’s takedown of the recent New York Times op-ed by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, who have become personae non grata for many on the American left. Carter, an Iraq vet and frequent columnist for Slate.com, all ...

By David Bosco, a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

August 2, 2007, 5:34 PM

Any hint of optimism on Iraq is proving dangerous for one's professional reputation. That's the lesson of Phillip Carter's takedown of the recent New York Times op-ed by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, who have become personae non grata for many on the American left. Carter, an Iraq vet and frequent columnist for Slate.com, all but accuses the Brookings scholars of dining on propaganda during their recent tour of the country:

Any hint of optimism on Iraq is proving dangerous for one’s professional reputation. That’s the lesson of Phillip Carter’s takedown of the recent New York Times op-ed by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, who have become personae non grata for many on the American left. Carter, an Iraq vet and frequent columnist for Slate.com, all but accuses the Brookings scholars of dining on propaganda during their recent tour of the country:

At best, these two men saw enough of Iraq to get a glimpse of reality there. At worst, they saw a Potemkin Village of success stories, not unlike the picture shown to visiting congressional delegations, that left them with a false vision of progress.”

This is rough stuff. Surely, experienced analysts like O’Hanlon and Pollack must have some capacity to filter official palaver. And it’s hard to characterize the change in Anbar, at least, as “Potemkin”; violence has declined precipitously in most of the province and in some of its largest cities. That doesn’t end the debate about Iraq’s trajectory, but it’s unfair to describe the change in Anbar as superficial.

More to the point, Carter’s case has some holes of its own. He lashes the Brookings duo for downplaying the political failings of the Iraqi government. “Security,” he writes, “is not an end in itself.” I would contend that security—meaning fewer massacres and bombings—is an end in itself. Carter is correct, of course, that security won’t last without some kind of political reconciliation, which remains distant. But the key question is whether that reconciliation is more or less likely in a safer Iraq. My guess would be the former. Political compromise is all but impossible in an atmosphere of rampant political violence.

But Carter is ready to pack it in. He concludes, “It is time to begin the long march home.” He believes the United States cannot sustain the troop levels that will be necessary to keep the lid on sectarian violence. This is a debatable proposition, and it will depend greatly on whether the American people think we’re making progress. Which is why it may be so important to stamp out any outbreaks of optimism.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist